Hargitay funds scholarship

"Law and Order: SVU" star Mariska Hargitay has donated $100,000 to fund a scholarship at her alma mater, the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. The Mariska Hargitay scholarship for acting students will be earmarked for underserved graduate and undergrad students. Since 1999, Hargitay has portrayed detective Olivia Benson on "Law and Order: SVU," winning an Emmy for the role. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

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Rachel Bilson As opening nights go, last Monday's kickoff to the fall season was pretty spectacular. Now with the two Charlies laid to rest (and Sheen charred at the celebrity roast), we'll see how Two and a Half Men holds up, along with the rest of CBS' comedy lineup. Add some high-profile dinosaurs to the mix this week, and it should be another fascinating night.First, the new shows, from Fall Preview:My initial Take on Fox's Terra Nova (two-hour premiere at 8/7c): "Bigger isn't always better, but in this case, it may be enough. Terra Nova will win no prizes for its cardboard characters and clunky writing, but hey, it's got CGI dinosaurs! This is the fall's grandest escape and riskiest swing." To elaborate: This lavishly produced family-friendly sci-fi time-travel adventure isn't what you'd call edgy - from Steven Spielberg, it has Jurassic bark, but not much bite - and it lays on the "starting over" schmaltz a bit heavily as we follow a family through a Stargate-like portal into a settlement 85 million years in the prehistoric past on a separate time stream, giving humans a second chance to create a civilization without destroying the planet. (The dystopian prologue makes the world of Blade Runner look like a musical comedy.) If you can make it past the exposition, and the earnest family clichés - a rebellious teenage son, an awkward brainiac daughter - there's plenty of satisfying dino action. And it all looks gorgeous. Precious little on network TV feels like an "event" (not to be confused with The Event) anymore, and if this can't take a bite out of the competition, it may be a while before we see its like again.Want more fall TV news? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!Not even worth a nibble is the CW's Hart of Dixie (9/8c), about which I wrote in Fall Preview: "Couldn't blame the South for threatening to secede again after sampling this patronizingly phony, city-fish-out-of-backwater lump of country-friend hokum. Our hearts go out to the appealing actors trapped in this cloying bayou of cutesy quicksand." To elaborate - do I really have to? - this asks us to believe The O.C.'s chirpy but brittle Rachel Bilson as a wannabe heart surgeon named Zoe Hart (get it?) who's transplanted against her will to the twee burg of Bluebell, Ala., where she's bequeathed a kindly country doctor's bucolic practice. This is the South by way of the Warner Bros. backlot, with a pet alligator (named Burt Reynolds) and belles in "cotillion chic" pinafores and umbrellas. The show gets a momentary lift when Zoe meets a local lawyer played by Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights' Jason Street), but doggone it, he's attached to a catty debutante named Lemon (!), whose dad is the town's rival doctor. Watching Hart of Dixie is like mainlining praline. Your mind will rot before your teeth do. Any resemblance to a charming hamlet like Gilmore Girls' Stars Hollow is only in the producers' minds.THE LAUGH TRACK: Coming off last week's blockbuster comeback, CBS' Two and a Half Men (9/8c) has another ace up its sleeve: the wonderful Judy Greer, guesting as the ex of lovelorn Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher). ... More cause for CBS celebration: the surprise Emmy win by Melissa McCarthy as best comedy actress for Mike & Molly (9:31/8:31c), which begins season two with the title couple newly engaged.SIGNING OFF: Following a daylong marathon of the entire first season, Syfy's Alphas wraps (10/9c) with the team caught between Red Flag and the Department of Defense as the war escalates. ... On Showtime, battles are also brewing on Weeds (10/9c) and The Big C (10:30/9:30c) as their seasons end. The centerpiece of Weeds is a sibling smackdown between Nancy and sister Jill (Jennifer Jason Leigh), while on The Big C, Cathy's husband Paul takes on their insurance company, while Cathy runs a marathon in memory of Lee (Hugh Dancy).LATE NIGHT TUNES: Comedy Central's The Colbert Report (11:30/10:30c) expands to an hour for the first time, in honor of special guest Radiohead. ... NBC's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (12:35/11:35c) honors Pink Floyd all week. Tonight's tribute features The Shins in their first TV appearance in four years, playing "Breathe" from The Dark Side of the Moon. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason is a scheduled interview guest. On Tuesday, Roger Waters stops by, and performs "In the Flesh" with the Foo Fighters.So what else is on? ... Can you believe PBS' Sesame Street is 42 years old? The new season starts today (check local listings), and is already creating a stir with the Muppets' inspired parody of Glee, titled (what else) G. ... ABC's All My Children was just a year away from turning 42 when it was unceremoniously canceled last week. In its place, we get a combination cooking/talk show titled The Chew (1 pm/ET), a prospect that many daytime observers are finding hard to swallow. ... In a BET News exclusive, The President Answers Black America (7:30/6:30c; airs on Centric at 8/7c), President Obama addresses the economic crisis and its impact on the African-American community in a one-on-one with journalist Emmett Miller. ... Lightning-rod contestants Chaz Bono and Nancy Grace live to dance another week on ABC's Dancing With the Stars (8/7c), this time challenged with either the Jive or the Quickstep. ... On ABC Family's The Lying Game (8/7c), Sutton finally comes face to face with her (and Emma's) mother. ... After the emotional fireworks on last week's opener of Castle (10:01/9:01c), things lighten up a bit as Castle and Beckett track down a vigilante who's conducting his killing spree in superhero guise. Sounds like a job for ...What are you watching tonight?Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!

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EMI partners with Shine Group

EMI Music Publishing has established a new joint venture with U.K. production company and News Corp. subsidiary Shine Group. EMI will also now rep music from the firm's shows globally. New partnership creates a music library that will commission and produce content for use in Shine's own TV productions and third-party shows. For instance, this month the NBC series "The Biggest Loser," produced by Shine's U.S. arm Reveille, relaunches with a new theme performed by Train; tune is repped by EMI. Expanded international relationship between EMI and Shine elaborates on long-running deals with Shine's firms Shine TV and Dragonfly. EMI Music Publishing exec vp of media and business development Jonathan Channon said in a statement: "Extending our deal with Shine enables us to increase the revenue potential for their music assets from a wider range of programming genres across the world." In February, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. purchased Shine Group, founded by Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, for a reported $674 million. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

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Cheers & Jeers: The 2 Faces of Michael K. Williams

Michael K. Williams Cheers to Michael K. Williams for any double shot of high-quality roles. Want more Cheers & Jeers? Sign up for TV Guide Magazine now! The charismatically menacing character actor, who blew audiences away as gay thug Omar Little around the Wire, slyly spoofed his badass image being an ex-disadvantage biology professor around the Season 3 premiere of Community (and he'll return for an additional episode the following month). Meanwhile, he's coming back to HBO's Emmy-winning Boardwalk Empire as bootlegger Chalky Whitened. Season 2 introduces us to Chalky's family, and Williams includes a jailhouse scene in next week's episode that rivals Omar's most electrifying moments. Williams wasn't the only real David Simon Cinemax drama alum to show on Community's opener: Treme casualty John Goodman also guested because the intimidating vice dean of Greendale's Ac Repair Annex. Hey, Serta Harmon, what about writing a component for that Wire's Isiah Whitlock, Junior., who displayed his comedy flair in Cedar plank Rapids. To make use of Condition Sen. Clay Davis' favorite word, that may be some funny "sheeee-it." Exactly what do you think about Michael K. Williams - and Community? Sign up for TV Guide Magazine now!

WGA East Unveils Election Results

The WGA East has announced the results of its 2011 elections, notable not so much for the competition (the main incumbents ran unopposed) but for being the first to institute online voting, which the guild said resulted in higher participation and no invalidated ballots. WGAE president Michael Winship ran unopposed and was re-elected; Jeremy Pikser was elected VP and replaces Bob Schneider, who was elected Secretary Treasurer succeeding Gail Lee. Henry Bean, Bonnie Datt, Elliot Kalan, Susan Kim, Bernardo Ruiz, and Courtney Simon were voted in as freelance members to the WGAE Council, while Sue Brown McCann, Phil Pilato, and Duane Tollison were elected to staff seats. The terms run through September 2013.

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IFC buys Lynn Shelton's 'Your Sister's Sister"

'Your Sister's Sister'After a long night of negotiations, IFC Films has acquired North American and Latin American rights to "Humpday" helmer Lynn Shelton's latest "Your Sister's Sister."The announcement was made Wednesday afternoon at the Toronto film festival, where "Sister's" world-preemed Sunday night. The love-triangle comedy stars Mark Duplass as a man mourning the recent death of his brother, Emily Blunt as his platonic best friend, Rosemarie DeWitt as her sister. Sellers Submarine and UTA also closed separate deals for other territories. Studio Canal has acquired UK rights, while Madman has acquired rights for Australia and New Zealand. The aggregate value of the three rights deals is estimated at $1.5 million. IFC is planning a traditional summer release rollout for 2012. "Sister's" is an ADA Films production. The producer is Steven Schardt,with Jennifer Roth and Vallejo Gantner serving as excutive producers. UTA and Submarine Entertainment are handling international sales. The deal was negotiated by senior vice president of acquisitions & productions for Sundance Selects IFC Films Arianna Bocco, with Submarine and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers. Shelton is represented by UTA and Anonymous Content. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

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Virtuos buys Sparx

BEIJING -- Shanghai-based vidgame company Virtuos has bought the assets and core team of VFX and animation company Sparx, and expects to reopen their Vietnam studio. The sale allows Virtuos to increase the assistance decided to clients inside the movie industry, it mentioned in the statement. Virtuos provides digital entertainment production services and contains attempted movies since 2008, creating high-quality 3d models for films such as the 2010 "Rango." Sparx might be the 3 dimensional animation and VFX shingle behind movies such as the 2008 feature "Igor," starring John Cusack and Steve Buscemi. Virtuos Boss Gilles Langourieux mentioned getting together Virtuos' art production infrastructure with Sparx understanding of film-quality animation, cinematics and VFX enables the business use a more fully integrated solution. Our roots in HD game production have provided us with the talents to create high-quality assets, including digital doubles, for your movie industry," mentioned Langourieux. The teams in Shanghai and Vietnam have formerly begun cooperating on new projects. After you have into new facilities in November, Sparx Vietnam will probably be extended to its original size more than 100 staff in 2012. Sparx utilizes greater than 100 animation professionals in Saigon and Shanghai, and aims to make use of greater than 200 with the finish of 2012. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com