RATINGS RAT RACE: ABC's 'Bachelor Pad' Slips, Fox's Gordon Ramsay Block Tops

With CBS and NBC in all repeats, it is a two-way race on Monday between Fox and ABC these days. Fox posted another dominating performance from Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen (2.8/8 in 18-49, even with last week, 6.8 million total viewers, up 3%) and MasterChef (2.4/6, up 4%, 6 million, up 9%). Fox (2.6/7, 6.4 million) easily won the night, logging its highest-rated Monday with summer programming in four years among 18-49 and in three years among total viewers. A two-hour Bachelor Pad (2.1/6) was down 9% from the ABC reality series' three-hour season premiere last week but up 11% vs. the same night last year. A repeat of Castle (0.9/9) followed, with the dramedy posting its highest rerun rating this summer. ABC (1.7/5, 5.5 million) finished second in both 18-49 and total viewers.

TNT Orders a Fifth Season of Leverage

Timothy Hutton and Gina Bellman The disadvantage continues: TNT has purchased a fifth season of Leverage.The network has purchased 15 additional episodes, that will begin airing in summer time 2012. The show's 4th season, which offered like a lead-into the lately restored Falling Skies, has averaged 4.8 million audiences, a ten percent increase within the previous season.Exclusive Leverage video: Nate comes face-to-face together with his enemy!"Although shows decline within their second, third or 4th seasons, Leverage has defied the chances and ongoing to climb,"" Michael Wright, executive v . p . and mind of programming for TNT, stated inside a statement. "Increasingly more audiences are finding this weekly pleasure ride through wonderfully complex schemes and disadvantage games, all introduced to existence through wise writing, sharp pointing along with a terrific cast."The series stars Timothy Hutton as Nate Ford, a crook whose team of grifters, cyber-terrorist and disadvantage-artists (Gina Bellman, Janet Riesgraf, Aldis Hodge, and Christian Kane) take lower the wealthy and effective. The show's 4th months are presently airing until Sunday, August. 28. It'll summary the growing season with episodes in November and December.Leverage airs Sundays at 9/8c on TNT.

Lucasfilm's Industrial Light + Magic Exploring Opening New Facility in Vancouver

Lucasfilm's Industrial Light + Magic is exploring opening a project-based facility in Vancouver sometime next spring.our editor recommendsLucasfilm, Sony Pictures Imageworks Launch VFX DevelopmentPixar's La Luna, Sony's Arthur Christmas Preview: Siggraph Animation Festival ILM, based in San Francisco, declined to comment because details are not yet finalized, but word of the new ILM outpost was spreading this week at the CG confab Siggraph, taking place in Vancouver, wherefavorable tax incentives have turned the city into one of the hottest destinations for the visual effects and animation community. Should ILM head to Vancouver, it will be the latest in a string of leading companies that in recent years have set up shop in the production hub -- including Digital Domain, Pixar Animation Studios, MPC and Sony Picture Imageworks. In addition to its San Francisco headquarters, ILM also operates out of Lucasfilm Singapore, which opened in 2005 and is already running out of space. Lucasfilm Singapore plans to move into a new building -- which is currently under construction -- by 2013. ILM's recent work includes Rango, as well as VFX work on Super 8, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Upcoming working includes the visual effects on Red Tails, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Battleship and The Avengers. In related news this week at Siggraph, Lucasfilm and Imageworks released Alembic, an open source system aimed at helping VFX companies easily store and share complex animated scenes across facilities, regardless of what software is being used. Related Topics International Super 8 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Pixar Transformers: Dark of the Moon Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' Succeeds, Despite James Franco

'Breaking Bad' Producer Sam Catlin Inks Overall Deal at Sony

Sam Catlin has inked a two-year overall deal with Sony Pictures Television.our editor recommends'Breaking Bad': Dark Side of the Dream'Breaking Bad' Premiere: 5 Things Seen And Heard On the Red Carpet The Emmy nominated writer-producer, who serves as a co-executive producer on AMC's Breaking Bad,will be tasked with developing original projects for the studio. In addition to a crime drama that was born out of a past script deal, Catlin has plans to pitch a new intelligence world drama as well as dabble in comedy. He says he's largely agnostic about working on cable versus broadcast, arguing "there's not much slumming you can do in television anymore." TV Ratings: 'Breaking Bad's Season 4 Premiere Is a Series Best Landing at Sony was a fitting next step considering the vast majority of Catlin's previous TV projects, including Fox's Canterbury's Law and NBC'sKidnapped, are Sony shows. Catlin will also continue with Breaking Bad, which has found itself in the headlines in recent days. Despite rumblings that the Sony-produced hit is being shopped elsewhere care of contract battles between the studio and distributer AMC, Catlin says he's "hopeful" that it will remain on the latter. He adds that there had been debate internally about whether the series should end after one or two more seasons, but there was no argument about the decision to wrap it up. Q&A: 'Breaking Bad' Star Bryan Cranston on Walter White: 'He's Well on His Way to Badass' "It's always tempting to keep it going, especially since we all know that this could very well be the best job we've ever had, but we would all hate to overstay our welcome and be the show that just kind of lingered," he says. "We'll make the mistake of leaving too soon and not too late is my guess." Catlin, who penned the screenplay for dark indie comedy The Great New Wonderful, is repped by UTA and attorney Ken Richman of Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman Newman Warren & Richman. Email: Lacey.Rose@THR.com Twitter: @LaceyVRose Related Topics AMC Sony Pictures Television Breaking Bad

Hosts And Producer of 'The Chew' Defend Show

Exclusive: Hugh Hefner Won't Be Narrating NBC's The Playboy Club

Playboy Club You won't be hearing much from Hugh Hefner on NBC's The Playboy Club this fall. Hefner narrates the new series' pilot episode, but won't do the same in future episodes.That's because the producers behind The Playboy Club are leaning toward eliminating the show's narration device all together, according to show insiders. (In the pilot, Hefner sets the stage for the show via voiceover at the open and close of the show.)But that doesn't mean The Playboy Club will be completely scrubbed of its legendary founder. The character of 1960s-era Hugh Hefner will make an appearance from time to time on the show, although it's unclear how much we'll see of him, or if he'll involved he'll be in the show's storylines.The Playboy Club decision represents the second major voice-over switcheroo on a new fall network show. As TV Guide Magazine's Kecks Exclusives first reported, Robert Wagner won't be playing the voice of Charlie on ABC's Charlie's Angels reboot after all.Set in a 1960s Chicago branch of the infamous Playboy clubs, The Playboy Club stars Eddie Cibrian as a man running for district attorney. Amber Heard and David Krumholtz also star.The decision to pull back on Hefner's narration is a stylistic choice and unrelated to the controversies surrounding the show. Groups like the Parents Television Council are asking NBC affiliates not to air the show - although just one, Salt Lake City's KSL, has opted to drop it so far. (The market's My Network TV affiliate, KMYU, will run the show instead.)Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!