Mystery-Writing Detective: Nevermore

Right now the major TV networks are in the middle of announcing next season's pickups, which for us means bidding goodbye to the sweet dream of "Poe," a procedural starring the 19th-century writer solving mysteries in Boston. This was an actual pilot commissioned by ABC. We are shocked it didn't go anywhere. This review of the pilot (which I haven't seen) faults the casting of blond Australian actor Chris Egan, formerly of the tanktastic "Kings," as E.A. Poe. Yeah, it is hard to picture a blond Poe, but more so a Poe solving crimes.

Truly, if you need a mystery-writing detective show in your life, "Castle" with Nathan Fillion as thriller writer Richard Castle is all right, and it was renewed months ago. Alternately, peruse the "Edgar Allen Poe in television and film" Wikipedia page (holy completism).

America's Next Top Book Editor

Contents of an e-mail I received yesterday:

[Production company] is casting a new reality show that takes place in the world of NYC book publishing. The show is in the same vein as "Top Chef" or "Project Runway," but about books! We're looking for people who want to become a book editor at a major publishing house.

We're looking for interesting personalities with strong opinions obviously, but anyone who has a passionate desire to be a part of the publishing world would be great. If you know of anyone who might be interested please have them write to us [e-mail redacted]. Let us know why you would be great for this show! Best to include a picture of yourself and write "book editor" in the subject line of the email.

Hooboy. (See also: "a cross between "Jersey Shore" and "Anna Karenina.")

"A book hasn't caused me this much trouble since WHERE'S WALDO went to that barber pole factory!"

-Tracy Jordan. On this week's "30 Rock" Tracy discovers that Liz Lemon used a lot of his foibles to write her book, which is ruining her male coworkers' lives. (Except Jack's, naturally.) And of those three, Alec Baldwin has written a book, Tina Fey is under contract to write one and Tracy Morgan's book just came out.