New faces, new dramas, same pool.

That could refer to Press Tour itself, since most of the conference involves around 250 electronic and print journalists being trapped in a hotel, but no.  This happened to be a CW publicist’s intro to the panel for “Melrose Place,” which is aining for as much multi-generational attention  as possible.

Executive producer Todd Slavkin expects the new “Melrose Place” to attract the teen audience The CW so deeply covets as well as their older sisters and brothers (and mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles). Reminding critics that the original has only been off the air for 10 years, that means the 15-year-olds who watched it back then are now 25 and presumably bored. “‘Melrose Place’ is a huge international franchise, that title,” he said.

People also remember the cast with no small amount of fondness, so the news that Josie Bissett and Daphne Zuniga would be back, and the producers are pitching woo to Grant Show, is promising. Doug Savant and Marcia Cross are busy with all the happenings on Wisteria Lane, so we doubt Matt Fielding and Dr.  Kimberly Shaw will return.  Courtney Thorne-Smith is still kicking around, although she may want some “me” time, having recently been set free from TV purgatory, aka “According to Jim.” But Slavkin added, “The door is always open for Heather Locklear.”

Does the same go for Andrew Shue? He seems fairly available these days.  Just sayin’.

Ashton Kutcher's younger inner self.

From “Melrose” to models: Ashton Kutcher, executive producer of “The Beautiful Life,” would like you to know that the character of fresh-off-the-farm  Chris is actually based on series supervising producer and former top male model Adam Giaudrone, not him. Although Kutcher’s road to fame began in Iowa, when an older woman saw his underaged self in a bar and told him he should be in pictures, Kutcher says his story more closely mirrors that of Raina’s, that waif you see in the picture to the left. Weird, huh? We thought so.

And, for the record, in spite of Mischa Barton’s widely reported struggles of late, “She was never unavailable for a day of work.”  What else can we call that detail but… magical?

Elsewhere on the schedule:

CW entertainment head Dawn Ostroff would not specifically tell us if this is “Smallville’s” last season, only she hopes that it’s not. Ditto for “Supernatural“: “We’re hopeful it will stay on the air for a long time.” However, just forget they ever mentioned anything about a “Gossip Girl” spinoff, which Ostroff told us was not likely to happen.

Some networks have more reason to be legitimately positive about their place in the world than others, CBS topmost among them. The Eye only has four new primetime series premiering this fall, one of them — “NCIS: Los Angeles” — that’s expected to be a slam dunk. “NCIS” is headed into its seventh season bigger than it has ever been, with summer repeats clobbering every show that goes up against them. Best of all, now that NBC is playing possum running Leno five nights a week at 10 p.m., CBS has even less competition to worry about — and it’s confident that its 10 o’clock success will only do great things for David Letterman.

President of entertainment Nina Tassler, however, captured the day by reveling in NBC’s recent ouster of former entertainment head Ben Silverman, who famously insulted her in an Esquire article. When someone asked her to comment on how Silverman’s departure affected CBS –purely in business terms, of course — she quipped, “Well, you know, I’m really just a ‘D girl,’ so…” She shoots, she scores.

Highlights from CBS’s day include:

– Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) will appear in the first five episodes of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” which may not be enough to repair the steep audience erosion that occurred following William Petersen‘s departure last season. On that front, Tassler stated that their understanding of the problem was that fans wanted new castmember Laurence Fishburne to have more of a take-charge presence in the series. This season will feature him in more of a leadership capacity, she said, and with a better wardrobe (thank goodness). Additionally, Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) is going to grant Nick (George Eads) a promotion.

– “Let’s Make a Deal,” hosted by Wayne Brady, will be replacing “Guiding Light” in daytime beginning in October.

– “Flashpoint” has been cleared for nine more episodes, but CBS has no plans to make more after that.

(more…)

It isn’t often that you find Betty White as well as the casts of “True Blood” and “Yo Gabba Gabba!” congregating near an open bar.

The Television Critics Association Awards ceremony, however, is a different kind of congratulatory event.  The association’s awards aren’t fancy; often, they’re not even listed in a series or a star’s list of career accolades in their public bios. But over the course of 25 years, we’ve done our part to acknowledge some truly fine programs (“Boomtown,” for example) and actors (Hugh Laurie, twice now) that the Emmys were (are?) content to over look.

It’s also one of the few awards nights in which the recipients know that they’ve won because they’ve been invited. Among the honorees who showed up last night were Jon Hamm, Vincent Kartheiser, John Slattery and executive producer Matthew Weiner of “Mad Men“; Bryan Cranston and his “Breaking Bad” family; and Alexander Skarsgard, Sam Trammell, Rutina Wesley, Nelsan Ellis and “True Blood” series creator Alan Ball.

To accept the program of the year award for “Battlestar Galactica,” co-executive producer Jane Espenson was joined onstage by Michael Hogan, Grace Park, Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer.

Here is the full list of 2009 TCA Award recipients:

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: “Battlestar Galactica” (Syfy)

OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM: “True Blood” (HBO)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: “Mad Men” (AMC)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS & INFORMATION: “The Alzheimer’s Project” (HBO)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING: “Yo Gabba Gabba” (Nickelodeon)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINI-SERIES & SPECIALS: “Grey Gardens” (HBO)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: Jim Parsons, “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad” (AMC)

HERITAGE AWARD: “ER” (NBC)

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Betty White

Barely an hour after I set foot into the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, Piers Gibbon offered me a shrunken head to eat. The heads in question were made of marzipan and cake, and part of promoting Gibbon’s upcoming special “Search for the Amazon Headshrinkers” (coming to Nat Geo), but it still made for a strange hello.

“Let me tell you, I’ve done a lot of weird things in my career,” he said, “but never in my life did I imagine I’d be standing beside a tray full of these.”  Quite a statement coming from a guy who rose to fame with a U.K. show called “Jungle Trip,” for which he traveled through far flung locales sampling various hallucinogenic potions.

“It will live forever on BitTorrent sites for various reasons,” Gibbon said. “I lose control of my bowels, for example.” I laughed profusely, selected a bizarre treat and was on my merry way.

Odd run-ins like this are par for the course at the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour, ten days of panels, cocktail mixers and unexpected conversations about TV.  Most interactions are quite comic, and whenever a network executive is talking you can pretty much accept that you’re being conned.

Make no mistake, though – Press Tour is no fan fair for the networks.  They got that last week in San Diego.   No, Press Tour is different.  It’s a journey into the heart of snarkness that some gleefully refer to as the Death March with Cocktails: Almost two straight weeks of network and cable channels doing their best to sell scores of entertainment journalists with well-calibrated B.S. meters  on their fall lineups. We will wade through a lot of mediocrity here before the public sees it – and on the way, see snippets of a show or two that are so extraordinary that we can’t wait to share them with the world.

There are producers on hand; the new ones smile nervously if this is their first time out, while the veterans wear poker faces and hope for the best. There are network executives saying one thing in front of a full room while their every word is diligently transcribed by stenographers, and quite another once they’ve had a few at the hotel bar and think nobody’s listening.

Oh yes, and there are stars.  Actors and actresses we’re all quite familiar with who, in most cases, actually want to sit down chat with us. No kidding.   Barely two summers ago, a lively Jennifer Westfeldt shared war stories about how nerve-wracking the audition process can be, illustrating her point by sharing that her longtime boyfriend had to audition for the lead in a cable drama no less than six times before the network finally gave him the role. The problem was, nobody had heard of him. A mere two seasons later Westfeldt’s man, “Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm, is up for an Emmy.

And that’s the real fun of it, looking behind the curtain to see who, and what, will be involved in the shows we watch – and based on what we see, whether we’d advise viewers to give those shows their time.  So visit IMDb.com’s TV blog often over the next ten days for updates, observations and lots more strange moments for dessert.  Cable’s up first. PBS arrives this weekend, and the networks have their turn next week.

The shrunken head, by the way, was delicious.