More "Chuck"? Yes, please!

You know, my hopes have already been raised and dashed by that dastardly rumor that "Chuck" would come back as soon as the end of October (which is, of course, just about here, with no "Chuck"), but I'm certain this time that this just-as-good information is satisfactual.

With another of its new shows crashing early - this time "Trauma," poor Derek Luke deserves much, much better - it seems that NBC has already ordered six more episodes of "Chuck," upping the second season order from 13 to 19 (and, if enough people tune in, perhaps maybe even 22 - hey, I can dream right?)

No word yet that it would come back any earlier than the originally planned March, but the way things stand now, it would probably be best to just wait until then. NBC has the Winter Olympics, so if "Chuck" were brought back in, say, January, it would just get preempted for the second half of February and perhaps lose any new viewers it may have picked up. Methinks, all things, considered, waiting until March would be just fine.

Whenever it comes, however, more "Chuck" is just sensationally good news. Stay tuned for more details as I get them.

The word is also out today on when we'll get to see another of my favorite comedies, but probably one that should be off the air already.

How in the world "Scrubs" has survived for what will be its ninth season beginning Dec. 1 with two episodes on ABC, I'll never know, but I do know that when it returns this time it won't look much like anything we've seen in the past.

As far as I know, all the regular cast members except for Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) and perhaps Carla (Judy Reyes) have mostly moved on and will only be seen in brief recurring spots from time to time (but it sure is nice to see Neil Flynn each week on "The Middle.") Instead, we'll find Dr. Cox with a new crop of med students to berate and perhaps break down.

I'm all for a fresh start, and I like this show enough to give it another chance this winter, but the main problem is that when they tried to introduce a new cast of characters last year, they all bombed (and I assume will all be gone.) I mean, when you have veryfunnyman Aziz Ansari and you give him absolutely nothing funny to say, you're certainly going in the wrong direction.

But, enough of that. Like I said, I'll at least tune in to see if any of the magic still exists. And all I have except for that today is a couple of videos that caught my eye this morning.

First up is a deleted scene from J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek," which I assume will be included with the DVD release coming Nov. 17. Like most people, I loved the flick, and am almost certain it will end up on my top 10 for the year. Enjoy.


Star Trek - DVD Bonus Footage

And finally comes something that's, unfortunately, at least as depressing as it is enjoyable. If you somehow haven't seen Joss Whedon's short-lived series "Firefly" or the improbable follow-up flick "Serenity," you've missed one of the truly great characters of the last 10 years or so in Nathan Fillion's Captain Mal Reynolds. Watch them as soon as you can, and just to stir some memories, here's Fillion donning the familiar garb for a recent episode of "Castle," which I just can't bring myself to watch because I already absorb way too much just-above-average TV and just don't have time or energy for something that looks so thoroughly banal. Anyways, enjoy the clip, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

A Cool Coens gathering in Macon, and the bizarro future of "Scrubs"

I don't think I'll ever be particularly good at social networking or understand the real use of Facebook beyond an amusing diversion, but it finally came through at least slightly last night.

Sitting at home on a Friday night watching the Braves blow out the BoSox (fairly pathetic I know, but entertaining all the same), I decided to check the facebook, blog, etc., and got this interesting post from my friend and boss Stephanie Hartley.

It seems that some group in Macon called the College Hill Corridor Commission, while being far from the most organized folks in town, are fans both of great (or at least extremely funny) movies and showing them outside, hence a rather cool happening Sunday night less than a mile from my house.

The original plan, which would have made me just say meh, was to show some version of "Shrek" this Sunday night. Well, thankfully, but with little notice, they've changed both the movie, "Raising Arizona" (huzzah!), and the venue, to Tattnall Square Park. There are few better communal movie viewing experiences than watching a very funny flick with a hopefully large group of people, so come and check it out this Sunday starting at 8 p.m.

But here today it's largely about a deliriously silly comedy that might appeal to people who might just not live within 20 minutes or so of my house, "Scrubs," which is somehow headed for a ninth season on ABC, but apparently in radically different form.

Before I launch into it, credit for all this goes to the seriously TV-obsessed Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly, who got the goods in an interview with "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence.

Now, we already know that the core stars, Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke, will be back for very limited runs at best (and worst of all, Neil Flynn's delightfully deranged janitor will not be back at all), so to fill this void, Lawrence has come up a change of venue of sorts.

When the show returns next winter, John C. McGinley and Donald Faison will be the principal stars (in no way at all a bad thing), and they will now become med-school professors rather than active doctors. Take that in for a moment.

Actually, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Since you have to start with a whole new crop of players, why not make them students and shake things much more than a bit? Anyone who tuned in for the truncated eighth season earlier this year will probably agree with me that the new crop of doctors shared only one trait: They were uniformly unfunny. So I guess they realized it's time for at least a gallon of new blood.

And besides, for classroom comedies, Lawrence at least seems to have his source material right. As he told Ausiello:

"It'll be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy, It's going to be a different show. It'll still be life-and-death stakes, but if the show is just Scrubs again in the hospital with a different person's voiceover, it would be a disaster and people would be mad."

He said Sacred Heart wouldn't go away completely, since it will still be the show's base of operations and allow familiar faces to return from time to time, but it's still almost a complete change of course, and since "Scrubs" has defied death many times now, it's certainly not of me to doubt its creators.

And with that, I'll simply leave you with the trailer for the October flick "Zombieland," because what Saturday morning isn't at least a little bit better with a funny dose of zombies? Enjoy, and have a great weekend. Peace out.