7 photosYvonne Strahovski

FRIDAY, JULY 22

• “MAD”: 10:00–11:00 a.m., Room 25ABC
• “The Big Bang Theory”: 12:30–1:30 p.m., Ballroom 20
• “Childrens Hospital”: 1:30–2:20 p.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront
• “Green Lantern: The Animated Series”: 2:00–3:00 p.m., Room 6BCF
• “ThunderCats”: 3:30–4:30 p.m., Room 6A

SATURDAY, JULY 23

• “Chuck”: 10:00–10:45 a.m., Ballroom 20
• “The Vampire Diaries”: 3:30–4:15 p.m., Ballroom 20
• “Fringe”: 4:15–5:00 p.m., Ballroom 20
• “Alcatraz”: 5:00–6:00 p.m., Ballroom 20
• “The Secret Circle”: 5:10–6:00 p.m., Room 6BCF
• “Nikita”: 6:00–6:45 p.m., Room 6BCF
• “Person of Interest”: 6:45–7:30 p.m., Room 6BCF

SUNDAY, JULY 24

• “Young Justice”: 10:00–11:00 a.m., Room 7AB
• “Supernatural”: 11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m., Hall H
• “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated”: 1:00–2:00 p.m., Room 6A
• “The Looney Tunes Show”: 2:15–3:15 p.m., Room 6A

Everyone hates summer. We’re forced out of our homes by reruns on TV, only to be assaulted by bright sunlight, abrasively green grass, and painfully hot sand. Thankfully, there’s an end in sight to the awful onslaught of summer, as evidenced by FOX’s fall schedule. Here is the darkness at the end of the painfully bright tunnel:

Monday: “Terra Nova,” the impressively ambitious show with dinosaurs or something at 8 PM, followed by “House” at 9 PM.

Tuesday: Some show called”Glee” at 8 PM, followed by the new “The New Girl” with Zooey Deschanel at 9, then “Raising Hope” at 9:30.

Wednesday: “The X-Factor,” which is different from “American Idol” in dozens of ways, starts at 8 PM. Then it’s “I Hate My Teenage Daughter” with Jamie Pressly at 9:30. That’s right, “The X-Factor” is on for an hour and a half.

Thursday: The evening starts at 8 PM with the results show of “The X-Factor,” which mercifully is only an hour long. Then after that it’s “Bones” at 9.

Friday: “Kitchen Nightmares” at 8 PM followed by”Fringe” at 9. That’s why it’s the most popular TV night of the week!

Saturday: “Cops” is inexplicably still on the air at 8 PM, followed by reruns and “occasional” “America’s Most Wanted” after that at 9.

Sunday: It’s Sunday night animation, starting whenever all that football stuff is over -”The Cleveland Show,”"The Simpsons,” a new show from Jonah Hill called “Allen Gregory,”"Family Guy,” and “American Dad.”

Well, there you have it. Keep this in mind as you struggle to make it through another punishing summer. And remember, you can always watch reruns. (The Hollywood Reporter)

The Fox lot, which was constructed in an alternate universe where”Fringe” is a hit, ordered more episodes to fill the black hole that is Friday evenings. Though the last episode hit a ratings low point, the show has nailed down a key demographic: Fox entertainment chiefs. Kevin Reilly recently said, “It’s a fantastic show, and honestly I’d be heartbroken if it went away.” Too bad”Arrested Development” didn’t get the same kind of influential fan base. (Hollywood Reporter)

A word from Anna: “It doesn’t necessarily matter what your answer is to the question: What is art? So long as you have one.”

“Fringe” has two alternate universes, double versions of most of the major characters and plenty of secrets. Today it was a regular old action scene that had star Anna Torv frazzled. Scheduled for a conference call with the media, Torv handled Olivia Dunham’s business as quickly as possible, and told the press how her world has become one big police emergency.

“We’re at a train station,” Torv said. “We’ve got a hostage situation today. So we’ve got police cars. That’s the terrible thing. There’s all these flashing lights and ambulances and police cars. I was driving home the other day and saw flashing lights and police cars and thought, ‘I’ll keep going.’ It was only when I got home that I realized oh my god, that was a huge accident. That’s not funny.”

More after the jump…

Currently on “Fringe,” our side’s Olivia is being brainwashed “over there” to believe she is the alternate Olivia. Her bizarro self, called anything from Fauxlivia to Altivia, is playing our Olivia, unbeknownst to anyone else. At least there’s job security for Torv. If one of the Olivia’s gets killed, she’s still got another one to play.

“Right?” Torv agreed. “That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.”

It’s been cool for “Fringe” fans to see double Torv and shake things up on both sides of the wormhole. Torv says the real payoff is coming later. “I think that will come when they both get home. I think that’ll be the test. That’s the interesting part about this too because obviously we’ve been following our Olivia and our team for two years now. When you start to see the other side, solving cases and interacting with each other, you realize they’re both just fighting their own cause. Neither is good or bad or right or wrong. That’s hopefully the second half of the season. I’m looking forward to playing them as they are, in their own world. I think that’ll give me a little bit more of an understanding.”

Olivia might have some issues with Peter making out with Fauxlivia, let alone when Peter finds out. “I think that’s fun. The whole Olivia/Peter thing, of course you want them to be together. It’s set up that way. What do you do when all of a sudden you two guys end up together? Then it becomes, what, a romantic drama or comedy? The fact that they’ve been able to get a little bit of that and now it’s one step forward and 10 steps back, I think it’s brilliant. I think that obviously this is an assignment for alternate Olivia but Peter’s a charmer. I don’t know what she’s going to think.”

The double identities are just getting started. Fauxlivia is killing witnesses and seducing Peter (Joshua Jackson) in our world, and “over there” Olivia is learning to shoot straight and make friends with characters long dead in our world.

“I haven’t really had the chance to play the alternate Olivia properly for herself. It’s been sort of our Olivia thinking she’s the alternate Olivia and then alternate Olivia pretending to be our Olivia. It’s been tough to walk that line. What’s been interesting is my attitude or how clearly I’m now seeing Olivia. I don’t think you get those opportunities where you get to sit back and look at a character from a different perspective. Each has their own impression of the other and they haven’t met really properly. It’s been tough but fun. Also I would have loved if we had gone right out there and made her a completely different character, but the differences are subtle. They both ended up in the same job, they both ended up to the point where they had the same partners. It’s just gentle little shifts and it’s been fun.”

Short of putting a goatee on “evil” Olivia, the differences aren’t supposed to be as obvious as perhaps other evil twin stories would make them. That’s where Torv has to really sell it so we know which Olivia we’re watching, even if the other characters don’t.

“More often than not, it’s the things that you wouldn’t expect to be challenging. It’s the ones where they’re doing the same thing, them walking up to a crime scene, how does Olivia handle it and how does Fauxlivia handle it? Sitting around gathering information, those are the bits you go what are they thinking, what are the differences in their thoughts? Not so much the bigger stuff.”

“Fringe” airs tonight and next Thursday before a hiatus for baseball.
 

Noted screenwriter and producer Alex Kurtzman is set to make his directorial debut with Welcome to People. The film is being produced by a man who, despite his influence in the industry, is not well known outside of Hollywood: director Steven Spielberg. Kurtzman first worked for Spielberg on his production of Transformers. While he has gone on to produce various TV shows, including "Fringe" and CBS’s upcoming remake of "Hawaii Five-0," the director’s chair has alluded him until now.

Welcome to People tells the story of a man whose estranged father dies, leaving instructions for his son to deliver $150,000 to a sister he never knew existed. The man wants to keep the money for himself, but can’t help but investigate his long-lost sibling.

When my dad passed away, he left me $150 and stipulated that I should deliver it personally to my estranged second cousin while she was working at The Box Office, a gentlemen’s club in the next town over. Well, he didn’t really stimpulate it so much as he implied it by not specifically saying that I shouldn’t. I miss you, dad. (Collider)

I, on the other hand, recently used Facebook to put forth this existential quandary, "Chinese food or go to gym????"

Get all up in these morning headlines…

Fanboys 2 to shoot next year, be released in 2017. (Cinema Blend)

Somebody won American Idol. (TV Squad)

5 Reasons Why the Terminator Franchise Doesn’t Make No Sense. (Cracked)

Will Spiderman 4 include Kirsten Dunst? (Latino Review)

Voice of Mickey Mouse passes away. High-Pitch Eric waiting by the phone. (Reuters)