Ahhhhhh! AutoHop is here! Run for your liiiiiiives!!!

Dish Network's new multi-room DVR, which comes complete with functionality allowing viewers to remove commercials from broadcast networks shows the day after they air, struck nothing short of terror in the heart of Moody's analyst Neil Begley on Friday. He offers a vision of the future that's downright dystopian in a research note that dares to imagine a world in which AutoHop--which three broadcast networks filed lawsuits over on Thursday--becomes ubiquitous ((shudder)).

Here's how Begley sees it: "Firstly, advertisers would lose a reliable source of branding and marketing for their products which is difficult to dependably replicate to mass audiences by other advertising means including the Internet."

Alarmist much?

The analyst believes decreased visibility for TV spots will prompt a withdrawal of marketing dollars from Madison Avenue. Drained of ad revenue, the TV channels would demand higher retransmission fees from the MSOs, who would inevitably force their customers to pay more for their multichannel bills. That would lead them to cancel their subscriptions in droves.

So when do the killer bees come?

But wait, there's more: Any ad-dependent channel that miraculously doesn't come under the thumb of AutoHop would face extinction. And all viewers "may choose to wait a day" to watch TV, which only compounds the negative impact on advertising.

But Hollywood does have some options before crumbling into the Pacific Ocean: "Networks can successfully saturate that programming with product placements...or make the advertisements more entertaining such that viewers opt not to skip them."

Oh, that's all the TV industry has to do? Time to stop intentionally making boring commercials, people!

Before Dish chairman Charlie Ergen unleashes the apocalypse, Begley might want to consider this will all end before it begins at a negotiating table. The TV nets will ease up on their retrans requests, for instance, or pay-TV subs will be able to pay extra to watch ad-free. But that might spoil the analyst's new career as a cross between Ken Auletta and Stephen King.

The latest edition of the struggling ongoing series "Save Our Show" takes us to fans of NBC's "Awake," who have set up the Save 'Awake' website, Facebook page and Twitter hashtag, not to mention putting together the above video.

A series of public events are set for Friday, the day after the series finale airs, at different network headquarters in the hopes that one of them can be convinced to pick up the program, which NBC canceled after one season.

Though fans might have been heartened by the move of "Cougar Town" from ABC to TBS, a similar revival for "Awake" would be a shock.

By Cynthia Littleton

There was a Pedro Almodovar touch to this episode. It was titled “Christmas Waltz” but might as well have been “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

Model planes and new china went flying, Don and Joan went on a mini-bender that yielded some of the best dialogue of the season, and Paul Kinsey reemerged after three seasons, more deluded than ever. So much to love in this seg, written by Victor Levin and Matthew Weiner and sharply directed by Michael Uppendahl.

Clearly there was also a strong undercurrent theme dealing with faith, which was hammered home at the end by the sign that Don Draper has found his religion again in the Madison Avenue parish. The closing scene provided a great Don Draper speech, proving that speeches aren’t necessarily a bad thing so long as they’re in character (and well written). Plus, it had the extra benefit of showing up applause-starved Pete Campbell, who’s been awfully huffy with his senior partners lately.

Layne Price has probably signed his ticket out of the agency by forging that check. He’s violated his faith as a CPA and will lose credibility with Joan et al once the check and the $50,000 bump in the agency’s line of credit is discovered. The Sterling Cooper Draper Price banker took it on faith from Layne’s assurance that the agency could afford the credit bump. Now with Mohawk Airlines pulling its billings, they’re going to be in an even deeper hole. Good thing Don didn’t crash that XKE!

The speculation that Kristen Wiig was leaving "Saturday Night Live" was confirmed in the series' season finale when the episode culminated in a musical sendoff expressly for her. That "SNL" didn't tee up some heavily publicized, drawn-out goodbye to Wiig says a lot about how much class she has. This, after all, is a cast member that "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels has deemed one of the best performers the show has ever had, which is a pretty high compliment to pay given the caliber of talent that has passed through Studio 8H.

And yet as I argued in this space almost exactly a year ago, it's high time Wiig left. Michaels overused her so flagrantly over the last 3-4 years that her many recurring characters blurred together into one entity that came across more fatiguing than funny. That's no reflection on Wiig as a person or a talent; all the more reason she should jump with both feet into a movie career that's gotten off to a great start with megahit "Bridesmaids."

But with the presidential election coming in November, Wiig is leaving at an absolutely critical time for "SNL." The series was at its satirical best during the 2008 race, so there's pressure for "SNL" to return to form. Michaels needs to have an acute sense of what he has on his deep bench, so here's an unsolicited cast evaluation.

The biggest question mark is whether both Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg will be returning; the latter cast member only fueled speculation he has one foot out the door with a digital short in the finale that suggested it was his last effort. However, Michaels has said no further decisions will be made on who's in or out of the cast until the summer.

It's hard to believe he'll let Sudeikis go considering he's playing Mitt Romney (same goes for Fred Armisen, who shows no signs of exiting "SNL"). Sudeikis has a budding movie career of his own to tend to, but "SNL" will surely find a way to keep him around. His Romney impression isn't exactly memorable, but the fact that he can find a way to make such a bland personality even remotely entertaining is a tremendous credit to Sudeikis.

As for Samberg, he's probably been a bigger player on "SNL" than Sudeikis. But that may be more curse than blessing considering Samberg has yet to prove he can build a career for himself outside of sketch comedy. It doesn't look like his upcoming movie with Adam Sandler is going to change that. My gut says he'll move on, but just what he'll do is a mystery. Launching his own sketch-comedy franchise, as he's done to some degree with the musical-parody troupe Lonely Island, may be a viable route.

But even if both men stay around, neither is really the replacement for Wiig as the star. That designation belongs to Bill Hader, who gets stronger every year and is peaking at just the right time. In many ways, this season felt like the baton was being passed from Wiig to Hader, who also has perhaps the only "SNL" character to his credit that could sustain one of those usually awful Michaels-produced movies with Stefan, New York City's worst tour guide.

Another, less noticed emergence this season that needs to be noted is that of Taran Killam, a second-year player who stepped up in a way that elevated him from not-ready-for-primetime status to the show's nucleus. It's a subtle rise that isn't quite the breakout of a Will Ferrell, but it's going to be interesting to see if he can keep the trajectory going in coming seasons.

A less auspicious sophomore season was had by Jay Pharoah. As an impressionist, he is beyond brilliant; in every other regard he has barely inched forward. Again, it's less about judging innate talent and more about how that talent is managed. It doesn't seem Michaels knows what to do with him, which is a shame.

At least Pharoah doesn't have the disadvantage of trying to get out from under Wiig's shadow, which has singlehandedly suppressed the fortunes of every other woman in the cast. But that makes the coming season exciting, to see how that dynamic will change in Wiig's absence. Abby Elliott and Nasim Pedrad have been on the show for years and yet they've been so under-utilized over that time that it's like the audience hasn't really gotten to see what they can do yet. Vanessa Bayer hasn't quite lived up to the heat she generated in her freshman year in 2010-11 but still bears watching, as does Kate McKinnon, a rookie who has been around for just a few months but has impressed over that time.

It would be great to see all four of these women take it to the next level in the post-Wiig era.

Perhaps the only person who was surprised by the termination of "Community" showrunner and creator Dan Harmon last Friday was Dan Harmon.

"Why’d Sony want me gone?" he wonders aloud on his personal Tumblr. "I can’t answer that because I’ve been in as much contact with them as you have."

Well, then everything makes sense now. He apparently had no knowledge about the concerns NBC and Sony Pictures Television harbored about the increasingly oddball humor narrowing the audience for the series. Nor was he cognizant of misgivings regarding his leadership style, which became public fodder last month when a feud with cast member Chevy Chase was unearthed in embarrasing detail.

We may never know whether it was creative misdirection or managerial inadequacy or both that led Sony to replace Harmon with veteran producers Moses Port and David Guarascio. Nor will we ever know whether the recent rash of producer departures from "Community" was a demonstration of allegiance to Harmon or a vote of no confidence in the future of the show.

But this much is clear: This won't end well.

While there's plenty of TV shows that survive and even thrive when the original showrunners are replaced, this isn't a typical instance.  That's because whether you love or hate "Community," the creative voice that Harmon supplied to the series is deeply, undeniably idiosyncratic. Yet that's really more of an insult than a compliment because in marching in such lockstep to the beat of his own drummer, Harmon has likely robbed "Community" of the broader audience that could have prevented its current existential crisis in the first place.

"Community" now finds itself in the TV equivalent of a medically induced coma: a 13-episode order on a Friday-night time slot with "Whitney" as its lead-in. And in the unlikely event that the new producers do manage to engineer a ratings renaissance, the best that could be hoped for is "Community" being pushed around from one competitive time slot to the next, where it can be a tackling dummy for hotter shows on other networks.

If there's any hope in rejuvenating "Community," the trick may be in not veering too far or quickly from the tone of the three prior seasons, problematic as it was. Too drastic an adjustment will scare off the base the series attracted in the first place.

"Community" is famous--infamous, really--for a rabid cult following as fervent as it is tiny, and therein lies the problem. When the intensity of the fan base is disproportionate to their numbers, a series becomes beholden to a population too small to sustain the qualities they've come to appreciate. Changing those qualities even slightly to court broader appeal threatens to alienate the diehard few.

And yet that's exactly what Port/Guarascio must do, which makes this a no-win situation. They will make a martyr out Harmon, whose importance to the series will be romanticized no matter how essential he actually was. They are going to revolt against the new regime because that is what cult followings do to anything that smacks of creative interference from the "suits." It's hard to believe "Community" fans haven't already launched some clever campaign demanding the rehiring of Harmon, likemailing Harmon-icas by the thousands to 30 Rockefeller Center.

A good way to engineer some gamechanging, well, change, without it seeming inorganic is to bring in a major new character with name-brand recognition that will bring a whole new segment of fans in curious to see what impact the actor would have, similar to how Ashton Kutcher gave "Two and a Half Men" a jolt last season. What not to do is the kind of half-assed half-measure that was John Goodman's casting this past season, awkwardly wedging in someone for a sprinkling of seemingly random episodes with marginal impact on the storylines.

I say this as a fan of the show, though in the context of "Community," fan is a poor choice of words. I caught "Community" fever last season only to become increasingly disenchanted by how hit-or-miss it became in 2011-12. What few episodes worked only seemed all the more frustrating given the infrequency of the show's former brilliance. What's worse, the inadequacy seemed driven by a tone that can only be described as defiantly weird, a flopsweaty self-consciousness that screamed in too many scenes, 'Look how much effort we're expending trying to flout the conventions of TV storytelling!"

Ultimately, the ugly truth is the new "Community" caretakers have to risk alienating the fan base to give the series broader appeal. As for Harmon, fear not for him; he is too talented not to work again. But if his agent is smart, he or she will point him in the direction of cable, where finding a niche audience isn't considered a sin.

Overnight, Dan Harmon wrote a blog post that followed the news that he would not be back to be the showrunner for NBC comedy "Community" in its fourth season. Here's an excerpt:

... A few hours ago, I landed in Los Angeles, turned on my phone, and confirmed what you already know.  Sony Pictures Television is replacing me as showrunner on Community, with two seasoned fellows that I’m sure are quite nice - actually, I have it on good authority they’re quite nice, because they once created a show and cast my good friend Jeff Davis on it, so how bad can they be.

Why’d Sony want me gone?  I can’t answer that because I’ve been in as much contact with them as you have.  They literally haven’t called me since the season four pickup, so their reasons for replacing me are clearly none of my business.  Community is their property, I only own ten percent of it, and I kind of don’t want to hear what their complaints are because I’m sure it would hurt my feelings even more now that I’d be listening for free.

I do want to correct a couple points of spin, now that I’m free to do so:

The important one is this quote from Bob Greenblatt in which he says he’s sure I’m going to be involved somehow, something like that.  That’s a misquote.  I think he meant to say he’s sure cookies are yummy, because he’s never called me once in the entire duration of his employment at NBC.  He didn’t call me to say he was starting to work there, he didn’t call me to say I was no longer working there and he definitely didn’t call to ask if I was going to be involved.  I’m not saying it’s wrong for him to have bigger fish to fry, I’m just saying, NBC is not a credible source of All News Dan Harmon.

You may have read that I am technically “signed on,” by default, to be an executive consulting something or other - which is a relatively standard protective clause for a creator in my position.  Guys like me can’t actually just be shot and left in a ditch by Skynet, we’re still allowed to have a title on the things we create and “help out,” like, I guess sharpening pencils and stuff.  

However, if I actually chose to go to the office, I wouldn’t have any power there.  Nobody would have to do anything I said, ever.  I would be “offering” thoughts on other people’s scripts, not allowed to rewrite them, not allowed to ask anyone else to rewrite them, not allowed to say whether a single joke was funny or go near the edit bay, etc.  It’s….not really the way the previous episodes got done.  I was what you might call a….hands on producer.  Are my….periods giving this enough….pointedness?  I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying “it has to be like this or I quit” roughly 8 times a day. ...

You can read the entire post here. In addition, Alan Sepinwall of HitFix.com has some worthwhile commentary on "Community" without Harmon.

USA has unveiled a preview clip for Greg Berlanti miniseries "Political Animals," starring Sigourney Weaver as the U.S. Secretary of State, Ciaran Hinds as her ex-husband and former U.S. president, James Wolk ("Lone Star") as their randy son and Carla Gugino as a Washington journalist. Don't worry about getting dirty, because this one has plenty of soap ...

"Sometimes it gets a little bit lost in the conversation, but it's a very important part of our story this year," USA Network co-president Jeff Wachtel told Stuart Levine of Variety today, adding that "Political Animals" is "bigger in scope and more provocative in tone than most of what we've done before."

With the Big Four broadcasters done with their upfront presentations this week, each can now take a hard look at where they've placed their bets across the time periods to see how they match up. These schedules aren't set in stone, so there's plenty of time before September rolls around to make some changes that could very well end up saving a show or three.

Looking across primetime, each of the four could make at least one move to protect their assets before it's too late. 

ABC: Perhaps the most unusual scheduling coincidence of 2012-13 was the three sets of comedies between ABC, Fox and NBC that found themselves fighting each other Tuesday 9-10 p.m. That's one too many, especially because all six series are really cut from the same cloth, steeped in saucy humor. While NBC might seem to be the first to blink here because of the state of its schedule, "Go On" and "The New Normal" may be in better position than ABC to go up against Fox's "New Girl" and "The Mindy Project" because having "The Voice" results show lead-in could give NBC a boost in this competitive hour. The same might be true for ABC's pairing of "Happy Endings" (pictured above) and "The B in Apartment in 23" after the "Dancing With the Stars" results show, but here's an idea that could help the Alphabet. Given programming chief Paul Lee's stated intent on positioning these comedies as the most irreverent on TV, why not push them to 10 p.m.? ABC has tried this before with different comedies and failed, but this time the late time period could help convey just how risque these shows are, plus they'd have no comedy competition. Then move "Dancing" back to 9 p.m. to give those shows that lead-in and move "Private Practice" from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. The drama only has 13 episodes left, so why not just let that hour absorb the body blow of facing both "The Voice" and "NCIS"?

NBC: With an astonishing four comedy blocks in place in the fall, it's a good bet that the Peacock will beat a hasty retreat on at least one of them. And yet it may be the most solid of the four that could use a change: Thursday, NBC's longtime four-comedy stronghold. With CBS keeping comedy out of 9-10 p.m., at least for now, and neither "Person of Interest" nor "Grey's Anatomy" at peak performance," 9:30 p.m. should be a more hospitable place for the network to put one of its new half-hours after "The Office," one of the few scripted launch pads NBC still has. Better that than "Parks & Recreation," which might be better off waiting until after "30 Rock" has run through its final 13 episodes to take over the 8 p.m. time period. It's not like 9:30 p.m. has much pressure on it anyway given having "Rock Center with Brian Williams" at 10 p.m. doesn't require a strong lead-in; NBC is basically taking a pass on that hour if that's where a newsmagazine is being scheduled. So NBC should find a new single-camera comedy with tonal similarities to "Office" and give it a fighting chance at 9:30 p.m.

CBS: With its period setting and character-driven intrigue, the new drama "Vegas" might seem well-positioned on Tuesday at 10 p.m. given soft competition from NBC's "Parenthood" and ABC's "Private Practice," not to mention a good counterprogramming play given it is a male-skewing series facing off against female-skewing competition. But the problem here is one of audience flow--CBS has two of its most formulaic procedurals, "NCIS" and "NCIS:LA," stacked from 8-10 p.m. The viewers of these shows don't seem the type to hang around for something with the kind of style and nuance "Vegas" will offer. A better fit for Tuesday at 10 p.m. is "The Mentalist," which was shipped off Thursday to Sunday at 10 p.m. after "The Good Wife," another series that stands out amid CBS's sea of procedurals for its more substantive, character-driven heft. So wouldn't "Wife," even if female-skewing, be a more compatible match for "Vegas" than "Mentalist"?

FOX: Monday was brutal for Fox last season, and this season isn't going to get any easier. And yet a promising new drama at 9 p.m., "Mob Doctor," is expected to face off against CBS' hit comedies, "Dancing" and "Voice?" That's ridiculous. Fox needs to play pure defense on this night, and "Bones" at 8 p.m. is the right idea. But extend that strategy to 9 p.m. by switching "Mob" with "Fringe," which has 13 episodes left and a fervid cult following that would watch the show even if it was on at 4 a.m. Planting "Mob" on Friday would give it a fighting chance on a less competitive night. It could also help neutralize a CBS launch in the same time slot featuring another female-skewing drama, "Made in Jersey."

The CW is going all-doctor on Tuesdays, following "Hart of Dixie" with "Emily Owens, M.D.," starring Mamie Gummer. The clip above makes the premise obvious: You can take a rivalry out of high school, but you can't take high school out of a rivalry — you can just add life-or-death stakes to it all. (I dare say that one thought that crossed my mind was, "What if 'Saved by the Bell: The Post-Grad Years' were done as a drama?")

Aja Naomi King will play Owens' nemesis, Cassandra, while Justin Hartley plays heartthrob Will. Jennie Snyder Urman (“90210,” “Lipstick Jungle”) exec produces with Dan Jinks and Bharat Nalluri.

Slated on the CW's schedule after top hit "The Vampire Diaries" on Thursdays is the network's reboot of "Beauty and the Beast," starring "Smallville" alum Kristin Kreuk opposite Jay Ryan. The clip above, essentially a flashback, shows how exceedingly dark the show is willing to go.

Kreuk's character, Catherine Chandler, is a homicide detective, allowing "Beauty" to incorporate a weekly procedural element into the series. 

The only new CW show to get a leadoff 8 p.m. timeslot, on Wednesdays leading into "Supernatural," "Arrow" stars Stephen Amell in this new comicbook-adaptation as Oliver Queen, set just after he returns home from a five-year disappearance on a remote island. Looking at the clip above, you can see how Amell literally gives a strong performance.

Colin Donnell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Susanna Thompson and Paul Blackthorne co-star, with Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg and David Nutter exec producing.

TV has had mixed success with 20th-century period pieces in the past few years: "Mad Men," "Swingtown," "Magic City," "Pan Am" and "The Playboy Club," for example, have run the gamut of creative and popular success. CBS will take the next stab at 10 p.m. Tuesdays with "Vegas."

I liked a previous working title, "Vegas Rising," better than the current moniker, which is both blander and creates an identity crisis for those of us who remember the Robert Urich series from decades past. Nevertheless, "Vegas" definitely stands as the most intriguing new CBS show, thanks to its based-on-a-true-story subject, set in the desert oasis in the 1960s, and the intensity that gangster Michael Chiklis brings to his clashes with rancher-lawman Dennis Quaid. Jason O'Mara and Carrie-Anne Moss only add to the promise of the cast. 

Nicholas Pileggi ("Goodfellas," "Casino") is exec producing with Greg Walker, Cathy Konrad, Arthur Sarkissian and James Mangold, the director of "Cop Land" and "Walk the Line." Mangold directed the pilot.

The lone new comedy on CBS' fall schedule, "Partners" explores the relationship quadrangle between two lifelong friends — one straight (David Krumholtz of "Numbers"), the other gay (Michael Urie of "Ugly Betty") — and their significant others, Sophia Bush and Brandon Routh. It comes from exec producers David Kohan and Max Mutchnick of "Will and Grace."

At first glance, "Partners" appears to play broad enough to appeal to mainstream audiences without wallowing in crudity the way, say, "2 Broke Girls" does.

What would happen if Marisa Tomei's "My Cousin Vinny" character got a new wardrobe and became a lawyer herself? You might get CBS' "Made in Jersey," starring Janet Montgomery (who happens to be British in real life, but that's acting for you.)

Montgomery could bring more crackle to CBS' lineup than her half-namesake, Poppy Montgomery, did in CBS' one-and-done "Unforgettable." Dana Calvo created the series, which is exec produced by Jamie Tarses, Kevin Falls, Julia Franz and Mark Waters.

Undaunted by ... or inspired by ... or completely independent of PBS' "Sherlock," CBS will launch its own Sherlock Holmes adaptation, "Elementary," at 10 p.m. Thursdays after "Person of Interest."

Changing the time and place of Arthur Conan Doyle's protagonist to present-day New York and the gender of sidekick Watson to one that can be played by Lucy Liu, "Elementary" looks to have Jonny Lee Miller emphasize the serious quirk of Sherlock Holmes in a procedural seemingly made for Eye auds.

One thought: With Aidan Quinn playing a supporting role on "Elementary," a year after he appeared on NBC's short-lived "Prime Suspect," why not bring another U.K.-to-U.S. detective, Maria Bello's Jane Timoney, to solve some crimes with Holmes? That pair could really crackle ...