The 19th-century conflict between the Hatfield and McCoy families became the definitive feud of American history. To this day it provides a shorthand way of describing a hate-laced, unbending, seemingly endless battle between two groups. But what in fact happened between the Hatfields and McCoys?

The History channel offers a very long answer with the three-part miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, starring Kevin Costner as “Devil Anse” Hatfield and Bill Paxton as Randall McCoy, the patriarchs of the feuding clans. It premieres from 9 to 11:06 p.m. Monday, 9 to 11:05 p.m. Tuesday and 9 to 11 p.m. Wednesday. History has also tied other programs to the Hatfields/McCoys theme, including back-to-back episodes of Pawn Stars airing at 8 p.m. Monday.

Costner, who is also a producer of the series, has demonstrated a need to take lots of time to tell a story, and Hatfields & McCoys follows that pattern. At times, it seems as if the program is going to last as long as the decades consumed by the real-life feud.

But that time demonstrates how pervasive, and complicated, were the events in the feud. Not only did they involve two large families, but also lawyers, judges, at least one minister, the governors of two states and the U.S. Supreme Court. Periods of seeming peace would end suddenly in capricious bloodletting. (CBS News reported a few years ago on a rare disease afflicting the McCoys, which may have caused some “hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts.”) And when one side was attacked, the other had to respond in kind.

The drama, which draws heavily on historical accounts of the feud, traces it to hard feelings between Anse and Randall during the Civil War, feelings that carried into the postwar years. Although they lived on opposite sides of a river — McCoy in Kentucky, Hatfield in West Virginia — their paths repeatedly crossed and their interests conflicted, usually with lethal results.

While the patriarchs loom over the action, the story spins far beyond them. Key players include Anse’s son Johnse (Matt Barr), who falls in love with Randall’s daughter Roseanna (Lindsay Pulsipher), to the dismay of both families. Perry Cline (Ronan Vibert), a McCoy family lawyer, takes advantage of the feud for his own gain, as does “Bad Frank” Phillips (a quite scary Andrew Howard), a gun for hire with an old grudge against the Hatfields. While Anse seems to drive the feud, his brother Wall (Powers Boothe) keeps getting dragged into it because of his position as a local judge. And there’s Jim Vance (Tom Berenger), Anse’s violent uncle, who repeatedly plays a pivotal role in the feud. So does Nancy McCoy (Jena Malone), unscrupulous and driven.

The cast is good, with many effective scenes. But I still felt too often that the tale could have been more tightly told — and more dramatic as a result.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, Ohio.com and the HeldenFiles Online blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles. He is also on Facebook and Twitter. You can reach him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

By Rich Heldenfels

Beacon Journal pop culture writer

If it’s Thursday, this must be the mailbag.

Q: On the May 6 episode of “Harry’s Law,” one of the people they were defending was a very nice-looking, tall, “English” man. He looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Who was he and what have I seen him on?

A: That was actor Steve Valentine. You may remember him as Dr. Nigel Townsend on Crossing Jordan, the 2001-07 NBC drama starring Jill Hennessy. His extensive credits also include acting the series I’m in the Band and hosting the reality show Estate of Panic. Born in Scotland, he has also worked as a DJ, standup comic and magician.

Q: My favorite shows are “Ringer” on the CW and “Missing” on ABC. I heard that both shows were canceled. If so, why? And is possible they could be going to another network?

A: Both shows were indeed left out of their respective networks’ plans for next season. Ringer looked like a good bet before the season began, with much-liked star Sarah Michelle Gellar playing two roles in the thriller. But it was a bad show, at least at first, and lost some of the people drawn to it. As the Huffington Post reported, the series “premiered last September to mediocre ratings at 2.8 million, but slipped down to 1.2 million by the season finale.” The president of the CW did tell the Hollywood Reporter that the network plans to do something else with Gellar: “She will be back on the CW in some form.”

As for Missing, the drama starring Ashley Judd as a butt-kicking former spy searching for her abducted son, a writer for TV.com snarked that its demise proved “America is not really interested in 40-year-old female action heroes who spend all their time running after planes and falling to their knees to cry.” Which doesn’t seem fair, since I think that at least once she ran after a train before she cried. But, as EW.com pointed out — accompanied, by the way, by a photo of Judd crying — the series “never really found an audience.”

Q: Turner Classic Movies recently ran a movie called “Jamboree!” from 1957. Is there anywhere I can buy it?

A: The movie, about a pop-singing duo, remains of interest for its inclusion of musical performers such as Frankie Avalon, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins and Count Basie, and of disc jockeys from the era, among them Dick Clark and Cleveland/Akron personality Joe Finan. It has been released on DVD; if your local retailer cannot get it, I have seen it for sale online at www.wbshop.com.

Q: I am a big Herbie fan. I have all the Herbie movies on DVD. Can you please tell me if there will be anymore Herbie movies?

A: I am guessing that you are referring to Herbie the Love Bug, the Volkswagen that starred in an array of movie and TV ventures. I do not know of plans for a new production but would not rule one out considering how long the screen history is and how much Disney likes to revisit projects. This project began with The Love Bug with Dean Jones in 1969, then stretched through Herbie Rides Again (1974), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980), a short-lived Herbie the Love Bug TV series in 1982, a TV-movie version of The Love Bug and, most recently, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

Q: What can you tell me about the skeleton called Geoff on the Craig Ferguson show? When did he start? I don’t often stay up that late, but I’ve seen some of a few shows lately and he is hilarious.

A: The robot sidekick — full name, Geoff Peterson — made its debut in 2010. Ferguson, who calls his Twitter followers the Robot Skeleton Army, wanted a robotic sidekick on the show. According to Entertainment Weekly, Grant Imahara of the Discovery series MythBusters “tweeted to Ferguson that, if the late-night host could get Imahara’s Twitter-follower number to exceed 100,000, he’d build Craig a robot sidekick.”

Ferguson, a Mythbusters fan, made that happen. Then Imahara came up with Geoff, which he described to NPR.org as “a biology-class skeleton on steroids.”

He can speak and move — and may be the only late-night-TV sidekick to get a photo display in the magazine Popular Mechanics.

•

Do you have a question or comment for the mailbag? Write to the Akron Beacon Journal, 44 E. Exchange St., Akron, OH 44309 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com. Please mark the email or envelope with “mailbag.” Letters may be edited for publication. Please do not phone in questions. Individual replies cannot be guaranteed.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles. He is also on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES: He already has a Super Bowl ring, and now football star Donald Driver can add the Dancing With the Stars mirrorball trophy to his awards collection.

In a photo provided by ABC Donald Driver and Peta Murgatroyd hold up their trophies after they were selected "Dancing with the Stars" champions Tuesday May 21, 2012. They won the ABC dance show Tuesday after wowing audiences and judges with his kickin' country-themed freestyle routine. (AP Photo/ABC/ADAM TAYLOR)

Streamers and confetti rained down from the ceiling, filling the ballroom as they celebrated. Driver’s wife and children joined him on the dance floor.

With just one point separating the three finalists, it was up to the viewers to pick the winner.

He and his fellow finalists, Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins and Cuban actor William Levy, each earned perfect scores for their last performances Tuesday. Jenkins came into the final contest with a perfect 60 points; Driver and Levy each had 59.

Judges’ scores combined with viewer votes determined the result.

Contestants eliminated throughout the show’s 10-week season reunited for the two-hour finale. Martina Navratilova, Gavin DeGraw, Jack Wagner, Jaleel White, Sherri Shepherd, Melissa Gilbert, Roshon Fegan, Maria Menounos and Gladys Knight all donned costumes Tuesday for one last dance.

Knight did double performance duty, also singing “The Way We Were.” Kelly Clarkson also performed on the show.

The next round of “Dancing With the Stars” will feature contestants from past seasons.

By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal pop culture writer

The commercial broadcast networks have announced their plans for next season. I’m scared.

There’s a beast in New York City. A very scary building. A rogue submarine with nukes. A serial killer, a global power outage, Hannibal Lecter and various mobsters.

On the plus side, we can expect help from a comic-book hero and Sherlock Holmes. And, when they’re not making us nervous, the networks hope to make us laugh.

Scott Speedman, Robert Patrick and Andre Braugher star in ABC's Last Resort. (ABC/MARIO PEREZ)

That’s a somewhat sketchy overview of the new TV season on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW. Each presented its programming plans last week to begin luring advertisers — and to start intriguing audiences. Clips of some new shows went online almost immediately, and more than one announcement came with listings of Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags for series.

Now, with cable often offering its own popular shows and with summer full of network series, the fall broadcast season may seem largely irrelevant to you. But it still remains the place where the biggest TV hits debut, and where many people go for fun as summer gives way to autumn’s chill and winter snow.

It’s very early in a process that usually leads to name, casting and schedule changes before shows hit the air in the fall. Still, I feel some guarded enthusiasm — for, say, Last Resort, the nuclear-submarine saga, or The Mindy Project, a new comedy from The Office writer-actress Mindy Kaling, or Matthew Perry’s latest comedy, Go On.

You may just be wondering whether your favorite current show is coming back. See the accompanying lists of returning shows and of canceled shows. (Again, these lists are just commercial broadcast shows.)

For now, let’s look at each weeknight and what the networks are up to — and up against — in the fall. You can read more about all the networks’ plans at www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles.

Monday

From 8 to 10 p.m., it will be a reality-competition faceoff, with ABC’s Dancing With the Stars against NBC’s The Voice. CBS during that time will stick with comedy: How I Met Your Mother, the new Partners (two best friends, one gay and one not, each have recent romances), 2 Broke Girls and Mike & Molly. (Two and a Half Men moves to Thursday.) Fox, which programs only 8 to 10 p.m., brings back Bones in tandem with Mob Doctor, about a surgeon (My Boys’ Jordana Spiro) who is paying off her brother’s gambling debt with work for a crime boss. The CW, also 8 to 10 only, will have 90210 followed by the final season of Gossip Girl.

At 10 p.m., ABC keeps Castle and CBS, Hawaii Five-0, while NBC premieres Revolution, set in America 15 years after the world has lost all electrical power.

Tuesday

There will be eight comedies spread across four networks on this night, with the 9 p.m. hour holding six of them: Happy Endings and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 on ABC; New Girl and the new Mindy Project (Kaling as a doctor with tricky personal and professional lives), and two new shows — Go On and The New Normal on NBC. Matthew Perry plays a sportscaster dealing with the death of his wife in Go On, while Normal involves two gay men who want to have a baby, and the woman who is their surrogate. The other two comedies, on Fox in the 8 p.m. hour, are the returning Raising Hope and the new Ben and Kate, about very different, adult siblings sharing a home. (Glee heads to Thursdays.)

Also on Tuesday: NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles and the new drama Vegas (lawman Dennis Quaid vs. mobster Michael Chiklis), all on CBS; Hart of Dixie and new comedy-drama Emily Owens, M.D,, on The CW; results shows for DWTS and The Voice and, in the 10 p.m. hour, Private Practice on ABC and Parenthood on NBC.

Wednesday

Six more comedies, with ABC keeping a four-comedy block of The Middle, Suburgatory, Modern Family and the new The Neighbors (family moves into housing development where everyone else is extraterrestrial); it completes the night with new drama Nashville, about the clash between a country-music veteran (Connie Britton) and a rising star (Hayden Panettiere). (Revenge moves to Sunday.) The other two comedies are NBC’s in the 8 p.m. hour: Animal Practice (veterinarian’s ex starts running the animal hospital where he works) and Guys With Kids (new dads). NBC finishes the night with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the new Chicago Fire, from Law & Order maestro Dick Wolf.

Fox fills its two hours with The X Factor. CBS stands pat with Survivor, Criminal Minds and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The CW will offer Arrow, a new drama inspired by the Green Arrow comic books, and the returning Supernatural.

Thursday

ABC will try to make inroads in a very competitive 8 p.m, hour, with Last Resort, a new drama about a nuclear-submarine crew forced into conflict with pretty much the entire rest of the world; Andre Braugher stars. The network will follow it with Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.

If you’ve been intrigued by the modern-dress Sherlock on PBS (which ends its second season tonight), then maybe you’ll consider Elementary, with a modern Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) in New York; it’s CBS’ 10 p.m. offering, following returners The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Person of Interest. (The Mentalist moves to Sunday.)

NBC has a familiar lineup with 30 Rock (in its final season), Up All Night, The Office, Parks & Recreation, followed by Rock Center With Brian Williams. (Community and Whitney move to Friday.) Fox has the X Factor results show followed by Glee. The CW plans Vampire Diaries and the new Beauty and the Beast, derived from the ’80s TV series of the same name.

Friday

There is only one new network series on the night, Made in Jersey, about a working-class lawyer in a fancy Manhattan firm; CBS is using it on an all-New York night, bracketed by CSI:NY and Blue Bloods. The CW has America’s Next Top Model and Nikita; Fox will show Touch and Fringe (in its last season), and NBC will go with Whitney, Community, Grimm and Dateline NBC.

ABC will start the fall with Shark Tank, Primetime: What Would You Do? and 20/20, but adjust that in November to be comedies Last Man Standing, the new Malibu Country (Reba McEntire as a newly divorced country singer), Shark Tank and 20/20.

Saturday

The CW does not program Saturday and other networks barely do. ABC will fill it with college football, Fox will use it for sports (bringing back Cops at midseason), NBC has reruns and CBS has two hours of reruns followed by 48 Hours Mystery.

Sunday

The night where prime time begins at 7 p.m. has changes but only one new show: 666 Park Avenue, an ABC drama about the spooky doings at a fancy address. It completes the network’s lineup of America’s Funniest Home Videos, Once Upon a Time and the transplanted Revenge. CBS has 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race, The Good Wife and the moved Mentalist. NBC will have NFL football, and Fox will follow football coverage with animated series, including The Cleveland Show, The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy and American Dad. The CW does not program Sunday.

So that gives you a taste of what the early fall will hold, at least until shows start to collapse in the ratings. And there is plenty planned for later in the season, from The CW’s Sex and the City prequel with a 16-year-old Carrie Bradshaw to the ABC comedy How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) to CBS’ twentysomething-sitcom Friend Me to Fox’s serial-killer drama The Following and NBC’s Hannibal, about the evil Dr. Lecter. It will be another busy TV year.

ALSO SEE:

Returning shows on the commercial broadcast networks

Canceled and ended network shows

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter and in the HeldenFiles Online (www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles). He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer

All that was made clear in the first six minutes of the first episode of House. When combined with Hugh Laurie’s performance as House, mysterious illnesses and an interest in character as much as plot, the show’s core ideas made me a devoted viewer for many years. And there is a reminder of those early notions in the series finale — which, instead of “everybody lies” is called Everybody Dies.

Yes, the end has come for House. On Monday, Fox will air a “series finale event” from 8 to 10 p.m., with the first hour devoted to a look back at the show’s eight-year run and the second containing the last episode.

The plot of that episode, in a deliberately vague release from Fox, says that “treating a drug addict patient … results in House examining his life, his future and his own personal demons.”

Of course, he has been examining his life and demons for years, during changes in his staff, awkward romances, a couple of characters’ deaths and a whole bunch of people with weird conditions. In a promotional clip from Fox, Laurie at least promised no big shocker in the last 30 seconds, no sudden declaration that the show was a dream. Instead, he thinks the end is “very elegant and satisfying.”

I hope so. Because the series stopped being satisfying quite some time ago. I went from watching it, to DVRing it and watching later, to eventually erasing the DVR load unseen, to not bothering to watch or record. What had been a strong idea to begin with became less and less entertaining, a seemingly endless loop of House’s flaws; the situation and the interactions might have changed, but he was stuck in the same, sad place. Indeed, the cast changes and shifts in the storyline just made it look weaker — less and less able to capture the earlier magic.

For five or six years, it was very good. And popular, even if the show did not always have great respect from the TV industry. (Laurie has been nominated for the Emmy for best actor in a drama series six times so far, and has never won.) To be sure, I won’t mourn the show’s passing, because it was out of ideas. But I will celebrate the many hours of entertainment it did provide.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

Don’t miss: Power ballads. Teen divas. “Goosies.” Randy Jackson’s hideous jackets. We’ve experienced it all in this, the 11th season of American Idol, prime time’s most popular talent competition. But now, it’s finally time to crown a champion. After the final two contestants face off on Tuesday, they’ll have to suffer through a horrendously bloated two-hour finale the following night before hearing the verdict. Our prediction? Confetti will fall and someone will cry. 8 p.m. Wednesday, Fox.

Sunday: Chart-topping pop artists get their props at The 2012 Billboard Music Awards. Among the scheduled performers are Justin Bieber, Carrie Underwood and LMFAO. Modern Family stars Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell are our hosts. 8 p.m., ABC.

Sunday: The reality bloodbath that is The Celebrity Apprentice comes to an end tonight, and for the first time the two remaining contestants — Clay Aiken and Arsenio Hall — must work together on the final challenge. Yeah, like that should go smoothly. 9 p.m., NBC.

Monday: OK, so his bedside manner left a lot to be desired, but Hugh Laurie’s cranky title character in House kept us entertained for eight offbeat seasons. The acclaimed show comes to an end tonight with one last medical mystery. A retrospective special precedes the finale. Read more from Rich Heldenfels in today’s Channels guide. 8 p.m., Fox.

Tuesday: Graduation — the day Glee fans have both anticipated and dreaded — is finally here. The Season 3 finale has the crooning kids of McKinley High donning their red caps and gowns and contemplating what the future holds for them. 9 p.m., Fox.

Tuesday: Who will waltz off with the ugly disco-ball trophy? We’ll find out tonight as Dancing With the Stars caps off its 14th season by naming its winning couple. Then fans can spend the summer speculating on what celebrities might return for the show’s all-star edition next fall. 9 p.m., ABC.

Wednesday: Revenge, indeed, has been sweet all season as it became the most buzzed-about network series. Now comes a season finale that reportedly places several characters in peril and a stunning revelation that will provoke Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) to go on a revenge quest of her own. 10 p.m., ABC.

Thursday: Just because America was crying out for yet another music competition, we now have Duets. It’s a series that has professional pop singers Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Nettles, John Legend and Robin Thicke going on a search to find undiscovered singers to join them as partners. 8 p.m., ABC.

Thursday: It’s time to bust a move — or many moves — as So You Think You Can Dance returns for another summer run. The show debuts tonight, then moves to its regular Wednesday slot starting May 30. 8 p.m., Fox.

Friday: In the documentary Paul Simon’s Graceland Journey: Under African Skies, the pop singer marks the 25th anniversary of his Graceland album by revisiting the making of the record and the controversy over his decision to work with South African musicians. 10 p.m., A&E.

Saturday: The guys have their man caves. How about Mom Caves? On tonight’s episode, a busy wife and mother gets a big surprise when part of her home is converted to replicate a Hawaiian retreat. 8:30 p.m., HGTV.

Productions coming to DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday include:

Blu-ray — Lethal Weapon Collection. Titles below with an asterisk are also being released on Blu-ray.

Movies — Beyond*, The First Beautiful Thing*, Mutant Girls Squad*, Newlyweds (Edward Burns), Perfect Sense*, Red Tails*, This Means War* and The Woman in Black*.

Also, Criterion’s Eclipse 33: Up All Night With Robert Downey Sr., a collection of films by the director (and Downey Jr.’s father): Babo 73, Chafed Elbows, No More Excuses, Putney Swope and Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight.

TV shows — The River: The Complete First Season (and apparently the only one); Rizzoli & Isles: The Complete Second Season; Route 66: The Complete Series; Sherlock: Season Two*; SWAT: The Final Season; and Teen Wolf: The Complete Season One.

Kid/family — My Babysitter’s a Vampire: The First Season; and The Secret World of Arrietty*.

Other — The Strange Case of Alice Cooper: Live 1979.

Sources include www.tvshowsondvd.com, www.joblo.com. For information, consult those sites.

The following list includes shows on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW which are scheduled to return in the 2012-13 season. A few series for summer 2012 are also included. This does not include cable shows except for Cougar Town, because it is moving from ABC to cable’s TBS.

In addition to the shows listed below, Rules of Engagement may return, although its future was still uncertain at this writing. The known returners — fall shows, midseason items and unscheduled bench series — include:

2 Broke Girls

20/20

30 Rock (final season)

48 Hours Mystery

60 Minutes

90210

The Amazing Race

America’s Funniest Home Videos

America’s Next Top Model

American Dad

American Idol (midseason)

The Bachelor (midseason)

Betty White’s Off Their Rockers

The Big Bang Theory

Big Brother (July 12)

The Biggest Loser

Blue Bloods

Bob’s Burgers

Body of Proof (midseason)

Bones

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: NY

Castle

Celebrity Apprentice (mideason)

The Cleveland Show

Community

Cops (midseason)

Cougar Town (off ABC, but on TBS in 2013)

Criminal Minds

Dancing With the Stars

Dateline NBC

Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23

Family Guy

Fashion Star (midseason)

Football Night in America

Fringe (final season)

Glee

The Good Wife

Gossip Girl (final season)

Grey’s Anatomy

Grimm

Happy Endings

Hart of Dixie

Hawaii Five-0

Hell’s Kitchen (June 4)

How I Met Your Mother

Kitchen Nightmares

Last Man Standing (November)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Masterchef

The Mentalist

The Middle

Mike & Molly

Modern Family

NCIS

NCIS: Los Angeles

New Girl

Nikita

The Office

Once Upon a Time

Parenthood

Parks & Recreation

Person of Interest

Primetime: What Would You Do?

Private Practice

Raising Hope

Revenge

Rock Center With Brian Williams

Rookie Blue (returns Thursday)

Scandal

Shark Tank

The Simpsons

Smash (midseason)

So You Think You Can Dance (returns Thursday)

Suburgatory

Supernatural

Survivor

Touch

Two and a Half Men

Undercover Boss (midseason)

Up All Night

The Vampire Diaries

The Voice

Whitney

Wife Swap (midseason)

The X Factor

Shows listed below were dropped by their respective networks and no one else has announced plans to pick them up.

The list does not include Cougar Town, since TBS has made a deal to air new episodes after ABC dropped the Courteney Cox sitcom. And Rules of Engagement is in limbo, not in CBS’s announced plans but still being discussed.

Shows getting the full boot:

Alcatraz

Are You There, Chelsea?

Awake

Bent

Best Friends Forever

Breaking In

CSI: Miami

Charlie’s Angels

Chuck

Desperate Housewives

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

The Finder

The Firm

Free Agents

GCB

A Gifted Man

H8R

Harry’s Law

House

How To Be a Gentleman

I Hate My Teenage Daughter

Man Up

Missing

Napoleon Dynamite

One Tree Hill

Pan Am

The Playboy Club

Prime Suspect

Ringer

The River

Rob

The Secret Circle

Terra Nova

Unforgettable

Who Do You Think You Are?

Work It

The CW will add five new dramas to its lineup, including a Sex and the City prequel at midseason.

The coming season, which the network will launch in October, will also include the final run of Gossip Girl, a retooling and new night for America’s Next Top Model, another costumed crimefighter and a new version of the ’80s drama Beauty and the Beast.

Besides Top Model and Gossip Girl, The CW is bringing back 90210, Hart of Dixie, Nikita, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries.

It did not renew Ringer, H8R or The Secret Circle, and One Tree Hill concluded its run.

Here are the CW plans for its schedule, Monday through Friday from 8 to 10 p.m.

Monday begins with 90210 at 8 p.m., followed by Gossip Girl. In January, after Gossip Girl has concluded, will come the premiere of The Carrie Diaries, a series following Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw when she was 16. AnnaSophia Robb will play Carrie, a suburban Connecticut girl who discovers the wonders of Manhattan while working as an intern at a law firm — and meeting the style editor for a New York magazine.

Tuesday is doctor doubleheader with Hart of Dixie and new series Emily Owens, M.D. The latter stars Mamie Gummer (Off the Map, The Good Wife) as an intern at a Denver hospital who discovers — and this is so CW — that the hospital is a lot like high school.

Wednesday kicks off with Arrow, a series based on the Green Arrow comic-book character, from his earliest years. Stephen Arnell plays Oliver Queen, the billionaire playboy who becomes the vigilante Arrow. It will be followed by the eighth season of Supernatural.

Thursday has The Vampire Diaries and then the new Beauty and the Beast, with Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk as police detective Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton played a somewhat different Catherine on the old series) and Jay Ryan as the mysterious Vincent (previously Ron Perlman).

Friday will combine America’s Next Top Model and Nikita. Top Model has undergone major changes. The on-air team still includes Tyra Banks and Kelly Cutrone, but with male model Rob Evans now the third judge and stylist Johnny Wujek as “creative consultant.” The new season will be the first “college edition” — and viewers can help determine the outcome with online votes based on posted photo shoots beginning Thursday (while the show is in production for fall telecast).

Besides The Carrie Diaries, the network has midseason plans for Cult, about an investigative reporter looking into the dark underworld of a hit TV show and its fans.

The CW announcement wrapped up a week of fall-programming proclamations by the commercial broadcast networks, with NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS having announced earlier. See Sunday’s Beacon Journal for an overview of those plans, and the HeldenFiles Online (www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles) for more information about the lineups.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES: The three American Idol finalists earned nearly uniform votes of confidence Wednesday from the show’s judges. Now it’s the audience tally that will determine which two compete for glory in next week’s finale.

If the night had a teacher’s pet, it was Joshua Ledet, 20, who delivered what Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler deemed flawless performances. Each contestant performed three songs: One picked by the judges, one by producer-mentor Jimmy Iovine, and one chosen by the singers themselves.

Ledet’s gritty version of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Be Blind” had the judges on their feet, a common reaction to the Louisiana gospel singer. He also impressed the panel with John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama.”

“This is another Joshua moment,” Tyler said after the James cover, adding that Ledet sounded like an “American Idol” winner.

Jessica Sanchez, 16, of San Diego, didn’t disappoint the judges on their pick for her, Mariah Carey’s “My All.” It drew what verged on another Tyler prediction.

“When you sing, you make people hang on your every note. … You’ll be the last one standing here, I believe,” the rocker said.

There was praise as well for Sanchez’s take on “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” from Tyler’s band Aerosmith, but Randy Jackson found her performance of the Jackson 5′s “I’ll Be There” just “OK,” differing with his colleagues.

Bluesy, guitar-strumming Phillip Phillips, 21, of Leesburg, Ga., had the audience swooning over his version of “Beggin’” by Madcon.

“Can you believe this guy?” Tyler said, gesturing toward the cheering crowd and suggesting that Phillips could be the “next Springsteen” if he wrote his own songs.

Phillips faltered with Matchbox 20′s “Disease,” which the judges deemed subdued and unimpressive, but he rebounded with Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight.”

“The perfect song, at the perfect time, and your best performance on the show ever,” gushed Jackson.

The audience vote will be announced on Thursday’s show, which is to feature Lisa Marie Presley and former “American Idol” finalist Adam Lambert.

Hometown victory laps by the trio of finalists were chronicled Wednesday, starting with Ledet’s trip to Westlake, La.

“They are really acting like I’m Barack Obama,” a wide-eyed Ledet said of the police escort that shepherded him from the airport.

Sanchez, who got a lift from Los Angeles to San Diego by helicopter, was cheered during a dockside visit to the USS Midway and saluted her father, who she said served overseas as a naval reservist.

Phillips had an emotional reunion with his dad, Phillip Phillips Sr.

“To see your children doing what they love to do with integrity and passion, it’s a dream come true for me,” the elder Phillips said.

By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer

If it’s Thursday, this must be the mailbag.

Q: I would like to know if you know anything about a movie starring Robert De Niro as Vince Lombardi. I have found only a small amount of nondefinitive information on the Internet.

Robert De Niro in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' action comedy Showtime, also starring Eddie Murphy and Rene Russo.

A: There was a film, and then there wasn’t.

With more than a little fanfare, ESPN announced plans to make the film in 2010. Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Insider) was set to write the script. According to ESPN at the time, “The story’s narrative arc spans from 1959 when Lombardi was given his first opportunity to be an NFL head coach, taking over the small-town [Green Bay] Packers, then the worst team in the NFL, and runs through his transformation of a group of young, talented but undisciplined losers into five-time NFL champions. Also, the story highlights the long-standing rivalry that existed between Lombardi and legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry, both of whom were assistants on the New York Giants team that lost the 1958 NFL Championship game.”

But even with such a seemingly firm plan, the network later decided not to go ahead with the film; an ESPN rep offered no further explanation. “This happens a lot with scripted projects,” the rep said. Indeed, every year seems to bring projects that are announced but then stall.

Q: Could you please tell me if “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad” is on DVD. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Ricardo Montalban, George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley. I hope you can find it; it’s a crazy movie.

A: And one with an interesting history. In 1982, the makers of the big-screen comedy Airplane! came to television with Police Squad, a parody of crime shows. Leslie Nielsen, who had also starred in Airplane!, played police detective Frank Drebin in the series. It was not a hit, but the idea did not die. In 1988, Nielsen again played Drebin in The Naked Gun. It proved a top 10 box-office hit for the year, Sequels followed in 1991 (Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear) and Naked Gun 33?: The Final Insult (1994). According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, CBS even replayed the TV show, which originally aired on ABC, in 1991.

Now, to what you really want to know: All the movies are on DVD, individually and in a modestly priced collection of all three. The first film is also on Blu-ray, and Police Squad is on DVD, too.

Q: Unless I’m mistaken, the actor in the Time Warner Cable commercials who runs away from danger after a grenade lands looks just like the actor and comedian Ricky Gervais.

A: That is indeed Gervais helping promote the company’s “Enjoy Better” campaign.

Q: Several months ago, I saw a movie on TCM called “Roughly Speaking” with Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson. I caught the last half and found it interesting. Are they going to feature it again, and if so when?

A: I have not seen a telecast scheduled on TCM. But the movie is available on DVD through the TCM online shop (see www.tcm.com) and the online Warner Archive (www.wbshop.com).

Q: I thought I heard at the end of a “Harry’s Law” that it was the show’s final few episodes. Has the show been canceled? Also, at the end of the last “Fringe” they said it was the season finale but I thought this was the last season. Could you please let me know what’s really going on with these two shows?

A: This time of year, ads for TV shows will sometimes amp up viewer interest with bold declarations of a few remaining episodes and a more soft-spoken acknowledgment that those are the last episodes of a season, not a series. But, unfortunately for its many fans, Harry’s Law has indeed been dropped by NBC. The show was somewhat popular, especially by struggling NBC’s standards, but it did not do well with viewers under 50 years old, the audience most networks use to woo advertisers.

As for Fringe, it will return on Fox in the fall, for a 13-episode final season that can wrap up at least some of its complicated story lines.

•

Do you have a question or comment for the mailbag? Write to the Akron Beacon Journal, 44 E. Exchange St., Akron, OH 44309 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com. Please mark the email or envelope with “mailbag.” Letters may be edited for publication. Please do not phone in questions. Individual replies cannot be guaranteed.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles. He is also on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

CBS will add four new series to its lineup in the fall and will move a couple of hits to new nights.

The Mentalist will shift to 10 p.m. Sunday, filling the time period vacated by the canceled CSI: Miami. And Two and a Half Men will head to 8:30 p.m. Thursdays, paired with The Big Bang Theory.

The new shows include one comedy, Partners, in the network’s Monday comedy block, and three dramas: Vegas, Elementary and Made in Jersey.

Other series returning in the fall include 2 Broke Girls, 48 Hours Mystery, 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race, Blue Bloods, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: NY, Criminal Minds, The Good Wife, Hawaii Five-0, How I Met Your Mother, Mike & Molly, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Person of Interest and Survivor. Undercover Boss will be back later in the season; Rules of Engagement was not in CBS’s new-schedule announcement but may yet get picked up for later use.

Summer series Big Brother will begin July 12. Reality series Dogs in the City, about pet-ownership issues, begins May 30.

Series that are now done include CSI: Miami, A Gifted Man, How To Be a Gentleman, NYC 22, Rob and Unforgettable.

Here’s a rundown of CBS’s plan for prime time (8 to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 7 to 11 p.m. Sunday):

Monday will begin with How I Met Your Mother, followed by new series Partners, about two male best friends, one gay and one not; it’s based on the lives of series creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, the team behind Will & Grace. The lineup continues with 2 Broke Girls, Mike & Molly and Hawaii Five-O.

Tuesday has NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles followed by Vegas, with Dennis Quaid as Ralph Lamb, the real-life sheriff of Las Vegas in the ‘60s; Michael Chiklis plays a gangster at odds with Lamb. Crime chronicler Nicholas Pileggi is an executive producer.

Wednesday remains Survivor, Criminal Minds and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Thursday has Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Person of Interest and the new Elementary, with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as a modern, New York City-based Holmes and Watson.

Friday moves CSI: NY to 8 p.m., followed by Made in Jersey, with a working-class woman practicing law in a high-toned New York firm. Blue Bloods completes the night.

Saturday remains two hours of “crimetime” repeats followed by 48 Hours Mystery. Sunday includes 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race, The Good Wife and The Mentalist.

CBS also announced three unscheduled shows for midseason: Golden Boy is a drama about a New York police officer’s rise to commissioner. Friend Me is a comedy about two best friends who move from Indiana to Los Angeles, with Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Reality show The Job is a weekly competition among candidates for a dream job.

CBS’s schedule continues a week of broadcast network announcements. NBC, Fox and ABC have also announced, with The CW coming Thursday. You can read detailed recaps of their plans as well as other program news in the HeldenFiles Online, www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer

ABC plans to add 10 new series to its schedule in 2012-13, including four in the early fall.

It is shaking up the schedule on most nights. For example, scheming soap Revenge will move to 9 p.m. Sunday, between Once Upon a Time and the new 666 Park Avenue to create what one executive called a three-hour “battle of good and evil.”

And there will be tweaks to some shows. Dancing With the Stars in its fall run will feature fan favorites from previous seasons.

This Monday, May 14, 2012 photo shows TV personality Maria Menounos, left, and her partner Derek Hough performing on the celebrity dance competition series "Dancing with the Stars," in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/ABC, Adam Taylor)

Gone from the ABC lineup are Desperate Housewives (which wrapped up its final season on Sunday), Charlie’s Angels, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, GCB, Missing, Man Up, Pan Am, The River and Work It. ABC also dropped Cougar Town, but TBS has picked it up, with new episodes beginning in 2013.

Besides Once Upon a Time, Dancing With the Stars and Revenge, returning shows in the fall or later include America’s Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, Body of Proof, Castle, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, Grey’s Anatomy, Happy Endings, Last Man Standing, The Middle, Modern Family, Primetime: What Would You Do?, Private Practice, Scandal, Shark Tank, Suburgatory, 20/20 and Wife Swap.

In addition, police drama Rookie Blue will begin its summer run on May 24 and Secret Millionaire will be back on June 3.

Here are the lineup plans ABC announced Tuesday, for 8 to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 to 11 p.m. Sunday:

Mondays will consist of Dancing With the Stars and Castle. Beginning in January, The Bachelor will fill the Dancing slot.

Tuesdays will have the DWTS results at 8 p.m., followed by Happy Endings, Don’t Trust the B—- and Private Practice. When DWTS takes a break in January, its hour will go to the new comedies How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) and The Family Tools. Sarah Chalke of Scrubs stars in How to Live as a single mom who, with her daughter, moves back in with her parents (Elizabeth Perkins, Brad Garrett). Family Tools has an unsuccessful man trying to run his ailing father’s handyman business.

Wednesday will have the comedy block of The Middle, Suburgatory, Modern Family and new comedy The Neighbors (couple moves into a New Jersey community where everyone else is extraterrestrial) and drama Nashville. Thelma & Louise writer Callie Khouri created that last show, which stars Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton as a fading country star and Heroes’ Hayden Panettiere as her unscrupulous, ambitious tour mate.

Thursday kicks off with Last Resort, a new drama from Shawn Ryan (The Shield, Chicago Code). It involves the crew of a nuclear submarine who, after defying orders to fire on Pakistan, take refuge on an exotic island — while still having their nukes. Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal complete the night.

Fridays at first will have Shark Tank, Primetime: What Would You Do? and 20/20. In November, that will change to Last Man Standing, new comedy Malibu Country, Shark Tank and 20/20. Malibu Country stars Reba McEntire, now being called just Reba, as a former singer who, after divorcing her music-legend husband, moves from Nashville to California and tries to restart her career.

Saturday will be college football. Sunday will have America’s Funniest Home Videos, Once Upon a Time, Revenge and 666 Park Avenue, about a building where the residents get all they desire but “shadowy, supernatural forces” may trap them, with Lost’s Terry O’Quinn and Desperate Housewives’ Vanessa Williams as the building’s owners.

ABC also ordered three shows that are not yet scheduled. Mistresses has Alyssa Milano in what ABC calls “a salacious new drama” about friends. secrecy and betrayal. Red Widow involves a widow (Radha Mitchell) from a crime family who wants the truth about her husband’s murder. And Zero Hour blends a clock shop, a treasure map, an abduction, a world at risk and ER’s Anthony Edwards.

ABC’s announcement came during a week of broadcast network proclamations. NBC and Fox have already issued schedules, with CBS and The CW coming. You can find lots more details about the lineups at the HeldenFiles Online, www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer

Fox announced five new series — three comedies and two dramas — for its 2012-13 season on Monday. But the biggest news may be its moving Glee from Tuesdays to Thursdays in the fall.

The musical comedy-drama, set in a fictional high school in Lima, Ohio, will also have a “show within the show” component dealing with the characters who have moved to New York following graduation, add new characters in Lima and have both Kate Hudson and Sarah Jessica Parker in recurring roles during its fourth season.

Jane Lynch, a cast member in the television series "Glee," poses before a screening and Q&A for the show, at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, Tuesday, May 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Also returning to Fox are Bones, Raising Hope, New Girl, The X Factor, Touch, Fringe (for its final, 13-episode season), The Cleveland Show, The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy and American Dad. American Idol, Hell’s Kitchen and Cops will also be back, later in the season. Both X Factor and American Idol will get some creative tweaks. Fox executives on Monday morning would not confirm reports of the hiring of Demi Lovato and Britney Spears as new X Factor judges alongside Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid, but an announcement was expected later in the day.

Series airing new episodes this summer include So You Think You Can Dance (May 24), Masterchef (June 4) and Hell’s Kitchen (June 4). The network has also ordered but not scheduled more Mobbed specials.

Shows no longer in Fox’s plans include Terra Nova, The Finder, Alcatraz, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, Breaking In, Napoleon Dynamite and House, which announced some time ago that this season would be its last.

Here’s a rundown of the network’s current plans for the fall, 8 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 7 to 10 p.m. Sunday.

Monday will have Bones at 8 p.m. followed at 9 by Mob Doctor, with Jordana Spiro (My Boys) as a surgeon working off her family’s debt to Chicago gangsters. Later in the season, Monday will include The Following, a new drama starring Kevin Bacon as an FBI agent chasing a serial killer; one Fox executive called it the network’s “next 24.” Kevin Williamson (Dawson’s Creek, Vampire Diaries) created it.

Tuesday will be all comedy: the returning Raising Hope at 8 followed by new series Ben and Kate, the returning New Girl and new series The Mindy Project, starring and created by The Office’s Mindy Kaling. She plays an OB/GYN looking for a better love life. Ben and Kate involves an irresponsible man moving in with his more serious, younger sister to help raise her 5-year-old daughter.

Wednesdays will have The X Factor in the fall, and American Idol at midseason.

Thursdays will have The X Factor’s results show in the 8 p.m. hour in the fall, and then American Idol at midseason. The 9 p.m. hour will hold Glee.

Friday will be Touch at 8 p.m. and Fringe at 9, with Hell’s Kitchen coming in at midseason, after Fringe is done.

Saturday will be devoted to various sports in the fall, with Cops returning midseason.

Sunday will have overruns of NFL games and animated reruns in the 7 p.m. half-hour, The OT football recap or The Cleveland Show at 7:30, then The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy and American Dad completing the night.

Fox also announced a backup comedy without a planned time slot. That’s The Goodwin Games, where three siblings are vying for a $20 million inheritance by taking on challenges their late father left behind. Scott Foley is among the stars.

The schedule announcement came during a week of broadcast network “upfronts,” when programmers try to entice advertisers with their plans for the next season. NBC announced Sunday, Fox Monday, with ABC, CBS and The CW following. Extensive details of the new schedules can be found in the HeldenFiles Online, www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.