Good News: Lindsay Price has officially removed herself from ‘Mother’ contention. Bad News: After breaking up (in real-life) with HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER’s Josh Radnor over what sources are calling ‘lifestyle’ differences. [Source]

Good News: Execs at ABC, CBS, CW and FOX can rest easy. Bad News: For NBC, who according to Silicon Valley Insider will (inexplicably) keep Jeff Zucker at the helm following Comcast’s deal to purchase 51% of NBC Universal from General Electric. [Source]

Leighton Meester is no Paris Hilton.
Sorry, but Meester’s latest track — “Somebody To Love” is an underproduced crap-fest that is far less catchy than Hilton’s I Want You or the Blondie-esque Stars Are Blind.
 
This should be SUPERNATURAL’s final season.
No, not because the quality has gone down or I’m bored with the show, but from a story-telling point of view it would make sense to save “the end of the world” for your last hurrah. BUFFY even joked in their musical episode about how commonplace the end of the world can become when our heroine sang “Apocalypse? We’ve all been there. The same old trips. Why should we care?” This is in no way to say that the Winchester boys should call it quits… just that armageddon is a tough act to follow.
 
NBC was right to boot GLEE from the parade.
Could it have brought younger viewers to a parade they’d never normally consider watching? You bet. But NBC is a business and let’s face it: If you’re Baskin-Robbins, you don’t invite Ben & Jerry to hand out samples in your lobby. Especially knowing that Ben & Jerry are selling something people actually want.
 

ONE TREE HILL is boring.
Where are the nasty nannies and psycho exes? Why has Dan been given about 10 minutes of airtime so far this season when he is without doubt the best villain in the show’s history? The characters we love — minus, of course, Peyton and Lucas — are there, but it feels like most of them are going through the motions waiting for a real plot to kick in.
 
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck may be the smartest men in the country.
Is every word out of their mouths moronic? You betcha! But they’ve also managed to make millions upon millions of dollars by cranking up the public’s fear, spreading lies and generating the kind of publicity for themselves that NBC couldn’t get if they announced all of their shows would begin featuring nude actors.

As if handing over five hours of primetime real estate wasn’t reason enough for NBC to find themselves in this TV Addict’s bad book, TMZ is reporting that the Peacock Network has banned the cast of GLEE from performing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade that annually airs on their network.

According to gossip behemoth, “Macy’s invited the GLEE cast — the deal was all but signed — but when rival NBC found out, they told the department store to pull the plug.”

Which is why we’ve officially decided to pull the plug on NBC and pledge not to watch this year’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Or, as Sue Sylvester might put it, we’re gonna bring this Glee Club Network down — one viewer at at time!

Dear James Poniewozik,

I hope you’re happy. And by that I mean, was it really necessary to ruin my holiday weekend by reminding me — on the cover of the the new issue of TIME Magazine no less — that Jay Leno is the future of television.

I mean we’re talking about NBC here. Of course Jay Leno is the future of television. This is after-all the perennial fourth place network that is so desperate for a win, they took it upon themselves to crown Conan O’Brien the new king of late night two weeks into his tenure. The network that we’re fairly confident will import any show from any country in an effort to find the next OFFICE. Heck, over a decade later, NBC President Jeff Zucker, Kevin Reilly, Ben Silverman, Andrea Bromstad is still searching for the next FRIENDS.

That, and you said it yourself, “NBC has set the bar low enough for a sleeping man to clear. If Leno can just get the ratings he did in late night, some 5 million viewers (paltry by 10 p.m. standards), his show will be more profitable than what it replaced in that time slot.”

So yeah, there is pretty much no denying it. Jay Leno is the future of television, at least where NBC is concerned. But to quote Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow’s unforgettable HBO character that would never find a home on the now homogenized NBC) “I don’t need to see that!”

Variety is reporting that as part of a major branding overhaul, the once proud Peacock network will unveil a new slogan on September 14 which will include the tagline “More Colorful.”

Now if you’re anything like this TV Addict — odds are fairly good that upon picking yourself up off the floor due to an unexpected bout of the giggles — you’re thinking one of three things: (a) Seriously? (b) Again, WTF?! Or (c) The jokes practically write themselves. Which is why, we thought we’d get you started with a little poster we’ve concocted following far too much fun with Photoshop (see above). Feel free to post your take on NBC marketing slogan in the comments below.

Fun suggestions we’ve already discovered via twitter (again, is there anything the little blue bird can’t do?) include @BastardMachine’s “More Colorful… yet sill mostly unwatchable,” “More Leno… than you really want,” and our personal favourite “More stuff Ben Silverman liked before we fired him.”

With today’s big news revolving around PUSHING DAISIES mastermind Bryan Fuller departing from his role as creative consultant (or as we like to call him, saviour) of HEROES so that he may focus his energy on developing new shows for NBC Universal, theTVaddict.com thought it might be fun to read between the lines of the statement Fuller sent to Ain’t It Cool News earlier in the day.

1) “Development was really starting to heat up” — Since NBC’s ‘new and exciting’ fall slate including 101 QUESTIONS, MERCY and THE MARRIAGE REF doesn’t exactly have “Must See TV” written all over it.

2) “And it appears like I may be writing multiple pilots for NBC” — Yes, the “Jay Leno” experiment really looks to be a winner!

3) “I love that cast dearly and am sad to go” — But Fuller knows a sinking ship when he see one and if Dr. Horrible taught him anything (besides, you know Neil Patrick Harris = Awesome), it’s that “a man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do.”

It’s easy to see the appeal of I’M A CELEBRITY GET ME OUT OF HERE, which launched last night on NBC: Who doesn’t want to see famous people suffer… especially when those folks are as insufferable as famous-for-no-good-reason Heidi and Spencer Pratt.

Practically from the get-go, it’s clear to viewers that this is going to be THE HEIDI & SPENCER SHOW… and how one reacts to that will depend entirely on one’s feelings for the pair. Early on, they walk away from the game, only to return shortly thereafter to stir up a great deal of simulated drama. Heidi and her “newly Christian” spouse single-handedly set the religion back a thousand years with their hypocrisy and childish antics, but quicly prove to be the only truly interesting thing about this train wreck. (Janice Dickinson, usually reliable when it comes to over-the-top antics, comes off as neutered and confused… but hey, it’s early yet.) And Patti Blagojevich did a fantastic job of tainting any potential jury pool by making a very public plea regarding the innocence of her husband — you know, the actual celeb, if he can be called that, of the family.

Although the twitterverse was largely quiet during the debut episode, several perked up when it looked as if perhaps the celebs were going to undergo a tres-chic challenge. Following shots of several planks and a tank, one tweeter excitedly send out a message reading, “They’re going to waterboard these losers? Now that I’ll stick around to see!” Instead, however, the celebs were strapped down while bugs filled the tank. Although several of the supposed-somebodies opted for a hasty exit, the cockroaches and spiders seemed about as interested in the stars as most viewers. The cameramen worked darn hard to make them look threatening, but in the end it looked more like one of those cheap monster movies where you can tell the thesbians are reacting to an effect that will be added in later.

It’s worth noting that Heidi and Spencer didn’t even attempt this particular trial. In fact, they spent most of the overly-long-by-half episode either performing or napping. And yes, I say performing because — brace yourselves, I’m about to say something nice, sort of, about the duo — I refuse to believe that any two people could be that hideous, obnoxious, horrendous and completely free of self-actualization.

And therein lies the problem with CELEBRITY — the show, not the status: At no point do you really feel as if these folks are by any stretch of the imagination real (with the possible exception of Lou Diamond Phillips and sportscaster John Salley, who come off as genuinely nice). They are here to do their schtick. And there’s not all that much sense that they are being deprived of much in the jungle, what with Salley breaking out a digital camera and Dickinson primping with her mirror… not to mention the ridiculous (and seemingly endless) fury that erupts over one of Mrs. Pratt’s beauty products.

I’m hard-pressed to decide which is more disturbing: That NBC is putting this crapfest on several nights a week, or that millions of Americans — including yours truly — just might be sucked into watching… if only in the hope that Heidi and Spencer will have a run-in with one of the jungle’s nasty natural natives and realize that they’ve wasted not only their lives but ours as well.

MONDAY
8:00 PM: HEROES
9:00 PM: TRAUMA
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

TUESDAY
8:00 PM: THE BIGGEST LOSER
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM: PARENTHOOD
9:00 PM: LAW & ORDER: SVU
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

THURSDAY
8:00 PM: SNL WEEKEND UPDATE THURSDAY
8:30 PM: PARKS AND RECREATION
9:00 PM: THE OFFICE
9:30 PM: COMMUNITY (moves to Thursdays 8-8:30 p.m. after multi-episode run 30 ROCK returns)
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

FRIDAY
8:00 PM: LAW & ORDER
9:00 PM: SOUTHLAND
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

SATURDAY
8:00 PM: DATELINE NBC
9:00 PM: TRAUMA (encore broadcast)
10:00 PM: LAW & ORDER: SVU (encore broadcast)

SUNDAY
7:00 PM: FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA
8:20 PM: NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

NBC MID-SEASON 2010 SCHEDULE
(2010 WINTER OLYMPICS preempt regularly scheduled programming from February 12-28, 2010)

MONDAY
8:00 PM: CHUCK
9L00 PM: DAY ONE
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

TUESDAY
8:00 PM: THE BIGGEST LOSER
9:30 PM: 100 QUESTIONS
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM: MERCY
9:00 PM: LAW & ORDER: SVU
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

THURSDAY
8:00 PM: COMMUNITY
8:30 PM: PARKS AND RECREATION
9:00 PM: THE OFFICE
9:30 PM: 30 ROCK
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

FRIDAY
8:00 PM: LAW & ORDER
9:00 PM: SOUTHLAND
10:00 PM: THE JAY LENO SHOW

SATURDAY
8:00 PM: DATELINE NBC
9:00 PM: SOUTHLAND (encore broadcast)
10:00 PM: LAW & ORDER: SVU (encore broadcast)

SUNDAY
7:00 PM: DATELINE NBC
8:00 PM: THE MARRIAGE REF
9:00 PM: THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE

RELATED:
Snap Judgements: NBC Unveils its 2009-10 Fall Schedule

No news is good news. Or at least that’s the story we’re sticking with after NBC unveiled a CHUCK-free Fall 2009 schedule to advertisers at their annual InFront presentation in New York City this morning.

Joining NBC’s already renewed crop of shows including 30 ROCK, THE BIGGEST LOSER, CELEBRITY APPRENTICE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, HEROES, LAW & ORDER: SVU, THE OFFICE, PARKS AND RECREATION, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SNL WEEKEND UPDATE THURSDAY and SOUTHLAND will be new dramas TRAUMA, PARENTHOOD, MERCY and DAY ONE and comedies COMMUNITY and 100 QUESTIONS.

As for CHUCK, LAW & ORDER, MEDIUM and MY NAME IS EARL, Michael Ausiello claims via proverbial ‘inside sources’ at the Peacock Network that, “a final ruling on the fate of all four shows will come on May 19 [when NBC unveils its official Fall schedule.]”

Until then, feel free to entertain yourself with our first look videos and uninformed snap judgements of NBC’s new offerings.

TRAUMA
According to the official NBC description: TRAUMA is an intense, action-packed look at one of the most dangerous medical professions in the world: first responder paramedics. When emergencies occur, the trauma team from San Francisco General is first on the scene, traveling by land, by sea or by air to reach their victims in time. From the heights of the Transamerica Pyramid to the depths of the S.F. Bay, our heroes must face the most extreme conditions to save lives, and give meaning to their own existence in the process.

According to the TV Addict: It’s THIRD WATCH with a bigger budget. Which is something we wouldn’t normally be interested it, except that it comes from the brilliant creative team (Jeff Reiner, Peter Berg and Sarah Aubrey) behind FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.

PARENTHOOD
According to the official NBC description: This is the story of the Bravermans – Sarah, Adam, Crosby and Julia – four grown siblings sharing the headaches, heartaches and unexpected joys of being a parent.

According to the TV Addict: When the grown up siblings include such TV Addict favorites like Peter Krause, Maura Tierney, Monica Potter, Sam Jaeger and Craig T. Nelson, not to mention a creative team comprised of Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Jason Katims and Thomas Schlamme, PARENTHOOD has “Must See TV” written all over it.

MERCY
According to the official NBC description: You haven’t seen inside a hospital until you’ve seen it through the eyes of those who know it best: its nurses. Veronica Callahan is one of those nurses. She just returned to Mercy Hospital from a tour in Iraq and knows more about medicine than all of the residents combined. Together with fellow nurses Sonia and Chloe, she navigates the daily traumas and social landmines of life and love both inside the hospital and out in the real world.

According to the TV Addict: Score one for NBC, who may have just injected the increasingly tired medical drama (yes, we’re talking to you GREY’S ANATOMY) with a group of sexy and sassy nurses… and did we mention, GOSSIP GIRL’s Michelle Trachtenberg?

DAY ONE
According to the official NBC description: In the aftermath of a global event that devastates the world’s infrastructures, a small band of survivors strives to rebuild society and unravel the mysteries of why the event took place and what the future has in store. Told from the point of view of an eclectic group of neighbors in a Van Nuys, California apartment building, this journey of survival will show us that hope is found in the smallest of victories and heroes are born every day.

According to the TV Addict: DAY ONE is going to have to be really [and we mean, really] special to overcome the fact that at first glance, it sure sounds like a JERICHO/DEEP IMPACT rip-off.

100 QUESTIONS
According to the official NBC description: Charlotte Payne is looking for love. She’s dated lots of men and has been proposed to ten times, but has yet to meet Mr. Right. So Charlotte decides to join a popular online dating site, where she has to take a 100-question compatibility test. The questions aren’t easy for Charlotte to answer, and each one requires her to recount a poignant and humorous time in her life with friends Leslie, Jill, Mike and Wayne. The test becomes a journey of self-discovery for Charlotte and helps her realize what she truly wants in a relationship.

According to the TV Addict: After sitting through a fairly painful four minute preview, we’ve got one really important question for the brains behind 100 QUESTIONS: Where’s the funny?

COMMUNITY
According to the official NBC description: It’s been said that community college is a “halfway school” for losers, a self esteem workshop for newly divorced housewives, and a place where old people go to keep their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. Well, at Greendale Community College…that’s all true. Community focuses on a band of misfits, at the center of which is a fast-talkin’ lawyer whose degree has been revoked (Joel McHale, The Soup). They form a study group and, in “Breakfast Club” fashion, end up learning a lot more about themselves than they do about their course work.

According to the TV Addict: Joel McHale! Chevy Chase! And THE DAILY SHOW’s John Oliver! Where do we enroll?