Casting Couch: Easter Weekend Pilot Round-up

Wondering how to keep track of the plethora of casting related notices this Easter weekend for the latest crop of network and cable pilots? Simply look below.

CW: Michael Cassidy (Hidden Palms, The O.C.) cast in the drama pilot How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls, where he'll play the boyfriend of the main character, a Yale grad hired to tutor two heiresses in Palm Beach.

FOX: US adaptation of UK series (and Televisionary obsession) Spaced has cast two actors. Will Sasso (Less Than Perfect) will play Bill Amberton (a role originated by Nick Frost in the original), conspiracy nut who is the best friend of main character Ben. Federico Dordei (Without a Trace) will play Christian, a quirky artist neighbor who lives downstairs from Ben and Apryl. Yes you read those names correctly: Ben and Apryl replace Tim and Daisy (Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson).

CBS: Amy Smart (Smith) will play the lead in romantic drama pilot Meant to Be's, from Glenn Gordon Caron (Medium), about a wealthy NYC gallery owner (Smart) who elopes only to be thrown off her balcony en route to her honeymoon and becomes a "Mean to Be," who pushes people in the right direction before she can head out to heaven.

Fred Savage (Crumbs) will play the lead in multi-cam comedy Single White Millionaire--from Family Guy writer Ricky Blitt (The Winner)--about a 30-something millionaire looking to settle down.

Whew.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: The Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother (CBS); My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad (NBC); Gossip Girl (CW); Dancing With the Stars (ABC; 8-10 pm); House (FOX)

9 pm: Two and a Half Men/New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS); Deal or No Deal (NBC); Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (CW); New Amsterdam (FOX)

10 pm: CSI Miami (CBS); Medium (NBC); The Bachelor: London Calling (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Gossip Girl.

It's another chance to catch up on the teen soap. On tonight's repeat episode ("Hi, Society"): Serena's grandmother has no problem expressing her views about the upcoming debutante ball and insists that Serena find a more suitable escort than shabby Dan.

9:30 pm: Old Christine.

On tonight's episode ("The Happy Couple"), Christine learns that Barb and Matthew slept together and forbids them from seeing one another but they turn the tables on her and pretend that they are inseparable. As one does, naturally.

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

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In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj

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