Media Scribbler

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Today is a very, very sad day for many in the “Doctor Who” fandom. The actor who has portrayed the 10th regeneration of the Doctor, David Tennant, will be leaving the TARDIS behind in 2009.
Tennant, who made the announcement after winning the outstanding drama performance award at the National Television Awards on Wednesday, said “When Doctor Who returns in 2010 it won’t be with me.”
The show, which is slated to return for a full season in 2010 after five specials starring Tennant in 2009, will also be changing executive producers that year. Russell T. Davies, who …read more

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Ever thought about how much more  you’d watch CNN if they had Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on as analysts for the debates?
Let’s face it — until they toned it down a month or so ago, MSNBC had the unintentional comedy troupe of Olbermann, Matthews, Buchanan and Maddow. But over at CNN, they’ve been relying on mostly the star power of their political team and all their Twittering.
But now D.L. Hughley is headed for the cable news net to launch something completely new — a panel with Hughley and guests waxing wise on politics, entertainment, sports and pop culture.
Part of …read more

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Seriously, did anyone watch “Saturday Night Live” last night to see Anna Faris from “The House Bunny”? When word leaked that Tina Fey was going to be doing another Sarah Palin impersonation, suddenly enough people found a reason to stop watching SportsCenter after the Georgia-Alabama game for the show to get a 6.0 Nielsen rating share. The Saturday primetime show with the most viewers on the nets, “48 Hours Mystery“, had a 5.0.

If you aren’t in America (blame NBC and Hulu) or don’t want to view the clip, Amy Poehler did a surprisingly good Katie Couric impression as Fey/Palin answered …read more

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Even if fans of the Jonas Brother are still smarting from jokes about purity rings, Russell Brand’s stint on the MTV Video Music Awards appears to have been a success. The VMAs averaged 8.4 million total viewers and became cable’s No. 3 most-watched program of the week, behind speeches from John McCain and Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention.
That was a huge improvement from the 7.1 million who tuned in for Britney Spears’ trainwreck performance at the 2007 VMA’s. Brand told UK’s “The Sun” that MTV execs were thrilled with the 20 percent bump, and claimed they have already …read more

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Actor Alec Baldwin, who has made it clear over the past season that he’d rather be let out of his contract with NBC for “30 Rock” than spend another season racking up more critical accolades and award nominations, had some sharp words for the network’s execs in a recent “New Yorker” profile.

“If the show does succeed, it’ll be something of a fucking miracle, because NBC hasn’t done a fucking thing to help this show at all. This show is the red-headed stepchild in the lineup. They’ve gone out of their way to wring the last drops out of ‘My …read more

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For some of us, waiting for the final season of “The L Word” is pretty bittersweet. This is a show that has a very vociferous fan base, even amongst straight women, and most are grateful that the show made it past the unfortunate fourth season finale that featured one character kidnapping the child she co-parented with another. Now that it seems to have really hit its stride, the show’s ending (and probably with an obvious nod to the California same-sex marriage legalization in Tina and Bette, I’d expect.)
But the song may not be over for possibly the best character on …read more

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When it comes to both sci-fi and fandom love, it’s really hard to beat James Marsters. He’s always brought crowds to his panels at Dragon*Con. But to most of the women and at least half the men who stood in long, long, “Firefly” panel length lines to get into the “Torchwood” panels at Dragon*Con this year, Marsters’ Capt. John Hart was just part couple of strong TW eps and a really great love scene involving Capt. Jack Harkness (played by the incomperable John Barrowman.) He was a glorious guest star that undoubtably raised the young show’s profile.
But a big part of what keeps the fans following the …read more

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It’s been rumored for awhile, but the deal has been inked for Laurence Fishburne to replace William Petersen on “CSI” mid-season, according to TVWeek.
Fishburne, who is probably best known for his role in “The Matrix” trilogy, will first appear in the show’s nineth episode, scheduled in mid-November. CBS said Fishburne will play an ex-pathologist who become college crimistics professor with a focus on how people become violent. After consulting on a homicide investigation, he ends up joining the “CSI” team full-time.
It’s going to be hard to fill the shoes of Petersen, who will remain with the show as an exec-producer. …read more

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Today’s NYT has a fascinating article about how Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” has now moved from being shunted onto the the McCain overflow bus eight years ago — described as “a repository for outcasts, misfits and journalistic bottom-feeders” — into Stewart coming in fourth last year as the news journalist Americans most trust (tied with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, and Dan Rather of CBS.)
Not only has the “The Daily Show” (and its sister show “The Colbert Report”) has become a must-stop venue for political types who appear on the show, including Republican soon-to-be …read more

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Obviously, Isaac Hayes did not get his fame from television. But the character he created on “South Park“, Chef, will probably go down in history as one of the most remembered cartoon characters that’s not made by Disney or Looney Tunes.

Another thing he’ll be remembered for is for abandoning his role when creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone made an ep that made fun of Hayes’ religion, Scientology, in the episode “Trapped in the Closet“. It ended up turning out pretty ugly, with Parker and Stone sending Chef off in a really crass way (which, really, was only to …read more

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