The Osbourne family is returning to television. This time, to Fox. Variety reports that Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly will star in six episodes of a new variety show for the network. Once again the rest of Ozzy’s kids (including 3 from his first marriage and Aimee, an older sister to Jack and Kelly) will not be involved with the program.

The variety show is expected to include sketches and songs…and who the heck know’s what else. It does not yet have an air date on the Fox schedule.

ITV (UK) and AMC (US) have joined forces to produce a remake of the very popular and highly praised British series “The Prisoner”.

The 6 episode mini-series will air next year, and has some major talent attached to it.

Sir Ian McKellen will star as Number Two, along with Jim Caviezel playing the role of Number Six in the series.

That’s right folks, Magneto and Jesus are in a CABLE series together.

This is one of those times when a network is literally raised up by the people starring in one of their series. I’m very much looking forward to seeing this next year.

Tim Roth (”Incredible Hulk”, numerous other things) has signed up to star in a new Fox series. The network has ordered 13 episodes of “Lie to Me”, a series about scientist named Dr. Cal Lightman, who has pioneered the field of deception detection. Roth is a human lie detector, able to read the human face, body and voice to uncover the truth about anyone.

It works great on criminals…but it really puts a strain on his personal life.

The science in the show is based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, and is - in fact - based in reality.

No word on when we’ll see this show airing on Fox.

CBS has announced their fall schedule. I have to say there is very little here that I’m personally excited about, but I do know that CBS is a ratings machine these days, so I’m guessing there are millions of people out there who can’t wait for September to roll around so they can get back into their favorite shows.

If you’re looking for their start dates look no further:

September 18: Survivor: Gabon at 8:00

September 22: The Big Bang Theory at 8:00; How I Met Your Mother at 8:30; Two and a Half Men at 9:00; Worst Week at 9:30; CSI: Miami at 10:00

September 23: NCIS at 8:00; The Mentalist at 9:00; Without a Trace at 10:00

September 24: The New Adventures of Old Christine at 8:00; Project Gary at 8:30; Criminal Minds at 9:00; CSI: NY at 10:00

September 27: Crimetime Saturday at 8:00 and 9:00; 48 Hours Mystery at 10:00

September 28: 60 Minutes at 7:00; The Amazing Race at 8:00; Cold Case at 9:00; The Unit at 10:00

October 3: Ghost Whisperer at 8:00; The Ex List at 9:00; Numb3rs at 10:00

October 9: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation at 9:00; Eleventh Hour at 10:00

As a special tribute to George Carlin, on Saturday night NBC is going to air the very first episode of Saturday Night Live (then called NBC’s Saturday Night) which George Carlin hosted.

The show is quite a bit different than the current SNL format we’re all familiar with. The “Not Ready for Primetime Players” were only a part of the show - not the entire program.

For a nostalgic look at not only Saturday Night Live history but also the history of George Carlin, tune in on Saturday night and prepare to be transported back to 1975.

“I Survived a Japanese Game Show” has the potential to be an amazing good reality show.

What?

It DOES!

It also has the potential to be a hideous and awful game show. It depends entirely on how the producer’s cast the show, and how it is presented to us.

The concept of taking a group of people who have no idea where they’re going and what they’re doing, then sticking them on a plane an immersing them, unsuspectingly, into another culture really could be an interesting program - if they cast the kind of people that might be interested in that type of thing. If they cast a bunch of hillbillies then this thing is going to be unwatchable.

The cast of this reality show is scooped up out of Hollywood and transported across the world to Japan, where they compete on a Japanese game show called Majide. I can’t find any record of Majide on YouTube, so it may have been created just for this US show - I have no idea.

The video above is from an unknown (to me anyway) Japanese game show, just to give you an idea of what they do on Japanese game shows…and it’s a doozy. I’m looking forward to watching this new program and seeing if its just plain terrible, or as interesting as it could be.

If you’re interested in travel, you might want to check out our new sister blog, Travel Brook.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week, I’m sure you’ve heard of the untimely passing of “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert. NBC is still looking for a permanent replacement for Russert, but for this week at least, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will be the show’s moderator.

Williams is an excellent choice for a program like this, and I’d honestly like to see him in the role permanently, although I would imagine he’s pretty busy with the Nightly News.

There is no word yet on who NBC might be looking at as a permanent replacement just yet. Chances are they’ll be looking for a while.

Peter Tolan is a writer credited with many episodes of “The Larry Sanders Show” which was a great one-camera sitcom on HBO about life behind the scenes of a Carson-esq Late Night talk show.

Matthew Perry was - you know - that guy from Friends, who was also in a show called “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” which was about the behind the scenes goings on of a SNL-esq show.

Well, these two gentlemen have gotten together and co-created “Steve” a new sitcom for Showtime that is about the goings on of a local afternoon talk show according to AICN.

There seems to be a running theme here…

I’m looking forward to hearing more about this project as development on the series continues.

“Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus has been tapped to host the 2008 Teen Choice Awards. In addition to her hosting duties she is up for 3 awards.

Cyrus has recently been through the wringer as far as the tabloids go with pictures surfacing on My Space as well as in Vanity Fair that were slightly more “grown up” than the parents of her fan base would like.

It must be hard growing up in the public eye like this. Still, Cyrus seems infinitely more intelligent than Brittany Spears, so maybe she can make it through all of this mess without shaving her head and attacking people with umbrellas.

Of course, none of that has anything to do with the Teen Choice Awards - but…whatever.

“The Middleman” is a television series based on a comic book that was based on a pitch for a television series (got all that?), and it looks really fun. The show premieres tonight on ABC Family.

From what I’ve seen so far it looks like it borrows heavily from “Men in Black”, but replaces Tommy Lee Jones with Captain America, and Will Smith with a hot chick.

Sounds like a formula for success to me! The show has good buzz about it, and has been receiving favorable reviews from geeks all over the country thus far - so don’t forget to set the DVRs for 7:00pm CST tonight on ABC Family.