J.J. AND THE CW NEWS
... Producer god J.J. Abrams and his Alias buddy Ken Olin will produce Electropolis, a drama project, for The CW. And just wait 'til you hear the description! "An undercover cop show about after-hours Los Angeles and the young people who live their lives after most are asleep, making their moves to the pulsing beats of electronic music." Remember when we used to get excited about J.J. Abrams projects? [THR]
PRESIDENTIAL NEWS
... Barack Obama, who you may have heard of before, will be the guest on next Thursday's The Daily Show. It will be the sixth time Obama has appeared on the program, and the second since he moved into the White House. [EW]
... Yesterday's vice-presidential debates drew 51.4 million viewers across all networks. Once again, Fox News put in an impressive performance, earning the most overall viewers (more than 10 million). Last week's debates between Obama and Mitt Romney drew 67.2 million viewers by comparison. The VP debate had more competition, though: Real Americans were watching baseball or football. [NY Times]
BUSINESS TIME
... Adult Swim has renewed Robot Chicken for Season 7. [Deadline Hollywood]
... Also up against the VP debate and mediocre football and playoff baseball were the season and series debuts of The Vampire Diaries and Beauty and the Beast. TVD drew 3.18 million people and Beauty and the Beast convinced 2.8 million people to tolerate it; good starts for both but still short of Arrow's 4-million-plus cumulative in its debut. TVD beat Up All Night and tied Last Resort in the adult-demo ratings though, scoring a solid 1.6. Maybe that October start for The CW wasn't such a bad idea. [TV By the Numbers]
... TNT has canceled The Great Escape, a reality series that apparently was on. [TV Guide]
... COPS has a return date... December 15! Bad boys, bad boys, feel free to do whatcha gonna do until then. [Deadline Hollywood]
... HGTV has ordered 91 more episodes of House Hunters International because fake reality television, as it turns out, is really easy and cheap to make. [TV Guide]
... NBC woke up and said, "Hey, we want our own Once Upon a Time!" so it went out and bought Wonderland, a drama set after the events of Alice in Wonderland. The series would feature a new character Clara, who wages war against Wonderland's new queen Alice. The idea comes from Whit Anderson, whom you may recall was behind a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. [Deadline Hollywood]
... Allison Miller, who currently stars on NBC's Go On, has sold an idea to ABC called Michael Bolton's Daughter Is Destroying My Life. The comedy follows a writer who moves to Los Angeles to run the social media account of Michael Bolton (playing himself) and so must deal with his wild-and-crazy daughter. This is so crazy it just might work. [Deadline Hollywood]
... This will SHOCK you, but Tyra Banks, humble patron saint of middling models, is trying to produce a show based on her life. She's at work on Fivehead, a comedy about her awkward teenage years before she became an insane supermodel. [Deadline Hollywood]
... And in merciful news, NBC has decided to kill off Next Caller, the sitcom starring Dane Cook as a totally dude-y radio host who gets a new feminist co-host. Thank you, Jesus! The show was originally given a six-episode order, but NBC brass decided that it sucked. None of the episodes will air. Ever. [Deadline Hollywood]