Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat, from "Arrested Development."

And that means just what it says, not that there will be new episodes. But all 53 old episodes will unspool on cable's IFC starting this Sunday, the network announced today. That's a pretty short lead time between the announcement and the kickoff.

IFC, in the midst of a Monty Python retrospective, figured what better way to augment that silliness than with the isanity of the Bluth family, one of television's all-time most dysfunctional. Arrested Development became one of the classic cult hits of television, as Fox struggled mightily for three years to get enough people to watch to make the show economically viable. The network never succeeded, but the fans it did attract are among some of the most rabid anywhere. The show helped launch the career of Michael Cera, who played the young Bluth torn between decency and living up to his father's sketchy expectations. He went on to star with Ellen Page in Juno, while his Development co-star Alia Shawkat is appearing with Page currently in the Drew Barrymore feature Whip It.

Shawkat and Page, said to be the best of buddies, are also working, with Sean Tillmann, (the Ron Jeremy lookalike is also called Har Mar Superstar and Sean Na Na) to produce a show about two hipster chicks who move from New York's Williamsburg to L.A.'s Silver Lake, and what a transition that would be.

No word if they'll appear on screen, but as you can see from the below video, dedicated to Page's mother (and how could I resist another version of The Greatest Song of All Time?) everybody has their fingers crossed. Or maybe not.

IFC will launch the show on Sunday (Oct. 28) at 10 p.m., airing back-to-back episodes weekly at that time, and also Tuesdays at 9 p.m., during its "Automat" night, which is supposed to be special stuff designed to appeal primarily to young men.

Like 80 percent of the other fringe cablers, IFC is trying to reposition itself a little closer to the mainstream, while still staying different from it. It's not the Independent Film Channel, but still a little ways away from being Spike or FX.

Robin Tunney and Simon Baker, The Mentalist.

Settling in with the TiVo on a horrible wet and cold afternooon, I came across The Mentalist. Maybe Simon Baker was sending brain waves out of the machine, or maybe it just couldn't contain his killer smile.

I wasn't that hot on it last year, too predictable and all. But last week's ep, giving co-star Robin Tunney top billing as, of all things, the chief suspect in the murder of a serial child rapist, was tons of fun. And there was Jerry "Hands" Espinson, or at least Christian Clemenson, who played him on Boston Legal. This time, he was a shrink.

Maybe Tunney's Teresa Lisbon did do it. She sure couldn't remember the night in question. Naturally, The Mentalist figured it all out, but I didn't, though one of my suspicions proved true.

We're still digging CSI at our house -- we usually ride these things to the bitter end, and that seems a long way away for CSI, even if Billy Petersen has left -- and it's great to have Jorja Fox back. Coming after CSI on Thursday nights, The Mentalist is quite "compatible," as they say in the network programming biz, and Tunney's every bit as good -- maybe better -- than Fox. They've opened the show up quite a bit since the first few episodes, and the ensemble helps dilute the know-it-all smugness of The Mentalist, which the ladies seem to like, but which annoyed me enough last season to keep the show off my watch list. It's on  it, now.

What a long and not so strange trip it has been for Joan Baez, once the soprano princess of protest and now the beautiful grandma who can't hit those high notes anymore but whose life continues on a plane so high that most of us can only aspire to it.

American Masters tonight (Oct. 14) has 90 minutes on WHYY TV12 (and most other large PBS outlets) that does a wonderful job profiling Baez, from early days (she made the papers at 17 for refusing to participate in an air raid drill because the whole idea was so stupid) to the present. The show follows her 2008-09 tour, and there's plenty of singing throughout.

You can get lost in the YouTube clips of Baez and her one-time (ages ago) boyfriend Bob Dylan. "My mother instincts all poured out because he was a scruffy little mess," she says of Dylan, four months her junior, whose career she helped launch. "I was crazy about him. We were an item, and we were having wonderful fun." And Dylan's there in the show, with rare, cogent remarks about his old girlfriend, nearly 50 years on.

Like most of these shows, there's a certain reverence for the subject, with comments mostly from the wifty, lefty side of the spectrum (David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and The Rev. Jesse Jackson), a side that she represented so solidly. Sure, it's a nostalgia trip, but even though her voice is deeper and more disciplined now, she's still performing strongly. She does about 70 gigs a year, and her 2008 album with Steve Earle, Day After Tomorrow, was nominated for a Grammy.

Here are Joanie and Bobby singing "With God on Our Side." 46 years ago. If you go to YouTube, be careful. There are tons of duets. You wouldn't want to get too far behind at work.

"Glee"sters: Pure entertainment.

I'm not one to get heavily into quoting bad-boy gossip grinder TMZ, but sometimes you just can't resist.

The site, in a short blurb that isn't worth linking, says its sources say the folks at Macy's invited the Glee-sters to dance and sing in the big Thanksgiving Day Parade, which turns out to be one of the last remaining hits on NBC. But the Peacock, apparently up in clucks that the move would give free publicity to the Fox show, nixed the performance.

Too bad, because the Glee kids are great, and the show is one of the best in memory on TV -- not perfect, but so different from most other things and genuinely entertaining. You think it's really going to lure viewers from the smarmy Law & Order: SVU Wednesdays at 9 p.m.?

Lorelai, Rory and their legs.

Making the best of a tough situation.

Maura Tierney, one of the the good ones on TV, is forced to drop out of NBC's promising Parenthood to devote all her energy to fighting breast cancer.

But, the Hollywood Reporter confirms, producers have signed Lauren Graham for the first-among-equals role as -- get this -- a financially strapped single mother who turns to her parents (Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia) for help, in this sprawling family drama, with plenty of comic touches. Maybe they'll cast Alexis Bledel as an extra sibling. Graham's character already has three; another one wouldn't take up much space.

Thank goodness the first choice, drippy Helen Hunt, couldn't come to terms. (OK, she's not that drippy, but the former Lorelai Gilmore is way better, and maybe now Graham will have a chance to win the Emmy she should have gotten for the beloved WB show.)

Now all we have to do is hold our breath to see whether NBC will still manage to screw up this remake of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's 1989 movie. The two are also executive producing the TV show, along with writer/creator Jasim Katims (Friday Night Lights, Roswell). No premiere date, yet.

Adios, Officer Sherman.

Sad news, Southland fans. Variety's reporting that NBC has canceled the hard-hitting cop drama, starring Michael Cudlitz and Ben McKenzie, which was scheduled to return Oct. 23.

The fourth-rated prime-time network is really in a tizzy, cutting costs at every turn to try to turn a profit (Jay Leno, anyone?). Can they still sell advertising if nobody's watching?

Warhorse Dateline has been snagging more than 7 million viewers a week, and NBC figures Southland, which costs the network about four times as much as the news-magazine show, is a bad investment. It's anyone's guess as to why it took them until two weeks before the show's debut to make the call. Mine is: Incompetence.

People who complained that NBC only had 10 hours for decent scripted shows can ratchet up their griping 11 percent.

Exec producer John Wells, a TV giant who made his bones on ER, plans to try to sell the show elsewhere, keeping actors under contract. Five second-season episodes are already in the can, and NBC has promised to try to air them. No one is holding their breath.

Summer Glau as Cameron the Terminator.

Two of my favorite series return for the 2009-10 season tonight, on at exactly the same time, of course. Medium on CBS and Dollhouse on Fox both go at 9 p.m.

And here's a word of warning: Neither premiere episode is up to the shows' usual standards. One of my missions is to get people to look at series they might enjoy, even if they're different from the usual run of TV they watch, and you should be watching both these shows, but if you're disappointed tonight, don't give up.

You can probably just skip Medium tonight. Alison Dubois had a stroke at the end of the show's last season on NBC, and not only does it seem to have messed up her whole right side, it has also clipped the psychic dreams in which see gets clues as to the identity of each week's killer. Some of the clues are pretty obvious, like she sees him doing it. And she's worried her gift/curse will never come back. Now, I would never give anything important away. I hate spoilers so much, I fast forward through the previews that come at the end of episodes. But does anybody think there can be a show called Medium if the star isn't one? You'd have to change the name to Extra Small. Still, this show has been a wonderful mix of crime and spooky stuff with the basics of family living -- Alison has a semi-tolerant, loving husband and three little kids who have been a pleasure to watch growing up -- and you get a good dose of that tonight. I'm sure the show will hit its stride on its new network in the coming weeks.

Dollhouse just has me confused. In Echo's mission tonight, she gets married, which would be fine, except the guy marrying her doesn't seem to understand that she can only be his wife temporarily. Lotsa rich guys get dolls imprinted for all sorts of sexual shenanigans. It's one of the Dollhouse's main revenue streams. In fact, somebody says they're looking forward to lots of craziness tonight because the Jonas Brothers are in town. Show creator Joss Whedon always throws some humor in. But you don't get a wife for the rest of your life, 'cause the kids have to go back to headquarters to get their heads re-quartered for other engagements. So maybe somebody can explain it to me. Maybe you can also explain why so many actors in this show have such weird names: Eliza Dushku, Enver Gjokaj, Dichen Lachman, Miracle Laurie, Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz, Alan Tudyk. Not to mention Summer Glau, who's joining the show from the canceled Sarah Connor Chronicles, but don't tune for her in tonight's episode because she's not in it. You should check in, however, to keep up with the cool, unfolding overarching Dollhouse story, and also so you can explain the wedding thing to me. 

Jayda Jacques and her boyfriend, Creep Evans.

The Sundance Channel goes its own way most of the time, outside the boundaries of "regular" TV. They're taking it to the limit right in the heart of this fall's premiere week, with a "docu-series," Brick City.

The five hours, tonight through Friday from 10 to 11 p.m., have drawn a lot of critical attention, with TV Guide's Bruce Fretts calling Brick City the best new show of the fall, "the ultimate reality show."

Executive produced by Forrest Whitaker, the series takes an insider's look at Newark, N.J., where idealistic Mayor Cory Booker, (Stanford, Yale Law, Rhodes Scholar) and his administration work to turn around what has historically been known as one of the worst cities in the United States. ("God bless Camden" is one of their mottoes.) But there are personal stories, too, including the Blood gang member who finds herself pregnant with the child of her Crip boyfriend, named Creep.

As they say, you can't make this stuff up, though David Simon came awfully close with The Wire, and Brick City plays a bit like a cross between that show and a news documentary. Not for everybody (a lot of 'em have to watch Jay Leno these days at 10 p.m.), Brick City is that TV rarity that's good and good for you.

And Sundance isn't completely daffy, even if it did decide to program against the new fall broadcast shows. Each episode repeats following its premiere at 1 a.m. Set you TiVo's (or whatever you're recording with these days) accordingly.

Danny DiVito takes a troll's toll for the boy's soul, or something, in "The Nightman Cometh."

I have seen the end of the world. But it's nothing to worry about. In fact, it's tons of fun. It's "The Nightman Cometh," a stage version of a beloved episode of It's Always Sunny Philadelphia. (Think Lucy in the chocolate factory, or the Seinfelds mastering their domain.) For the broad-minded, natural or substance-aided, Sunny's one of the funniest shows in a long time.

"Nightman" is a whole different world, with a Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe -- rabid fans who sing along and so forth. The audience Thursday night at the Tower Theater was stoked. Only thing is, the TV show cast was even more primed for fun, performing the episode, and a bawdy, raucous musical within it, with glee, to keep things very TV up-to-the-minute.

While Sunny's fifth season premiered on FX, The Gang went through a script that includes sodomy, superheroes and a troll. The fans adored it, and also went wild when they saw a preview of one of this season's entire episodes. Before that, the house was rocked by a clip from the Christmas DVD (runs about 48 minutes, in stores in November). Mini-spoiler: It inolves a traumatic childhood, Santa, and vampires.

So you can all see what you missed. I asked Caitlin Olson (who plays Sweet Dee) why the road trip: Money, Publicity or Fun? "Ego," she smiled, and minutes later demonstrated why. Love and laughs dripped from the ornate decorations. "Definitely not money. That all went into our bus."

The gang's wrapping up a Northeast tour (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) before heading to the West Coast for Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Will they be flying the bus coast-to-coast, like NASA does with the Space Shuttle?

No, Olson said. "The bus flies."