8 Weekly World News Characters That Could Hit TV

As Playboy clubs are relaunched, show about clubs arrives

(NEWSER) - Playboy is coming to primetime. NBC ordered the pilot of the imaginatively-titled Playboy, a one-hour drama about the Playboy bunnies working in a Chicago Playboy club in the 1960s. There were once 22 Playboy clubs around the world, but all closed by 1991, Variety notes. The show arrives just as they may be experiencing a comeback, with new locations in Las Vegas and Macau. Also in TV-related Playboy news: Read about how the Playboy channel is reinventing itself by trying to appeal to women. More»

Did we really need the first 'Love Boat,' let alone the second?

(NEWSER) - Hollywood is constantly churning out movie remakes that really should never have been greenlighted, but TV doesn’t get off scot-free. The Huffington Post lists 11 boob-tube remakes we really never needed to see:

• Knight Rider: “The original starring The Hoff is a camp classic,” writes Ross Luippold, but “not even Will Arnett, who was cast as the voice of KITT until being replaced by Val Kilmer, could save this dud.”
• The Love Boat: “The 1970s were encapsulated in The Love Boat: polyester clothes, soft lighting, and a swingin' good time.” Something that time-sensitive should never be remade.

Don't feel too bad, Lone Star

(NEWSER) - After just two episodes, Fox’s Lone Star has been canceled —but that’s nowhere near surprising, writes Jace Lacob on the Daily Beast . The broadcast network business has become increasingly “cutthroat,” and Lone Star was severely ratings-challenged (although people seemed to like it ). “Unlike cable, there is no significant opportunity to find an audience if a show doesn’t click with the public in the first week,” he writes, and lists 10 other shows from the past 15 years that have been put out of their misery after one or two episodes. View clips in the gallery, or for the complete list, click here . More»

It's sort of like the roommate version of $#*! My Dad Says

(NEWSER) - Fresh off the premiere of its first Twitter-based comedy, CBS is developing another. The network acquired a script deal for Shh … Don’t Tell Steve, based on a Twitter feed about a guy secretly tweeting everything his slob of a roommate does (sample: “Steve, just now, yelling from our bathroom: ‘Total Asparagus pee bro! Come smell!’”). The network's first Twitcom, $#*! My Dad Says , premiered last week. Steve will be produced by Twitter king Ashton Kutcher , according to the Hollywood Reporter . More»

Forget new shows: You're missing out on these old shows

(NEWSER) - This fall, instead of trying to figure out what NBC's sure-to-be-mystifying The Event is actually about, why not pick up a great show that's already on the air? Kevin Fallon gives his 12 picks in The Atlantic :

• Cougar Town: Don't count Fallon among the many Cougar Town haters . He calls the Courteney Cox show one of "television's strongest ensemble comedies," a "sharply written sitcom about a quirky group of friends and neighbors."
• In Treatment: Don't be scared by its unusual format (often, "the screen is shared by just two actors for an entire episode"): Gabriel Byrne 's show about therapy is "one of the finest acting showcases in television."