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Scrubs Celebration and Spoilers to Boot!

Posted by Wendy Michaels Categories: Comedy, Prime Time, NBC, Scrubs,

Scrubs The cast of Scrubs gathered in Los Angeles to celebrate their sixth season—starting on November 30th on NBC. Access Hollywood gave a rundown of the celebration, as well as some details that the cast spilled about the upcoming season. Tidbits include:

  • Episode 6 will feature the first all musical endeavor, airing in January 2007.
  • Cameos will include Blue Man Group (which we reported yesterday).
  • While guest stars will be fewer this season, the cast hopes to land Ricky Gervais and Mackenzie Crook (who played Gareth on the British Office).
  • Judy Reyes (Nurse Carla) revealed that she and Turk (Donald Faison) will have some rough times ahead of them, saying,  “I don’t want to give too much away, because it’s gonna be airing soon. She’s having the baby and dealing with real life issues that women deal with when they have their children. And [she’s] dealing the emotional turmoil of actually bearing a child and what real women deal with and the sadness of dealing with child birth and the turmoil.”

Read More | Access Hollywood

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Blue Man Group to Appear on Scrubs

Blue Man GroupFirst, let me just say that I can barely contain myself about the return of Scrubs. It’s been way too long of a wait for diehard fans, but we have been filling the void with the excellent re-runs on Comedy Central. This show is just too good, and with rumors that this may be its final season, we need to hang on to every excellent little morsel that this show delivers. Case in point, TV Squad is reporting that Blue Man Group will make a special appearance on the season premiere—which airs November 30th at 9:00 p.m. In the episode, J.D. (Zach Braff) will join the blue percussion dudes on stage at The Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino. This does bring to mind the great gag that Arrested Development had with Tobias (David Cross) trying to become a member of the group. Tune in—November 30th is going to be a great night—The Office, My Name is Earl, Scrubs and 30 Rock! Of course, there’s that little show, Grey’s Anatomy, that’s likely to pull a viewer or two away from Scrubs...

Read More | TV Squad

Ricky Gervais Episode of The Office Coming Soon

Posted by Wendy Michaels Categories: Comedy, Prime Time, BBC, NBC, Extras, The Office,

Ricky Gervais The November 30th episode of The Office will be a very special episode. Not ‘very special’ in the typical sense of sitcoms (you know, where someone has an eating disorder or discovers their best friend has a drug problem). No, this is special for fans of the original British version of The Office. The November 30th show will be written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the originators of the series. This is the first episode of the American version that the pair has written. In the episode, Steve Carell’s character (Michael) discovers that one of the new employees has a prison record. For those who were curious if the character of Andy from the Stamford office would continue on the series (played by Ed Helms), fear not—in this episode Andy will seek advice from Jim (John Krasinski) on how to pursue Pam (Jenna Fischer). Knowing Gervais and Merchant’s work on both The Office and Extras, the November 30th episode should be nothing short of genius.

Read More | Zap2it

The Office: Producer’s Cut

Posted by Wendy Michaels Categories: Comedy, Prime Time, NBC, The Office, Internet,

The OfficeThis week, fans of The Office will get an extra treat online—a “producer’s cut” of the episode airing on November 9th. This is the first time that this type of special feature has been available online. With additional scenes and footage that won’t air on the Thursday broadcast, viewers can get a little somethin’ somethin’ that is usually reserved only for DVD extra features. The “web-exclusive event” will be available to viewers following the 8:30 airing of The Office, so log on to NBC.com at 9:00 p.m. Executive vice president NBC digital entertainment and new media, Vivi Zigler, said of the event: “This is a first-of-its-kind and a real bonus for fans of The Office. It’s also a natural for this show which has continually pushed the envelope in the digital landscape. We’re seeing an incredible audience reaction to the evolving digital extensions of our programming and anticipate this being one of their favorites.”

If you haven’t seen promos for this week’s show—Jan (Melora Hardin) informs Michael (Steve Carell) that his branch of Dunder Mifflin (the Scranton office) will be shutting down. You can bet that Michael will do his best to keep staff morale going, which always leads to the best Michael moments

Read More | Comingsoon.net

Must See TV is Back!

Scrubs Remember when Thursday nights were ‘Must See TV’ on NBC? Well, Thursday nights are about to get a great lineup again. Of course, this is just in my opinion, but I’m sure plenty will agree. First, Scrubs is coming back on November 30th! The long-awaited return is finally just around the corner, and here’s hoping that the 9 p.m. slot on the Thursday night lineup will bring more viewers to this great comedy. Second, 30 Rock, the new Tina Fey/Alec Baldwin sitcom will move to Thursdays at 9:30. This little comedy has got potential and Thursday may give it more exposure. My Name is Earl and The Office will continue at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Oh my god, settle in to your comfy chair for the best night of TV! Kevin Reilly, President of NBC Entertainment, said of the news, “We are excited about the prospect of two-hours of top-notch comedy on Thursday nights, which includes the return of Scrubs. We will stay on-brand with the best comedy block on television, which will position us for the future on the night.” Look for it all on November 30th (and of course, ER is still hanging in the Thursday 10 p.m. spot).

Read More | ComingSoon.net

First Casualities of the Fall Season?

Fox logoWhile not officially canceled, two shows have received the kiss of death—being put on hiatus. It seems pretty early in the season to pull the plug already, but Fox’s Happy Hour and Justice have already been put on “hiatus” status. Fox is saying that the comedy Happy Hour will return in November, citing the upcoming baseball playoffs and World Series as their reason for shelving the show, if only briefly. Until baseball takes over, Fox will be running a rerun of ‘Til Death during Happy Hour‘s Thursday time slot.

Justice will also take a break, with a repeat of House airing in its place on October 4th. The network will, however, be airing a repeat of Justice‘s pilot on Friday, September 29th at 8:00 p.m. This time will cut the finale of Celebrity Duets short by one hour.

Neither of these new shows really stood a chance against the competition (even though neither is officially canceled yet)—up against Survivor: Cook Island and The Office.

Read More | The Futon Critic

Extras—Season Two Ends the Series

Posted by Wendy Michaels Categories: Comedy, Prime Time, BBC, Cable, HBO, Extras,

Ricky Gervais It’s become the Ricky Gervais Syndrome. Following in the footsteps of his original series, The Office, which ended after two seasons, so too shall Extras suffer the same fate. Gervais’ excellent series Extras is now running the second season on British TV and is expected to air on HBO in 2007. According to Gervais, “At the moment, I don’t think there will be another one. [Co-creator Stephen Merchant] and I have always had this thing where we only like to do two series. It’s like The Office—people are always asking why we didn’t do any more, but we just wanted to leave people wanting more.” Huh, must be a British thing. Here in the states, we run TV series until people just can’t take any more.

So, enjoy it while you can. The great thing about Extras are the cameos, with season two featuring appearances by Orlando Bloom, David Bowie and Daniel Radcliffe. At the end of the first season, Gervais’ character, Andy Millman, was selling a sitcom to the BBC; season two picks up with Andy losing control over the show. Let the laughs begin.

Read More | Zap2it

NBC Plans to Stream New Fall Shows, Offer Blogs

NBC logo In a press release from NBC today, they announced that NBC.com will stream episodes of their new fall shows for free—Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Kidnapped, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and Heroes—following the original airing of the episodes. NBC.com is also going to offer blogs written by a variety of shows’ creators, producers or cast members. The blogs will be online for every show on the air, with an additional live blog immediately after the premiere episode.

Jeff Gaspin, President, NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, Digital Content and Cross-Network Strategy said of the news, “When you launch a new season, it’s important that you get the shows in front of as many eyeballs as possible. We’ve created a variety of new, engaging digital offerings to generate excitement and drive viewership to the network.”

Upcoming premiere blogs include:

  • Deal or No Deal (9/18), The Banker’s Blog
  • Studio 60 (9/18), Aaron Sorkin, Creator and Executive Producer and Thomas Schlamme, Executive Producer and Director
  • Kidnapped (9/20), Jason Smilovic, Creator and Executive Producer
  • My Name Is Earl (9/21), Greg Garcia, Creator and Executive Producer
  • The Office (9/21), Greg Daniels, Executive Producer
  • 30 Rock (11/11), Tina Fey, Creator and Executive Producer

A number of other blogs will accompany the shows’ premieres, including Law & Order, ER, Heroes, Friday Night Lights and Twenty Good Years, among others.

Read More | Lost Remote

Unauthorized Microsoft Training Videos Feature Brit “Office”

Posted by Wendy Michaels Categories: Comedy, BBC, The Office, Internet,

Ricky GervaisAs many videos that are never meant for public consumption find their way on the Internet, so too have a couple of Microsoft in-house training videos from The Office creator Ricky Gervais leaked online. Both Google Video and YouTube included the videos in their lineup, but the films were meant only for Microsoft employee’s eyes. Microsoft commissioned the videos in 2004, to provide “a light-hearted way of getting our staff to think about the values they attach to working at Microsoft,” according to a company spokeswoman. Both videos run about 20 minutes and feature Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant, with Gervais playing his annoying Office character David Brent and Merchant acting as a Microsoft employee.

YouTube has since pulled the videos, however Google Video still has them up. I checked them out and they are really great—especially if you miss the original Office humor and the way Gervais plays his character to the most annoying level, with gobs of arrogance and self-confidence. I’ve always found his character to be almost painful to watch because of the level of embarrassment you feel for him—all the while he’s clueless that he’s being inappropriate. It’s complete genius.

According to the company’s spokeswoman, “These videos were produced for internal use and were never intended to be viewed by the public. We are actively working to investigate how and why they have appeared now.”

If you don’t have time to watch the full videos, just check out the last few minutes of each. Following the end credits, some of the outtakes have been included—there is nothing more infectious than Ricky Gervais laughing. Enjoy.

Read More | Yahoo! News

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