entertainment - "television"

A summary of today's Hollywood happenings in television.

On Sunday night, three new celebrity-focused series will debut, but only one appears to be the typical 'celebreality' crap and nonsense that we've come to expect when celebrities invade unscripted television. Ewan McGregor, Ludacris, Tommy Lee, and Pamela Anderson will be featured on the three series.Ewan McGregor comes to the Fox Reality Channel with his documentary reality series Long Way Down that first aired, in a shorter form, on the BBC last year. The six-episode series debuts at 9 p.m. ET, and follows Ewan and his friend Charley Boorman as they travel 20,000 miles from Scotland to South Africa on motorcycles. Besides the TV show, their journey also resulted in a book, Long Way Down: An Epic Journey by Motorcycle from Scotland to South Africa.It's a sequel to the 2004 series Long Way Round, which chronicled their trip from London to new york and will be repeated on Fox Reality Saturday starting at 2 p.m. ET. (It's also on DVD, and had a companion book, Long Way Round: Chasing

Entertainment Weekly's cover story next week takes an in-depth look at the phenomenon that is The Hills, and what it takes to create the series.The story gives the most detailed account to date of how exactly the show is produced, and EW writer Tim Stack calls the series 'scheduled reality. ... Depending on where the girls are going and whom they'll be with, production will call ahead and clear the locations -- restaurants, cafes, retail outlets -- for the crews to come in. Once everything is set up, Lauren gets her shooting schedule e-mailed to her, usually the night before.'Executive producer Adam Divello admits the show sometimes asks cast members to do retakes. 'If we lose something, or there's no audio and we need them to talk about something [again], we'll ask them to talk about it. Anyone that's making a reality television show that tells you they aren't doing [the same thing] is probably lying,' he said.There's also the problem of Lauren being 'too famous to have anything

SO MUCH television, so little time:_ I went off to the "X-Files" movie with the rest of the die-hards last weekend because, well, I still want to believe.

Exclusives: Veteran exec reups deal through 2012 -- Sony has locked up its tube topper Steve Mosko for another four years, keeping the studio vet firmly in charge of Sony Pictures television.

Locke Key, Watchmen, GraphJam.com, Psych and Ace of Cakes get BOP-love this week. Here's an excerpt:'The television landscape is littered with shows that bear little or no resemblance to their promotional campaign. Some of these programs died on the vine, while others endure despite the mishandling by the network promo department. Thankfully, Ace of Cakes is one of the lucky ones.'

AURORA, Colo. (AP) -- John McCain's presidential campaign has released a withering television ad comparing Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, suggesting the Democratic contender is little more than a vapid but widely recognized media concoction....

International News: Animation pact covers multiplatforms -- Sony Pictures television Intl. has picked up Asian distribution rights to a slate of mobile, online and TV content from U.K. animation house ZAC Toons.