April 3, 2008 - Smallville, NBC Announces Fall Schedule, Big Bang Theory, and More

The Smallville world got rocked earlier today with some shocking news. Smallville creators, Al Gough and Miles Millar, are leaving after this season. Who will be in charge of Smallville next season? The CW and Warner Brothers TV released this statement: "Al Gough and Miles Millar have been great partners and instrumental in the development and success of Smallville. While we are sad to see them go, we are very excited to announce that executive producers Darren Swimmer, Todd Slavkin, Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson will helm the show next season. [They] have been writing for the show for the past six seasons, and as producers for the last four years, they have played an integral role in the ongoing creative evolution of the series. As showrunners, they will continue to deliver the compelling storytelling that Smallville fans have come to expect and love." Al Gough and Miles Millar also released an open letter today that said: As the creators of Smallville we look back at 7 amazing years. We look back at 152 episodes. We look back knowing that the show will continue into Season 8 without us. After much heartache and debate we have decided it is time for us to move on. Over the last 7 years we have had the honor of working with a remarkable team of people here in Los Angeles and in Vancouver. We have been blessed with a wonderful cast who we have watched mature with admiration and affection. We have been rewarded with a fan base that is as loyal as it is vocal. We are incredibly proud of our work on this show. We achieved what we set out to do. We never compromised our vision. We leave knowing that Smallville is the longest — running comic book based series of all — time. The show was featured on the covers of Rolling Stone, MAD magazine, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. The pilot had the highest — rated premiere in the history of the WB. Even in its seventh year it is still the #1 scripted show on the network. Smallville is watched by millions of people in hundreds of countries and in dozens of languages around the world. The show's success is a credit to a fantastically talented group of people. We wanted to take this chance to single some of them out:
Our writers — your work speaks for itself.
James, Jae, Rob, David — the backbone of our team in Vancouver.
Joe Davola, Chris and Shelly — remember those Friday night brainstorming sessions?
Len Goldstein and Steve Pearlman — thanks for believing we could do this. David Nutter — for giving the show your magic touch.
John Litvack — when the knives were out, you always had our backs.
Ken Horton — our Yoda.
Peter Roth — Smallville's biggest fan.
Melinda, Michael R., Paul M., Susan and Suzanne — for steering us through 152 episodes.
Greg Beeman — your passion is an inspiration.
Jordan, David, Garth, Carolyn, Bob & Lew — and everyone at the much — missed WB.
Paul Levitz, Greg Noveck and the guys at DC Comics.
Lisa Lewis — our very own soccer mom/mafia accountant.
Michael Gendler — aka mega — counsel.
David Lubliner — we can finally focus on features now.
And last but in no way the least, Renee Kurtz — the smartest TV agent in town, we would be nowhere without you!
Finally, to the fans who have stuck with us through the highs and the lows:
know this — we never stopped fighting to make this show great. Thanks for watching.
Wow, where did this come from and why? What caused them to exit stage left? There sure doesn't seem to be any answers right now but I've got to think we're going to find out in the near future. It couldn't be that crazy CW Network, could it? That network has done amazing things so far, right? cricket. cricket. chirp. chirp. Definitely going to be an interesting story to follow.

NBC jumped out and made big announcements this week concerning their upcoming fall schedule. They've already got their game plan laid out and here it is. Shows returning in the fall include Heroes, Chuck, Biggest Loser, Law & Order: SVU, Deal Or No Deal, Lipstick Jungle, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office, ER, and Life. Medium is said to be coming back at midseason. Friday Night Lights WILL be returning and the deal between NBC and DirecTV is happening. This has been talked about for several weeks but the plan is that there will be a new season set for thirteen episodes. The new episodes will first premiere on DirecTV's channel 101 in the fall. Later in the TV season, NBC will then run Friday Night Lights as encore presentations. There appears to also be an Office spinoff show happening as well. The shows not returning include Journeyman, Las Vegas, Bionic Woman, 1 vs. 100, Amne$ia, Clash Of The Choirs, My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, Phenomenon, Quarterlife, and The Singing Bee. Ah, Journeyman. Such a great show that NBC is not bringing back. I'm really going to miss it!! You will also notice that Scrubs was not on the list of shows returning. It does appear that Scrubs will be moving over to ABC. New shows premiering in the fall for NBC include Knight Rider, My Own Worse Enemy (spy show starring Christian Slater), and Kath & Kim (stars Molly Shannon and Selma Blair).

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. 21 - $23.7 million. 2. Horton Hears A Who? - $17.4 million. 3. Superhero Movie - $9.5 million. 4. Meet The Browns - $7.8 million. 5. Drillbit Taylor - $5.8 million. 6. Shutter - $5.3 million. 7. 10,000 BC - $4.9 million. 8. Stop-Loss - $4.5 million. 9. College Road Trip - $3.5 million. 10. The Bank Job - $2.8 million.

Natalie's HOH reign was the feature of this week's Big Brother. Her nominations weren't a surprise as she put up James and Josh. The plan was to get James out. With Chelsia gone, James broke down especially knowing that the whole house was against him. He had a major blowup with Sheila after he overheard her giving a pep talk to Josh about staying in the house which was the same speech that she gave to James earlier. James went into the veto competition knowing that he had to win or he was out. The rest of the house pretty much blew it on strategy in the competition and James won the veto. James took himself off the block and Sharon was put up as a replacement. Josh knew during the veto competition that if James won, then he was going home. I'm assuming that the time line was right on Tuesday's episode with Sharon and Josh's reactions to the fact that Josh was likely leaving. Sharon was making me sad with how hard she was taking Josh leaving the house. To make it worse, she is in there crying her eyes out to Sheila that Josh is leaving and he is out and about campaigning against her. That girl has been very loyal to him while he has been ready to throw her under the bus for weeks now. Josh started going to get votes lined up. However, Natalie told Sharon about how Josh had been campaigning against her which completely surprised her. They then let Sheila in on it too. Josh was evicted from the house on a 3-1 vote. Josh's lone vote to stay was from James. Josh made a speech on the way out the door which seems to be the order of things lately this season. The HOH competition takes place and the winner was Adam.

What You Missed On The Live Feeds: Hey, I even missed the live feeds this week as I didn't watch any of it.

What Has Happened Since Last Night's Live Show: SPOILER ALERT!! With Adam as HOH, the nominations are in for the week. Up on the block is Sharon and Sheila.

This week's American Idol had Dolly Parton as the guest and the contestants sang her songs. The bottom three were Ramiele Malubay, Brooke White, and Kristy Lee Cook. Ironic thing is that all three of them are roommates. Brooke was sent back to safety leaving a bottom two of Ramiele and Kristy. Ramiele leaves American Idol this week.

This week's How I Met Your Mother was all about the tournament. Not the actual NCAA tournament but a different spin on it. Barney was being sabotaged by a scorned woman keeping him from getting anywhere with any new women. So, the tournament bracket was brought out including seeding to figure out the likelihood of which girl it could be that is messing with him. A brain session was also done where the group tried to figure out which lie that he told to the women was worse thus advancing that woman to the next round. The conclusion of the episode also gave us a completely new version of the One Shining Moment highlight reel. LOL. The Neil Patrick Harris clip at the end with the Doogie Howser spoof was very good.

Tonight's Survivor had the tribes surprised by an immunity challenge taking place one day after the last one. Each tribe got to pick one person from their own to send to Exile Island. They would be immune to the vote if their tribe was sent to tribal council. So, Ozzy and Alexis were sent to Exile Island. Airai won the immunity challenge so that meant that Ozzy was immune to the vote. Erik's stay on Survivor was seemingly over as he was up against a tribe full of "favorites". So, he did what he had to do. Stir anything up. He told the truth about Ami almost jumping sides over the last several tribal councils. The girls still stuck together so Erik told the story to Ozzy when he returned from Exile Island. Ozzy was questioning the loyalty of Ami and things were up in the air going to tribal council. Ami ended up voted out. In this episode, Ozzy did find out that the fake immunity idol had been found as it was gone. Next week's preview shows Eliza telling Jason that the idol that he has possession of has to be a fake cause "it's a stick".

I loved this week's Big Bang Theory. Sheldon came down with a cold which means one thing....run and hide. All of his friends knew how he acts when he is sick and they ran away. The guys ended up at a Planet Of The Apes movie marathon knowing that it guaranteed them many hours away. With his friends being away, he went to an unlikely place and that was to Penny....at work. She ended up being stuck with Sheldon and wasn't happy about it. She did take care of him but she caught Leonard on trying to staying away from him. She knew then that she had gotten stuck with him. It was a great episode.

Warner Brothers is releasing the Birds Of Prey series on DVD. This is a series that fans have been wanting put on DVD for many years now but I never thought it would happen. The box set will be released on July 15th.

Fox has renewed King Of The Hill for another season.

Ready for another remake? Variety is reporting that Dimension Films has purchased the rights to the movie, Short Circuit. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117983475.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, April 8th. The Cosby Show (Seasons Seven & Eight), Fortysomething (Full Series), Matlock (Season One), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Season Six).

You Tube Video Of The Week: If you know anything about wrestling, I'm sure you know the name Ric Flair. This past Monday night on Raw, WWE and fans all around the world said goodbye to Ric Flair as he goes into retirement. The segment had everyone out of character and paying tribute to someone who has meant so much to the business. It was one of the most special moments in wrestling history for sure.

Wishing you all a great week. Take care and God bless!!