A whole hour of Jay Leno telling reheated 12-year-old Bill Clinton jokes at a time that even allows the elderly to be somewhat nonplussed by it? Brilliant! But what’s the show going to be like?

Well, according to Jay Leno himself, it’ll be just like his old show but with more ’stunts’. And stunt number one? Seeing how quickly he can send Conan O’Brien into the depths of gibbering impotent psychosis. We imagine.

Depending on who you ask, NBC’s decision to give Jay Leno a new show at 10pm every weekday is either genius or utter madness. The naysayers are claiming that NBC broadcasting three near-solid hours of talkshow each night is too much, that it shows the network is turning its back on quality primetime television and that if Jay Leno wasn’t even funny at midnight when most Americans are drifting of into a pharmaceutically-assisted sleep, then he’ll be even less funny at 10, when most Americans are getting drunk and beating their wives.

But these people are wrong. The new Jay Leno show is going to be a success. A horrible, horrible success. Even if it fails it’ll still be a success. Compared to a big drama series like, say, Law And Order, an hour of Jay Leno babbling about cars and holding up pictures of unfunny news stories will be so cheap that it’ll still be more profitable even if nobody watches it.

What’s more, with its winning talkshow line-up of Leno, Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon, NBC will be able to offer its viewers three different takes on the day’s news – the gentle mainstream one from Jay, the smarter, more sophisticated one from Conan and one jittery, pretend-nervous one that isn’t remotely funny and gets delivered by a person that most people would like to punch in the mouth.

But, aside from being cheap – and the source of Conan O’Brien’s lingering resentment for many years to come – what’s the new Jay Leno show even going to be like? Luckily Jay Leno himself has been on hand to tell TV Week:

“‘The Tonight Show’ belongs to Conan O’Brien now. So the desk, the format … it will be a little bit different. It’s really based on what do people like and not like. I’ve been keeping notes for 17 years. I’m not going to suddenly start doing modern interpretive dance. I like to stand up and tell jokes.”

You hear that? Jay Leno’s new show will be completely different to The Tonight Show – yes, there’ll be a monologue and some celebrity guests and stunts and topical jokes and whatnot, but it’ll be called The Tonite Show instead of The Tonight Show which, as any fool can see, is completely different.

But still, are we the only ones who see a flaw in this plan? Jay Leno says the show is going to be ‘based on what do people like and not like’ – but, since it’s a show that’s got Jay Leno in it, our guess is that it’s going to veer more heavily to the ‘not like’ side.

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But that was never actually going to be the case. There’s such a dearth of middle-aged male millionaires who aren’t as funny as they think they are on TV right now that Jay Leno was never going to stay retired for long.

And now we know what Jay Leno’s next show will be – it’s his old show, basically – on the same network, in the same studio and broadcast 90 minutes earlier so even more people can get contaminated by watch it.

It’s fair to say that there are two types of people in the world – the type that finds Jay Leno funny and the type that’s medically allowed to operate heavy machinery.

However, you can’t deny Jay Leno’s popularity – whether it’s because he’s been the voice that lulls America to sleep with slightly rubbish jokes and interviews so bland that they may as well be conducted by a knitted frog in a hat for 15 years, or whether it’s because people love watching middle-aged men make blusteringly inappropriate gay jokes to minor actors, Jay Leno is inexplicably beloved by millions of weirdos.

And that causes a problem for NBC. Years ago Jay Leno decided that he was going to retire from The Tonight Show in 2009, so NBC quickly moved in and made sure that they signed up Conan O’Brien to take his place. But then as 2009 got closer, Jay Leno got ants in his pants and decided that maybe he wanted to stay, but he couldn’t stay, and all the other TV networks were like “Hey, come join us!” and Jay Leno started spinning around in a daze and took out six storefront windows with his giant chin because he was so disorientated. Figuratively.

But now the problem has finally been solved. Jay Leno has announced his new show, and it’ll come as good news to anyone who liked his old show. Because, well, it is his old show. But here’s the thing – it’s going to be broadcast at 10pm instead of 11:35pm. The New York Times reports:

The new show, which will begin next fall, is expected to be set in Mr. Leno’s longtime studio in Burbank, Calif. Mr. Leno is expected to retain many of the most popular elements of his “Tonight Show,” including his monologue and bits like “Headlines” and “Jay Walking.” One “Tonight Show” staff member said the new program would not be a variety show.

Theoretically this could be a winner for NBC. Jay Leno is a much-loved performer who’ll be exposed to an earlier timeslot – and therefore a much bigger audience – with his new show. This could mean he’d get the jump on all the big-name guests, leaving the late-night talkshows to blunder through interviews with reality TV stars and authors of books about amusing rock formations.

There are downsides to this gamble too, though – by putting his show on at 10pm five times a week, Jay Leno’s competition stops being David Letterman and starts being CSI and Without A Trace and other wildly popular police dramas that he’ll have trouble keeping up with.

Plus, putting Jay Leno on at 10pm means that NBC is giving over three hours of every day to three different versions of the exact same formula. Not only is 15 hours a week of chat massive overkill, but it’s going to make people resent poor Jimmy Fallon more than they already do, if that’s even possible.

Finally, though – and this is the biggest downside of all – how long will it be before America discovers that it only found Jay Leno funny when it was drowsy and on the verge of sleep? We’re going to hazard a guess here – it’ll be about 12 seconds.

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And that spells a big uh-oh for Heroes, because both of those apply equally to it. The latter has done since around the end of the first season, but the former has only just happened. Heroes co-executive producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander have been given the boot by NBC in an attempt to make the show decent again.

There’s no word on who’ll replace Loeb and Alexander on Heroes, but we think it’ll be us. We have a three-point Heroes resuscitation plan raring to go, and it’s unbeatable. 1) Reduce the cast down to a key core of characters, 2) ditch all the time travel, and 3) bring in a new character who’s a cartoon time-travelling giraffe who speaks in rhymes like a rapper and has magical sunglasses. Kids still like rap, right?

Remember when everyone liked Heroes? You have to cast your mind back quite a way, but they did. When it started, Heroes was like Lost, except that it answered questions instead of wallowing around examining its own navel all the time.

Public opinion about Heroes has changed a little since then – it’s now like Lost except that nobody watches it, none of the characters are good, the stories are all rubbish, the acting is weak and all in all sitting through an episode is so pointless that you may as well spend an hour trying to push a goose up a badger’s bottom. Generally speaking.

It’s clear that Heroes needs something big to happen to change and, since NBC appears to be ignoring our calls to turn it into The Hayden Panettiere Rides A Mechanical Rodeo Bull In Slow Motion In A Swimsuit Hour, it’s decided to give the shove to a couple of co-executive producers instead. Variety reports:

Big shakeup on the staff of NBC’s “Heroes” came down on Sunday with the axing of co-exec producers Jesse Alexander and Jeph Loeb. Both had been with the show since its first season. It’s understood that Alexander and Loeb were let go because of Peacock execs’ frustration with the creative direction of the show.

It’s absolutely right that NBC should be concerned about the creative direction of Heroes. If the show continues to slide in quality at its present rate then we expect the entire second half of this season to consist of nothing but Mohinder waffling endless half-sentences about destiny and God and genetics to a photograph of a duckling. Actually, we take that back – we’d much prefer to watch that than Heroes as it currently is.

But, hey, if anyone can turn Heroes around, it’s the network executives. Give them a few million dollars to focus group the problem and we’re sure they’ll get Heroes back on its feet.

Well, it won’t be Heroes as such – it’ll be a new show set in space, and all the characters will be kung-fu girls in bikinis, and the end of each episode will be decided by text-vote, and it’ll be called Heroez and afterwards there’ll be a real-life reality show all about the dramatic ups and downs of Hayden Panittiere and Milo Ventimiglia’s relationship called Heroez: Unzipped – but kids like shows that have a ‘Z’ instead of an ‘S’ at the end, right?

After spending 17 months in the television wilderness, where she’s filled her time with nothing but failed comeback attempts and screwy pronouncements about other gay celebrities, it’s been announced that Rosie O’Donnell will host a live one-hour primetime show on NBC the day before Thanksgiving.

The show is to be entitled Rosie’s Variety Hour. It’s an accurate name, since the entire show is going to be an hour of Rosie O’Donnell destroying a variety of things that make her angry with a cricket bat – like a bible, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the headquarters of an anti-abortion lobby group and, as a finale, a 30-storey slime-filled papier mache sculpture of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Donald Trump holding hands.

It’s so strange to think that Rosie O’Donnell hasn’t been on TV for a year and a half, because she’s actually an incredibly versatile performer.

Just look at the things that Rosie O’Donnell has done in the past – she’s been a stand-up comedian, she’s hosted her own daytime TV show, she’s starred in sitcom and she’s destroyed the notion of Betty Rubble being sexy for about five separate generations. Oh, and she’s the queen of bellowing furious abuse at shrill conservatives, too.

However, it might have been this last one that’s kept Rosie O’Donnell off TV. After her final berserk days on The View, nobody wanted to touch her. The producers of The Price Is Right shied away from Rosie because she’d probably want to change the name to The Price Is RAAAAARGH! and would only ever ask questions about the price of the illegal war that America is waging in the Middle East in both financial and human terms.

But at least Rosie O’Donnell can put all her failure behind her now, because she’s just landed what might be the biggest job of her career – her very own primetime NBC show. EW reports:

Appropriately titled Rosie’s Variety Hour, the special will kick off with a topical monologue and feature celebrity guests, musical acts, comedy skits, and a “giant” giveaway for both the in-studio and home audiences. “This is a dream come true for any performer,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “Old time variety, live from New York with a nod to Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett and memories of Sonny and Cher.”

We’re really looking forward to Rosie’s Variety Hour, you know – we hear that the giant giveaway at the end comes in the form of knowledge, as a giant flashing sign that reads YOUR GOD IS DEAD AND ALL LIFE IS A MEANINGLESS STRING OF EVENTS WITH NO UNIVERSAL CONSEQUENCE.

But, regardless, we’d like to extend our sincere congratulations to Rosie O’Donnell. This is her dream job and, if the special is a success, it’s bound to run forever.

Or until Rosie decides to blurt out some sort of massively controversial rant about something sensitive enough to alienate her advertisers and put an end to the show, at least.

So about three weeks, then.

Maybe it won’t be so bad though. The entire old cast is returning to reprise their roles, and to once again live with their really old mother. Sure, it sounds improbable, but the scriptwriters are supposedly coming up with all sorts of ways to make the transition go off real smoothly – for instance Danny Bonaduce’s character moves back home because he’s hiding from a newly resurrected KGB, and David Cassidy’s character retreats to his mother’s residence after losing half his brain in an industrial mining accident.

See, Hollywood has ways of making this kind of stuff work.

NBC has reportedly just picked up rights to a brand new version of The Partridge Family. It will be packed with all new cast members despite what lazy research caused us to write in a preceding paragraph.

The plot for everything is supposed to basically remain the same, except the mother will be more of a stage mom who dresses her kids up in that red martian Britney Spears-jumpsuit before she allows them to perform in front of anybody. It should really be pretty sexy.

For paedophiles.

To everyone else though, the idea pretty much screams mistake. Here’s what the Hollywood Reporter knows about it:

“The Partridge Family” has found a new network home at NBC. The Peacock has picked up a contemporary single-camera take on the classic ABC sitcom to be written by Jeff Rake…A fan of the 1970s series, Rake plans to “turn the premise on its head.”

“In the original, the kids actually recruited their mom to front the band, which I can’t see happening in any family on this planet,” he said. “The new version will reflect what seems to me to be the more realistic family band scenario these days: a struggling, sort of well-meaning mom pimping her kids in order to create a wholesome-slash-sexy cash cow.”

If all this ends up to not be the ratings juggernaut Rake seems to expect, it won’t effect him too much. That’s because he’s already got partially written scripts for newly conceptualized versions of The Brady Bunch, The Monkees, and a younger, more musical take on the Great Grape Ape.

That last one will probably feature animatronics. If it’s good it will, anyway.

This kind of old classic remake-thing has happened before, you know. We’ve got a clip it. It’s The New Monkees. Take a good look at it and then tell us if you think this Partridge Family thing is a good idea.

Trouble is, though, Quincy says he can't even afford a bejewelled sex gerbil, which he's why he's suing NBC.

Hard-bitten, authority-disrespecting, super-sleuthing coroner Quincy – who was the star of a hard-hitting documentary series for seven years – claims that NBC has been gypping him out of money. Money that he wants. However, Quincy is now 85 years old and might not be thinking straight, because he's also claiming that Quincy wasn't a documentary and that his real name is Jack Klugman. Quincy's name isn't Jack Klugman! Quincy's name is Quincy! Quincy!

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the world of forensic medical examining was boring. People would die by accident and they'd be buried in the ground within an hour. Then came Quincy, who revolutionised the profession forever on three fronts.

Instead of blithely accepting deaths as accidental, Quincy routinely a) discovered that most deaths were caused by murder, b) argued with his superiors who disagreed with him even though Quincy was always right with every single dead body he was ever given for seven years straight and c) showed mangled-up dead bodies to policemen until they threw up or fainted.

That's standard practise amongst coroners these days, but Quincy was a trend-setter. And when he allowed NBC to film him solving 148 cases in a row from 1976 to 1983, Quincy signed a contract that promised him 25% of net profits from the show. And here's the problem. Quincy, who's bizarrely started to believe that he's an 85-year-old actor called Jack Klugman who also starred in 12 Angry Men and two episodes of Diagnosis Murder, claims that NBC owes him money.

The New York Times reports on Jack Klugman's quest for Quincy's millions:

Mr. Klugman said his 1976 contract with NBC entitled him and his company, Sweater Productions, to 25 percent of the net profits of “Quincy,” which ran from 1976 to 1983 and was rerun afterward. “I recently heard that they made $250 million, and it’s still on TV in Germany,” said Mr. Klugman, 85. “I don’t want their money. I want my money. I worked my tail off. I got up at 4 in the morning and stayed at the studio. I did rewrite. I edited.” He said that his copy of the contract was lost when his agent died and that NBC refused to provide a copy. According to the lawsuit, NBC provided Mr. Klugman with an accounting statement showing that the series lost $66 million through 2006.

There's a bit of a difference between $250 million and $minus66 million, and perhaps this lawsuit will get to the bottom of it. After all, Quincy needs to stand up for his 1970s/1980s procedural colleagues here. If NBC has been screwing him out of money, then what about Columbo? Or the singing teapot from Murder She Wrote? Or Ironside! Won't somebody think of Ironside! His legs don't even work properly!

Actually we're leading you on a little here – in all honesty we don't think that Quincy needs to sue NBC at all. We've seen the opening titles to Quincy and it's clear that he's easily rich enough to lounge around on big yachts with blonde bikini-clad temptresses. That's enough money for anyone, surely.

To prove our point, here are the opening titles to Quincy with some newly-uncovered lyrics, aka the best thing on the internet at the moment…

Read more:

Klugman Sues Over ‘Quincy’ – New York Times 

Or, to put it another way, Piers Morgan went to America looking for success, and America (and by America we mean Donald Trump) looked back at Piers Morgan and replied: "Sure, why not? You're a man with all the qualities required to succeed here. Your wish is our command".

What is wrong with America? It all started off so positively some 40,000 years ago when a bunch of wandering nomads from Asia decided to set up camp. They had a quaint little society going on, and for thousands of years everything was wonderful, but then in 1492 some Italian named Chris landed on the shore and it all turned to shit.

Civil War, Vietnam, Iraq, then Will and Grace, and now this, the ultimate coup de grace – Piers Morgan – whose list of crimes include making people feel sympathy for Jeremy Clarkson, being editor of the News Of The World once, and having the name Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan. Commenting on Morgan's performance in the show, touped-twat Donald Trump told him:

"You're a vicious guy; I've seen it … You're tough, you're smart,
you're probably brilliant, I'm not sure. You're certainly not
diplomatic, but you did an amazing job and you beat the hell out of
everybody."

The final task on Thursday's finale was to hold a charity event and raise as much money as possible. Morgan's rival, country singer Trace Adkins, had the duty of babysitting The Backstreet Boys, while Piers was responsible for the auction and food.

Trace sold more tickets, but Stefan Pughe raised the most money, earning an additional $250,000 (£125,000) for his charity.

And what was Morgan's chosen charity? Why it was the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which provides support for families of U.S. military personnel who have died in the line of duty.

Which is all very well, but it just goes to prove that, no matter how much of an utter cunt you are, if you cheer loud enough in support of the troops, all will be forgiven, even if you had previously been sacked for publishing faked photographs of Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army personnel.

Whatever, America, you can have him, but don't doubt for one moment that this is anything other than your Judgement Day. So long, it's been good to know ya.

That's right, it's sodding Fearne Cotton being jammed down your throat every day and night on TV, goading you closer to suicide with her big stupid voice and ridiculous clothes. Fearne Cotton is easily the worst thing about living in the UK.

But guess what? Fearne Cotton isn't going to live here any more! She's got a deal to host a primetime NBC show in America, so she'll go and live there instead. This is how Tina Turner must have felt when Ike died.

American TV producers know that nothing goes down with audiences as well as a vaguely annoyed British person. Simon Cowell's done well there, as have Anne Robinson, Gordon Ramsay and – bewilderingly – Piers Morgan. But maybe NBC misread the memo recently, because when it was chosing the host of new show The Guinness Book Of World Records – Live!, it didn't stump for a vaguely annoyed British person. It went with a vaguely annoying British person.

OK, not vaguely annoying. So annoying that just the thought of her makes us want to cry blood. It's Fearne Cotton.

Somehow – we think because she's young and looks like she knows how to send a text message – Fearne Cotton has managed to become every producer's favourite youthy presenter. It's quite an accomplishment for Fearne, because someone who studiously fills their sentences glottal stops and shouts! Every! Word! Like! It's! More! important! Than! It! Actually! Is! as much as Fearne should really have never graduated from drama school.

But, hey, as The Sun reports, that's America's problem now:

The bubbly blonde, 25, has signed a big-money deal with NBC to host The Guinness Book Of World Records – Live!… Fearne’s two-hour Guinness Records special will feature a countdown of the craziest records ever held. The show will end with a live motorcycle stunt in which Clint Ewing, 27, will try to ride through the longest-ever tunnel of fire.

What? It's not a series? Fearne Cotton is only presenting a two-hour special? That's rubbish. But, hey, maybe it'll lead to more American work. Maybe Fearne Cotton will still go and live there eventually. Right?

Well maybe not. Look at Fearne Cotton's presenting track-record. She presented Top Of The Pops and it died. She presented Love Island and it died. She presented Holly & Fearne Go Dating and not a single person watched it. She helped to host the UK's Eurovision Song Contest qualifiers and Scooch won. The woman is the kiss of death, which probably isn't something that Clint Ewing wants to hear.

Stil, maybe two is hours is all America needs to realise that a tiny pretend-cockney gonk constantly shouting made-up words and pretending that she likes indie music even though the most leftfield record she's ever bought is clearly Lady In Red isn't for them. But at least they're taking Fearne Cotton off our hands for two hours. Thank you, America.

But if you ever come for Konnie Huq we'll cut you with a knife.

Read more:

US deal is a nice little Fearner - The Sun 

The Golden Globes – the all-singing, all-dancing, glitzy, foreign-voted cousin to the Oscars – is set to take place on Sunday, but the writers' strike means that it will be boycotted by all the nominees if it gets televised by NBC as planned. And now the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is pushing NBC to not broadcast the awards at all so that the stars won't face picket lines on their way in. Of course, without cameras there to capture them in their pretty dresses and painstaking make-up jobs, there's a good chance that the cast of Desperate Housewives will disintegrate into clouds of dust at some point during the ceremony, but that's the chance they'll have to take.

We take everything back about awards season. Everything at all. We know we've been laying into it for a couple of months now, saying that the whole thing is nothing more that a series of excuses for actors to publicly congratulate each other for being so brilliant at repeating a handful of words off a piece of paper at a time in funny costumes, but in reality this might just be the best awards season ever.

And that's all down to the striking writers. Sure, the Writers Guild Of America strike has meant that your favourite TV shows – and Heroes – aren't getting made properly, that the sequel to The Da Vinci Code has been postponed and that Jay Leno has been told off for telling a bunch of lame jokes off the top of his head, but it also means that the Golden Globes might not be on TV this year.

You know the Golden Globes – the award ceremony that's like the Oscars except Sharon Stone gets to do a nauseating retrospective highlight show filled with preposterously unconvincing fake laughter beforehand. This year it looks like Atonement might win a lot of Golden Globes, only you probably won't see it because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, organisers of the Golden Globes, wants NBC to drop the broadcast of the ceremony to stop it turning into a no-star farce.

You see, if the Golden Globes are televised, then nobody from the Screen Actors Guild will show up. And that means that there'll be nobody to present the awards and nobody to receive them. According to SAG president Alan Rosenberg:

"After considerable outreach to Golden Globe actor nominees and their
representatives over the past several weeks, there appears to be
unanimous agreement that these actors will not cross WGA picket lines
to appear on the Golden Globe Awards as acceptors or presenters."

So today NBC will make the decision whether to go ahead with the Golden Globes broadcast even though it'll consist of an empty plinth in front of rows and rows of empty chairs, whether to delay it for a few weeks while it negotiates with the WGA or whether to drop it from the schedules completely and let the ceremony take place away from television.

Fingers crossed that it won't be the last option, because we don't know if we'd be able to cope knowing that somebody was handing out awards to actors behind our backs. To think, it's a possibility that this time next week the only way we'll know the Golden Globes even happened is by the four billion newspaper pictures of Cameron Diaz twatting about on the red carpet in a dress that she's clearly 15 years too old for. And what a kick in the nuts that'd be.

Read more:

With stars dimming NBC may unplug Globes – Reuters