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Robin Hood Returning To BBC America

No idea how old this news is, but it's brand new to us so we thought we'd pass it on. BBC America has finally set a return date for Robin Hood. We've been wondering when they'd get around to it.

The third season of the show aired throughout the spring and early summer in the UK with the last final episode airing June 27th. Word came down just this month that BBC has canceled the show.

The third and final season of Robin Hood debuts Saturday September 12th on BBC America.

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USA Renews Royal Pains & Burn Notice

USA has renewed both Burn Notice and Royal Pains. With both shows racking up killer ratings, there really is no surprise here. Burn Notice has two more episodes this summer with the second half of season 3 coming this winter. No date set yet for those episodes. Royal Pains has five more episodes left this summer and then both shows will return in summer 2010; Burn Notice for season 4 and Royal Pains for it's sophomore season.

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Preview: AMC's The Prisoner

While AMC has yet to give us a firm premiere date for their miniseries remake of The Prisoner, they have stepped up with the preview and promotional material. Comic-Con attendees this past weekend were treated to a 9+ minute trailer, a Marvel comic version and first looksies at three new posters.

The Posters (Click pics for HUGE PDF files):




The Trailer:


DVR Life's thoughts on the trailer? OMFG to the nth degree. Can't even describe how much we're looking forward to this.

The Comic Book (Pic links to PDF file):


The Prisoner is coming to AMC this November.

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Preview: Heroes Season 4 Promo

Here we go folks: Welcome to a first look at season 4 of Heroes. Most exciting aspect? The addition of Prison Break's Robert Knepper as an evil Carnie leader. Probably not worth all the hype it's getting? Claire's sapphic college experiences. Glad to see Madeline Zima of Californication and The Nanny as her roommate, though.

We're hoping people start coming back to Heroes. Yeah, it faltered a bit the last two seasons or so, but those who stuck it out know that it was worth it and, hopefully, this next season the show will turn itself around, even if Bryan Fuller did bail.

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ABC Family Pickups Full Season of Make It Or Break It

Whether you dig the gymnastics, the catty teen drama, or the obnoxious parents, we have some good news today: ABC Family has ordered an additional 10 episodes of Make It Or Break It, bringing the first season to a total of 20 episodes.

As usual with most cable fare, the season is cut in two, part one currently airing each Monday at 9pm. The second half of the season will come along in early 2010. January, we assume.

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New Chuck Poster

Somewhere in the crush of Comic-Con madness, NBC revealed a new 70's inspired poster for the next season of Chuck. Enjoy it, Chuck fans, you guys worked your asses off eating Subway footlong subs and hitting the message boards and blogosphere so hard that NBC had no choice to bring the show back for it's third season.

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Torchwood Gets A Fourth Season

Not much surprise, really. Torchwood has become one of the most talked about shows this summer the world over. It was the number one show five nights in a row in the UK and critics and fans are falling all over themselves to praise it. DVR Life is one of them, too: the freaking show is brilliant and has set itself up as quite possibly one of the greatest sci-fi television shows of all time, in our humble opinion.

So Comic Mix got a hot exclusive when someone from the BBC America ranks let slip that season 4 is in the works.

***SPOILERS*** If you haven't watched the end of season 2 or Children of Earth yet, beware.

Season 2 ended with Owen & Toshiko being killed off and poor Ianto only made it to day four of Children of Earth. Captain Jack took off for the stars and Gwen is pregnant. Not much of an elite supernatural hunting force these days, are they?

Who knows where the show will go from here. With Russell T. Davies at the helm, no matter where they end up, I'm sure it'll be good.

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Get Your Mad Men Avatar

AMC launched a new Mad Men avatar generator today: www.madmenyourself.com. Just a few quick choices, some repetitive yet cool sounding 60's french pop and you're in. After your initial choice of "Suit" or "Skirt", make your way through body type, hair, eyes, dress style (make sure you hit the 'extras') and even scene. Pretty good way to fill a minute or two.

Don't forget: Mad Men returns to AMC for it's third season Sunday August 16th at 10pm.

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True Blood's Tru Blood Coming True

Yuck, gross, eww, or cool. Not sure where to go with this one. It was announced by Mr. Alan Ball himself at San Diego Comic-Con that Tru Blood, the (formerly) fictional blood cocktail from True Blood, will be hitting store shelves in September.

The concept is a bit off putting at first, even though DVR Life are HUGE (read: GIGANTIC) fans of True Blood, but we have to admit that the thought of blood orange soda does sound pretty tasty. Here's the official press release:

"ALL FLAVOR. NO BITE."

TRU BLOODTM DRINK FROM FICTIONAL WORLD OF

HBO® HIT SERIES TRUE BLOOD® ARRIVES IN STORES THIS SEPTEMBER

LOS ANGELES, July 27th, 2009 -- The once-fictional Tru Blood beverage from the HBO hit series True Blood has now emerged as a real Blood Orange carbonated drink that will be in stores this September. Officially licensed from HBO Licensing & Retail by Omni Consumer Products, the beverage boasts a crisp, slightly tart and lightly sweet tang, and the bottle has been crafted to replicate the appearance of the vampiric sustenance found on the series - blood type, logo and all.


"The success of True Blood has created a terrific opportunity to develop a great tasting, refreshing and enlivening drink," said Omni Consumer Products founder Pete Hottelet. "We're thrilled to represent the True Blood brand in this category."

"From its first season, fans have been enamored with the show and have expressed a keen interest in the Tru Blood beverage," added James Costos, vice president, Licensing & Retail at HBO. "We're extremely excited to be able to bring this original drink to life."

The Tru Blood drink was officially announced by Alan Ball, creator and executive producer of True Blood, at the San Diego Comic Con on July 25, where fans were able to sample the beverage and take a bottle home.

The True Blood series kicked off its 12-episode second season on June 14 and can be seen Sundays (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT) through September 13th, exclusively on HBO. For more information on the Tru Blood beverage, visit TRUBEVERAGE.COM.

The Tru Blood drink can be pre-ordered at www.HBO.com/store

ABOUT THE HBO TRUE BLOOD SERIES:
Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, the True Blood series takes place in the not-too-distant future, when vampires have come out of the coffin, thanks to the invention of mass-produced synthetic blood (Tru Blood) that means they no longer need humans as a nutritional source. The show follows the romance between waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people's thoughts, and her soul mate, 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). The series is based on the best-selling Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.

ABOUT THE MANUFACTURER:

Omni Consumer Products is a product development company specializing in licensing and defictionalization. With an approach described by Scientific American as "Moebius-like-referential pop-culture-as-reality", Omni Consumer Products will continue to blur the line between fiction and reality with high-quality licensed entertainment products. For more information, visit http://www.omniconsumer.com.

Those links:
www.truebeverage.com
www.hbo.com/store
www.omniconsumer.com

Via Rob Owen at Post Gazette.

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Ben Silverman Out At NBC

Quite a surprise to wake up to this morning: co-chairman of NBC Entertainment Studios and Universal Media Studios Ben Silverman is leaving. The surprise is due to the fact that, not only are we quickly approaching the fall season, but just two weeks ago his employment contract had been extended.

When I first heard about Silverman's departure, I have to admit that a smile came to my face. Since a young age, I've always felt like NBC was my channel. Like your mom or grandma who refers to her favorite soap opera as "my story", throughout my life I felt like I had become invested in the network. That's loyalty only a true TV junkie could possibly understand, of course, but hey, that's why I'm writing a TV blog for absolutely no money and you are not.

Anyway, the majority of my favorite shows were on the network and many of the shows shaped my hopes and aspirations as I grew up. My life long fascination with New York City was constantly egged on watching shows like Law & Order, Mad About You and Seinfeld. The dazzling skyline after the evening news and shots of Rockefeller Center didn't hurt, either.

When Silverman first took position at the network, I was pretty hesitant. NBC was pretty down at the time, already in final place, and losing big time. What I knew of Silverman didn't give me much hope. He had produced one of my favorite shows, The Office, but also complete crap like Date My Mom and The Biggest Loser.

I also thought it odd that they would hire someone with so much potential for conflict of interest, considering he would still profit from both his current Reveille shows already on the network and even new ones sold after his move. Trumping even that: not long after taking his place at the company, stories circulated about frat-boy behavior, caged tigers, and lot's of party-hopping.

Here we are at the end of his reign now and I am a bit conflicted. Should I celebrate? He was the guy that made the ridiculous decision to cancel both Medium and My Name Is Earl and then make it publicly known that he did so because, according to The LA Times "neither the fans nor the advertisers had waged a campaign to save them the way viewers and the Subway restaurant chain did for Chuck."

Well, yeah, you know, people didn't wage a campaign to save the shows because no one knew they were on the verge of being canceled. I mean, you know, most networks don't cancel a highly rated show like Medium for no reason, therefore the fans, even devoted TV geeks who try to stay "in the know" such as myself, would never have imagined that we would be obligated to campaign around every single show they want to return, especially if it is one of the highest rated and most consistent shows on a dying network.

But then there's also the fact that, without Silverman, Friday Night Lights, easily one of the most brilliant shows to ever grace network television, probably wouldn't not have made it past it's first season. Because of the deal Silverman worked out with DirecTV, we are guaranteed new Friday Night Lights up through it's fifth season.

So there ya go. It's hard to know what to feel. He made some terrible decisions, acted like an ass, but also created some quality TV. His tenure was not all good or all bad. Not sure if it was even more bad than good or vice versa.

Anyway, we're not gonna go into all the politics and power shifts involved in his departure. If you're interested in that side of things, I would suggest reading the Hitfix article about the situation - they lay it all out in an easy to understand way.

Update: While rinsing and shampooing this very morning, I thought of another point I wanted to bring up about Silverman's reign: the majority of "new" scripted programming on NBC hasn't actually been "new". In his time at the network we've been treated to really terrible remakes (Bionic Woman, Knight Rider), imports (Merlin, The Listener), or remakes of imports (Kath & Kim). There's even been a remake of an import remake (Parks & Recreation).

Just kidding about that last one. While the whole mock documentary thing was over long before it debuted, Parks & Recreation definately got better towards the end of the season. At first we kinda passed it off as The Office (US Version) part two, but it kinda grew into it's own eventually.

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SyFy Sets Caprica Premiere

SyFy PR must be racking up the overtime this weekend. They're all over San Diego Comic-Con with street teams, a faux-Cafe Diem and lot's of swag. They also announced a fourth season of Eureka and the premiere date for Battlestar Galactica-kin Caprica.

If you're a sci-fi or TV geek, you've probably already seen the two hour premiere of Caprica, which has already been released on DVD (way back in April). The full series is set to kick off with a showing of that two hour special on January 22, 2010 at 9pm. The show will then take up it's predeccessor's 10pm time slot on Friday evenings.

Maybe now that Battlestar related television is returning, everyone will shut up about SyFy airing "mindless" sci-fi shows. DVR Life does not find Warehouse 13 or Eureka mindless; we find them awesome and fun and get sick of people expecting mock-U.N. meetings out of every series on the network.

Here's some video clips:





(Take note: The second video is supposed to be the Comic-Con trailer but the embed code on the SyFy player seems to be a bit off. If the second video is the same as the first, click here for the Comic-Con trailer)

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Preview: ABC's Hank

I don't know about anyone else, but the second clip allowed me to breath a tiny sigh of relief. The networks have loaded up the Fall 2009 season with multi-camera sitcoms, figuring in these down times people are looking for comedies. My problem is that 99% of multi-camera sitcoms are pure crap.

I have to admit that I wasn't really expecting much out Hank. I was a big Frasier fan so I've been pretty damn disappointed by Kelsey Grammer's sitcom choices since that series ended. The first clip, the official ABC released one, is...kind of ok. Shows potential but not exactly screaming "awesome show, here, watch us!". Clip two is much funnier, though, so we have some hope.

See what you think.

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Eureka Renewed For A Fourth Season

NBC Universal announced on Friday that they've picked up Eureka for another 22 episodes for sister cabler SyFy. That's pretty awesome news in our book. We dig Eureka. It's no secret as we've gushed a time or two in anticipation of this current season's return.

The quirky sci-fi series is three episodes into the second half of season 3. With the announcement of 22 new episodes, we can only assume that the plan is to split the season in two parts again, therefore guaranteeing atleast two more summers worth of new Eureka.

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In Treatment's Mia Wasikowska In Alice In Wonderland

While we here at DVR Life do like watching movies, we obviously have TV in our hearts. This is a television blog, obviously, but an exception can be made every once in a while, though, especially when a film project is related to television in some way and if ever there were to be an exception, here it is:



Mia Wasikowska starred as Sophie in season one of HBO's In Treatment. When season two premiered with a new lineup of patients, we wondered when we'd see her next. Pretty rad to see her turn up in what is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit.

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Preview: Dexter Season 4 Promo

Thanks to Maureen Ryan's Twitter feed, those not lucky enough to make it San Diego Comic-Con don't have to miss out on the brand new promo for season 4 of Dexter with the first footage of John Lithgow.

Commence goosebumps now.

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The Philanthropist Review Via Twitter

DVR Life doesn't usually write reviews or episode re-caps. We figure there's thousands of TV bloggers and websites out there for that kinda thing and we just don't have that kinda time. We do, however, tend to use our twitter feed while watching certain shows and this evening, after tweeting throughout tonight's episode of NBC's The Philanthropist, realized this was pretty close to a review.



















That's really all there is to say about this show. The premise is slightly cheesy but the stories tend to be exciting. The cast and production values are aces and the writing can be slightly predictable, though well informed. It's definately not bottom of the barrel summer tv fare like most people make it out to be. We here at DVR Life would actually suggest checking it out.

The Philanthropist airs Wednesdays at 10pm on NBC.

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ABC Sets Return Date For Brothers & Sisters

"Greg! Move ya head."

Yes, Brothers & Sisters fans, you'll be hearing that line again soon. ABC finally set a return date for season four of Brothers & Sisters. The rowdy Walkers will be joining us again with new tales of sibling insanity, love life woes and drama, drama, drama.

Seriously, if drama grew on trees it would be this clan's ever changing family tree. More drama than you can shake an entire family tree at, let alone a stick. So much drama...Well, there's tons of it.

Word is season four's time line takes place a few months after season three's finale left off.

The show's producer, Greg Berlanti, had a rough go of it last season with two of his three shows, Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money, both getting the ax from the alphabet network. While Eli Stone has already run it's course, ABC just aired the first of the final three episodes of Dirty Sexy Money this past Saturday evening.

Brothers & Sisters returns Sunday September 27th at 10pm.

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DVR Life's Emmy Picks

So here's our picks for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards, slated to air Sunday September 20th. We here at DVR Life don't pay much attention to TV land politics, so we're making or picks based solely on what we liked and/or didn't like. These are not Emmy predictions, just of hopeful winners.

We'll probably post more at a later time about all the horrendus snubs, but in the mean time our picks are in bold:

BEST COMEDY SERIES
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
How I Met Your Mother
The Office
30 Rock
Weeds

DVR Life will know the Emmy's are a worthless waste of time if Family Guy wins this award.

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Jemaine Clement, Flight of the Conchords
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
Toni Collette, United States of Tara
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Sarah Silverman, The Sarah Silverman Program

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men
Kevin Dillon, Entourage
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock
Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
Rainn Wilson, The Office

Would have preffered to see John Krasinski on this list for The Office.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies
Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds
Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
Kristin Wiig, Saturday Night Live
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty

GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alan Alda, 30 Rock
Beau Bridges, Desperate Housewives
Jon Hamm, 30 Rock
Steve Martin, 30 Rock
Justin Timberlake, Saturday Night Live

GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jennifer Aniston, 30 Rock
Christine Baranski, The Big Bang Theory
Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live
Gena Rowlands, Monk
Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock
Betty White, My Name Is Earl

BEST DRAMA SERIES
Big Love
Breaking Bad
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men

We feel pretty bad about not going with Mad Men, the likely winner, but we thought this was the best season of Dexter yet. What we feel worst about, though, is the snub of Friday Night Lights.

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Simon Baker, The Mentalist
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Glenn Close, Damages
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Really disapointed not to see Patricia Arquette on here for Medium. Also surprised not to find Jill Scott of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. We bet HBO is a bit surprised by that, also.

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Christian Clemenson, Boston Legal
Michael Emerson, Lost
William Hurt, Damages
Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad
William Shatner, Boston Legal
John Slattery, Mad Men

We were really hoping John Mahoney would be on the list for his portrayal of Walter on last season's In Treatment. We also think Jake Weber deserves some love for Medium's Joe Dubois.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Rose Byrne, Damages
Hope Davis, In Treatment
Cherry Jones, 24
Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment
Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy

We actually have no pick for Supporting Actress In A Drama Series. Not to slag these actresses, but we don't think any of their parts were Emmy-worthy. Disapointed to not see Rescue Me's Callie Thorne or Allison Pill of In Treatment on the list.

GUEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Edward Asner, CSI: NY
Ted Danson, Damages
Ernest Borgnine, ER
Michael J. Fox, Rescue Me
Jimmy Smits, Dexter

GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Brenda Blethyn, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Carol Burnett, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Ellen Burstyn, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Sharon Lawrence, Grey's Anatomy
CCH Pounder, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Again, we have no pick for Guest Actress In A Drama Series we didn't find any of these performances Emmy-worthy. Disapointed to not see Allyce Beasley for her performance on Medium, nor Hillary Duff for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SERIES
The Colbert Report
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Late Show With David Letterman
Real Time With Bill Maher
Saturday Night Live

VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SPECIAL
Will Ferrell: You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush
Ricky Gervais: Out of England
Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut a Bitch
The Kennedy Center Honors
Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger


MINISERIES
Generation Kill
Little Dorrit

We're surprised not to see House of Saddam on the list of nominees. While we preffered Generation Kill over that miniseries, we still expected it to be nominated.

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE
Coco Chanel
Grey Gardens
Into The Storm
Prayers For Bobby
Taking Chance

Seems like Grey Gardens received alot more hype than Taking Chance, and Into The Storm may win because of Brendan Gleeson, but DVR Life is pulling for TC.

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
Kevin Bacon, Taking Chance
Kenneth Branagh, Wallander: One Step Behind
Kevin Kline, Cyrano de Bergerac (Great Performances)
Brendan Gleeson, Into the Storm
Sir Ian McKellen, King Lear (Great Performances)
Kiefer Sutherland, 24: Redemption

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
Drew Barrymore, Grey Gardens
Jessica Lange, Grey Gardens
Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
Sigourney Weaver, Prayers For Bobby
Chandra Wilson, Accidental Friendship

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Len Cariou, Into the Storm
Tom Courtenay, Little Dorrit
Ken Howard, Grey Gardens
Bob Newhart, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice
Andy Serkis, Little Dorrit

We realize that's a very unlikely pick but we have to go with our hearts!

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House Of Saddam
Marcia Gay Harden, The Courageous Heart Of Irena Sendler (Hallmark Hall Of Fame Presentation)
Janet McTeer, Into The Storm
Jeanne Tripplehorn, Grey Gardens
Cicely Tyson, Relative Stranger

For all the A/V nerds out there, you can get full lists of nominations, including art direction, cinematography, et al here.

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