After a long time away, the one-time celestial teen queen of broadcast television is returning to the small screen. Also today: We might, coincidentally, have a new Juliet; a cult favorite cartoon gets a second season; and, no folks, 30 Rock is not dying. Probably.

  • Remember My So-Called Life? Of course you do. It was the tragically short-lived ABC series that presented teendom, and general family life, with an unbearably relatable ache, yearning, and wonder. While, to my mind, the show's greatest asset was Bess Armstrong's brilliant work as mom Patty, it was teen Angela, played by a young upstart named Claire Danes, that got the most attention. And she was good! But then the series got canceled, and though it was rumored that ABC was considering bringing it back after pleas from fans and critics, it didn't come back. An even rumorier rumor was that Danes said no, thus scuttling the show, because she wanted to pursue her burgeoning film career. Well, said film career burgeoned and then unburgeoned and now, a mind-boggling sixteen years later, Danes returns to the airwaves (or cablewaves) in the just-picked-up-to-series Showtime show Homeland, a CIA espionage thriller, of all things, about a 24-ish plot to terrorize America. Danes plays a dogged, and damaged, CIA agent, and Mandy Patinkin is her handler. So. How about that. Welcome back, Ms. Danes. Ya never should have left. Oh, and Showtime also picked up Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell's House of Lies, about high-level business consultants. Hm. [Deadline]
  • Oh my gosh! Speaking of Claire Danes, who starred in Romeo + Juliet back in the go-go '90s, Hailee Steinfeld, of True Grit and Lea Michele-shunning fame, is apparently in talks to star in a new indie version of Not-Shakespeare's most hilarious comedy romance. The movie is going to be directed by an Italian director, just like Italian Franco Zefferelli directed R & J back in the '60s. Hailee Steinfeld is going to have a career just like Olivia Hussey's! Oh dear. The good news, though, is that Gosford Park/Downton Abbey scribe Julian Fellowes is adapting the script. Not sure what that adapting is going to entail, but there you have it. [THR, which, hilariously and depressingly, includes a synopsis of the play in its article. Sigh.]
  • Breathe a sigh of relief, fans of Brooklyn alt-comedy and/or animated Fox shows. The Australian nuclear despot-owned network has renewed their freshman series Bob's Burgers, which features the voices of, among others, Brooklyn comedy artistes Kristen Schaal and Eugene Mirman. So that's good, for you people who, y'know, are into that sorta thing. Now if they could just do something about that title. I don't like that title for some reason! I think it's the word "burger." I don't like that word and I don't like how some people say it. "Bob's" is fine. Keep the "Bob's," I have no problem with it. Bob's Babs maybe? He makes kebabs now? Think about it. [EW]
  • Oh good. Lionsgate has agreed to make Night of the Living Fred, a low-budge 3D film that's a sequel of a sort to Nickelodeon's Fred: The Movie, a ratings winner based on the YouTube character Fred Figglehorn, a screeching childling played by 17-year-old Lucas Cruikshank. If you've never experienced this Fred character, then you likely still have a set of functioning ears and eyeballs. But yeah. If you have a kid who might potentially enjoy a manic, androgynous manling screaming about weird things for an hour and a half, don't let them find out about Fred. Because then you'll have to watch not only the original movie, but this new, 3D one too. Consider yourself warned. [Deadline]
  • After yesterday's big foofaraw about Alec Baldwin saying 30 Rock is going to end next year, the actor has now publicly said "I hope 30 Rock goes on forever," even if he might be leaving. So there. He doesn't want it canceled, he's not being an egomaniac (at least publicly), he's just leaving and maybe thought the show was ending too because surely when you leave summer camp there aren't other kids who keep doing summer camp without you, right? Summer camp just disappears, only to reappear once you're back. If you don't come back it disappears forever. The boats, the archery targets, the fruit punch, even the counselor with the jean shorts who gave you your first funny feelings. Even them. All of it gone. Anyway. 30 Rock, ladies and germs. She's probably here to stay. [THR]
  • Hm. There's word that David O. Russell, The Fighter champion and I Heart Huckabees chumpion (for yelling a lot, the movie is good), is considering directing a biopic of hilariously corrupt Providence mayor Buddy Cianci. Oh you don't know who that is? He's the guy who went after the mob while himself doing some very mob-like things. Hm, what's that? Oh you mean you don't know what Providence is? It's a city in Rhode Island. Rhode Island? The state? It's kind of tucked under Massachusetts's armpit? Um... Newport. Like the mansions. No, that's not in the Hamptons. The Narragansett Bay? Bristol? Little Compton? Nothing ringing a bell, huh. Well, Providence is the capital. Brown University is there. Yeah, where the Harry Potter girl goes. No, not Daniel Radcliffe. Jeez, do you know anything? [Vulture]

[Photo via Billy Farrell/Billy Farrell Agency]