Blog Posts by Tara Ariano

The original Munsters, most of whom...can't cameo. (The Everett Collection)One might think that the high-profile flame-out of what was to have been this fall's "Wonder Woman" reboot (not to mention the relatively recent failures of 21st-century versions of "Knight Rider" and "The Bionic Woman") might have scared NBC off from revamping another TV hit of yesteryear. Evidently not: The network has made a commitment to redo "The Munsters."

Nellie Andreeva of Deadline.com reports that NBC has not only accepted a script from "Pushing Daisies" creator Bryan Fuller, but has ordered the production of a pilot. But fans of the 1960s sitcom hit shouldn't expect a retread of the original: According to Andreeva, Fuller's vision is for "a visually spectacular one-hour drama," a big departure from the laugh-tracked, sitcom original. (Perhaps Fuller was somewhat inspired by ABC's hour-long drama "Once Upon a Time," which places classic fairy-tale characters in a fairly dark contemporary setting — just like NBC's own "Grimm," minus the procedural trappings, plus viewers.) As my esteemed colleague Lindsay Robertson recently noted, NBC is very bullish on Fuller this year: It's also ordered a Hannibal Lecter pilot script from him.

I realize that, when they planned the season, the producers of "Community" didn't know that news would break, on November 14, that the show would be put on hiatus early in the new year. Nevertheless, it's a shame that the episode that's about to air on November 17 is, yet again, a high-concept affair in which Abed (Danny Pudi) makes a handheld-camera documentary about the making of a Greendale commercial, starring his study group.

Oh good, an episode built around an over-complicated gimmick. That'll entice any new viewers who might try out the show because they read about it in the news! Oh, "Community." Sometimes we bring heartache on ourselves.

Oprah and Gayle, in happier days. (Oprah.com)Lost in all the press coverage of CBS's new morning show, co-hosted by Gayle King and Charlie Rose, is an astonishing fact: King is free to do it because "The Gayle King Show," her talk show on OWN, is canceled.

Let me repeat that, in case the gravity of it escaped you: Oprah Winfrey, for whom OWN is named, canceled a talk show starring Gayle King, her best friend.

It's unfortunate that audiences couldn't embrace King's show, and even more unfortunate that her dearest friend, Winfrey, had to be the one to make the tough business decision not to keep it on the air. On the other hand, there is probably no one alive who's better at cushioning the blow of bad news than Oprah "Remember Your Spirit" Winfrey. I wasn't in the meeting when Winfrey had to break it to King that her show had tanked, but I have a good imagination, and I like to think Winfrey started the conversation with one of these great openers.

This summer, the dearth of other TV programming options led me to sample MTV's "Teen Mom," on which I promptly got hooked. So now, even though WAY MORE of the shows I regularly watch will be on in December, I...will probably also watch "Teen Mom 2." These ladies make the teen moms of "Teen Mom" seem as wholesome and well-adjusted as the March girls of Concord, Massachusetts!

Will this game ever end? (South Park Studios)Some might have thought that, with series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone stretching creatively this year by writing a (hugely successful) Broadway musical, "South Park" might soon wind down. Apparently, though, Stone and Parker have more stories they need to tell via the medium of computer-animated paper cutouts: Comedy Central has renewed "South Park" for three more seasons.

This report doesn't contain the most relevant information about the deal — namely, how big a dumptruck Comedy Central backed up to South Park Studios, and exactly how full of money it was. But it does remind us all that "South Park" premiered in 1997 and will, as of this latest multi-season renewal, remain on the air until 2016. When you saw Stone and Parker in, say, "BASEketball," did you ever think they were the type of canny businesspeople who could keep a show on Comedy Central for almost 20 years? Because I didn't.

Look, I'm not crazy, okay? I don't think Freemasons run the country, nor do I need a tinfoil hat to keep the CIA from reading my thoughts. But SOMEONE at NBC has OBVIOUSLY been spying on my behavior at recent game nights. First, in September, the network dramatized an extreme sore-losing situation at a Model UN on "Community." And then, last night, a Braverman family Game Night is marred by a child's inability to give a clue during Charades.

Jeff is DISGUSTED. (CBS)I think I know why we don't often see or read interviews with people who work behind the scenes at reality shows. It's not because knowing how the shows are produced would make us realize they are fake and therefore render us unable to enjoy them any longer. It's because if we had access to the people who know ALL the dirt, we would stop caring about the people on camera and their fashion lines or tattoos or ghostwritten novels. FOR EXAMPLE: An anonymous camera operator who's worked on such reality shows as "The Amazing Race," "The Apprentice," and (most germanely) "Survivor" volunteered for an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, in the course of which he or she offered up some decent gossip about the production on "Survivor," like the debauchery that goes on at the crew's camp and how camera operators sometimes just pretend to be filming when they aren't.

See, these guys are hanging in! (NBC)If all you had to go on was the passion of fans on the internet, you might be forgiven for thinking that "Community" is the most popular sitcom — if not the most popular series — on all of television. In fact, that is not the case. Among NBC's Thursday-night sitcoms, "Community" is the lowest-rated. So while yesterday's news that the show is about to go on hiatus is disappointing, it can't have possibly come as a surprise to its fans, can it? I'm honestly asking. Because I wasn't surprised, and yet the rest of the internet seems to be reacting as though this is a world-shaking shock. And with a petition popping up (and a poorly fact-checked one at that: Show's not canceled, guys) and a movement underway with a name that aligns itself with the protesters of Occupy Wall Street, I feel I must call for peace and restraint before this nonsense gets any further out of hand.