TVSquad

Jonathan Toomey
- http://www.tvsquad.com/bloggers/jonathan-toomey

This news is a few days old, but just this morning I found it buried in Ausiello's Twitter feed and I haven't seen it reported anywhere else yet.

The final season of Lost is going to be 18 hours instead of 17, meaning a double episode for the premiere and finale. So figure on an extra 45-ish minutes of head-scratching, "what the hell just happened" moments once January 2010 rolls around.

You may recall that at the end season three, ABC, Damon Lindelof, and Carlton Cuse agreed on the final three seasons of Lost being 16 hours each. But after the WGA strike cut season four back to 14 episodes, those last two hours got dispersed between seasons five and six, bumping them to 17 eps each.

I guess it just goes to show you that even the most well thought out plan can be tweaked, but it makes me wonder ... was this ABC's demand to get a longer season or Lindelof and Cuse's creative decision? I guess we'll know for sure if midway through the season we get "Stranger in a Strange Land, Part 2."

Yesterday FX announced their fall premiere dates along with the news that an untitled new half-hour comedy would be launched and paired with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Nothing else was announced about this yet-to-be-named series, but thanks to our reader Jared, we now have an idea of what it may be:

The Norm MacDonald Reality Show.

Nothing has come down from FX regarding this in terms of a pilot greenlight or series pick up, but according to Norm himself? He seems to think it's a go.

(S05E13) "...cause the only thing he can feel is heat." - Tommy's dad

I never want to look at a blow torch again.

I gotta say - I never saw that coming. We've known for some time now that Tommy doesn't feel too much. It takes a lot for him to get passionate about anything and when a glimmer of emotion does emerge, it's usually in the form of yelling and obscenities. I just hope he doesn't develop an affinity for his latest attempt at "feeling."

FX announced their fall premiere dates today and it turns out that they've got quite the schedule lined up for the autumn months.

With Rescue Me set to end it's 22 episode fifth season on Tuesday, September 1st, it comes as no surprise that Sons of Anarchy has been scheduled to fill the Tuesday 10PM ET time-slot starting the very next week on September 8th. The motorcycle drama's sophomore season is generating a lot of buzz ever since the announcement of Henry Rollins and Adam Arkin joining the cast.

But wait - there's more!

Over the span of Hung's first few episodes, Ray Drecker utters a lot of depressing one-liners. Things like "everything's falling apart" and "I used to be a big deal" are common phrases for him. However, as the title of the show suggests, Ray Drecker (played by The Punisher's Thomas Jane) has at least one thing to be very happy about.

The new HBO dramedy is set in Detroit against the backdrop of a financially ruined automotive industry skyline, and as the world crumbles around him, Ray is forced to re-evaluate his life while everything he cares about slowly slips away. It's unsettling and sad, but in some ways, fortuitous ... at least for HBO anyway. Considering the current economic crisis many Americans are experiencing, a lot of people are going to relate to this show. Just probably not to the big penis part.

This is pretty cool, especially since you don't usually get to see or read about stuff like this until you're watching a featurette on a DVD set.

For those that didn't catch last night's episode of Rescue Me ("Disease," S05E12), the opening scene featured a very cool fire sequence in which Tommy, Franco, Black Shawn, and Mike had to escape a burning apartment hallway. The entire sequence was eerily cut to the high-pitched vocals of Duffy and her song "Syrup & Honey," but what came across as most impressive was how real it all looked.

(S05E12) "...you guys have been getting divorced for like eight years. Isn't it time you took that old dog into the woods and put one in it's head?" - Lou

Considering who he's starting to hang around with again, is Lou even qualified to give advice like that? If anyone should be wary of getting back in bed with someone, it's him. At least Tommy knows that Sheila and Janet aren't going to rob him blind ... well, at least not for as much as Candy took from Lou.

We're starting to see the effects of what 22 episodes has done to Rescue Me (in a good way). After last week's first musical number featuring the comatose Sean, "Disease" featured more moments that, while not completely out of place, certainly seem to be a result from the extra breathing room.