The Television Critics Association has officially begun the gearing-up process for its 25th annual awards, which will honor the finest work of the 2008-09 season as selected by the association’s 200-plus member critics and journalists. One of those members is yours truly, and I figured I’d see what the readers of Premium Hollywood had to say about the nominations and who they’d like to see win the various categories. I’ll have to submit my votes by June 10th, but since the winners won’t be announced until August 1st (the ceremony takes place at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa in Pasadena, CA, with Chelsea Handler opening the ceremony), so speak up quickly. There are a couple of things I’m on the fence about, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts before I make my final selections.

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

* “Battlestar Galactica” (SciFi Channel)
* “Lost” (ABC)
* “Mad Men” (AMC)
* “Saturday Night Live” (NBC)
* “The Shield” (FX)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

* “30 Rock” (NBC)
* “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS)
* “The Daily Show” (Comedy Central)
* “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS)
* “The Office” (NBC)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

* “Breaking Bad” (AMC)
* “Friday Night Lights” (NBC/DirecTV)
* “Lost” (ABC)
* “Mad Men” (AMC)
* “The Shield” (FX)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT MOVIES, MINI-SERIES AND SPECIALS

* Summer Olympic Coverage (NBC)
* “24: Redemption” (Fox)
* “Generation Kill” (HBO)
* “Grey Gardens” (HBO)
* “Taking Chance” (HBO)

OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

“Fringe” (Fox)
“The Mentalist” (CBS)
“No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” (HBO)
“True Blood” (HBO)
“United States of Tara” (Showtime)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

* Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock”)
* Steve Carell (“The Office”)
* Tina Fey (“30 Rock”)
* Neil Patrick Harris (“How I Met Your Mother”)
* Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

* Glenn Close (“Damages”)
* Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”)
* Walton Goggins (“The Shield”)
* Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”)
* Hugh Laurie (“House”)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING

* “Camp Rock” (The Disney Channel)
* “The Electric Company” (PBS)
* “Nick News” (Nickelodeon)
* “Sid the Science Kid” (PBS)
* “Yo Gabba Gabba” (Nickelodeon)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS & INFORMATION

* “60 Minutes” (CBS)
* “The Alzheimer’s Project” (HBO)
* “Frontline” (PBS)
* “The Rachel Maddow Show” (MSNBC)
* “We Shall Remain” (PBS)

HERITAGE AWARD

* “ER” (NBC)
* “M*A*S*H” (CBS)
* “Saturday Night Live” (NBC)
* “The Shield” (FX)
* “Star Trek” (NBC)

Given that “The Big Bang Theory” has expanded the game of Rock Paper Scissors (the full name is now Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock) and had Penny give Sheldon a stroke for Christmas by providing him with a napkin autographed by everyone’s favorite Vulcan, can a guest appearance by Leonard Nimoy be far behind?

Unfortunately, according to creator Chuck Lorre, such an appearance doesn’t seem too likely.

“I would love that,” said Lorre, “but I think Mr. Nimoy is now in retirement. He did actually sign the napkin, though. ‘To Sheldon, Leonard Nimoy.’ He was very nice about that. He got a kick out of the idea that that was the gift that she gave him that brought Sheldon to his knees. He was really tickled by that, and our deal with him was, ‘For your efforts, maybe we can make some money for the charity of your choice.’”

The charity in question was The Beit T’Shuvah, a residential treatment center in Los Angeles for Jewish alcoholics and addicts, and the napkin went up for auction on Sunday evening during the center’s Steps to Recovery Gala at the Beverly Hilton, where it earned a final bid of $1,100.

But the big question is, is Nimoy a fan of the show?

“I don’t know,” admitted Lorre. “But I do know that he got a kick out of the storyline.”

I still say to keep your fingers crossed…and, c’mon, Chuck, it can’t hurt to ask. The new “Trek” movie will be coming out around the same general time frame as the season finale for “The Big Bang Theory,” and given that Nimoy clearly has a good sense of humor about his place in the pop culture pantheon (see his appearances on “The Simpsons” for proof), it seems like the stars are aligned perfectly for such a cameo.

The return of “Heroes” from its mid-season vacation is coming up fast…the show returns with its latest saga, “Fugitives,” on Monday, February 2…and the folks working behind the scenes are excited about it, even if some of the fans are less than thrilled with the way the show has been progressing in its third season.

“Part of the fun of being a fan is the grousing,” acknowledged Allan Arkush, who not only serves as one of the show’s directors but also as an executive producer. “That’s certainly one of the biggest functions of the internet: to be a place where you can get pissed off and show it. But I thought Tina Fey was pretty funny about it on the Golden Globes. I mean, I didn’t disagree with her point of view on it! It’s fine, but I’ve been reading a lot of reviews of the Season 2 DVDs, and people have been saying, ‘Well, when you look at them in a row, it’s a completely different experience, and now I see how the whole thing is threaded together!’”

Arkush doesn’t tend to read the negative press in that much detail, but he did take particular issue with Entertainment Weekly’s recent smackdown of the “Villains” episode.

“I thought it was way off mark,” he said. “They said something about how it was one of the worst episodes of the year of any show, and I thought, ‘That’s not true at all! This is actually a really good episode!’ It was the one where we went back and showed how Sylar met Elle and showed what Arthur Petrelli had done, and I thought it was fun to kind of go back and see how all of that happened and see parts of their lives that we hadn’t seen, but they said, ‘Oh, it’s a very contrived concept.’ I liked it. It was one of my favorite episodes of the year!”

It’s fair to say, however, that just about everyone – not just fans, but, indeed, Arkush as well – is excited about the return of Bryan Fuller to the “Heroes” family. (Granted, they’re probably not that thrilled that it took the cancellation of “Pushing Daisies” to get him back, but you take the good with the bad.)

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Oh, this looks so bad. So very, very, very bad. Like, “Rosie Live” bad.

The idea of giving the Osbournes their own comedy-variety show is not in and of itself a bad idea. When I first heard about “Osbournes: Reloaded,” I immediately had thoughts of my favorite cheesy, kitschy variety shows from the ’70s - see the collected works of Sonny & Cher, Donny & Marie, and, of course, “The Brady Bunch Hour” - and could totally imagine Ozzy, Sharon, Jack, and Kelly either turning the genre on its head or totally and utterly camping it up. Either way, I was actually kind of excited to see what might evolve out of this concept. But when they showed us clips from the show, I was horrified to see a mixture of in-studio shenanigans with audience members (they blindfold a guy, tell him he’s going to kiss the beautiful girl in front of him, then switch her out with a wrinkled old woman) and hidden-camera hijinks (the Osbournes working at a fast-food drive-thru). There was a sketch with little kids playing Sharon and Ozzy (cue the cursing 5-year-old), plus a brief clip of the Osbournes trying to guess who their mystery special guest for the week was. The one lone humorous concept came from a bit called “The Osbournes Meet The Osbournes,” where the gang goes around the country to meet other families who share their last name, but even that seems like it would get old really quickly.

More disappointing than this footage, however, was the fact that, as a family unit, the Osbournes remain just as entertaining and charismatic as they were in the days of their then-groundbreaking MTV reality series.

What a waste. What a bloody waste.

And, yet, I guess it was too hopeful to expect something like that from the Osbournes in the first place, particularly when you could see Kelly bristle at the mere mention of the term “variety show.”

“See, that frightens us,” she said. “The way that we see that it’s a variety show is that there’s a variety of different things. And with no disrespect to other variety shows from the past because, I mean, they made the TV of today. It’s just not what we do. We’re not going to be Sonny-and-Chering it.”

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I should hope that regular Premium Hollywood readers know by now that I’m in no way the person who should be writing about “American Idol.” That title goes to Mike Farley, of course, whose regular blog for the series has developed a loyal following over the past several seasons, and God bless him for being able to watch the show week after week after week. Still, I figure there are enough “AI” fans floating around who might be interested at least this one highlight from the show’s panel during the TCA tour, so allow me to offer it up for you.

Obviously, the predominant focus on the conversation was on Ms. Kara DioGuardi and her addition to the “AI” mix as the series’ fourth judge. Alas, neither Simon nor Randy could be in attendance, but in an unexpected turn of events, we were gifted with the presence of one P. Abdul, whose name had appeared nowhere in any of Fox’s schedules for the day. It was a nice bonus, and, of course, we all had our fingers crossed in hopes that Paula might gift us with a couple of batshit crazy remarks, as is so wont to do. Sadly, she remained coherent throughout the proceedings, but she did at least completely freak Kara out with her decision to divulge some information about their history together.

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Wait, didn’t I just go to one of these press tours…?

Actually, that was back in July, when the networks were busy pimping their new fall schedules; this time, they were presenting us with an idea of what we can expect to see on our favorite broadcast and cable channels from now until they premiere their next fall schedule.

Going out to L.A. in January was a new thing for me, though. It was my first winter tour since becoming a member of the Television Critics Association in 2007 – last year’s was canceled due to the writers’ strike – and, if the rumblings throughout the ballrooms at the Universal Hilton were any indication, it may well prove to be my last January tour. I’m hopeful that this presumption turns out to be inaccurate, but given the current economic climate and an increasing tendency for newspapers and publications to only send their TV critics out for one tour per year, there’s every reason to suspect that the networks will join suit and only be willing to pamper those critics once per year.

Sorry, did I say “pamper”? Of course, I meant, “Treat with the utmost respect.”

It feels a bit odd to be doing a wrap-up of my experiences at the tour before I’ve even had a chance to write up all of the panels I attended while I was out there, but, hey, when you get a good spot on the calendar, you make it work however you can. So still keep your eyes open for my ongoing pieces on the various shows you can expect to find on the broadcast networks during the next few months, but in the meantime, here’s a look at some of the best and worst bits from the January ‘09 tour as a whole.

Most enjoyable panel by a cable network: “Rescue Me,” FX.

I’ve been a big Denis Leary fan every since No Cure for Cancer, so I knew the guy was inevitably going to go off on a profanity-filled rant before the end of the panel. What I didn’t expect, however, was that Peter Tolan - who co-created the show with Leary - would start the proceedings by telling Leary to watch his mouth, adding, “If you were going to say ‘cunt,’ don’t.”

From there, the two of them seemingly battled each other in an attempt to offer up the most memorable line. Leary complained about his salary. (”I had a crazy idea of getting paid, like, $250,000 an episode. They put limits on that, let me tell you. That’s Kiefer Sutherland money right there.”) Then Tolan claimed that he was at fault for the show’s fourth-season slump, blaming it on a drug problem and that “I was heavy into a kazillion hookers that year.” Then Leary bitched about how Michael J. Fox was going to guest on “Rescue Me” and get the Emmy that Leary himself has yet to earn. (”Five fucking episodes, he comes in. God damn, $700 million from ‘Spin City.’ He never asked me to do the show. He’s going to walk away with the fucking Emmy. That son of a bitch.”) Then Tolan started mocking Hugh Laurie’s American accent by talking about how he could do a British accent. (”Aye, pip, pip, mate, aye! ‘Allo, Mary Poppins!”) And…well, as you can see, there was really no contest: this may well have been the greatest panel ever.

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Need a good reason to watch Fox’s upcoming new animated series, “Sit Down, Shut Up”? Hell, I’ll give you ten good reasons…with resumes that include “Pushing Daisies,” “SpongeBob Squarepants,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Simpsons,” “Futurama,” “Arrested Development,” “Two and a Half Men,” and, uh, “Cavemen”…and they’re all labeled by name in the photograph below.

(L-R) Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Kenney, Nick Kroll, Will Arnett (who is standing in front of Cheri Oteri), Jason Bateman, and executive producers Josh Weinstein, Eric and Kim Tannenbaum and Mitch Hurwitz

Now, I ask you: how can you not want to watch “Sit Down, Shut Up”?

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of the show, it’s based on a live-action Australian sitcom about a bunch of cranky, obnoxious, irresponsible teachers but has, over the course of several years of evolution, found its way into an animated adaptation instead, albeit one with live-action backgrounds.

“It’s changed so much, I guess we’re really wondering why we are still paying royalties to Australia,” admitted Hurwitz. “But we’re in over our heads at this point. There is no getting out of it.”

But why did they decide to switch it from live-action to animated in the first place?

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As readers of David Medsker’s weekly blog are already well aware, “24″ is back on Fox in a big way, and the show was back at the January TCA Tour in similar fashion, earning its own panel this time around. (The decision in July to relegate the series to a half-hearted “24″-sponsored luncheon, with critics being forced to fight from scrum to scrum in order to get their questions answered, earned my ire in this entry.) From the questions being posed, it was clear that, after a less-than-stellar sixth season, many in the audience have found themselves becoming fans of the show again in Season 7. In particular, it seems that the little moments are what’s doing it for them, such as the scene in the car with Jack and the cop, where Jack acknowledges that maybe they were right in questioning him.

“I think Jack Bauer is certainly in a position where he’s questioning a lot of the things that he has had to do either by his own choice or by orders,” said our man Kiefer Sutherland, “and certainly at the beginning of the season, you see him in Africa, very disconnected from the United States. And so he is wrestling with his own history, about what he actually believes was right and fair and whether or not he was, in fact, the kind of person that should have been put in the position to do these things. It’s a through-line that really travels all 24 episodes this year. And so there’s this constant balance of defending, for instance, in the Senate investigation, his own actions. On a much cleaner level and a much more personal moral level, he questions those things greatly, so this inner struggle is something that carries him through all 24 episodes.”

Of course, if you’ve been watching this season, then you’ve probably already noticed how many times Jack has been standing up for his actions after being condemned by others. This might…just maybe…be a case of the show’s writers lashing out at their critics.

“I would be lying if I said there wasn’t some of that in there,” said producer Howard Gordon, with a laugh. “Obviously, there was the conundrum of how do we do a show that had taken quite a bit of heat for allegedly advocating this way of law enforcement and this way of countering terrorism. It was a nuance and it is an evolving question that plays, as Kiefer said, throughout the entire season. So I counsel patience, and I hope people have the patience and the appetite and the desire to watch through the whole season, because I think the answer to these questions will not be known until the very last episode.”

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Given how many iconic film roles Tim Roth has had over the years (Mr. Orange in “Reservoir Dogs,” Charles Ferry in “Everyone Says I Love You,” and Emil Blonsky in “The Incredible Hulk,” to name but three), it’s somehow weird to see him taking on the lead role in an American television series. But, hey, it’s Fox, and you can’t blame the guy for wanting to get in on a little bit of that Hugh Laurie action.

Plus, while the role of deception expert Cal Lightman in “Lie to Me” is a bit too close in feel to the character of Patrick Jane in “The Mentalist” for critics to avoid making the comparison, it’s nonetheless one that has the potential to serve Roth well…just as long as he can get past the nagging sensation that the show’s inspiration, Dr. Paul Ekman, sees right through him.

“I get really freaked out sometimes when I’m around Paul,” said Roth. “It’s like traveling with a critic from the New York Times, and wherever you go, there’s the guy going, ‘No, I don’t believe you. The performance was terrible.’ ‘I only said I’m going to go to the toilet.’ ‘Well, I don’t believe you. You betrayed the fact that you are completely piss-free at the moment.’ It’s an extraordinary feeling of of nakedness.”

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Now that I’m back from Los Angeles and have begun to recover from the nasty ear infection and sore throat which gripped me almost immediately after getting off the plane in Virginia, I’m finally able to get back to writing up the remainder of the panels I attended during the TCA Press Tour. Sorry for the delay, but I just naturally presumed you were more concerned about my health than in getting these updates. (And if I’m wrong, I don’t want to know about it.)

When we last left the tour, I had finished up my coverage of upcoming PBS programming and the various new and returning cable series, so now it’s time to move onward to the broadcast networks. We’ll start with Fox, which started their day off in a very fun way by offering up a “Simpsons” breakfast, complete with Bart, Lisa, Homer, and Marge - who was holding Maggie - wandering around and greeting us all.

Also on hand were a couple of real people involved with the show, most notably producer Al Jean, who was able to spare me a few minutes to provide a few tidbits about what we can expect from the show, which is now entering an almost-inconceivable 20th year on the air.

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Be honest, gentlemen: if I told you that one of the women in the below photo was going to be hosting a Travel Channel show where she explores the world’s sexiest beaches and wears some of the skimpiest swimsuits that one can get away with wearing on basic cable, would you really care which one of them it was?

You see what I mean? Isn’t this what you’d call a win-win scenario? Well, if your curiosity demands that you get confirmation as to which of these Girls Next Door has gotten herself the plum gig in question, allow me to satisfy it for you: it’s Bridget Marquardt.

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For as long as this write-up may be, I don’t personally have a whole lot to say about Starz’s “Spartacus,” mostly because Starz didn’t have a whole lot to offer up about “Spartacus” except a lot of talk from the show’s creative team.

Executive producer Rob Tapert describes it as “our reinterpretation of the famous Stanley Kubrick movie,” calling it “a hard-core, testosterone-driven action drama unlike anything on television right now” and “a totally R-rated, hard, hard show that still has all the things that you need in storylines but that delivers the action component that theatrical audiences expect from their entertainment.” Sounds great…but it would sound a lot more impressive if they actually had anything at all to show us or, indeed, had even cast Spartacus yet.

“Goddammit, I said I’M Spartacus!”

Granted, it’s promising that the show is being produced by Tapert and his longtime associate, Sam Raimi, and to have Steven S. DeKnight as head writer and show-runner is certainly good news for those who’ve followed his work on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” and “Smallville.” (He’s also a major player in Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse.”) But you’d be a fool to be but so optimistic when you’ve not seen a single frame of the series, and the fact that it’s going to be extremely CGI-heavy makes me a little nervous, but here are a few quotes from the creative team to help get your hopes up.

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Stephen McPherson, President of ABC Entertainment, just emerged onto the stage - after having the Jonas Brothers as his opening act, no less - and offered up the following tidbits of information:

* McPherson wouldn’t commit to when or if the remaining episodes of “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Eli Stone,” and “Pushing Daisies” would air. Maybe this is just my perception, but his comments about his regret that they couldn’t give the producers enough time to wrap up their series properly made it sound like he was saying, “If we had, then we’d probably work a little harder to get them on the air, but since we didn’t…”

* As to the “Scrubs” ratings, he’s thrilled for Bill Lawrence and all the guys on the show. “It’s been great for us,” he said. “Another year…? It’d be tough without Zach (Braff), but Bill and I are talking about it.” The talks, however, would seem to be contingent on how the ratings continue to be, so if you’re watching, don’t stop!

* ABC is not going to be picking up “King of the Hill.”

* “Samantha Who?” has frustrated the network with its numbers, but they’re trying to figure out a second series to serve as a solid comedy block.

* The odds of “Life on Mars” returning for a second season seem to be slightly better than even money. McPherson admits that, as far as his ratings expectations for the series, “the bar is not very high,” given that they’ve always battled with getting ratings in the post-”Lost” timeslot.

* As for the end of “According to Jim,” McPherson thinks this is probably the final run, “but we should probably leave that open.”

* With “Private Practice,” he thinks they’ve “really found the show” this season. “I think we’ve really upped the stakes as far as the quality of the medical stories we’re telling,” he said. “We’re really pleased with the numbers.”

Ever since the demise of “Veronica Mars,” I think most die-hard Rob Thomas fans have been following the development of his remake of “Cupid” for ABC, but he’s got another new series in the works as well, as this one - “Party Down,” which focuses on the lives of a bunch of “cater-waiters” who came to L.A. in search of careers in the entertainment industry and haven’t gotten very far with their dreams - has actually been in the works for more than five years.

“When the original British ‘Office’ started airing on BBC America, Dan (Etheridge) and John (Enbom) and I and Paul Rudd started gathering each week to watch the show and just became very intrigued about the tone of the show,” said Thomas. “And we started talking about wanting to write something that had a similar comedic tone, and we decided if that show was about people who had given themselves over entirely to the rat race that it would be interesting if we took our stab at people who had perhaps chased the dream for too long, people who had refused to join the rat race. And so we came up with this idea about a show about cater-waiters in Los Angeles, people who came here to make it as actors, writers, musicians, comedians and find themselves in their mid-30s and perhaps, uh, having chased the dream for too long.”

Thomas likens “Party Down” to “Taxi,” in that “you start off following the ongoing lives of these characters who are doing some other job while pursuing the thing they really want to do. Each week, we take an opportunity to lampoon some facet of society, some different party idea. So each episode is one catered event, and these range from a senior singles mixer to a mobster-release-from-prison party to a super sweet 16 to an adult video awards after party, each one sort of giving us a unique group of people that we can have our characters interact with.”

Cast members Jane Lynch and Lizzy Caplan have at least a little bit of first-hand experience in the show’s subject matter; Lynch did some time as a waitress in Chicago, while Caplan catered a few premiere parties. (Adam Scott, meanwhile, claims to have never worked a day in his life.)

“It was interesting, because the whole experience made me so angry,” said Caplan. “Like, having to go around and serve these people because I was so convinced that, like, ‘It should be me. You should be serving me.’ You’re positive that you can do it better than anything you’re seeing on any screen. There’s nobody really cockier than the unemployed actor.”

“Party Down” premieres on Starz in March 2009.

For me, the best part about the TCA tour isn’t learning about the new shows; it’s being reminded about existing shows that I just haven’t had the time or opportunity to check out. In the case of “Head Case,” I swear I thought I’d watched the first episode and hadn’t been very impressed, but when they showed us a clip reel from Season 1 before the panel for the upcoming second season, it was pretty damned funny. Maybe the series found its feet really quickly…? Well, whatever the case, I’m clearly going to need to re-investigate the show.

“Head Case” is yet another comedy that’s completely unscripted - seriously, there are so many on the air these days that I’m wondering if we’ll ever have another writer’s strike - but Alexandra Wentworth is damned proud of that fact. “We call upon talent and they show up on our set, they have no idea what they’re going to be saying or doing, we have no idea what we’re going to be doing with them, and it’s a process that seems to work really well for us,” she said.

The show revolves around Wentworth’s character, Dr. Elizabeth Goode, a Los Angeles psychiatrist who treats celebrities; the premise lends itself to guest stars, of course, and “Head Case” takes full advantage of the opportunity at every turn. Season 1 featured appearances by…wait, let me take a deep breath first…Jason Priestley, Ione Skye, Andy Dick, Shelby Lynne, Traci Lords, Tom Sizemore, Ralph Macchio, Liz Phair, Dana Ashbrook, Jonathan Silverman, Sean Hayes, and Alanis Morissette. Season 2, meanwhile, will offer up the following guest stars: Jeff Goldblum, Richard Kind, Lea Thompson, Nicole Sullivan, Ahmet Zappa, David Allan Grier, Stephen Root, Christopher Lloyd, Monica Potter, Trudie Styler, Cindy Margolis, and…Jerry Seinfeld?!?

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At first glance, BBC America’s new series, “Mistresses,” would seem to be a perfect candidate for this year’s guiltiest pleasure…a 2009 equivalent of “Footballers’ Wives,” if you will…and when BBC America’s President, Garth Ancier, described the series as “a story of friendship and infidelity,” that seemed to cinch the comparison. But then he added a wrinkle by throwing out this comparison: “If you think of ‘Sex and the City’ as sort of a fanciful look at modern life, then ‘Mistresses’ can, I think, truly be described as an intimate, honest, and provocative one.”

Creator S.J. Clarkson admitted that the name “Mistresses” actually wasn’t intended to be anything other than a working title, but it stuck because they couldn’t think of anything else that summed it up as much. “It’s a red-flag word, so it makes people sit up and take notice,” noted Clarkson, “but inevitably it was always about truthful performances and to try and — all the storylines, performances and the look of it needed to feel truthful, cinematic and grounded, I suppose, because I’ve actually directed ‘Footballer Wives’ as well. So I knew I didn’t want it to be like that. This was more in the vein of — you know, I don’t know, films we looked at for reference was ‘Three Colors: Blue’ and ‘Unfaithful’ and ‘L’Apartement,’ which is a French film. And we looked at a lot more films for reference for it, rather than sort of lighter television.”

Clarkson tried to show the reality of being a mistress, as opposed to the usual television exaggeration. “I don’t think it’s necessarily all stiletto-heeled secretaries hanging around in hotel bars,” Clarkson said. “It’s often you meet somebody, you have a connection, you fall in love, and suddenly you realize they’re with somebody else…and what do you do in that situation? You’re told, ‘Follow your heart.’ Or the fairytale is, you know, you love someone, fall in love, get married, have children, have a happy lifetime together…but what happens if the person you fall in love with is already married? I think that’s a real dilemma and a truthful dilemma for many women today.”

“What we wanted to do (with ‘Mistresses’), I think, is reflect the kind of truthfulness and honesty that women have between each other,” said executive producer Douglas Rae. “Particularly at an age in their 30s, when their families may have moved to another city and the girls are becoming family in a way that, you know, has moved on from the ’50s and ’60s. So the girls themselves are a family and they share the stresses and strains of everyday life with each other. The series is not about promiscuity; it’s about how people can bond together and share secrets together.”

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If I hadn’t been out here in L.A. for the last week and a half, you would’ve seen my review of the first volume of “Skins” on DVD, but when it finally does make it onto Bullz-Eye, you can count on it being a rave. I’ve groused on many occasions about the portrayal of American teenagers on television, how it always feel so terribly unreal and thereby presents a version of reality that they feel obliged to live up to. In the case of “Skins,” however, I’m torn by what I’m seeing: on one hand, there’s no denying that it feels really, really real, but, indeed, it’s so real that, unlike “Gossip Girl,” it makes me go, “Oh, my God, maybe this really is what my daughter’s going to be doing when she gets to be a teenager.”

(For what it’s worth, I’ve checked with my sources in the UK - hi, Claire! - and I’m assured that the Brit teen experience is far wilder than the US teen experience, so I’m feeling at least a little bit better about it.)

Those who’ve watched the first two series of “Skins” have been a little bit twitchy about the news that the father-and-son creators of the show, Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, are basically doing away with the entire cast of kids - except for Effy and Pandora - and starting fresh with a whole new bunch of young’uns.

“We feel like…each cast has a kind of two-year life span, mainly because we are mostly interested in the ages of 16 to 18,” said Brittain. “That’s the format of the show. We felt that, looking at shows that have been before, like ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and ‘The O.C.,’ they tend to go downhill a little bit when the characters all go off to college or a university because, you know, then you have to contrive convenient endless ways to get them to meet up again. They’re always coming home for a party or something like that. Also, we sort of felt like, in the first series, we took the characters quite a long way and sort of took them to their conclusions, really. So any more of those original cast would be, you know, not needed.”

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You know ABC’s “Life on Mars”? Okay, forget about it for a moment and jump back in time to the original BBC version of “Life on Mars.” After that series left the air in April 2007, rumors immediately began to swirl that there would be a sequel to the story, and in February of 2008, those rumors became a reality with the premiere of “Ashes to Ashes.” Sadly, however, we poor Americans have been stuck waiting around for the show to make its debut on BBC America ever since.

Thankfully, that wait will come to an end on March 7th.

If you’ve somehow managed to restrain yourself up ’til this point and don’t already know the storyline of “Ashes to Ashes,” here’s the deal: just as Sam Tyler was a modern-day cop transported back to the ’70s on “Life on Mars,” now it’s single mother and Detective Inspector Alex Drake who finds herself back in 1981…and, yes, she’ll be facing everyone’s favorite politically incorrect cop, Gene Hunt.

Music-wise, I’m particularly excited to hear what tunes will be offered up, given how many ’80s songs have been part of the soundtrack of my life, and it sounds like co-creator and writer Ashley Pharaoh has got quite a treat in store.

“In actual time, I was 21 in 1981, so I sadly was a New Romantic and had too much makeup and ribbons in my hair, so it was very dear to me, that stuff, and it was always going to be the soundtrack of ‘Ashes to Ashes,’” said Pharaoh. “Actually, we recreate a very famous New Romantic club from Soho: The Ritz Club. And Steve Strange, who ran the Ritz Club, guested in the episodes. Steve very Strange, we think he is, though.”

One of the first things Pharaoh wanted to do with a “Life on Mars” sequel was to change the male-male dynamic of the original series and bring a woman right into the heart of things.

“‘Life On Mars’ references back to sort of very male, British cop shows in the ’70s,” he explained, “and we wanted more sort of a ‘Moonlighting”’ feel, a brighter sense. And we thought it would be really good fun to take Gene Hunt on a journey with a very strong woman, feminist, intellectual from our time. The actress, Keeley Hawes, I’d worked with her before; I did a Thomas Hardy adaptation with her, ‘Under the Greenwood Tree,’ and I was knocked out. Whenever we met the producers and the writers with our little short list of actresses, she was always on the top, so it was a no-brainer, really, and I think it was a wonderful performance she gives as Alex Drake.”

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If you happened to catch my review of the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Season 1” DVD, you already know that I’m not really a fan of the series. If you’re too lazy to click on the link, my feelings are probably best summed up with this line: “Watching (the show) provides one significant challenge for the viewer: trying to decide which female member of the family you want to smack the most.” I did, however, walk out of the viewing experience with a certain amount of respect for Bruce Jenner…partially just because he manages to put up with everything that happens in his house, but mostly just because he looks legitimately annoyed and pissed off about it all.

I’m not going waste space by offering up quotes from anyone else…because, honest to God, I don’t understand why we should care about them…but for those of you who watch the show, I’ll at least provide you with some of Jenner’s comments.

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Angela Bromstad, President of Primetime Entertainment, and Paul Telegdy, Executive Vice President of Alternative Programming, just popped up on stage to offer the following tidbits of information, some of which were announced awhile ago but which we haven’t yet covered on Premium Hollywood:

* “Southland,” the new drama from John Wells (which was formerly known as “Police”), will premiere on April 9th, Thursday at 10 PM.

From Emmy Award winners John Wells, Ann Biderman and Chris Chulack comes a raw and authentic look at the police unit in Los Angeles. From the beaches of Malibu to the streets of East Los Angeles, “Southland” is a fast-moving drama that will take viewers inside the lives of cops, criminals, victims and their families. Michael Cudlitz plays John Cooper a seasoned Los Angeles cop assigned to train young rookie Ben Sherman. Cooper’s honest, no-nonsense approach to the job leaves Sherman questioning whether or not he has what it takes to become a police officer. Cudlitz and McKenzie are joined by other cast members including Regina King who plays Detective Lydia Adams. Adams lives with and is the primary caregiver of her mother. Her partner, Detective Russell Clarke (Tom Everett Scott) is an unhappily married father of three. Michael McGrady plays Detective Daniel “Sal” Salinger. Sal oversees fellow gang detectives Nate Moretta (Kevin Alejandro) and Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy). Arija Bareikis plays as patrol officer Chickie Brown, a single mom who dreams of being the first woman accepted into SWAT.

* They have ordered 3 more episodes of “ER,” bringing the season total to 23. The series finale will now air on April 2nd, with a one-hour retrospective preceding the two-hour finale. Why the additional episodes? “Why not?” asked Bromstad. She then clarified, however, that it allows John Wells time to get “Southland” ready.

* They have officially signed on for additional seasons of “The Office” and “The Rock”

* NBC has signed Don Cheadle and his company, Crescendo Productions, to a two-year, first-look television development deal.

* Due to its success up against “American Idol,” they will indeed be picking up another season of “Biggest Loser” for next season.

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