I almost ignored this series completely. Cougar Town? Seriously? But then I found out it written/produced/directed by Bill Lawrence, the mastermind behind Scrubs. While the last couple of seasons of Scrubs haven’t been too great, you can’t ignore the brilliance of those first seasons. Maybe what Lawrence needed was a new focus and Cougar Town might be just that.

Here’s the description from ABC:

Can a woman of a certain age be a mom, a successful career woman and still be on the prowl? Jules Cobb (Courteney Cox) is about to give it a try. 

In a small Florida town, the center of high society is the Cougars high school football team… which is wildly appropriate since this town is the natural habitat for over-tanned, under-dressed divorcées prowling for younger men. Jules desperately doesn’t want to be one of them, but with an ugly divorce behind her and 40 staring right back at her, she’s longing for a little more action in her life. The available men her own age, like her silver fox of a neighbor, Grayson Ellis, only seem interested in dating barely legal hotties — which is awkward considering he’s also her teenage son Tad’s therapist. Egged on by her very married and very irreverent best friend Elle and her determined assistant Laurie, Jules reluctantly dips her toe back into the dating pool. To her surprise, she hits it off with a nice young guy named Bobby — emphasis on the young — and discovers this gal still has the goods. 

And here’s the trailer:

Hmm, not sure about it, but it could turn out fun.

V is one of those TV shows I remember having watched completely, but don’t remember the actual specifics from. I was I think 10ish at the time, and I haven’t rewatched it since. Anyway, they’ve now announced that ABC has picked up a remake of V for the 2009-2010 season.

Here’s the description from Wikipedia:

The world awakens to find spaceships hovering over all major cities. Though the aliens claim to come in peace, some do not believe them. Homeland Security agent Erica Evans discovers that the aliens have plans to infiltrate our governments and businesses in a plot to take over the planet. Erica joins the resistance movement, which includes Ryan, an alien who wants to save humanity. However, the aliens have recruited earth’s youth, including Erica’s son, to serve unknowingly as spies.

So far the cast sounds great: Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from Lost) will play the Homeland Security agent mentioned in the snippet above. Morena Baccarin (Firefly) will play  the leader of the aliens, Anna. Joel Gretsch (Taken, The 4400) will play Father Jack Landry. And Scott Wolf will play the reporter Chad Decker.

So far the pilot has already been shot, and there are a couple of clips available:

I wonder if they’ll stick with this cast; judging from the small clips above, they do all seem to fit in their roles. But you never know, right? I do like the look of this version V, and it’s about time there’s another sci-fi on TV. I can’t wait to see the pilot!

Via Blogomatic3000

This TV season will see the start of two shows based on books I’ve read: Flash Forward and The Vampire Diaries. I read Flash Forward about 9/10 years ago I think, and the story has always stuck with me. I’ve always thought it would make a great movie or a mini-series. An actual TV show though? I’m not sure how they’ll have enough material.

The problem with having read the book though is that I know most of the story. I think I can imagine how they’re going to make it more mysterious. For starters, in the book you know straightaway how and why the flash forward happened; I’m guessing the TV show will make that one of the first mysteries to “solve”.

Here’s the description from ABC: 

What if you saw your future 6 months from now? A glimpse of where you will be and who you will be with. Would you look forward to what was coming…or would you try to stop it? 

A mysterious global event causes everyone to black out simultaneously for two minutes and seventeen seconds, and each person sees a glimpse of their lives six months from now. When they wake up, everyone is left wondering if what they saw will actually happen. 

Los Angeles FBI Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) is desperate to uncover why this happened and who or what is behind it. And he’s not the only one. Before long, everyone starts asking, “What did you see?” As Mark and his team struggle to figure out what caused this bizarre event, they begin to piece together the future by creating a huge database of people’s flash forwards from all over the world – The Mosaic Collective. No one knows what these flash forwards mean or exactly what the future really holds. But it is clear that across the globe people who’ve never met will somehow be intimately connected and will have an impact on each other’s lives in the next six months. Some will fear what’s coming, others excited; but not a single person will be unaffected. 

Anyhow, the show will air in the fall on ABC and will star  Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Christine Woods, Jack Davenport and Courtney B. Vance. Here’s the promo:

It does look like a great new series; I’m just wondering how intriguing it will be for some one who has read the book. So far, the city and all the characters are completely different, so I’m guessing it will still be pretty interesting.