NBC plugging the return of American Gladiator for God’s Sake. CBS is looking and bringing in some of the Showtime series that’ve already been airing (though I can’t imagine how they’ll cut down Californication to something that can be shown on network tv while still making any sense at all (not that it was very good, anyway, would rather dig up an old Red Shoe episode). Ancient Leno episodes will be coming back to NBC (personally if they’re going to use classic material, they should use something that’s truly classic and drag out Carson and maybe a few of the older variety shows).

In the end, it’s true that the shows that were facing immediate extinction have gotten a reprieve during this (FNL was all but set to be shown to the locker room), but because their ordered episodes were all in the can, they’re in a position to do better than some of the other shows that only are going to have something like 8 episodes for the season - and when a new show is trying to get traction (like Chuck), this long of a hiatus may well be the death of it. After all, few series have fans as bewilderingly patient as Soprano’s fans when it comes to waiting 18 months to 2 years to get a paltry handful of new episodes (the sad notion the cable networks have of 9-13 episodes constituting a full season).

There’s some hope that some of the European import reality shows might come this way - and I’d like to see some crossover examples of how the Brits handle survivor (Shipwrecked - a show where there’s no prize, just 20 people dropped on an island with nothing but their clothes, and left there to see how they fair). Or if the US screen could handle Big Brother in the Italian or German fashion (ok, about all of the other BBs have had some in-house trists on screen).

Anyone seen anything decent domestic or imported of late? (Other than Razor, which was of course awsome as ever, but we’ll save a BSG discussion for another time).