TV Squad

['How I Met Your Mother' - 'Bad News']

Tonight was a smorgasbord of stimuli for any devoted 'How I Met Your Mother' fan. We got the return of Sandy Rivers, flashbacks to every on-camera embarrassing moment for Robin, an appearance by Marshall's parents, and Barney's real doppelganger -- a fertility specialist, of all things.

But the most compelling part of this episode was the countdown. It actually was a bit distracting, but in a fun way, seeing all the ways that Bays, Thomas and their crew would figure out where to put the next number as we counted down from 50 to 0. And, they made it pretty obvious it was a countdown, as the episode seemed to build towards some sort of climactic ending.

Little did we know what event we were counting down to, though...

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends at PopEater.com.

• Courteney Cox has quickly come out in support of estranged husband David Arquette's decision to enter rehab for alcohol and depression.

• 2011 will bring many things, one of which is Snooki's novel. In a fictionalized account of living on the real Jersey Shore, the MTV reality star touches on love, anger and of course, partying.

• The excerpts from Kim Kardashian's Glamour interview are out, and she appears to be a lot more humble than we thought.

And over the weekend...

• After becoming engaged earlier this year, 'Hot in Cleveland' star Valerie Bertinelli, 50, exchanged vows on Saturday night with her longtime boyfriend, 49-year-old financial planner Tom Vitale

• In a new 'CBS Sunday Morning' interview, former 'Idol' judge Paula Abdul opened up to Julie Chen about certain misconceptions people have of her -- namely, that she's gone on the air inebriated and that she's unintelligent.

Like most men, I have a love/hate relationship with Oprah. Nothing against her, it's just that when I watch her show, I have the feeling that I shouldn't be. I don't have addictions, I don't fawn over celebrities; the only secret I keep is that I sometimes watch 'Oprah.'

On New Year's Day, while other men were watching football games or nursing their hangovers, I watched The Oprah Winfrey Network. And I kept a diary of what I saw. No, a journal. Journal sounds more manly.

'SpongeBob SquarePants' will hit the 200th episode milestone thanks to a ninth season pickup by Nickelodeon.

According to Deadline Hollywood, 'SpongeBob' has been renewed for a 26-episode season 9 that will begin in 2012. The series has been Nickelodeon's top series among children ages 2-11 for 10 years.

"We never imagined we would be on for that long but we're going to keep going," executive producer Paul Tibbitt said. "The trick is to try to keep the episodes funny and simple and press from there."

The 'SpongeBob' special, 'Mystery with a Twistery,' brought in 6.6 million viewers in November. The next special, 'Legends of Bikini Bottom,' premieres Jan. 28.

In other TV news ...

• Dina Manzon, former star of Bravo's 'Real Housewives of New Jersey' is returning to TV. However, the former reality star said it won't be a reality project. [PopEater]

• A 14-year-old boy who was stranded on a mountain in Oregon said he survived by using tactics learned on TV. Jake Denham said tips from 'Man Vs. Wild' and 'Survivorman' kept him alive on New Years Eve. [ABC News]

• John Roberts is leaving CNN and heading to Fox News. Roberts will act as a senior national correspondent. Roberts formerly anchored CNN's 'American Morning.' [Deadline Hollywood]

• USA Network has officially revived 'WWE: Tough Enough.' The reality series is the first in five years for USA. The 10-episode series debuts April 4. [Deadline Hollywood]

For the 22nd year in a row, America's No. 1 soap opera is CBS's 'The Young & The Restless,' according to December figures from Nielsen. Since December 1988, no soap has surpassed 'Y&R' in the ratings.

And there seems to be no weakening on the part of CBS's powerhouse program. Currently averaging 3.6/12 in households, 5.17 million viewers and is also ranked first among daytime programs in women 25-54 (2.3/14) and women 18-49 (1.7/11) season-to-date.

That kind of sustained success is to be rewarded, which is what CBS did when it renewed 'Y&R' through the 2013-2014 season back in November.

'Lost' and 'Heroes' ended their series runs on top -- on top of the most-pirated shows list of 2010.

According to TorrentFreak.com, 'Lost' logged 5.94 million illegal downloads for a single episode. 'Heroes,' a show with much lower Nielsen ratings, had an episode downloaded 5.48 million times.

The two dramas both had intense fan followings, yet 'Lost' won over critics season after season and maintained decent, though declining, Nielsen ratings. During its time on the air, 'Heroes' suffered a steep loss in both critical acclaim and viewers.

'Lost' was seen by an estimated 13.57 million viewers, 'Heroes' by 5.3 million, meaning more people downloaded 'Heroes' then viewing it.

The rest of the list is below.

The set of 'Castle' must be a really fun place to work -- at least, that's the impression we got after chatting with Laura Prepon about her guest spot on tonight's episode.

"I love the show, and I love the people who run it and work on it," she gushed when TV Squad caught up with her a couple of days before Christmas.

For one thing, they have peanut butter pretzels at craft service. For another, although Nathan Fillion mocked her for bungling the rehearsal of a key kissing scene, she couldn't say enough nice things about the guy.

After fan petitions and strongly worded letters from Michael Jackson's estate, Discovery has canceled its planned special about Jackson's autopsy.

The special was to air in the United Kingdom on Jan. 13. "Given the commencement of legal proceedings beginning next week, and at the request of Michael Jackson's estate, the scheduled broadcast of the medical documentary related to Michael Jackson's official autopsy has been postponed indefinitely," Discovery Networks International said in a statement.

According to Reuters, John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of Jackson's estate, were pleased with Discovery's decision.

In other TV news ...

• Diego Klattenhoff has joined the cast of Showtime's 'Homeland.' Klattenhoff will play Mike Faber, a Marine and friend of Damian Lewis' character, Scott Brody. The series stars Claire Danes as a CIA agent who suspects the Scott Brody character is planning an attack on the US. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Veteran actor Pete Postlethwaite has died. Postlethwaite appeared in 'Inception,' 'The Usual Suspects' and countless more films. He also starred in a number of TV miniseries including 'Criminal Justice' and 'The Sin.' [Variety]

• Oprah has named the finalists for 'Your OWN Show.' They include Zach Anner, a wheelchair-bound travel guide, a Texan minister who lived on the streets after dropping out of high school and three people trying to get their own cooking show. More than 9,500 people submitted video entries. The first episode of the competition is set to air Jan. 7. [New York Times]

Anne Francis, who played the first female detective on a TV series in ABC's 'Honey West' in 1965, has passed away.

Francis died of pancreatic cancer in Santa Barbara, Calif. She was 80.

To list Francis' roles on TV would be like listing all of the shows that were made between 1949 and 2004. Let's just say she appeared in a lot of programs, including 'Kraft Theater,' 'Rawhide,' 'The Untouchables,' 'Route 66,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,' 'The Invaders,' 'Mission: Impossible,' 'My Three Sons,' 'Columbo,' 'Dallas,' 'Home Improvement,' 'Wings' and 'Without a Trace.'

Here's tonight's lineup of new shows and events (all times Eastern). Check your local TV listings for additional information.

* = Series/Season Premiere
** = Series/Season Finale
# = New Day/Time

8:00 to 9:00
ABC: 'The Bachelor'* -- (120 minutes)
CBS: 'How I Met Your Mother' and 'Rules of Engagement'
PBS: 'Antiques Road Show'* -- 15th season premiere
ABC Family: 'Pretty Little Liars'*
Cartoon Network: 'Adventure Time,' 'Regular Show' and 'Robotomy'
ESPN: 'Orange Bowl' -- 8:30 start for Stanford and Virginia Tech
OWN: 'Enough Already! With Peter Walsh'
truTV: 'Bait Car' -- 8:30 start

Happy New Year! I hope 2011 is treating you right so far.

For those of us covering TV, the new year ushered in one of the busiest mid-seasons in recent memory. A lot of new shows are debuting, many notable shows are returning and Ryan McGee and I tried to cover quite a few of early January's offerings in this week's super-sized Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan podcast.

We gave our impressions of 'V' (and you can find my season 2 review of that ABC show here), 'Southland,' 'Downton Abbey,' 'Bob's Burgers,' 'Shameless,' 'The Cape' and Matt LeBlanc's new Showtime series, 'Episodes.' Just for fun, we also talked a bit about the recent 'Doctor Who' special that aired on Christmas Day.

Please note that in the next few days, I'll be posting full reviews of many of these programs (though not for 'Bob's Burgers' or 'Southland'). Read on for the running times of the various podcast dicussions, and also for news on notable reruns beginning this week.

Can Jack Bauer save the day? Not without a script.

According Entertainment Weekly, Fox has passed on a script by 'State of Play' writer Billy Ray. However, that doesn't mean the movie won't get made. '24' executive producer Howard Gordon told EW the project is still very much in the works.

"As far as I know, it is in suspended animation," Gordon said. "There is talk about re-approaching it. I understand (director/producer) Tony Scott is meeting with Kiefer to talk about ideas. People are still talking about it."

['Desperate Housewives' - 'Assassins']

The previous episode, which aired prior to the holidays, left us with a few questions: Is Susan alive and well? If she is alive, will she tell Lynette about the Tom/Renee secret? Is Paul dead? Who shot him? What will happen to Juanita now that she knows she is not the Solises' biological daughter?

Luckily, all these questions, except one, were answered in this week's episode. The only remaining mystery is: Who shot J.R. Paul?

'V' (9PM ET Tuesday, ABC) certainly had a rocky time of it in its debut season. After a swell pilot, the show slowed down considerably, and 'V' didn't always know how to use its mostly able cast. As the elegant alien leader, Anna, Morena Baccarin acquitted herself well, as did Elizabeth Mitchell, who plays Erica, an FBI agent leading an underground resistance. But the quality of everything else on the show fluctuated quite a bit.

Yet there were hopeful signs toward the end of season 1 that the show had gotten a grip on how to depict Anna's campaign to win over Earth's population and Erica's attempts to reveal Anna's unfriendly agenda.

This season, there's clearly an effort afoot to give 'V' more forward momentum and to delineate the differences between the scrappy Earth resistance and the calculating aliens. Yet there are signs that 'V' itself still doesn't know what it wants to be -- a realistic sci-fi thriller or an alien-invasion melodrama complete with mother-daughter shenanigans befitting a daytime soap.

There's more energy on display, but it's not always channeled in encouraging directions.

A new year means new television, as well as the returns of most of our fall favorites from their holiday breaks. This year brings a whole new network to the television landscape as well, as Oprah Winfrey wrapped production on her syndicated talk show to bring us OWN. The network premieres with previews of most of its new shows throughout the day on Jan. 1, before rolling out its full schedule the first week of the month.