SueTube – Let’s talk TV with critic Susan Young

Three comedies won’t be returning to the Fox schedule this fall: “Arrested Development,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “That ’70s Show.”

The eighth season of “That ’70s Show” ends on May 18, but no word yet as to whether Ashton Kutcher or Topher Grace will return to send off their old show.

And “Malcolm in the Middle” signs off on May 14.

As previously noted, the critical darling “Arrested Development” will have its final airing on Feb. 10 _ opposite the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.

Gee. Thanks Fox.

There’s no hope for the WB series “7th Heaven,” which will be axed this year.

Garth Ancier, chairman of the network, says it all boiled down to dollars and cents.

“This year the show will lose $16 million for the WB and that’s with a license fee reduction from last year,” Ancier says. “At least to us, that’s a big number…As much as we all love the show, you do have to run a business.”

On the other hand, “Everwood” will be back stronger than ever after “Beauty and the Geek” wraps up. The series will have 13 episodes airing without a single repeat.

Country legend Reba McEntire , star of the WB sitcom “Reba,” says she doesn’t really care if they put a pair of $1,250 jeans in her Golden Globes goodie bag.

“That’s nice, but my favorite goodie bag item was from a country music awards program: a $5,000 gift certificate for Tupperware. I was so excited. I called back to make sure I wasn’t reading that wrong,” Reba says. “When I found out it was right, I called everyone in my family and we went shopping!”

New series? We’ve got your new WB series.

Or at least a few proposed series.

Former Jessica Simpson life partner Nick Lachey is set to star in a half-hour comedy created by Danny Jacobson (“Mad About You”).

Matthew Bomer, who was in “Flightplan” with Jodie Foster, has just been cast as the lead in “Cult,” a sci-fi show.

“Cult” is written by Rockne S. O’Bannon, who created “Farscape.”

Comic Ellen DeGeneres teams with her brother Vance DeGeneres (Mr. Bill on “Saturday Night Live”) for a new WB sitcom, “My Dog Sparky,” depicting family life from two different perspectives: both the people and the pets.

Ellen will be voicing the lead character, Sparky the Dog.

“Joining forces with my brother has long been a dream of ours. Of course, that dream used to involve world domination. But a show on the WB works, too,” DeGeneres says. “I’m really looking forward to working with Vance on a project that doesn’t involve a late Mother’s Day gift for our mom.”

Yep. That’s the title of the WB’s next reality series.

Seven really rich, spoiled kids team up with seven economically challenged kids for a chance to win $200,000 _ or a dinner out for some of these rotten little scoundrels.

Also on the reality agenda is “Fountain of Youth,” now being cast by “Beauty and the Geek” creator Ashton Kutcher. The series is sort of an “Amazing Race,” teaming a young person with a “senior citizen.”

By WB standards, that means anyone over 40.

“Smallville” loses a resident in the Jan. 26 episode.

That episode, the 100th, marks a change in direction for the series, according to star Tom Welling.

“I think from this episode on, this show is going to be very different from what it’s been in the past,” Welling told critics gathered in Pasadena for the winter press tour. “We’re going to actually start seeing the Lex Luther and Clark Kent rivalry. It’s going to explode a lot faster than it has in the past.”

As for that main character leaving the show, Welling says it was bittersweet for both the show and the actor.

“I think (the actor) was looking forward to a little time off, but then when the day came that person was caught a few times on the set just kind of looking around, going ‘Yeah, well, I guess this is it.’ “

In 1968, respected newsman Walter Cronkite said it was time to get out of Vietnam. Then President Lyndon Johnson responded that if he had lost Cronkite, then he had lost the nation.

So what will George Bush say about 89-year-old Cronkite proclaiming it

Rosie O’Donnell isn’t making any snap judgements about the state of Utah, despite the fact that a prominent theater owner pulled the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” about a love affair between two cowboys, from his theaters.

O’Donnell, who was in Pasadena talking to TV critics about her new HBO series “All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise” about the first gay and lesbian family cruise line, said she’s going to Utah for the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.

She was asked if the conservative nature of Utah makes the openly gay O’Donnell feel strange going there.

“Not really,” O’Donnell says. “I mean, the Osmonds are from there. That’s enough for me to like it.”

Former “Nightline” host Ted Koppel fielded calls from all over the world from organizations trying to hire him.

Koppel will be working on “A Conversation with Ted Koppel and Tom Bettag” for the Discovery Channel. But he passed on an offer from Al Jazeera.

One critic at the winter press tour grabbed on to the story about Koppel talking to the Middle Eastern news organization, asking Koppel if he was afraid that could be used for propaganda purposes.

“Oh come on. I mean, I routinely meet with some of the nastiest people in the world,” Koppel said. Followed quickly by Bettag’s “Some of them are in this room.”