The long-awaited Seinfeld reunion takes place this fall, in the alternate show-biz world that is Curb Your Enthusiasm. The faux reunion is one of the main underpinnings of the entire 13-episode season, and it will definitely be the subject of the show's season finale, which may run an entire hour, rather than Curb's usual 30 minutes.

Curb kingpin Larry David, who was also, along with Jerry Seinfeld himself, the creator and executive producer of Seinfeld, told the TV critics all about it at their summer meeting, after the scribes had watched some clips from the coming season, which starts Sept. 20 on HBO.

"For years, I've been asked about a Seinfeld reunion," David said. "I would always say, 'No, there's no reunion. There's not going to be a reunion show. We would never do that. It's a lame idea.' And then I thought, 'but it might be funny to do that on Curb.'

These sorts of ad boycott efforts, usually from the sex-and-violence police, rarely work, but now there's another country heard from. ColorOfChange.org is asking its more than 600,000 members (that's what they say they have) to petition advertisers on Glenn Beck’s radio and TV shows to pull their commercials.

The group's angry over Beck's comments about President Obama on Tuesday's Fox and Friends. "This president has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for white people," said Beck. Later: "This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Boycott movements usually wind up just giving more notice to the perceived wrongdoer. Beck, who has shown time and again that he'll say virtually anything to get noticed, is probably as excited about the boycott demands as anybody.

HBO honchos announced they were picking up Entourage (8 million viewers a week), Hung (10 million) and -- hooray! -- True Blood, which, with 11 million viewers a week, is knocking on the heavy door set by The Sopranos as HBO's most popular original series. All will return next summer.

But, before that, season two of True Blood will wrap up with Evan Rachel Wood (and, my, hasn't she grown up?) as Queen of the Vampires. She "totally delivers," says Michael Lombardo, president of HBO programming. "I don't want to give anything away, but wait till you see her."

Other HBO programming notes: Big Love is back in January. Flight of the Conchords? "We're ready when they're ready," says Lombardo. In Treatment, based on an Israeli show that only ran two seasons, will have trouble getting new scripts written, but star Gabriel Byrne is waiting. And, coming in March, HBO has another sprawling World War II mini-series coming from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, this one set in the Pacific.

Zak George, the great dog trainer, has gotten more than three million hits on YouTube, and he claims to have helped more than 3,000 dog owners teach their mutts to do everything from fetching a beer to taking out the garbage.

Beth and Alex Tucker and their garbagedog, Dobby, sat quietly before the critics at their summer gathering while Zak babbled energetically, and his famous dog, Venus, ran around doing tricks. She found a missing remote control and worked with Zak doing amazing acrobatic stunts.

But then her ball got lost behind a curtain. And that was that. Helpers and handlers scrambled, almost as frantically as the fixated Venus, and Zak's attempts to push his new Animal Planet show kind of fell apart. "I forgive her," George said afterward. "She was just having fun. ... Dogs are with us such a short time. We should try to make every minute of their life like Heaven."

The estimable Michael Ausiello reports from Entertainment Weekly that Amy Poehler will sit back down behind the Saturday Night Live anchor desk, if not on Saturdays. She'll join Seth Meyers on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday and, after spending half the show reciting the title, will go into the usual news-oriented highjinks. Poehler's definitely skedded for Sept. 17 and 24, Ausiello says, but it's not clear if she'll continue beyond that. Update runs until Oct. 15, when 30 Rock returns.

On Sept. 17, Update goes at 8 p.m., followed by the second season premiere of the Poehler-starrer Parks and Recreation at 8:30, the return of The Office at 9, and the premiere of the promising Community, about misfits, including SNL alum Chevy Chase, at a community college, at 9:30.

"Put the kids to bed, lock the door, pull down the shades, 'cause you ain't seen nothing like this," Starz executive VP of creative development told a room of TV critics at their summer meeting.

It's Spartacus, coming around again next January on the pay-cable network, with some of the hyper-realistic style of The 300, and pushed by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, of, among others, Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys fame. Critics got to see the editors' cut of the trailer, which had been shown, in edited form, last weekend at the big Comic-Con gathering in San Diego.

The fanboys missed a little nudity, but not a whole lot of the graphic blood and guts, as slaves slice off each others' heads, legs and arms, and inflict other, less precise mayhem. Aw, it's not that bad, said executive producer and head writer Steven S. DeKnight. Gladators didn't get into the "gruesome, violent, twisted stuff" until the Roman Empire was in decline, after the time of Spartacus and his slave rebellion.

"I'm back in Philadelphia every six weeks for QVC," says Joan Rivers, whose jewelry line is a big seller on the shopping network. "Melissa went to Penn, you know."

We know, Joan. We know how proud you are. You tell us every time we meet. "Melissa works hard for Penn. She's a big member of the Penn family, planning meetings, raising money. Make sure you put that in. We've got to get Cooper into Penn, and we've only got 10 years. ... If my grandson doesn't get in, I'm coming after you."

Edgar Cooper Endicott is Melissa River's only child, the apple of the eye of his grandma, who has a show premiering Aug. 5 on TV Land, How'd You Get So Rich. She goes around interviewing self-made megabuckers. "The nouveau riche are wonderful," says Joan, 76 and still tough as ever. "They'll tell you everything. ... One guy opened his safe, and we counted his money. I had an orgasm, the first time since Melissa."

"This is a high-risk game," says Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, whose high-gloss show returns for its third season Aug. 16 on cable's AMC. "So many big hits have been run into the ground. We can't repeat oursleves."

And, if the first new episode is any indication, there won't be any repeating. "You'll be learning a lot more about Sal," says Bryan Batt, who plays Salvatore Romano, art director at Sterling Cooper, the ad agency at the center of the show. Sal may have more than just beautiful suits in his closet. "I can't tell you what you'll learn, but it's fun."

When we left Mad Men, the false life lead character Don Draper (Jon Hamm) had woven for himself was starting to unravel. "The theme of the show has always been, people change," says Weiner. "The season opens with a shot of Don's bare feet. He's going to have to deal with who he really is, and we're going to have to deal with how that person continues to live in the world of the show."

The Hollywood Reporter reports (what else would it do?) that USA Network's Burn Notice and Royal Pains have both been renewed, Pains for its second season and Burn for its fourth. Time flies when you're running from all those thugs and murderers. The Thursday pair has helped boost the ratings at USA, making it the No. 1 cable cable network in the second quarter of 2009 and No. 1 in July, too.

Both shows are just about perfect summer viewing, action, fun, no heavy lifting. Pains' setting in the Hamptons makes it especially refreshing. The shows are both drawing more than 7 million viewers, decent winter numbers for broadcast-network programs, and an enviable audience anywhere in summer. Big Brother, for instance, drew a little more than 6 million Sunday night.