Pushing Daisies makes me happy — like eating ice cream and petting puppies and spotting rainbows on a sunny day happy. Well, actually, not like ice cream (lactose intolerance), but the other stuff, definitely. I think it makes me so happy because it's just so sweet. Not sweet in the cup of sugar, glass of Kool-Aid sense. But sweet in the charming, delightful, filled-with-wonder sense.

Season 2 starts tonight on ABC, and I can't wait watch the continued Technicolor adventures of the pie maker and his back-from-the-dead gal. Not sure what all the fuss is about? Well, do you have five minutes to spare?

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By the end of today, the writers' strike should be officially over. I think we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief that the nightmare scenario of MILF Island, America’s Next Top Pirate and Are You Smarter Than a Dog? never came to fruition. Can I get a halle-freaking-lujah? Sure, the strike’s end means we’ll no longer get to see adorable shots of Tina Fey and others on the picket line. But I’ll gladly sacrifice a little photogenic solidarity for fresh episodes of my favorite shows. Pending a final vote today from Writers Guild of America members, scripted shows could begin production Wednesday. Of course, now you’re all thinking, but when? When will my show be back?

Well, don’t get mad when I tell you this, but you’re going to have to be a bit more patient. According to The New York Times, it takes at least of four weeks to get a 30-minute comedy completed from scratch and six to eight weeks for hour-long dramas. So that means, realistically, it will be mid-March or early April when new episodes start to flood the airwaves again. But they are coming. While some shows have already abandoned the rest of their seasons, others will be back for anywhere from four to ten new episodes.

The New York Times and TV Guide have made comprehensive lists of returning shows. Let’s run through some of the AfterEllen.com-friendly offerings together, shall we?

30 Rock: Five to ten more shows to air April/May. Thank God; life without Liz Lemon was one big blerg.

Battlestar Galactica: The first half of the final season begins April 4. Production on the second half could start in March, with an airdate not yet set.

Bionic Woman: According to TV Guide, “No new episodes expected. Ever.” Oh, Sarah Corvus, I think I’ll miss you most of all. … continue reading

Whenever I see someone with one of those “Kill Your Television” bumper stickers, I feel two distinct emotions. One, shut up, Smuggy McSmugerson. I bet you don’t read the copies of The New Yorker in your bathroom either. And two, yeah, sometimes I do feel like taking a 12-gauge to the old idiot box. This year I got my usual mix of joy and pain from my television. The highs were so very fantastic. The lows so very sucktastic. Here's a rundown of my top and bottom five TV shows for 2007.

Five I Loved:

1) 30 Rock: Everything about this show, well, rocks. It’s smart, funny, geeky and good to the gays — just like its creator, Tina Fey. She is the antidote to the mediocrity that keeps trying to choke our culture into submission. This show alone is reason enough to own a television. … continue reading

Yesterday, the American Film Institute selected its 10 best films and TV shows of the year. Nobody gets to vote — there are no nominations, no names submitted for anyone's consideration. You might call the lists unilateral. You could also call them surprising.

Here are the top films, in no particular order (er, in alphabetical order):

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
The Savages
There Will Be Blood

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Savages:

Atonement didn't make the list because only American films were considered ('cause, uh, it's the American Film Institute). Other current favorites, like Sweeney Todd, just didn't make it. Well, there's no accounting for taste. But isn't it weird to see Knocked Up and Juno on the same list? And right next to each other like that? I guess unplanned pregnancy is the new black. … continue reading

Whenever I turn on my TV these days, I get the strange urge to pull a Paul Revere in my living room and start screaming, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” Until I realize, oh wait, they’re already here. This season a brigade of British actresses are breaking out their best American accents to star in new prime-time shows. Among them are a bionic woman, an undead girl, a Terminator fighter and a vampire helper. Here's a look at the U.K. actresses making time on American TV screens.

I think you’ve already met Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan and her abs. In the last episode, they put her real accent to good use undercover as a British exchange student. An Englishwoman playing an American girl pretending to be a British student? It was like Victor/Victoria with accents instead of gender. … continue reading

We're more than a month into the Fall TV season — time enough to figure out which shows we don't want to miss and which ones we miss on purpose. Sarah and Lori have been giving their week-by-week reviews of what they're watching in She Made Me Watch This, but if you're like me, you get so caught up in how adorable they are that you totally forget what they're saying. And some readers can't watch the vlogs for various reasons. So here's a slightly different forum for weighing in with your opinions of this season's series — after I weigh in with mine, of course.

Let's start with what was probably the show most anticipated by AfterEllen.com readers: Bionic Woman.

My one-word review: meh. The eye candy factor only goes so far. I just don't care about these characters. Even Katee Sackhoff can't hold my attention for an hour in a boring show. TiVo-worthy? Nope. … continue reading

It's "Must-See Bunny TV" in this week's episode of She Made Me Watch This! Of the 29 shows we started out watching this season, find out which ones are still on our must-see list (besides Bones), which ones we've given up (besides Private Practice), and which we're on the fence about (get it together, Reaper!).

Then we review two TV shows released on DVD this week: The L Word Season 4, and Veronica Mars Season 3.

Along the way, there's tangential reminiscing about Dynasty and Moonlighting, a pie chart, and a rant from Lori about why the road to hell is paved with insubordination.

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Watch it here now...

Who here is watching Pushing Daisies? Raise your hands. OK, keep them up. So who here would be excited to hear that Pushing Daisies got a full season order? Feel free to wave those arms around with joy. Here, I’ll join you.

The quirky little show is one of the season’s most unexpected successes. And when I say quirky, I mean really quirky. Like women-in-giant-dandelion-outfits quirky.

The show’s touched-by-a-piemaker premise is a grown-up fairy tale. It’s like Dr. Seuss, dipped in Tim Burton, then sprinkled with Disney. In other words, it’s weirdly sweet. Or sweetly weird. The sweet part mainly has to do with the piemaker Ned (Lee Pace) and his back-from-the-dead childhood love Chuck (Anna Friel). They’re so cute, it’s almost annoying. … continue reading

Responding to requests by readers Bex and FilmGrrl, Lori and I discuss Life (NBC), Pushing Daisies (ABC) and Dirty Sexy Money (ABC), plus Blood Ties, the third-season debut episode of Dante's Cove (here) and the new MTV drama series Kaya, debuting next week, about a teenage girl dealing with the unexpected pressures of fame when she becomes a big pop star. I also throw in a plea for you to watch Friday Night Lights (NBC).

This week’s “Best Lesbian Couple That Isn’t” designation is easily won by Serena and Blair from Gossip Girl (The CW), and Lori rolls out the new "She's Hot" bunny for Blake Lively. I can't say I disagree.

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Watch it here now:

I am not particularly drawn to the paranormal. As I mentioned previously, I had a few issues after my brother tricked me into seeing Poltergeist. And it's not just that I get scared. (Of course, it's partly that I get scared.) It's also that it's just not my thing most of the time. I did watch The Twilight Zone, and I like the occasional campy heaven-and-hell–themed movie (Two of a Kind, Oh God, Switch). And there's The Hunger. But that's not about the vampires.

It seems, however, that my tastes do not reflect the current television lineup. Alessandra Stanley, the New York Times TV reviewer who recently expressed dismay at how insecure the new Jaime Sommers is, notes that this season is paranormal-heavy. I must say I agree with her that it is pretty weird.

She noted that a few of the paranormal shows have been on for a least a couple of years:

The Ghost Whisperer

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The next two days are going to rock. Or are they going to thirty-rock?

Tonight, try Pushing Daisies on ABC, brought to you by the creator of Wonderfalls. I thought the pilot was excessively cutesy (despite the presence of the awesome Kristin Chenoweth and Swoosie Kurtz) and, well, just kind of dumb. I rolled my eyes so many times, I'm still trying to get them unstuck.

But Sarah and Lori liked it, and so did plenty of critics, so don't listen to me.

On Comedy Central, Sarah Silverman does her cutesy-as-satiric thing tonight on the second season of her show. Now that I can get behind. (If only.)

And tomorrow on NBC — I'm telling you now because you can't possibly prepare early enough — Tina Fey is back with her own cuteness and genius on 30 Rock.

It's good to be alive.

For couch potatoes in the States, this week kicks off a courting period with our televisions. This week, the new and returning shows start premiering in all their finery in hopes of winning a spot on our dance card for the season. Who will stay and who will go? Well, much like real dating, for some it will take repeat viewings, and for others it will only take that first episode to know whether they’re all right or all wrong. I though I’d share my dating watching game plan for the new season. Yes, even the embarrassing stuff. I'm sticking to mostly broadcast though, 'cause cable is way too embarrassing. Yes, I'm talking to you, The Girls Next Door.

MONDAY:
8 p.m.: Chuck (NBC) I’m going to give this computer geek and the CIA superspy odd-couple comedy a shot. I’m not in love with its cutsie premise, but what the hell, it’s Monday. Why not? And that’s it. I don’t watch Heroes. I know, audible gasp. While you’re at it, go ahead and gasp some more — I don’t watch Lost either. … continue reading

In this week's video blog, Lori and I disagree on who should win Hell's Kitchen, I defend My Boys, and Lori rants about Paige in the Degrassi season six finale.

Then as part of our ongoing previews of the new fall pilots, we extol the quirky virtues of Pushing Daisies (ABC), wonder how it's possible to have screwed up a remake of The Bionic Woman (although Katee Sackhoff is brilliant as Michelle Ryan's arch-nemesis) and debate Sarah Shahi's new buttoned-up look in Life.

Before you watch our vlog, check out the trailers for these new fall shows: … continue reading

This is a live blog from the bi-annual Television Critics Association conference. See more TCA live blog posts here.

I just arrived for the ABC portion of the summer Television Critics Association conference in L.A, a three week period each summer when the broadcast and cable networks debut their new shows, wine and dine reporters and (now) bloggers, and make show-related announcements.

Although Malinda has been here for several days now, I'm just arriving, and since this is my first time at the TCA, this is all new to me. So I thought I'd share some of my impressions, sort-of like a short, snarky live blog of the event.

This morning's discussion with ABC president Stephen McPherson revealed a few newsy pieces. The first is bad news for Lucy Lawless fans: contrary to the rumors, Steve says there is "no future" for Footballers Wives at ABC. Bummer. The only other news of interest he reveals, after being badgered by reporters pissed off that was reserving a big Lost announcement for Comic-Con in San Diego — is that Harold Perrineau is returning to Lost next season. Um, that was the big announcement? The silence in the room says it all.

Now it's time for a panel on the fantastic show Pushing Daisies, a quirky drama about a man named Ned (Lee Pace) who can bring people back from the dead but can't touch the girl he loves without killing her. The girl is named Chuck (Anna Friel), Kristin Chenoweth plays a sassy waitress, the narrator is the Harry Potter audio book guy, Jim Dale, and each week they use Ned's power to solve murders, while dealing with various romantic entanglements. What's not to love?

Okay I'll admit it, I'm predisposed to like anything Daisies creator Bryan Fuller makes, both because he was one of the first people I interviewed for AfterEllen.com back in the day when it was hard to get anyone to talk to me, and because he wrote a decent lesbian character into Wonderfalls. A gay man who writes a good lesbian character is a thing to be treasured.

But I like Pushing Daisies on its own merits, and I'm not the only one: The tired and jaded reporters actually clapped when they ran the promo trailer just now.

The cast, creator, and director come out on stage now and take their seats to face the crowd of eager journalists. Kristin Chenoweth has a slightly severe haircut, sort of like a longish bob. I can't decide if I like it.

Swoosie Kurtz is wearing a red patterned dress with shaggy red shoulder-length hair. Great to see Swoosie back on TV again, even if her character only has one eye (she wears an eye patch). I'm trying to figure out where I've seen the female lead, Anna Friel, before, so I look her up on IMDb and realize she was the girlfriend in Goal! The Dream Begins, a soccer movie which probably only I've seen. It wasn't bad, as far as soccer movies go, but it was no Bend It Like Beckham. … continue reading