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

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

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