Good News: Executive producer Andrew W. Marlowe promises that the May 17th season finale of CASTLE will have Beckett and Castle finally acknowledging their attraction to each-other and what’s more, actually doing something about it. Bad News: If five seasons of BONES has taught us anything, “doing something about it” is code for stretching this will-they-or-won’t-they for as long as humanly possible. [Source]

Good News: Anastasia Griffith is joining the cast of ROYAL PAINS in what Michael Ausiello calls a major recurring role. Bad News: For our Mom, also known as the only person we know who is still watching TRAUMA. [Source]

Good News: According to executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz, Paula Abdul will not be returning to AMERICAN IDOL in a desperate attempt to reverse this season’s ratings slide. Bad News: Justin Bieber and the Octomom will be, both of whom will be making an appearance on this Wednesday’s IDOL GIVES BACK. [Source]

Good News: After 25 years, THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW will come to an end on September 9, 2011. Bad News: For many Americans, who will soon be left scratching their head as to what books they should be reading and how to throw an intimate dinner party for eight on a budget. [EW]

Good News: NBC is bringing the lowly-rated TRAUMA back from the dead. Bad News: For the Peacock Network, whose desperate attempt to triage the bleeding that is their primetime lineup speaks volumes about their current woes. [TheLiveFeed]

Good News: Steven Spielberg and Stephen King are joining forces to develop a television event based on King’s just-released supernatural thriller Under the Dome. Bad News: For the writer who is hired with adapting the book for the small screen. Seriously, have you tried lifting the 1000 plus page tome?! [Variety]

You’ve seen the teasers. You’ve heard the hype. Now there’s only one thing you want to know: Which of the new fall shows are worth watching and which should be avoided at all costs? In this continuing series, we give you the scoop on some of the most highly-anticipated shows of the season. Which will be the next GREY’S ANATOMY… and which will be the new JOEY? Next up, NBC attempts to recapture its former ER glory with TRAUMA. 

Why We’ll Watch:  Monday nights are perfect for mindless entertainment, so why not spend some time with the paramedics at San Francisco General as they respond to medical emergencies by land, air and water?  The characters while imperfect, are likeable (Particularly Rabbit (Cliff Curtis), the reckless yet vulnerable flight medic, and Nancy (Anastasia Griffith), an MD who chose to be a paramedic). Which luckily for NBC goes a long way in making up for the series’ been there, done that feeling. Seriously. As much as I really wanted to not like this desperate attempt by the Peacock Network to recapture ER’s glory years, I found myself — in the same way SOUTHLAND grabbed my attention last spring — intrigued enough by the characters and hooked on the adrenaline rush to ask the one question that is music to any exec’s ears: What happens next?

What to Fast Forward Through: Nancy’s conversations with Dr. Joseph Saviano are a bit of a yawn. We get it, Nancy – you’re smart, you have potential, and you’re a rebel.  Do we really need this mentor character Saviano constantly harping on what could have been? 

Watch Live or DVR: If you’re a fan of HOUSE, CSI: MIAMI or CASTLE, TRAUMA is the perfect show to fill the 9PM slot on your Monday nights. That said, if your loyalties lie with hit-com THE BIG BANG THEORY, consider DVR’ing it for some leisurely Saturday or Sunday morning TV.

12:13PM: Executive producer Dario Scardapane promises that while the explosions will grab your attention, what hopefully grabs your heart are these characters. Aahhhhhhh

12:18PM: Just learned that TRAUMA star Cliff Curtis is a New Zealand native. Futher proof that anyone with an accent sounds cooler than me.

12:22PM:“TRAUMA is what happens during the twenty minutes before you hit the double doors,” elaborates Scardapane in what’s turning out to be the catchiest elevator pitch of the day thus far. “This is the stuff you didn’t see on ER.” Well, except for the time that helicopter landed on Dr. Romano, or the time there was that mass casuality train-wreck, snow storm, flood….

12:23PM: Scardapane calls TRAUMA what we’ve been calling it from day one, “ER: THE NEXT GENERATION.”

12:27PM: A TCA member pulls a ‘Comic Con’ by asking each actor on the panel to talk more in-depth about his or her character. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

12:35PM: Actress Aimee Garcia believes that her work on GEORGE LOPEZ helped get her on this show, recounting a story from a real-life EMS ride-a-long she went on. “These people deal with things that normal people will never see, severed limbs, massive blood trauma… and a lot of these people deal with traumatic experiences likek this through humor.” Which is where Garcia lost us. George Lopez, humor… we’re not following.

12:40PM: Meet the only reason why we’re giving this write-by-numbers-medical-drama a second shot, star Kevin Rankin who ranks, “FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHT as a two year acting school.”

12:41PM: Fun Fact: Not only is star Anastasia Griffith [DAMAGES] British, she’s Jamie Bamber’s real-life sister.

12:42PM: Our personal trauma has come to an end, this panel.

Last week the five major broadcast networks outlined their new fall schedules and previewed clips of new series for advertisers at their annual Upfront presentations. After taking a look at these clips myself, I’ve compiled a list, divided into what’s most promising, what’s roughly in the middle, and what looks horrible. These aren’t reviews per se, they’re just immediate reactions to very brief footage – I’ll reevaluate after I’ve screened the pilots later this summer.  First up, least promising of the bunch… Alex O’Loughlin fans, please don’t hurt us.?

100 QUESTIONS (NBC)
Buzz was that NBC was high on this comedy before its Upfront presentation and that it was being touted as “the next FRIENDS.” Highly doubtful, and I’m pretty sure the laugh track was the only thing laughing during the dreadfully unfunny trailer.

BROTHERS (FOX)
Starring former New York Giant Michael Strahan…plays former NFL player Mike Trainor, who returns home to help his brother’s struggling restaurant business. CCH Pounder from The Shield and Carl Weathers also star as their parents. Strahan does fine, but what would really be great is if the whole thing didn’t feel so strained and dated.

THE DEEP END (ABC)
GREY’S ANATOMY with lawyers. Because it refuses to stop.

THE FORGOTTEN (ABC)
A band of amateur detectives work to identify victims and solve their murders. Looks like a COLD CASE lookalike CBS passed on – and with good reason.

HANK (ABC)
Kelsey Grammer plays a CEO who loses everything in the stock market, forcing him and his family to relocate to suburban Virginia. It’s the recession comedy of the year: humble, and kind of cheap.

HAPPY TOWN (ABC)
I demand a moratorium on prefacing previews with “from the network that brought you [insert cult favorite here].” Just because you mention TWIN PEAKS, doesn’t make this murder mystery set in a town Where Bad Things Don’t Happen Twin Peaks. Got it?

MELROSE PLACE (The CW)
Sydney Andrews, of the original Melrose, inexplicably survived her seemingly fatal death and has returned to collect rent from a whole new gaggle of tenants, which include Ashlee Simpson-Wentz in her return to TV. Like the 90210 remake, it seems to lack the balance of soap and melodrama. Needs a Heather Locklear sooner than later.

PAST LIFE (FOX)
Honestly, it’s the silliest sounding show I’ve heard in a while. About “an unlikely pair of past-life detectives who investigate whether what is happening to you today is the result of who you were before,” I couldn’t decipher from the clips previewed whether this reincarnation drama was a joke or a sadly mistaken idea for a procedural.

THREE RIVERS (CBS)
MOONLIGHT’s Alex O’Louglin is a star dammit! It’s great CBS is so enamored with him, but could they find a role any more thankless than as a surgeon at a organ transplant hospital? I don’t even like him that much I know he deserves better than this.

TRAUMA (NBC)
It’s THIRD WATCH, with a bigger budget (so more explosions) and about paramedics. Already I’m feeling medical drama fatigue.

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES (The CW)
Twilight = icky. Twilight x Dawson’s Creek’s Kevin Williamson = slightly less icky, but still pretty icky.