Amazingly, Fox is also reportedly signing on for a multiple-episode arc on FX’s Rescue Me.

Not sure how the Scrubs episodes will work, but it’s kind of cool that Fox might be reunited with Cox, who played his girlfriend Lauren on Family Ties many, many years ago. Totally  loved that show.

Very curious about what Fox’s role will be on Rescue Me though…that’s not exactly a show that would scream for an actor like him.

Scrubs returns this fall, while Rescue Me wont be back until sometime in 2009.

Of course it’s a dark show, hilarious at times, but also harsh and brutal. I love it, and after checking out four episodes of Dexter this past weekend, it’s got that same sick, twisted nature that Rescue Me can have at times.

If you are a fan of the show, you need to know about the 10 “minisodes” that are starting this Tuesday night, June 24th, at 10 p.m. ET/PT. If you have a season pass or series link, depending on your type of DVR, it SHOULD pick these up automatically.

My Direct TV DVR has them in my TO-DO list already.

They should prove interesting, even if they are here to keep us happy until April of 2009, when the show will officially return to FX.

Yeah, April 2009. That’s awful. It will make the hiatus between season 4 and 5 around 19 months. From a USA Today article, writer Peter Tolan talks about it:

“You’re looking at 19 months off the air, which is technically cancellation, I believe,” says Peter Tolan, who writes and produces the series with Leary. “We felt there was some risk there, and the best way to hedge our bets is to give us some face time with our audience so they don’t drift away.”

These minisodes aren’t going to help set up season 5 or anything, but are intended mainly to keep audiences interested in the show while they wait until next April.

The minisodes don’t connect to the new season, but they do answer fan calls for more comedy. “They said, ‘We miss the guys talking in the kitchen about sex, their lives, and foolishness in the (fire) house,’ ” Tolan says.

“One involves a flashback that explains something that goes all the way back to the beginning of the series, and another is a dream sequence tied into Tommy’s psyche,” Leary says of his character, Tommy Gavin. “It starts out as a really sexy dream and ends up as a nightmare.”

Tolan hopes they help erase a subpar fourth season: “The story choices we made took us away from our main guys. It was sort of treading water.”

The episodes will be available online after their initial airing, on sites like YouTube, Crackle and and Hulu.

I’ll be sure to post them here once they are available.

Denis Leary, the star of the show, had this to say about what we can expect from season 5:

“[It] will pick up where Tommy left off emotionally, with the death of his father (Charles Durning) and the fact that everyone else is in grief about it, but he’s not.”

[USA Today]

Well, the president at FX, John Landgraf, has given Rescue Me a bit of life by having the show air 10 five-minute “minisodes” this summer to keep the series in the minds of viewers. Although it should be noted that these little episodes will not serve as a “connection” between seasons.

The minisodes will air on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. and will be co-written by executive producers Denis Leary and Peter Tolan.  According to Media Daily News, these minisodes should be caught by any DVR season passes already set up for the show.

The FX network ordered 22 episodes of the series for the summer, but because of the strike, they’ll save them until 2009 when they can be run continuously through.

This show is one of my favorites, although it is pretty hard core and raunchy most of the time. Denis Leary is excellent and the writing is always funny and fresh.

Totally looking forward to these little summer episodes.

[Media Daily News]

Damages, which got the go-ahead for a second season, is apparently rumored to not return until January, 2009. That’s a heck of a long ways off and starts to really make my summer viewing depressing.

To make matters worse, Rescue Me isn’t even coming back until MARCH of 2009, even further down the road.

This is all going to make the hot months interesting. As I’ve opened my eyes to the fact that cable has some REALLY good shows out there, it’s become a dependable place to find some good stuff during the summer. Flight of the Conchords, Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Battlestar Galactica are a few of the others I enjoy.

With the report of Entourage not coming back until September, I guess I will be catching up on a lot of reading during July, August and September.

It’s definitely a disturbing show at times that deals with a lot of hurt, loss, addiction and heroism. It’s weird to have a guy like Tommy who is so filled with loss and pain, totally addicted to alcohol (sober though for quite awhile), yet who is such a force as a firefighter.

The writing and Leary’s acting is what really makes this show what it is. I usually have no idea where a story is going because they put such a unique, harsh twist on everything. You can think something is sure to happen, because you’ve seen it 100 times on other shows, but then it totally flips on you, or else you weren’t even watching what you thought you were.

I’ve pimped the show enough, so on to the great news.

It’s been renewed for a fifth season, which is awesome in of itself, but also the episode count has been increased to 22. The past four seasons were only 13 episodes in length, so this is a big boost for the show.

Barring the WGA strike that could affect it, Rescue Me starts filming again early in 2008 and will be split into two cycles over the 22 episodes.

They’re starting to get more difficult to come up with, but no worries, my head is usually filled with enough mundane things to keep us going for a loooong time.

This week’s question…

Who is your favorite character on a current TV?

I was originally going for favorite character on The Office, but I think it was too narrow, especially for anyone who doesn’t watch that show.

My answer took a bit of time to think up. There is John Locke from Lost, Jim Halpert from The Office, Baltar from Battlestar Galactica…and others.

But my personal favorite is Tommy Gavin (Dennis Leary), from Rescue Me.  He’s a NewYork firefighter, hard-nosed, butt-kicking, funny, but with serious flaws. The show itself is not for everyone, it’s gritty and highly disturbing sometimes. It’s also one of my favorites.

If I were to pick an ALL-TIME favorite, it would hands down be Fox Mulder from The X-Files.