TVSquad

So I guess this is official word that ABC Family is not going to pick up The Middleman for a second season? It's a damn shame because I thought the show was one of the sharpest and most entertaining shows on television. TNT picked up Leverage for a second season and it's also a "fun" show. Maybe the producers should shop the show to another network. In the meantime, things are coming back full circle as word has slipped that ABC Family will be bringing the series finale to comics this summer.

Ironically, the series will be published by Viper Comics, which is the company that published the original Middleman comics that inspired the television series. The graphic novel, titled "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse" is being written by creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Hans Beimler. So in a way you could also call this just the next Middelman comic story. Sure there were some minor continuity variations, but we should get all that trademark snappy dialogue and wacky encounters the show was famous for. And maybe the TV variation of the story behind Wendy Watson's father.

The last week ever of Late Night with Conan O'Brien was bound to include a few shockers. And while I'm still hoping that one of them won't be the failure to launch of Andy Richter's homecoming, another bigger staple came to an end and was probably followed by a long nap and an anthill of shame and loneliness.

Conan held a going away sketch for one of the show's most popular and least marketable characters, the Masturbating Bear.

If you haven't seen this infamous character "in action," feel yourself (not that way sicko) among the fortunate because it's one of the most hilarious and personally shameful moments you will ever experience in your life. Greater even than your prom, your cousin's drunken wedding and your first college beer party where you woke up with one less eyebrow combined.

You may not have realized it after coming off of your President's Day Booze and Beef BBQ, but February 17th was the voluntary day for television stations to turn off those piddly analog signals and crank up their digital ones. Other than one guy shooting his television over the conversion, the switchover of about a quarter of the 1800 television stations in the U.S. went off fairly smoothly. Course, this was just the dress rehearsal. The real performance will be on June 12th, which has become the new 'no change' cut over date.

Being a proud citizen of the United States, I thought I'd take your pulse once again and find out if any stations in your viewing area cut over on Tuesday. If they did, and you were one of those remaining folks without a cable hookup, did you encounter any problems with your new digital converter box? Also, just out of curiosity, was there one major market station that remained in analog mode while the others jumped into the digital pool?

Come on, Americans! Let your voice ring out on this matter.

Warning: this post about the FBI's investigation into the Super Bowl porn snafu uses the word "probe" several times. Viewer discretion is advised.

Comcast's probe into the Super Bowl porno snafu has officially become an FBI probe. A Fox affiliate in Tucson reported that the cable provider has asked the FBI to conduct their own probe into the 30 seconds of pornography that aired during Super Bowl XLIII.

Special Agent Manuel Johnson of the Phoenix FBI field office would only confirm for TV Squad that the probe is still ongoing.

• At 8, NBC has a new Howie Do It.
• FOX has a new Sarah Connor Chronicles at 8, then a new Dollhouse.
• PBS has new episodes of Washington Week, NOW, and Bill Moyers Journal.
• MyNetwork TV has a new Smackdown at 8.
• Cartoon Network has a new Batman: The Brave & The Bold at 8.
• Also at 8: Disney has a new Suite Life on Deck.
• At 9, ABC has a new Supernanny, followed by a new 20/20.
• NBC has a new Friday Night Lights at 9, then a new Dateline.
• The CW has a new 13: Fear Is Real at 9.
• USA has the season finale of Monk at 9, followed by the season finale of Psych.
• Disney has the movie Dadnapped at 9.
• At 10, E! has a new episode of The Soup.
• Sci-Fi has a new Battlestar Galactica at 10.
• Comedy Central has two new episodes of Comedy Central Presents at 10.
• Also at 10: HBO has the season premiere of Real Time with Bill Maher.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

I don't think this is going to happen (not permanently anyway), but Zap2It thinks that it's possible that Michael Scott could be leaving Dunder-Mifflin.

We haven't heard any rumors that Steve Carell is leaving the show, but we do know that Michael Scott is going to become increasingly upset with his corporate bosses at Dunder-Mifflin. He thinks he deserves crazy Jan's old job, but that job is going to former The Wire star Idris Elba. He has signed for six episodes (so far) and just might be the new guy in charge in Scranton. When this happens, Michael actually leaves, and another character leaves with him.

In a way, I'm just as interested in who leaves with Michael as I am the reasons why Michael himself leaves.

It's hard to see beloved characters leave your favorite shows. You have created a bond with them, perhaps even projected their values onto yourself in an effort to raise the self esteem you had before, say, you fell down the Law & Order rabbit hole and started to believe the shows were actual news and not just "ripped from the headlines." But change is inevitable, and sometimes, it works out. Here are a few that worked (at least for me).

1. Current cast of Law & Order: I know, I know, who could replace Lenny Briscoe? No one, really. But the current pairing of Anthony Anderson and Jeremy Sisto as NYPD partners is the best the series has produced. They changed the feel of the show. Perhaps because we're still getting to know them, they are less predictable then previous tandems, and both evoke a certain hard-nosed quality that seems a bit more gritty and real. Plus, Anderson has chops as a stand-up comic, and could easily fill the wisecracker role, if need be.

Seeing Brian Williams sitting next to Matt Lauer on Today was a bit disconcerting, wasn't it? I knew NBC was having some budget problems, but I didn't realize how thin of a bench they actually had. Williams subbed in for Meredith Vieira, but only stayed on the show for an hour, as I'd imagine he'd rather spend the 8:00 hour putting together tonight's Nightly News lineup than talk about ten ways to keep your car running or what Drew Peterson ate for breakfast.

Anyway, Williams was at times a bit too stuffy for the morning gig, but his famous sense of humor showed through a number of times, including the clips after the jump. The first one is a clip reel of some strangely homoerotic interplay between Williams and Lauer, which Al Roker called "a Whitman's Sampler of man candy." The second one is of Lauer, Williams, and Natalie Morales making their Oscar picks.

(S05E16) Hey, folks, Joel here. Isabelle will have a review of this episode for you this weekend, so please check back here for that. In the meantime, use this post to talk about the episode. Considering I haven't watched the show in forever, I can't really comment on what's gone on, except to say: Why is Faye Dunaway in that picture above? I knew her career was in the tank, but now she's down to "guest du jour" on Grey's? It's a far cry from Bonnie and Clyde, isn't it?

Oh, ER. Not again, not again.

If you watched last night's episode of ER, you saw the return of Dr. John Carter. His wife is visiting family in Paris, and he's back in Chicago to...well, we don't exactly know why he's back yet, but he's actually going to be working part-time at County General again. That's the only good news about what happened last night (I thought this was just going to be a quick visit by Wyle for a few episodes, I didn't realize he'd be working at the hospital again) because the ending probably made longtime ER fans sigh and/or grit their teeth.

The last scene showed Carter hooked up to...well, I'm not a doctor, but I'm assuming it's a dialysis machine or some sort of cancer treatment? He had a haunted look on his face, and he had a rather somber attitude throughout the entire episode. Scenes from episodes coming up showed Carter saying that he came back to Chicago specifically to talk to Dr. Banfield (?) and we also saw a scene of Carter dropping to the floor in the emergency room looking really, really bad.

Are they going to kill off Carter a la Mark Greene?

As much as there have been movies about the theater and movies about movies, the films that have been made about television are some of the best ever. This year alone, there are two movies nominated for Best Picture of the year by the Academy Awards that are all about television -- Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. Without TV, neither of these films would exist. Looking back, here are the films about TV that set the standards by which Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon are measured.

This is Spoilers Anonymous, a weekly column here at TV Squad where we supply you with the dirt on some of the more popular shows on the air. We'll never put spoilers up here on the main page in order to help the reformed stay unspoiled. If you have anything to add to the group, feel free to step up and let yourself be heard, either with our tips form or by emailing us at tvsquad at gmail dot com, or call and leave a message at (775) 640-8479. Your anonymity is guaranteed, if you wish to remain as such.

This week we have: 24, Big Love, Bones, Brothers & Sisters, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, Lost, Nip/Tuck, Smallville, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and United States of Tara. (SPOILERS FOLLOW!)

(S18E02) Why do I get the idea that Jeff Probst thinks the ultimate Survivor show includes a blindside ouster of a castaway? Now, I like a good blindside as much as any show fan, but that's not what the show is all about to me. For me, the element of surprise is definitely a plus. However, it's as much about the scheming, the interaction between castaways, the challenges, and even whether I like the casting or not. Jeff was a happy camper because there was a blindside last week. I was a so-so camper about other issues. What about tonight?

First of all, you should all be ashamed of yourself for thinking that title means anything but basketballer.

Former NBA player Duane Causwell and producer Mark Skeete are looking for America's Top Baller. That's the (hopefully tentative) name of a new reality show that's in the works. A bunch of guys will compete to see who is the best amateur basketball player in the country. The winner gets a bunch of money, a sports agent, and their own sneaker. Of course, winning this show doesn't guarantee an NBA career, but I would imagine that if you win this show you're probably pretty talented when it comes to basketball so you'll at least get a tryout with some teams.

We have to come up with a better title though. How about Dribble! or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Basketball Player? Or maybe Don't Forget The Lycra Shorts! I think The People's Court would be a good title, but that's already taken.

[via TV Tattle]

If you're a regular -- or even an irregular -- Two and a Half Men watcher, you've probably noticed that Charlie Sheen's character, Charlie Harper, has a very distinctive look. You might call it immature, if you're nasty, or eclectic, if you're nice, but it is memorable. I've always thought the look was a reflection of the real Charlie Sheen, and now we're going to find out if I'm right.

Charlie Sheen has created the DaVinci Collection, a clothing line focusing on short-sleeved, button front shirts with a retro flair. The prices will be $59 to $79 each and the description strikes me as very much like Charlie Harper's wardrobe.