Fox announces its midseason lineup

Fox announced its midseason lineup today and it contains a couple of surprises. Dr. House and Jack Bauer will team up on Monday nights, "Fringe" will remain in its challenging Thursday night time slot, and "Glee" will be off the air until April 13, when it returns on a new night following "American Idol" but up against the last episodes of ABC's "Lost."

"American Idol" returns on Jan. 12 and will help launch "Our Little Genius," a new game show by Mark Burnett ("Survivor" and "The Apprentice") the following night. "Our Little Genius" then will shift to Tuesdays paired with "Idol" until April 13, when "Glee" returns for its remaining nine episodes at 9 p.m.

The new drama "Human Target," starring Mark Valley, premieres on Jan. 20 after "Idol."

As previously announced, "24" returns with a two-night premiere on Jan. 17 and Jan. 18 and then settles into its regular Monday 9 p.m. slot after "House" on Jan. 25.

"Fringe," which has taken a ratings hit on its new night, will remain on Thursdays but will take a break beginning Feb. 11, when Fox launches the new drama "Past Life."  "Fringe" returns to the schedule on April 1.

As previously announced, "Dollhouse" will end on Jan. 22. "Kitchen Nightmares" will take over its Friday time slot the following week.

The new comedy "Sons of Tuscon," starring Tyler Labine, will premiere March 14 at 8:30 p.m. when "The Cleveland Show" moves to 9:30 p.m. and "American Dad" is off the schedule.

Fox also ordered a complete second season of "Lie To Me."

--Maria Elena Fernandez

Photo: Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer on "24" / Credit: Fox

Related:

Fringe looks for an identity in its second season

Mark Valley stars in "Human Target"

24: First Look of new season

Dollhouse is canceled

Robert Sean Leonard on 'House', movies and his happy lack of ambition

Fans of Dr. James Wilson, Robert Sean Leonard's character on "House," have a lot to look forward to in the Nov. 30 episode – titled "Wilson."  Leonard's screen time has increased this season, since Hugh Laurie's Dr. House moved in with Wilson, but that's nothing compared to the upcoming episode.

"He's examined more," Leonard said, in a phone interview Tuesday morning from Hidden Valley.  "You see my assistant, who you've never met. You see the oncology floor; you see where I work.  I have my own patients, my own assistant and my own day that doesn't include House.  So you basically follow Wilson around for a few days and see what his life is like."

The episode features "The West Wing's" Josh Malina as Tucker, a cancer survivor and an old friend of Wilson's. After Tucker experiences partial paralysis, Wilson seeks out the help of House's team in diagnosing Tucker's condition.  However, when Tucker takes a turn for the worse, Wilson struggles to separate his work from his personal connection with the patient.  "I've got some moral decisions to make," Leonard said of his character.  "Any time the character is in a moral quandary is interesting. That's been true from the Greeks on down."

This isn't the first time Wilson has struggled with medical ethics.  Earlier this season, he wrote a speech about euthanasia, admitting that all doctors do it.  Leonard is quick to remind fans that, beneath the surface, Wilson isn't just your run-of-the-mill nice guy.  "I don't know that I'd hang out with House myself, but Wilson's a really strange man.  People seem to overlook this a lot.  He has three ex-wives, he lives alone, he's best friends with House, he deals with death everyday, he has a schizophrenic homeless brother. … God only knows what his parents are like! I think he's a very strange, dark guy." 

Leonard was eager to discuss the significance of the movie posters in Wilson's office, which have intrigued "House" fans for many seasons.  "I didn't have any input at first," Leonard said, but when he mentioned at a press conference that "Ordinary People" was one of his favorite movies, producer Katie Jacobs added it to the wall.  "We had to get permission from every actor, because they appear on the poster. I think it says a lot about Wilson.  I think that movie is a fascinating study of human relations and familial relations and human interaction.  The complexity and the difficulty of facing what's going on inside you and admitting it, letting it inform your relations with other people. I think if you deal with death every day, and people who get the news of their own death, well, [oncology] is not like plastic surgery."

Though Leonard enjoyed the opportunity to play the title character for once, he's not interested in making Wilson-centric episodes a regular occurrence. "It was my worst nightmare. Are you kidding?" Leonard joked. "When I read [the 'House' pilot], Wilson was in about three scenes per episode, and I thought, 'This is perfect!' I'm the 'Carlton the Doorman' of my show.  You know, I'm not the most ambitious guy. I like playing the best friend. It's good to be the lead of a show for a week, but I wouldn't spread it around too much. I like my role the way it is."

In fact, when "House" eventually ends, don't expect to see more of Leonard on your TV screens – unless it's in reruns.  "Not in a million years," Leonard said when asked whether he'd consider doing another TV show. "Los Angeles is a bleached-out, soulless pit.  I prefer stage work, as an actor. I'm pretty lazy. With theater, you get to the theater at 7:30 and you're done by 11, and for me that's nice. Getting up at 4 in the morning and getting home at 7:30 -- unless you're William Randolph Hearst -- that's a little excessive. It's a long, tedious day for me, but having said that, I'm massively overpaid and over-praised, and it couldn't be a better gig."

In the meantime, he's happy to stick with "House," especially since recent story lines have sent other popular cast members packing.  "It always [changes the environment on set]," Leonard said of cast changes.  "I remember when they first told me Kutner was gonna go by suicide, I was as shocked as everybody else. Perhaps as shocked as Kal Penn himself! I just think that's the way it happens in life.  People surprise you, and I like that about David Shore and Katie Jacobs, our producers. Kal had to go, he had a job, and I like that our writers said, 'OK, you're gonna kill yourself.' It was so shocking and so daring. I like how people come and go. House is a weird, weird show, and I really like it."
 
"House's" patient-of-the-week format allows for lots of guest stars coming and going.  "I want Julie Christie to do the show, but that's mostly because I think we should get married," Leonard, who is happily married with a baby daughter, joked. "We can talk about 'Heaven Can Wait' and 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller' every day for the rest of my life." When it comes to the future of Wilson's love life, Leonard isn't holding his breath. "I got to date Anne Dudek as Amber for six episodes; you don't get any luckier than that. I'm not going to press my luck."

-- Carina MacKenzie (follow me on Twitter @cadlymack)

Photo: Robert Sean Leonard as the title character of the Nov. 30 "House" episode, "Wilson." Credit: Fox

'House M.D.': 16 spleens to be thankful for

As I mentioned in my review of "Grey's Anatomy" last week, I'm a big fan of Very Special Holiday Episodes. Perhaps it's leftover from Charlie Brown Christmas specials, but I like that warm-and-fuzzy feeling that holiday episodes tend to leave you with.

On "House," however, the holidays generally mean 'tis the season to be lonely, bitter and manipulative. This week's episode, "Ignorance Is Bliss," was no exception to that rule!

The case of the week was James Sidas (Esteban Powell), a boy genius who, as an adult, turned in his Mensa card and became a courier instead. He says he'd rather be happy than smart -- and apparently that's also how he likes his women, because his wife, while beautiful, drove me crazy with her obvious questions and wide-eyed confusion. In the cold open, his hand abruptly stops working, and predictably, the rest of his body follows suit.

House wouldn't be House without a scheme to distract him from his job. This week, he's decided that he's going to deal with the Cuddy/Lucas situation by simply breaking them up. Hey, at least he's being honest about it! Wilson doesn't even have to use his House-ESP to get to the bottom of it.

'House M.D.': Chase and Cameron face the fallout

Well, "House" fans, it seems that the other shoe has officially dropped.

At the beginning of tonight's episode, "Teamwork," Cameron is ready to forgive Chase for his murderous misstep, on the condition that they both resign from Princeton-Plainsboro, effective immediately.  Of course, those of us who have been following news from the "House" set know that Chase won't get off the hook so easily.

Foreman pulls the "I covered up a murder for you" card and drags Chase -- and, with him, Cameron -- back in for one last case: a porn star with a squeaky-clean medical history, essentially going into total system failure. Like the team, I was distracted from the diagnostics case by the personal drama going on within the hospital.

Dr. House spends the entire episode trying to wrangle his team like they are a bunch of kindergarteners gone missing at snack time, instead of adults capable of making their own decisions. His schemes are manipulative and immature in a way we haven't seen this season. It's safe to say that Cuddy's relationship with Lucas has set him back quite a bit on his journey of self-improvement. The compassion we've seen House develop over the last seven weeks all but disintegrates in this episode.

'House M.D.': House and Cuddy return to the '80s

In case you missed the "everybody lies" memo that's been driven home in every "House" episode since the pilot, tonight's episode, "Known Unknowns," offered viewers (and Cameron) a helpful reminder.

House is reluctant to join Wilson at a medical conference in the Adirondacks -- favoring, instead, the nearby State Pillowfighting Contest, until he discovers that Cuddy also will be attending said conference.  His change of heart is fortunate, considering Wilson has appointed himself House's babysitter and refuses to leave him alone for the weekend.  Normally, I'd find Wilson's hovering a little obnoxious -- after all, House has been doing pretty well; maybe he deserves a longer leash -- but for some reason, it's more endearing than overly protective. I wonder if they've exchanged friendship bracelets yet.

With the grown-ups out of town on grown-up business, Chase, Cameron and Foreman are left with Jordan (newcomer Annabelle Attanasio), a comic-book fangirl who finds herself physically unable to tell the truth about her wild night stalking "Stiletto: Warrior Queen of Space" author Jeffrey Keener (Marcus Giamatti).

The web of lies eventually leads Cameron to theorize that Keener roofied Jordan when she brought his misplaced journal up to his hotel room.  When he denies ever seeing Jordan in his room, Cameron becomes particularly upset.  She's so obviously projecting her feelings about Chase's recently shady behavior onto the author.  

'House M.D.': Everybody sees dead people

Doctors whispering to ghosts in the night ... a corpse coming back to life in the morgue ... a bowl of sludgy, green putrefied dead guy. No, you're not watching a Halloween marathon of "Tales from the Crypt"; it's just Monday night's "House" episode.

In one of the coolest cold opens I've seen in a while, an agile criminal demonstrated his parkour skills while scrambling away from a team of New Jersey police officers. As with any good cop chase, the perp ended up on a rooftop, while the police were on another rooftop. Donny (Jon Seda), one of the officers, decided to take a running jump at the criminal and, miscalculating the obviously impossible distance, fell 30 feet to the pavement below.

While Cameron treats him for his injuries at Princeton Plainsboro, Donny's partner reveals that Donny regularly takes reckless risks because he's convinced that he's a ticking time bomb. Donny's father and grandfather both died of heart failure at age 40 -- and Donny is 39 years and 51 weeks old. It raises an interesting question -- if you believed you had an inevitable expiration date, what kind of investment would you make in your own life? What sort of legacy would you want to leave behind? 

The promos for this episode promised "one of the most bizarre twists in 'House' history," and they delivered. After Donny is found dead on his bathroom floor, House and Foreman conduct an autopsy.  They only get as far as the Y-incision before Donny screams and, yes, wakes up.

'House M.D.': The morality of murdering a murderer

For the second week in a row, we got to see House work with his original diagnostics team of Foreman, Cameron and Chase.  The longer these four sit around that table together, the more I sense impending doom.  It's been so nice having the old gang back together -- so I'm sure when they inevitably fall apart, it's going to be explosive.

Monday's episode, "Instant Karma," found Dr. Chase facing the music for his decision to swap out President Dibala's test, intentionally causing a misdiagnosis that killed the genocidal dictator.  As expected, the team can't sweep this one under the rug -- it wasn't Joe the Plumber who died on their table, after all.  Foreman is expected to present President Dibala's case for the morbidity and mortality conference.

Chase seems awfully blasé about the whole thing at first.  He flippantly tells Foreman that they don't have time for "a lively debate about the morality of murdering murderers."  The blood that he swapped out for Dibala's was not only tested for the disease, but it was also given a full work-up, and the numbers didn't match.  Chase is nonchalant.  "So the numbers were off. It's weird. Who cares?"

Foreman cares.  With House still unlicensed after his brief sojourn in a mental institution, Foreman is the one responsible for the team.  Chase attempts to weave a web of lies, saying he's trying to get Foreman off the hook.  Really, though, he's trying to cover his own butt.  If he were trying to help Foreman, he'd confess.

Look, I like Chase.  I always have.  And I can't say what I would have done if I were in his position because that's just ... not a normal position for a person to find himself in.  Still,  if he really felt like it was worth "murdering the murderer," then he should be willing to face the consequences.

Jesse Spencer's performance this week was once again fantastic. We're only five episodes into the season and he's already shown us his best work yet.  He's been subtle and sincere; you can really feel Chase start to get desperate as he searches for an exit strategy.

The ever-observant Dr. House may have found Chase a way to save face at the academic conference, but I doubt he'll be able to cover for Chase after Cameron puts the pieces together. I can't wait to see how she reacts when she finds out what Chase did, especially after he chastised her last week (calling her sociopathic!) for her disgusted attitude toward Dibala.

'House M.D.': James Earl Jones' tyrant brings the tension

Like most viewers, I had my doubts as to whether a "healed" House would be as entertaining as the old House. After all, his misery was what made him so fun to watch.  Luckily, House's stint in the mental institution made him more self-aware and less self-destructive... but didn't strip him of his sarcasm -- or of his tendency to delight in making other people squirm.

Actress Jennifer Morrison to exit 'House'

Sorry, "House" fans -- just when you thought Jennifer Morrison's Cameron was about to get more screen time, she's getting cut loose. 

According to EW.com, getting rid of Cameron was a creative decision that came from the producers. Her last episode will air in November and Morrison has already shot her final scene.

Fans can take a little comfort in knowing Cameron will not be killed off (a la the Kutner shocker), and that Jesse, her on-screen husband, is not leaving the show. Producers are also said to be open to the idea of Morrison returning to guest star later in the season. 

Is this a bad move for the show? Let us know in the comments below. 

-- Denise Martin

Photo: Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer on "House." Photo credit: Fox

SPOILER ALERT: Why Kal Penn really left 'House'

SPOILER ALERT!

Stop reading now if you do not want to know what happened on last night's episode of "House." But honestly, if you've been on the Internet at all today, you have probably already heard: Kal Penn's character on "House" -- Dr. Lawrence Kutner -- committed suicide on the show last night. Kutner's sudden death was as shocking to fans as it was to the other characters on the show, which is why Fox has erected this website for mourning fans.

Actor Kal Penn revealed today that he decided to leave the series of his own accord, but not for any of the usual reasons actors abandon hit series. He did not have artistic differences with another actor, and he is not after a career in feature films. Instead, Penn is leaving to pursue a career at the White House.

"I was incredibly honored a couple of months ago to get the opportunity to go work in the White House. I got to know the president and some of the staff during the campaign and had expressed interest in working there, so I'm going to be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison. They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations. They're basically the front door of the White House. They take out all of the red tape that falls between the general public and the White House. It's similar to what I was doing on the campaign," Penn told Michael Ausiello of EW's Ausiello Files.

During his interview with Ausiello, Penn stressed the fact that he had no problems with the show itself, but only a desire to expand his horizons. "I love what I do as an actor. I couldn't love it more," said Penn. "But probably from the time I was a kid, I really enjoyed that balance between the arts and public service."

So after working with the Obama campaign, Penn knew he was ready for a change. One thing Penn didn't know, when he told executive producers David Shore and Katie Jacobs he would be leaving the series, was the way his character would be written off. "One of the things I love about our show is you never know what's going to happen," Penn told Ausiello. "So that news struck me in the same way we hope it strikes the audience: there was a little bit of anger and some depression. You really go through those emotions, especially when somebody dies in that fashion. Ultimately, it was a really interesting choice for them to make ... There's no note. There's no explanation. And as a testament to David and Katie, that's a huge risk. 'Cause it is going to make people upset, and it is going to piss off some of the audience. And, ultimately, in my opinion, that's what art really is -- when you can conjure up those kinds of emotions. And it's rare nowadays to be able to do that on network television, but they managed to."

In his own interview with Ausiello, executive producer David Shore also stressed the importance of not knowing the reasons behind Penn's suicide. "The lack of reason behind [the suicide] -- the lack of answers -- was what I responded to and is what I got excited about. House, the man of answers, doesn't have an answer about this guy who he has worked with for two years...It makes him question the most important aspect of himself, which is the ability to find answers. It's the one thing about himself that he feels good about."

Read the whole riveting interview with Kal Penn, David Shore and Katie Jacobs here, or click here to visit the FOX memorial page.

What did you all think of the way Penn's exit was handled on "House?" Were you shocked and moved by Kutner's suicide?

-- Stephanie Lysaght

Photo credit: FOX