— ABC has picked up Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Castle, Modern Family, The Middle and Cougar Town for next season. As for Desperate Housewives, the contracts of the housewives expire after this season, so they’ll all need to sign new contracts. Meanwhile, Brothers & Sisters is still on the bubble, but the fact that this season’s episode order got upped from 18 to the standard 22 should be a good sign.
— ABC is developing a mini-series with Salma Hayek based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. The 8-part series won’t be a musical since Universal already has a film based on the Broadway adaptation in the works.
— Meanwhile, ABC family has renewed Pretty Little Liars and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
— Speaking of Pretty Little Liars, Kat and I discuss last week’s episode in the latest TV Casualty Podcast. We also discussed The Bachelor and Jersey Shore. You can listen to it here.
— The new season of Torchwood will be called “Miracle Day” and will focus on the fact that no one on the planet can die. Although people keep aging and can get hurt and sick, they never die.
— Plans for David E. Kelley’s version of Wonderman have been shelved.
— Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Weekly that Gwyneth Paltrow will return for episodes 15 and 16 and that Holly will come back as a sex education teacher and will date Will.
— He may have fallen off the docks after getting shot on General Hospital, but Sebastian Roche is keeping busy. The former Jerry Jacks will return to Supernatural for several more episodes later this season as Balthazar and has landed a recurring gig on Criminal Minds.
— Republic of Doyle’s Allan Hawco is set to appear on tonight’s episode of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight before his series premiere’s its second season on Wednesday.
— MuchMusic will bring back The Wedge and Rap City in primetime later this month. Tyrone “T-RexXx” Edwards will be the new host of Rap City when it returns on Thursday, Jan. 20th at 10 p.m. Indie-showcase The Wedge returns on Wednesday, Jan. 26th at 10 p.m. and will be hosted by Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham. The revamped series’ join the recently launched new flagship series, New.Music.Live. (weekdays at 5 p.m.) and the new 2-hour version of The MuchMusic Countdown (Thursdays at 8 p.m.) as well as #Trending (premiering Friday, Jan. 21 at 6 p.m.) which focuses on the biggest music, fashion and videos of the moment. Looks like this is a step in the right direction.
— While The Vampire Diaries doesn’t return until January 27th, here are some recent posters:
