“Alcatraz,” which debuts on Fox in January, has the pedigree of an outstanding show. It was created by J.J. Abrams, it’s from the producers of “Lost,” and it stars Sam Neill, Jorge Garcia, and Sarah Jones, who’s a positively TERRIFIC actress (*cups hands in front of chest*). And I’m inclined to say nice things about it, because I like Bad Robot (the studio making “Alcatraz”) and I know one of the writers on the show.

That said, I can’t exactly say that this a remarkable promo. I’ve watched it three times, and I think I know LESS about the show than I did when the day started. It’s all, “Conspiracy! Handgun! Lockers! Blurry Sam Neill face!”

Come on, Fox. It’s not that hard to make a great promo for this show. I mean, there has to be at least ONE scene where Sarah Jones is in a tight shirt.

[via Vulture]

Last month, “Arrested Development” creator Mitch Hurwitz announced that there would be a 9- or 10-episode season of the show that would serve as a primer for the long-awaited, forever-germinating “Arrested Development” movie. Late on Friday afternoon, Netflix announced that it would stream the new season in early 2013. (Good call on making the announcement Friday afternoon, by the way. That way it has all weekend to fall out of Monday’s headlines.)

Netflix said on Friday that it had struck a deal for new episodes with the makers of the show, 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine Television. The episodes are to start appearing on the service in 2013. “Bringing a series back from cancellation almost never happens, but then, ‘Arrested’ always was about as unconventional as they get, so it seems totally appropriate that this show that broke the mold is smashing it to pieces once again,” the founders of Imagine, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, said in a statement. Streaming episodes of the critically acclaimed show have remained popular among Netflix subscribers, giving the company the confidence to make more. [NYT]

So it’s really happening. This is fantastic news, if only because it shows that years of fanboy whining has finally paid off. That means we could get a fourth season of “Community” in 2018.

On the heels of MTV’s successful re-launch of “Beavis and Butt-Head,” Fox is teaming up with Keenen Ivory Wayans to produce two “In Living Color” specials next spring. What’s next from the ’90s pipeline, a Nirvana reunion? What? Suicide? Oh bummer. I thought he and Courtney were gonna last forever.

Host Keenen Ivory Wayans will produce two half-hour specials based on his classic sketch comedy series from the early 1990s, which helped launch the careers of his own family as well as those of Jamie Foxx, David Alan Grier and Jim Carrey, among others.

The revival is being billed as a contemporary take on the hit sketch comedy show that will feature a new cast of fresh, young talent as well as musical performances by special guests. The network will air the pairing this spring, with the option to order the show to series for next fall or mid-season. [THR]

The last time Fox dipped its toe in the sketch comedy market, we got “In the Flow with Affion Crockett,” which most viewers missed because of their need to periodically moisturize their eyes by closing them for a fraction of a second. But hey, this could be a huge success. All Wayans needs to do if find a future Oscar winner, someone who will become the most popular comic actor for the next decade, and a dance team led by a singer/actress who can change the way we look at women’s asses. Seems easy enough.

This is a clip from the pilot episode of “Second Chance,” a short-lived Fox sitcom that aired in 1987 (and included Matthew Perry’s first major role). The opening card puts the date at July 29, 2011, and then a bullet-riddled Gaddafi shows up and gets sentenced to hell. Although I gotta say, the bullet-riddled Gaddafi in “Second Chance” looks WAY better than the real bullet-riddled Gaddafi. Did you see the video of him after he’d been shot and just before he died? That ish is DARK. He looks like a zombie from “The Walking Dead.”

Anyway, there’s a longer video of the show’s opening scene below, which should be great if you like sitcoms that are so unfunny they weren’t good enough to last on Fox before “The Simpsons.” It’s a really excellent use of your time.

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Yesterday, following the news of “The Walking Dead’s” blockbuster ratings, I said it was only a matter of time until we had more zombie television series. In this case, “a matter of time” means “already in development,” as Vulture reports that the 2009 movie Zombieland is being adapted as a half-hour series by Fox, with original writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick onboard.

We hear talks are well under way with Fox Broadcasting and Columbia’s sister unit, Sony Pictures Television, to put the zom-com into development for the 2012-13 season. If it happens, it will actually be sort of fitting.

As Zombieland producer Gavin Polone noted, “The original plan for this was to make it as a TV show.” Indeed, CBS actually ordered a pilot script for the concept all the way back in 2005, “but they did what networks do, which is to take all the good stuff out.” [...]

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