Original Series

In "Lilyhammer," whose eight parts debut Monday as an exclusive Netflix stream, Steven Van Zandt retrieves his Silvio wig from the "Sopranos" costume box to play Frank "The Fixer" Tagliano, a New York mobster who retreats into witness protection in Lillehammer, Norway. He remembers the town from broadcasts of the 1994 Winter Olympics as a place of "clean air, fresh white snow, gorgeous broads" and figures it will be the last place anyone would think to look for him. You know how that will go. To say that this is the first original series from the video rental giant is not to say that it originated with the company.

UNDERRATED Junip's 'Fields' : Like a futuristic European version of Crosby, Stills and Nash, this Swedish band's 2010 album is one of the addictive indie-rock pleasures of the decade. Led by the crushed velvet vocals of singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez and a spacey mix of churning guitars, burbling keyboards and driving African percussion, "Fields" grows more enchanting with every listen. Spring gets only sunnier with the one-two punch of "Always" and "Rope & Summit. " AMC's 'The Killing' : Fans of this remake of the Danish series "Forbrydelsen": It's time to come off the ledge after this show supposedly reneged on its promise by not solving its mystery last season.

What makes a TV series a cult classic? In the case of Sid and Marty Krofft's 1974-76 Saturday morning kiddie show, "Land of the Lost," it's cheesy special effects that resemble castoffs from a "Mr. Bill" short and acting so wooden you feel your eyes will get splinters. In other words, the show is so bad, it's great.

The scene had the feel of a slapstick British comedy: Wildly successful television executive trades her big job in London for a post in Los Angeles and frantically tries to put her company on the map while navigating the city's maddening roads and culture. "Coming out here, I would say that I was a highly functioning madwoman," said Jane Tranter, head of BBC Worldwide Productions. "Suddenly I had to spend an awful lot of my day in cars: driving on the wrong side of the road, not knowing where I was going and getting lost.

NBC has its Must-See TV. Starting tonight, Lifetime Television will have Must-She TV. Lifetime, the 14-year-old basic cable network meant to appeal to women, will launch a block of original weekly series comparable in look and quality to shows on broadcast networks, but with a decidedly female point of view. Douglas W.

Starz has joined the list of premium cable channels pulling away from Netflix. Just two days after CBS' Showtime Networks said it would soon stop making its original series available to Netflix Inc.'s streaming service, Liberty Media's Starz, one of Netflix's longest-term and most important partners, is changing its policy as well. Starting April 1, when its new drama "Camelot" premieres, Starz will no longer put episodes of its original series on Netflix the day after they first air on television.

UNDERRATED Junip's 'Fields' : Like a futuristic European version of Crosby, Stills and Nash, this Swedish band's 2010 album is one of the addictive indie-rock pleasures of the decade. Led by the crushed velvet vocals of singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez and a spacey mix of churning guitars, burbling keyboards and driving African percussion, "Fields" grows more enchanting with every listen. Spring gets only sunnier with the one-two punch of "Always" and "Rope & Summit. " AMC's 'The Killing' : Fans of this remake of the Danish series "Forbrydelsen": It's time to come off the ledge after this show supposedly reneged on its promise by not solving its mystery last season.

History repeats itself. "The Untouchables," Paramount's first-run syndicated series premiering this week, is based on the Emmy-winning 1959-63 series and on Brian De Palma's popular 1987 feature film--the story of the struggle between U.S. Treasury agent Eliot Ness and the notorious gangster Al Capone in Chicago 60 years ago. Those involved with the crime drama say this incarnation is relevant for the '90s.

Thursday night, Steve Carell bids goodbye to Michael Scott and "The Office," in which character and series he has lived for seven seasons. Seven years is a long time -- statistically, the average American changes jobs almost twice that often -- and whether or not this is a wise move, it is a creatively understandable one. There have now been about 10 times as many episodes of the American version of "The Office" as there ever were of its British...

Reporting from New York — For a long time, the approximately 12 million viewers who subscribe to Cinemax have pretty much known what they were going to get when they flipped to the pay-cable channel after the kids have gone to bed: big-budget Hollywood movies long past their moment and original series, such as "Zane's Sex Chronicles," meant to be watched with the lights out. But if executives at the network have their way, Cinemax will...

In "Lilyhammer," whose eight parts debut Monday as an exclusive Netflix stream, Steven Van Zandt retrieves his Silvio wig from the "Sopranos" costume box to play Frank "The Fixer" Tagliano, a New York mobster who retreats into witness protection in Lillehammer, Norway. He remembers the town from broadcasts of the 1994 Winter Olympics as a place of "clean air, fresh white snow, gorgeous broads" and figures it will be the last place anyone would think to look for him. You know how that will go. To say that this is the first original series from the video rental giant is not to say that it originated with the company.

Like most fresh faces that arrive in Hollywood, Netflix wanted to be a movie star. But now it's learning what many in Tinseltown have known for decades: Movies are sexy, but the real money is in television. Launched in 1997 with a goal of eliminating the drive to the video store, Netflix Inc. became a hit with consumers and helped push the movie rental chain Blockbuster into bankruptcy. By charging customers a small monthly fee for unlimited DVDs by mail, then expanding into Internet streaming in 2007, it amassed almost 25 million subscribers in the U.S. and in 2011 had revenue of $3.2 billion.

The pair of Golden Globe nominations for "Boss" — it got nods for top drama series and lead actor — is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for Starz, the pay-cable network on which the show appears. The network's motto is "the next big thing. " It has been striving to make headway with its original series, particularly since the arrival two years ago of Chief Executive Chris Albrecht, who was programming chief at HBO during the era of "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under" and other landmark cable series.

Reporting from New York — For a long time, the approximately 12 million viewers who subscribe to Cinemax have pretty much known what they were going to get when they flipped to the pay-cable channel after the kids have gone to bed: big-budget Hollywood movies long past their moment and original series, such as "Zane's Sex Chronicles," meant to be watched with the lights out. But if executives at the network have their way, Cinemax will...

Thursday night, Steve Carell bids goodbye to Michael Scott and "The Office," in which character and series he has lived for seven seasons. Seven years is a long time -- statistically, the average American changes jobs almost twice that often -- and whether or not this is a wise move, it is a creatively understandable one. There have now been about 10 times as many episodes of the American version of "The Office" as there ever were of its British...

"Upstairs, Downstairs," the British series about life among the servant class and the class they served, is back -- doubly back. Last month, the five-season, 68-episode series got a long-in-coming royal-treatment DVD release, "Upstairs, Downstairs Complete Series: 40th Anniversary Edition" (Acorn Media). And beginning Sunday, via PBS, its first American home, it adds -- over three new hours of television -- another year to the story. First airing in Britain from 1971 to 1975, and in America from 1974 to 1977, the original "Upstairs, Downstairs" was a sort of extended-family drama that tracked the Bellamy household from 1903 to 1930; its purpose from the start was to give equal time to the determinedly unseen hands that rocked the cradles and made the beds and cooked the food.

The cards and letters and faxes came pouring in . . . Last Sunday in an item in Film Clips about the next "Star Trek" movie, we boldly went where we shouldn't have gone. We said that there has been only one mention of the original TV series "Star Trek" on the new series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation." This was warped, as we quickly learned. There have been at least two other cases: Actor DeForest Kelley--Dr.

Greg Morris is winging down to Australia to once again break out the circuit boards and needle-nose pliers as Barney Collier in "Mission: Impossible." Morris, who starred as the high-tech wizard in the original series, will do a guest stint on the new show, which is being filmed Down Under using the old series' scripts. It just so happens that Morris' son Phil stars in the new series as . . . Barney Collier's son Grant, who also happens to be technologically inclined.

Starz has joined the list of premium cable channels pulling away from Netflix. Just two days after CBS' Showtime Networks said it would soon stop making its original series available to Netflix Inc.'s streaming service, Liberty Media's Starz, one of Netflix's longest-term and most important partners, is changing its policy as well. Starting April 1, when its new drama "Camelot" premieres, Starz will no longer put episodes of its original series on Netflix the day after they first air on television.