The tenth and final season of Smallville is set to premiere September 24th, parent network CW is apparently wasting no time in prepping a series to take the place of the adventures of the future Superman. Indeed, CW and its predecessor, the WB, have attempted to develop several other superhero properties. One idea batted around was a series based on The Flash, although this “Flash” would be more of a time-travel series. A pilot entitled Mercy Reef, following the adventures of a young Aquaman, was filmed yet never aired. Recently, The Graysons, featuring Dick Grayson before he becomes Robin, was in pre-development before it was scrapped. (Actually, Smallville nearly didn’t come into existence – a show featuring the exploits of a pre-Batman Bruce Wayne was originally greenlit but then shelved in favor of a little movie called Batman Begins .)

So it is with great surprise – and trepidation – that the Hollywood Reporter says that the next DC Comics franchise to make it onto the CW just might be Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Gaiman’s chronicles of Lord of Dreams Morpheus transcended comic book readers and captured the imagination of the mainstream. Gaiman would go on to introduce Morpheus’ brothers and sisters called “The Endless” – Destiny, Destruction, Despair, Delirium, Desire and Death (who would go on to star in her own critically acclaimed graphic novel, Death: the High Cost of Living. The Sandman property has been struggling to come to life for nearly twenty years now (including one infamously horrible script with the now-immortal line “Aha! Foolish mortals!”). One hopes that with the right creative team – guided, one would hope, by Gaiman himself – would bring us something that rings true to the characters while bringing something fresh to television. Unfortunately, my gut feeling says that this is merely going to turn into a cynical attempt to grab the Twilight crowd. –Ron Motta

The Primetime Emmy Awards air live on Sunday at 8pm EST on NBC. Here’s a little preview of the major acting and show categories, plus opinions of who should win and prediction of who will actually bring home the gold.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series: I have no idea why Matthew Morrison was nominated for Glee. I’m not an avid watcher of the show, but from what I’ve seen his character seems almost ancillary, like he’s there to bring the kids together. And as much as I adore Tony Shalhoub’s brilliant portrayal of the obsessive-compulsive Monk, I don’t think the show is a comedy as much as it is a drama with humor liberally sprinkled in. (Although it’d be nice for him to bring home another Emmy as a swansong to the character.) But that’s just nitpicking. Alec Baldwin is still howlingly hilarious as 30 Rock’s NBC/GE/Sheinhardt Wigs exec Jack Donaghy and has already brought home the gold for the past two years. Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, as the freakishly geekish Sheldon, has become the show’s star and an unlikely sex symbol. While The Office has “jumped the shark” in its seventh season (I mean, Jim & Pam have a baby – that breeze you feel is Fonzie passing overhead on his waterskis), Steve Carrell can still make comedic gold out of mediocre scripts – plus, he announced that next year his Michael Scott will depart. Larry David is still playing the grumpy old man on Curb Your Enthusiasm and has been brilliant this season as his fictional self preps a Seinfeld reunion show.
SHOULD WIN: Alec Baldwin.
WILL WIN: Steve Carrell.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Lea Michelle rides the Glee wave to her first nomination as driven diva Rachel Berry. She’s definitely the breakout star of the show, but she faces some very stiff competition in this category. It says a lot about Amy Poehler’s talent that her hilarious performance was recognized for the otherwise mediocre Parks & Recreation. Despite cancellation, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has two Emmys in 12 nominations. Will her performance in New Adventures of Old Christine make it three? Edie Falco has returned to cable in Showtime’s Nurse Jackie and while she has taken home the statue for her work in The Sopranos, this is her first comedy nod. Toni Collette is positively brilliant as a woman suffering from multiple personalities in The United States of Tara. She can switch gears on a dime and usually does – and not always at the most opportune moments. And, of course, you can’t rule out past winner Tina Fey as the put-upon Liz Lemon in 30 Rock. The fact that Fey continues to give consistently funny performances while serving as writer and executive producer of the show proves that Fey is the hardest working woman in show bidness.
SHOULD WIN: Toni Collette.
WILL WIN: Lea Michelle.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: When you look at the caliber of nominees here, you really can’t go wrong. Matthew Fox gave his best performance during Lost’s final season and really carried the show during the trippy last episode. Kyle Chandler, as the compassionate small town high school football coach on Friday Night Lights, finally nabs a long overdue nomination. Bryan Cranston of AMC’s Breaking Bad has already brought home Emmy the past two years and seems poised to make it a threepeat. Believe it or not, House’s Hugh Laurie has been nominated five times but has not won and that makes him the sentimental favorite. It’s criminal that he hasn’t won this award before. Michael C. Hall is been on fire this season as everyone’s favorite serial killer Dexter and has an armload of awards to show for it. Hall also battled cancer, so a win would be the icing on the cake. Jon Hamm of Mad Men, claimed a Golden Globe this year for his performance as 60s ad exec Don Draper.
SHOULD WIN: All of them. Seriously, it’s hard to pick just one actor.
WILL WIN: Um…I’m going to put my chips on Hamm.

Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series: January Jones has been given a lot of meat to work with and has turned Betty Draper of Mad Men into one of the more complex and interesting characters on television. Kyra Sedgwick, like Hugh Laurie, has been nominated five times for The Closer and is hoping to be the bride instead of the bridesmaid this time around. Glen Close of Damages could read a Denny’s menu for an hour and still get nominated. I don’t much like Mariska Hargitay’s chances, partially because Law & Order: SVU has gotten pretty ridiculous and far-fetched lately that Hargitay hasn’t had much to work with. The Good Wife Juliana Margulies has been racking up award after award, so it’ll be interesting to see if she can take the big prize. Connie Britton, like her Friday Night Lights hubby Chandler, nails down a long-overdue nod.
SHOULD WIN: Connie Britton.
WILL WIN: January Jones.

Oustanding Comedy Series: Curb Your Enthusiasm has definitely bounced back from its darker storylines of recent years and the Seinfeld reunion was definitely a treat. What can one say about Glee that hasn’t been said? It’s gone from being just a show to being a phenomenon, and that’s not just FOX hyperbole. Nurse Jackie is sort of the “little show that could” in the category this year, but it’s earned its spot. The Office is probably here more because of its cast than anything else, but I’m among those who hate the fact that not only did Jim and Pam get together, but they had a baby this season as well (both official “Jumping the Shark” offenses). 30 Rock, on the other hand, shows no signs of shark jumping and part of that reason is that it is brazenly unsentimental. Modern Family was a freshman sensation for ABC and has probably the best ensemble cast on television (anchored by the genius of Ed O’Neill).
SHOULD WIN: Modern Family, if only because I think the much deserved winner will be…
WILL WIN: 30 Rock.

Outstanding Drama Series: The last season of Lost was hit-or-miss and it’s twisty-turny storylines caused viewers to be…well, lost. The Good Wife has proven to be both intriguing and, with its main storyline about a political scandal, almost painfully relevant. Mad Men is proving time and again just why it is probably the best show on television as Don Draper copes with his divorce. True Blood is scary, suspenseful and funny all at the same time. I’ll take Bill and Sookie over Edward and Bella any day of the week. Breaking Bad is giving its AMC sibling Mad Men a run for its money as the best show on TV. It’s been so much fun to see former chemistry teacher Walter White just fall farther and farther. Dexter just keeps slashing away (hah!) at its completion.
SHOULD WIN: Breaking Bad.
WILL WIN: Mad Men.

Other Stuff to Watch For: Probably the most-watched storyline of the Emmy’s is whether or not Conan O’Brien will win for his seven-month reign on The Tonight Show. Not only that, but what will he say? (Don’t forget, the Emmys are being broadcast on the network that divorced him, NBC.)…if Neil Patrick Harris doesn’t finally get an Emmy as Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother, I will eat my face. And if Jon Cryer gets one for the banal Two and a Half Men, I’ll eat his face…Jane Lynch should run away with a Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy trophy as the imposing gym teacher on Glee…While I’ve long maintained that Michael Emerson’s Benjamin Linus on Lost will go down in the annals of TV as one of the greatest characters ever, I think castmate Terry O’Quinn will beat him out for the Emmy this year. O’Quinn was essentially playing two John Lockes this year and playing them brilliantly. –Ron Motta

The history of Facebook was made for the movies. Four Harvard University students — Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes –- created which would become the biggest social network in the room in Zuckerberg’s college dorm room. The film is based on the book Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich, who used co-founder Saverin as a consultant. Saverin also served as a consultant on the film, but he may not be the most unbiased source – he was reported to have been pushed out of the company and both he and Zuckerberg spent the better part of last decade firing lawsuits at one another.

Regardless of whether or not you take the account with a grain or a mountain of salt, the film still looks fantastic. It’s got a great pedigree –- David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) is directing and Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing) wrote the script. The trailer looks intriguing, with a haunting rendition of Radiohead’s Creep as done by Scala and Kolacny Brothers’ choir. Where’s the “like” button? The Social Network, which stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Rashida Jones and Justin Timberlake, opens October 21st. –Ron Motta

It’s taken 28 years, but finally Disney is ready to return to the world of Tron. The original movie, while considered ground-breaking for being one of the first films to use computer-generated animation, raked in $33 million dollars for the Mouse. Not bad, right? Well, it was only considered moderately successful, considering it took $17 million to make. But the film is fondly remembered by my generation, some of whom put it on a plane with Star Wars as a game-changer for the industry. If there were no Tron, there’d be no Avatar.

So you can imagine the anticipation when it was announced that Tron: Legacy would be opening in theaters December 17th 2010. The long-awaited sequel finds 27-year-old Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) searching for his long-lost father, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, reprising his role from the original). One night, Sam returns to his father’s old arcade and ends up getting sucked into a virtual world, where light cycles and discs are the weapons of choice. The sequel seems to push the same boundaries that the original did, but with CGI technology being so prevalent now, will Tron: Legacy stand out like its predecessor did? –Ron Motta

I admit, it took me a little while to “get” the brilliance that is Beavis & Butt-head. I admit, when the show first aired, I thought it was mainly aimed at stupid stoned college kids. Okay, so I was a stupid stoned college kid, but hey – the exploits of two morons who used frogs to play baseball and made fun of music videos was not my idea of entertainment. My outrage wasn’t moral, it was intellectual. I would never blame MTV for inspiring some idiot teenager to try and burn down his house, but I could blame it for dumbing down television (a charge I actually could lob on the network nowadays – I’d love to shoot the pseudo-celebs of The Hills and Jersey Shore into the sun so we wouldn’t have to hear from those d-bags ever again).

The show, however, had legions of fans, including David Letterman (who, credited as “Earl Hofert,” would lend his voice to Beavis and Butt-head Do America and Patrick Stewart (who once said that when he leaves America, the two things he’d miss most were B&B and valet parking). I became a fan when I stayed with a friend of mine who kept telling me that B&B was the most brilliant – and most subtle – satire he had ever seen. I can tell you the exact moment I fell in with the “huh…huh…huh…” crowd. It was an episode entitled – ironically – “Animation Sucks.” As Mr. Van Dreesen tells his class about the wonders and limitless potential of animation, the camera holds on a completely static shot of Beavis and Butt-head for nearly 30 seconds, only to be broken by Butthead chortling “Huh…huh…huh…he said ‘pull-off.’” I just thought it was the most genius and brilliant thing I had ever seen. Obviously, I was wrong about this about being just dumb comedy. This was the smartest thing on television. Most people were just too stupid to notice.

So you can imagine how excited I got when the man behind B&B, Mike Judge, was rumored to be readying 30 new episodes of Beavis & Butt-head for MTV. The New York Post confirmed the internet rumor. I’ve often wondered what B&B would make of the likes of Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber – now I’ll get to find out. Neither Judge nor MTV would officially comment at this time, but here’s hoping that the episodes get out there soon. I’d love nothing more than for Snooki to get her comeuppance at the hands of the smartest morons I know and love. –Ron Motta