The Screen Actors Guild annually awards excellence in screen acting, and has quickly become one of the more prestigious year end awards. The SAG awards are usually a solid indicator for Oscar glory in the acting categories, so seeing a few these names on this nominations list is a little surprising.

Chief among the unexpected nominees is the cast of Bridesmaids and Jonah Hill for Moneyball. Well deserved nominations, but certainly a tad shocking considering the strong year for acting all around. On the more expected front Modern Family takes in five acting nominations in just three categories.

I also appreciate that the awards honor stunt workers as well, this allows the Screen Actors Guild to broaden the scope of films they salute, and shines a light on a very important aspect of film making. The awards will be handed out Sunday, January 29th.

The full list of nominees after the jump:

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There is only one thing that George Lucas doesn’t want to make a dime off of, only one thing he wants to see disappear and never brought up again. That would be the horrible, no good, very bad Star Wars Holiday Special which details Chewbacca’s attempt to get home to his family on life day. While we wont get a chance to see the special officially released anytime soon, Chewie is getting back into the holiday spirit.

The cast of Glee welcomed the wookie on set to film his appearance on next week’s Christmas themed episode. One of the series’ stars Matthew Morrison, who is also directing the episode, recently revealed on the Jimmy Kimmel show that the episode will be paying homage to the previously mentioned Star Wars Holiday Special and the Judy Garland Christmas Specials too.

“We called up George Lucas and he gave us Chewbacca. There is only one guy who can officially be Chewbaccca, and he lives in Northern California and they flew him in,” Morrison said. “We had Chewbacca for the day, and it was just great, and we were all taking pictures with him. This is a guy who has been doing it for 12 years.”

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When AMC’s The Walking Dead hit it big last year, we knew that TV studios and management companies would be capitalizing on the trend and pushing as many of their horror TV projects they have to the top of the greenlight list. The true test, however, is whether any of those shows would turn out to be decent.

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story has proven that fact with only a handful of episodes, and FX has taken notice as well. The cable network has just announced a second season for the show. THR has the official word from the network.

“It’s one thing to have the ambition and guts to reinvent a genre in a way that makes it captivatingly fresh for a broad audience — it’s something else entirely to have the craft to back that ambition up,” said FX president and GM Jon Landgraf. “Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have hit the trifecta withNip/Tuck, Glee and now American Horror Story, which will be scaring FX’s viewers to death for many years to come.”

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There’s nothing wrong with collecting action figures or sporting the classic “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?” T-shirt when you’re well into your 30s, right? Of course not. It’s just that now, instead of riding My Little Pony and making out with Barbie (or vice-versa), they maintain a silent vigil over your work cubicle…and your teacher won’t make your put a piece of tape over “hell.”

So cubicles and teachers everywhere will be excited to know that Fox has announced a line of limited-edition, Comic-Con-exclusive products based on their most popular franchises.

Executive Vice President of Fox Consumer Products, Robert Marick, says, “Comic-Con is a great place to engage our most passionate fans and we want to reward them with unique and special offerings that they won’t be able to acquire anywhere else.” What better way to make your co-workers jealous or finally impress Meg in accounting?

Toys, T-shirts, comics, and more will be featured at booth #4313, and a full list can be found below the fold.

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While he’s obviously more of a household name for creating and running 3 years of Fox’s hit high school musical series Glee, before that Ryan Murphy was known as the man who created Nip/Tuck. That series, obviously very different than Glee, was his real masterpiece, bringing 100 episodes of drama, horror, and intrigue.

Now that things look to be settling down for his series on Fox, their raunchier network sister station, FX, has picked up 13 episodes of Murphy and his co-creator Brad Falchuk’s American Horror Story. THR has the scoop on the premise and who we can expect to see on the show:

From 20th Television, the mysterious drama revolves around Ben and Vivien Harmon (The Practice’s Dylan McDermott, Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton) who move their family from Boston to a haunted San Francisco home in an attempt to rebuild their family after a miscarriage and affair.

Murphy is said to be revising the initial script to increase the role of the nosy neighbor once Jessica Lange (Grey Gardens) signed on to the project in April. Denis O’Hare (True Blood) co-stars as Larry the Burn Guy, a former resident of the haunted estate; with Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) and Alexandra Breckenridge (Life Unexpected) both playing Moira O’Hara, a housekeeper who has worked at the home for years and appears as a young woman to Ben and an older woman to Vivien.

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It’s not particularly surprising that Mad Men and Mildred Pierece had the most nominations today when Melissa McCarthy and Joshua Jackson made the 2011 Primetime Emmy announcement. Jane Lynch will be hosting the 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, September 18.

For the complete list of nominees, head over to the Emmys website. We’ve just got the ones we really care about for you here. (aka The Big Ones).

Of course, the fact that Community isn’t nominated in the Outstanding Comedy category just makes these awards that much less special. Plus, I wouldn’t want to be nominated in a category against Peter Dinklage for Game of Thrones. He’s pretty much got that one in the bag

Check out the nominations below.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes
Louis C.K., Louie
Steve Carell, The Office
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Hugh Laurie, House
Timothy Olyphant, Justified
Jon Hamm, Mad Men

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There is one major rule when it comes to casting a TV series that one plans on continuing past 3 years: stay away from creating “ageless” child characters. In just about every series, that character type seems to be the main downfall of the realism of a series, from LOST to Saved by the Bell.

That’s where Glee showrunner Ryan Murphy has decided to pull some strings. It seems that the decision has been made to not have the show’s stars, Chris Colfer, Lea Michele and Cory Monteith, return for the fourth season. Here’s the breakdown from THR.

Murphy tells THR: “You can keep them on the show for six years and people will criticize you for not being realistic, or you can be really true to life and say when they started the show they were very clearly sophomores and they should graduate at the end of their senior year.”

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As with NBC earlier today, Fox jumped into the fray and announced its primetime schedule for next season also. The network has one new drama, Terra Nova, three comedies, New Girl, I Hate My New Daughter and the animated Allen Gregory, launching in the fall.

Dramas Alcatraz, the Bones spinoff Finder and animated comedy Napoleon Dynamite drop in midseason. Prehistoric drama Terra Nova wil anchor the network’s Monday lineup at 8 PM with House moving to 9 PM. House will return to 8 PM in midseason to help launch the J.J. Abrams show Alcatraz.

Fox is keeping the Tuesday comedy block with New Girl joining Glee and Raising Hope. I Hate My Teenage Daughter will launch after X-Factor. Also remaining where it is is American Idol on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Thank goodness for that, right?

Obviously, we’re happy to see Family Guy and Fringe back for next year. It just would have been nice to see Human Target get another chance. That could have fit nicely in the hole left by Terra Nova once it gets cancelled.

Yes, we’re cynical about Fox so we assume they will cancel the show just when it starts to get interesting. Fox, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Here are Fox’s fall and midseason schedules followed by descriptions of the new shows:

FOX FALL 2011 PRIMETIME SCHEDULE

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  - TERRA NOVA (new)
9:00-10:00 PM  - HOUSE

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  - GLEE
9:00-9:30 PM  - NEW GIRL (wt) (new)
9:30-10:00 PM  - RAISING HOPE

WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:30 PM  - THE X FACTOR Performance Show (new)
9:30-10:00 PM  - I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER (wt) (new)

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Back in the old days we had three TV networks and they scheduled new shows to premiere in the Fall and reruns all Summer. That scheduling model is now a distant memory as new shows premiere pretty much any time of the year these days.

One of the biggest times for networks to bring out new shows is during what is known as midseason. This midseason is no exception with many new shows hitting the air for the first time or previous ones coming back after the holiday break. So, to help you get your DVRs ready, here is a list of the major premiere dates on broadcast and cable compiled by the extremely helpful folks over at Deadline.

It includes season/series premieres and many return dates for series with split seasons. Now to find that DVR remote and get to programming.

Jan. 3
The Bachelor, ABC, season premiere
Pretty Little Liars, ABC Family, winter season premiere
Greek, ABC Family, season premiere

Jan. 4
V, ABC, season premiere
Live to Dance, CBS, series premiere
The Biggest Loser: Couples, NBC, season premiere
Southland, TNT, season premiere
Chopped, Food Network, season premiere
Caprica, Syfy, final 5 episodes

Jan.5
Ghost Hunters International, Syfy, season premiere
Are We There Yet?, TBS, season premiere
Flying Wild Alaska, Discovery, series premiere

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As if Lea Michele’s appearance on the very first episode of TBS’s Conan wasn’t enough, you’ll be getting a second dose of her on Fox tonight, as she tags along with the rest of the gang from Glee with an all new episode. We even get the triumphant return of Puck. Here’s the full synopsis of tonight’s episode.

After Finn and Sam find an unconventional way of controlling their urges, a few glee club members pick up on the strategy and start using it too. But when Coach Beiste gets wind of what they are up to, the glee club has some explaining to do.

We’ve got two brand new clips from tonight’s episode. Check them out after the jump, and be sure to catch an all new Glee at 8pm tonight on Fox.

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Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Otherwise, on to the links!

• Finally, something good is coming to TV as Patton Oswalt is developing a series for Fox.

• A 23 year old turned their Dodge Caravan into the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles van. The best part? It was a girl.

• Netflix may be making a buttload of money in the next few months, but they still feel like their too good for Trash Humpers, a film about humping trash.

• New TRON inspired wristwatches are on the way. Say goodbye to the ladies, and hello to the confusion you’ll have when trying to figure out when lunch is.

• Len Weisman has announced that Colin Farrell is at the top of the list to star in a remake of Total Recall. We’d like to see him fit inside of an animatronic fat lady…

• Think Zach Galifiniakis gives the best awkward interview? Think again. This Dallas radio host actually out-awkwards him.

• The plot details for Transformers: The Dark of The Moon have popped up online and no there’s no continuity tie-in to The Wall.

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Next week, Fox is getting spooky, as they bring us an entire week’s worth of Halloween themed shows. New comedy Raising Hope will get it’s haunt on with a special Halloween episode on Wednesday, but before that, Glee is doing the Time Warp with a very special episode dedicated to the classic rock musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The episode revolves around the cast putting together their own performance of Rocky Horror for the school, and getting plenty of dirty looks and judging faces that most fans of the transvestite-dancing, underwear-donning, homoerotic musical have put up with for years.

It’s impossible for them to fit the entire musical into the 40 minutes or so that they have to tell the story, but we do know that the album consists of Science Fiction Double Feature, Damn it, Janet, Whatever Happened Tto Saturday Night, Sweet Transvestite, Touch a Touch a Touch a Touch Me, There’s a Light, and Time Warp, so we’ll get to see those songs during the episode.

Check out an exclusive look at the show after the jump, and be sure to catch The Rocky Horror Glee Show next Tuesday at 8pm ET/PT on Fox.

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