TNT will bring ‘Closer’ back next summer
It doesn’t take much detective work to figure out why TNT wants to keep “The Closer” on for another year.
The cable network has renewed the series, the most popular show on ad-supported cable, for a fourth season.
Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) and her team will be back on the case in the summer of 2008 with 15 new episodes.
“With each season, ‘The Closer’ keeps getting better while its audience keeps getting bigger,” said Michael Wright, head of programming at TNT.
“The Closer” is drawing 7.75 million viewers a week this season, an improvement of better than a million viewers over last season’s 6.65-million average.
About 1.2 million of those people are watching the show on their DVRs, TNT says, making it the most-recorded drama.
Sedgwick earned her second Emmy nomination this year for playing the neurotic, cunning and razor-sharp Johnson.
She also won a Golden Globe for her performance earlier this year.
‘American Band’ stands
“The Next Great American Band” is coming to Fox in October.
The talent search, from “American Idol” creator 19 Entertainment, will premiere Oct. 19 with a two-hour episode presumably including audition footage.
It then will move into its regular hourlong format the following week.
Hundreds of bands from around the country, from hip-hop ensembles to country groups, auditioned for the show.
A set of judges will narrow the hopefuls down to 10 semifinalists, at which point the American people will take on voting responsibilities, just as they do on “Idol.”
More ‘Greek’ pledged
Let the hookups, class cutting and booze smuggling continue.
ABC Family announced that it has picked up the college dramedy “Greek” for an additional 10 episodes to air early next year.
“Greek” centers on college freshman Rusty (Jacob Zachar), who is determined not to continue on his bookish geekiness from his high school days.
His solution is to enter the Greek system, but his older sister Casey (Spencer Grammer, Kelsey’s daughter), a sorority siren, isn’t too thrilled to have her little brother encroaching on her territory.