One If By Land, Two If By Sea: TOP GEAR Races through London

As someone who is (tentatively) planning a trip to London later this year, I’m intrigued with tonight’s Top Gear, which takes on the legendarily bad London traffic. Will careful study of this episode teach a tourist how to navigate Olde London Towne? I intend to find out. The TG crew investigates the best way to get to the airport, with James taking a car (a Mercedes, no less), the Hamster on a bike, Jeremy carving the Thames in a speedboat, and the Stig on the Tube with an Oyster Card. You read that right. All of that plus Simon Cowell as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. Will we even need to go to London after all of that?

DOCTOR WHO Leads Hugo Noms

The nominations for the 2007 Hugo Awards–given annually by members of the World Science Fiction Convention for the best science fiction or fantasy works–have been announced, and the Doctor Who/Torchwood franchise is leading the short form dramatic presentation category with three nominations.

Worldcon members recognized the Doctor Who episodes “Blink” and “Human Nature” and the Torchwood episode “Captain Jack Harkness,” as well as the Battlestar Galactica TV movie “Razor” and the fan-created Star Trek New Voyages episode “World Enough and Time.”

And in an unusual move this year, the entire first season of Heroes has been nominated in the long form dramatic presentation category, which is usually reserved for feature-length films. Heroes is up against a slate of fantasy films, including Enchanted, The Golden Compass, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Stardust.

Aw, Nuts: JERICHO Goes the Way of All Flesh

CBS confirmed today that the March 25th episode of the suspenseful show will be the last. While praising devoted fans and the creative team behind the show, CBS made it pretty clear there won’t be a second resurrection for the plucky Kansas town. At least they’re claiming there will be closure for the fans who fought almost as hard for survival as the characters did. While it’s hard to argue with ratings lower than those that got Jericho cancelled in the first place, it’s frustrating to imagine loyal fans of a show that raised a lot of questions about our society being left with a TV landscape that includes The Bachelor but no Stanley or Bonnie.

Squee! It’s…

Two squees for the price of one! It’s Michael Ian Black and Ken Marino on Reaper tonight! Perhaps best known on the small screen for the comedy shows The State and Stella, the pair has also appeared in fare as diverse as VH1’s I Love the Whatevers series (Black), Dawson’s Creek (Marino), Ed (Black), Reno 911 (Marino, with a guest spot from Black), Viva Variety (Black), and Veronica Mars (Marino–welcome back, Vinnie Van Lowe!). Seeing them as the gay couple spoiling new neighbors Sam, Ben, and Sock with home-cooked meals is likely to be memorable, if nothing else.

BIONIC WOMAN: They Couldn’t Rebuild Her. They Didn’t Have the Technology.

Executive producer David Eick confirmed today that the reboot of Bionic Woman is powering down. While I admire his frankness in saying that the show just didn’t gel and there comes a time to move on, it’s never a vote of confidence when your boss says, “Some of the writing was good.” I’d love to know which parts he thought were good and which he didn’t.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Crew Counts Off Twelve…Er, Ten for Letterman Tonight

With the fourth and final (wah!) season of Battlestar Galactica kicking off soon (April 4! April 4!), promos have promised we’ll soon find out who the 12th Cylon model is. I gues we’ll have to be content until then with a different kind of countdown, as humans and Cylons alike show up on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight for the Top 10 Countdown. Sci Fi Wire confirms that Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Hogan, Aaron Douglas and Lucy Lawless will be along. You get a chance to see Michael Hogan with two eyes again! Maybe Mary McDonnell will have Paul Schaffer thrown out of an airlock! A girl can dream…

MISS GUIDED: Say Goodbye to These–and Hello to Judy Greer

While we are slouching inexorably (and slowly) toward new, post-strike episodes, this week provides a brand new show to tide us over. While Miss Guided–the tale of a former teenage misfit who returns to her high school as the guidance counselor–no longer has Rob Thomas running the show, it does feature the wonderful Judy Greer. You remember her as scheming secretary Kitty on Arrested Development (“Say goodbye to these! Woohoo! Spring break!”) and Maggie the Bearded Lady on My Name Is Earl (her house is made of real wood). She’s one of those actresses you always think deserves her own show–well, she’s finally got one, and word is that it’s good.

And maybe that quality shouldn’t surprise, given that the pilot is directed by Todd Holland, the Emmy-winning director of everything from Malcolm in the Middle through My So-Called Life to Felicity and Wonderfalls. Looking at that lineup, Miss Guided seems like the next logical step. If Miss Guided has characters as intriguing as Reese, Angela, Sean, and Jaye and moves them into adulthood, maybe we’ll forgive the fact that it’s executive produced by Kyle Korver‘s twin brother, Ashton Kutcher. Heck, if these adult lives are mostly contained in a high school, it’s really just another form of arrested development, isn’t it?

Miss Guided, tonight at 10:32 EDT/PDT (after Dancing with the Stars finally ends) on ABC; additional episodes this Thursday at 8 and 8:30.

Maybe Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni Can Help the TOP GEAR Crew

Because they’re headed to Botswana tonight, and you know they’re going to need a mechanic.

Teasers show the boys racing across the Makgadikgadi Pans (previously the site of the most exciting Amazing Race climax ever) and trying to ford rivers (“Thunderbird One to the rescue!”). They will apparently also be joined by African Stig. It’s hard to imagine that they could top their last international trip (through the American South) for laughs, but you have to believe a Top Gear safari will be nothing if not memorable.

JEZEBEL JAMES: Not the Return We Were Hoping For

Amy Sherman-Palladino is an extremely gifted writer, as anyone who watched Gilmore Girls can tell you. Which is why it’s sad to see her misstep so decidedly with her latest project, Fox’s half-hour comedy The Return of Jezebel James.

For starters, the show feels like it was compiled from instructions found in Sitcoms for Dummies. Uptight, slightly loopy female lead? Check. Nervous, nerdy male assistant? Check. Offbeat, rebellious younger sister? Check. Eccentric yet goodhearted parents? Check check. Now force those odd-couple siblings into an implausible partnership via some weak plot points and you’ve got a recipe for… absolutely nothing special.

Parker Posey–an undeniably talented actress–is woefully miscast here as Sarah, a single, thirtysomething professional woman who finds out she can’t get pregnant and asks her estranged sister to play surrogate mom for her. Famous for playing brittle, strident characters, Posey seems out of her element as a sit-com lead. It doesn’t help that the character as written is unconscionably inconsistent. Sarah is all over the map: a wry, control-freak professional woman one minute, a bundle of flailing neuroses the next, and a level-headed paragon of interpersonal relations still later. Yet through all this she never manages to emit one genuine-feeling emotion.

Her sister Coco (Lauren Ambrose), by contrast is so woefully underdrawn that even by the end of the second episode we have no real idea of who she is or why. Ambrose may as well be a piece of scenery for all the character development she’s allowed.

But perhaps the biggest problem with Jezebel James is simply the format. Sherman-Palladino’s dialogue–sparkly, hyperarticulate, rapid-fire, and laden with more pop-culture references than the average human can absorb–feels forced and clunky when it’s squeezed into a half-hour structure and tortured by constant laugh-track interruptions. There’s simply no room in a traditional sitcom for the kind of intricate interactions that elevated Gilmore Girls to greatness.

This is not to say Jezebel James is horrible–it’s not, especially compared to a lot of the dreck masquerading as comedy these days. It’s just a huge disappointment when you know how much more Sherman-Palladino can offer.

Joss Whedon Reveals Plans for Musical Web Shorts

No, not those kind of shorts. The kind you watch. On your computer.

Joss Whedon posted on Whedonesque yesterday to officially confirm reports that Neil Patrick Harris would be appearing in a series of musical internet shorts to be written and directed by Whedon. Also appearing in the limited series will be Whedonverse alums Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day.

Whedon fans had been speculating since Saturday, when Ain’t It Cool News posted an interview with Harris, in which he mentioned the project.

Here’s what the Master himself had to say on the subject:

So…..

The bag is catless.

During the strike I started writing a musical intended as a limited internet series, 3 episodes of approximately 10 minutes each. Writing with me was my brother Jed, his fiancee Maurissa, and my other brother Zack. To my shock and surprise, we finished it. To my greater shock and surprise, we managed (with the help of many people I’ll be praising at length soon) to drag it into preproduction (yes, just as DOLLHOUSE was given a start date two months away and all my comics were due.) And today, after a grueling week of writing everything ever while trying to be a producer, I got to start shooting. A musical.

This much I will say: It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to. And I’m having the time of my life.

“DOCTOR HORRIBLE’S SING-ALONG BLOG”

Neil Patrick Harris…..as Dr. Horrible
Nathan Fillion……….as Captain Hammer
Felicia Day………….as Penny

And a cast of Dozens!

Coming soon.

-j.