“I watched the first 10 minutes of the pilot and was so grossed out I just couldn’t watch anymore,” says immunologist Gigi Kwik Gronvall of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Biosecurity.

Even accounting for drama, infectious-disease experts say, the science in Fringe (Fox, Tuesday, 9 ET/PT) goes way off the rails, starting with the opening show, in which a mysterious disease turns a planeful of passengers into flesh-dripping skeletons in moments.

(USA Today)

ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money” was one of several first-season shows that took a big hit from the writers strike last season, both in the ratings and creatively. It started strong, but the strike hit before it could pick up any momentum. And later episodes seemed to slip into a different tone, which ABC execs didn’t like. Two were even shot and shelved. But still, “DSM” has a hot cast and premise - Peter Krause as Nick, the family attorney/factotum/whipping boy for the insanely rich Darling family, most of whom were also just plain insane and hiding various secrets. Now Lucy Liu is joining the cast as the show rolls out Wednesday night for its second season.

In Beverly Hills at press tour, producers Greg Berlanti, Craig Wright, Jon Harmon Feldman and Matt Gross were joined onstage by cast members Glenn Fitzgerald,  Natalie Zea, Blair Underwood, Lucy Liu, Peter  Krause, William Baldwin,  Seth Gabel and Zoe McLellan to talk about the show…

(MeeVee)

One suspects, in the current climate, that the actor Adoni Maropis views the particulars of his visage as both blessing and curse. He’s got a hard brow and even harder jaw; piercing eyes; crisp, bushy eyebrows; a spherical, solid bald head; and a skin tone that allows him to play a range of ethnic backgrounds.

In other words, he makes a great terrorist. On “24″ last year, he played Abu Fayed, the stern, persistent, always-angry head of a terror cell and significant antagonist to Jack Bauer.

So when he appears midway through the fourth-season premiere of “Criminal Minds,” 9 p.m. Wednesday on CBS, as a smiling, warm-hearted ambulance driver who arrives to help a wounded federal agent, it’s difficult not to feel a little impending dread. But this show routinely subverts its mystery by telegraphing its moves way in advance — having Maropis in this role was just one tell among many.

(LA Times)

When last seen months ago, Dean had been ripped apart by hellhounds and his soul was bound and writhing in the pits of perdition.

Hell of a way to end a season.

Instead of hitting a reset button, CW’s “Supernatural” opens an astonishing yet logical door on its occult mythology.

(Boston Herald)

It’s a big month for Alan Ball. The Oscar-winning writer of “American Beauty” and creator of “Six Feet Under” is enjoying the recent premiere of a new series, “True Blood,” on HBO. And ” Towelhead,” his feature film directorial debut, hit theaters on Friday.

On the surface, the two projects couldn’t be more different. Based on the 2005 novel by Alicia Erian, “Towelhead” is the story of an Arab American girl’s sexual coming-of-age in the bland subdivisions of Houston. The film features a thoroughbred cast — Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Toni Collette, Peter Macdissi, plus newcomer Summer Bishil, 20, as 13-year-old Jasira — and is suffused with Ball’s postmodern-gothic sensibility, alternately creepy and revelatory, with a frisky dose of politics thrown in (the film takes place during the first Gulf War).

“True Blood,” by contrast, is about vampires in Louisiana and the mortals who are both repelled and fascinated by them, now that the princes and princesses of the night have come out of the coffin and walk among the living, thanks to the invention of a Japanese synthetic-blood beverage, sold in six-packs. As it turns out, there are good vampires and bad vampires. Actress Anna Paquin is stuck in the middle, as Sookie Stackhouse, a psychic heroine retained from Charlaine Harris’ “Southern Vampire Mysteries” books, the source material for the show.

(LA Times)

The physicians of Princeton Plainsboro take on their most unlikely patient yet: a TV show experiencing sudden growing pains. How Hugh Laurie and Co. plan to put their ”House” back in order.

(EW)

Part of the fun of a set visit in Hollywood is the sense of dislocation, being able to sit next to the gazebo from Gilmore Girlstalking to one of the stars of FOX’sTerminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles about The CW’s 90210.

The Terminator star in question is Brian Austin Green, we’re half a block down from John Connor’s former residence on a rural street on the Warner Brothers lot and the topic of 90210 is completely organic.

Green joined the cast of the FOX drama last season, playing Derek Reese, future robot fighter and uncle to Thomas Dekker’s John, humanity’s eventual savior. Derek’s introduction produced a major deviation in Terminator mythology and instantly concerned Green, a fan of the franchise.

(Zap2it)

Apparently Jack Bauer needs a little breather: After the completion of episode 18 on Sept. 15, production on Fox’s hit drama 24 will shut down until Oct. 9 while the writers reshape the upcoming season’s creative direction — specifically the transition leading to the end game. “We had a couple of scripts that we weren’t happy with,” 24 exec producer Howard Gordon tells EW.com. “We just couldn’t get this direction to work, and we found another one that we liked better, so we wound up retooling it.”

Production shutdowns are usually cause for concern — and 24 is coming off its least critically beloved season — but Howard assures fans that everything will be on track, and the season will not be interrupted.

(EW)

Overlooked in the appeal of a telegenic actor spouting provocative dialogue and the pleasure of being immersed in the dense fabric of a great story is the fact that, behind the scenes, there’s a person or two of less wattage who made it all happen. Unless a show becomes popular enough that its creators become noteworthy - like Aaron Sorkin, David Chase, J.J. Abrams or David Simon - most will be known only to people in the industry.

But at the Television Critics Association press tour in July, these creative types take center stage. They are the executive producers, writers and show runners who make your favorite series stay on track. They keep it real, or funny or intriguing - they’re the architects of the characters and story lines that make hit series so compelling.

(San Francisco Chronicle)