The TV Renewal/Cancellation Scorecard has been updated with these numbers — and one show has moved from definitely being cancelled to toss up!

“Fringe” keeps getting better this season, but it matters little as it faces cancellation with the numbers its pulling on Fridays. Last night’s episode was steady with a 1.5 in the demo. While Kevin Reilly has proclaimed a fondness for the show, it is far more likely to be cancelled than return at those numbers.

“Blue Blood” rose to a 1.9 in the demo, good for its highest ratings in several weeks. A lot of people are high on the “Blue Bloods” will get renewed train while I’ve tried to be pragmatic about it. The 1.9 makes a good case for the show coming back; my gut feeling still calls for cancellation. Boy, its a fun debate that is being raised in the TV renewal/cancellation scorecard.” One things for certain, NBC and ABC would kill for a 1.9 demo in the 10 pm hour a few nights a week, not just Friday. “CSI: NY” was also on the very-high end with a 2.0. “The Defenders” aired its season (and series) finale.

Over on the CW, I was amused that reruns of “Supernatural” and “Smallville” draw about the same numbers of first run CW programs Monday through Wednesday.

8 pm

Kitchen Nightmares: 1.7 demo, 4.1 million viewers

The Defenders: 1.5 demo, 9 million viewers

Supernanny: 1.1 demo, 4 million viewers

Who Do You Think You Are: .9 demo, 3.9 million viewers

*Smallville: .5 demo, 1.5 million viewers

8:30 pm

CSI: NY: 2.0 demo, 11 million viewers

Fringe: 1.5 demo, 3.8 million viewers

Dateline NBC: 1.4 demo, 6.4 million viewers

Primetime: What Would You Do: 1.4 demo, 4.3 million viewers

*Supernatural: .5 demo, 1.3 million viewers

10 pm

Blue Bloods: 1.9 demo, 11.8 million viewers

Dateline NBC: 1.9 demo, 7.1 million viewers

20/20: 1.6 demo, 5.9 million viewers

Friday’s pretty dreary for network television, and it seems the hot topic for the night is “Will Fringe Survive?” The latest episode of “Fringe” drew a 1.5 rating. That was even with last week, and up from the season low two-weeks ago of 1.4 in the demo.

That however is still unlikely to save “Fringe.” Given statement made previously by Kevin Reilly, the show likely needs at least a 1.6 in the demo to survive.

“Blue Bloods” and “CSI: NY” topped their respective hours with a 1.7 in the demo, but neither is likely to be renewed at those numbers. Will CBS cancel both, or just one? If so, “CSI: NY” is over the syndication number, so is likely more financially feasible.

“Smallville” and “Supernatural” were even last week; they are the most-viewed shows on the CW.

8 pm

Kitchen Nightmares: 1.6 demo, 3.7 million viewers

The Defenders: 1.2 demo, 8.7 million viewers

Who Do You Think You Are: 1.2 demo, 6.1 million viewers

Supernanny: 1.0 demo, 4 million viewers

Smallville: 1.0 demo, 2.5 million viewers

9 pm

CSI: NY: 1.7 demo, 10.8 million viewers

Fringe: 1.5 demo, 4 million viewers

Dateline: 1.3 demo, 5.6 million viewers

What Would You Do: 1.3 demo, 4.6 million viewers

Supernatural: 1.0 demo, 2.1 million viewers

10 pm

Blue Bloods: 1.7 demo, 11.5 million viewers

Dateline: 1.5 demo, 5.8 million viewers

20/20: 1.5 demo, 5.5 million viewers

Friday’s are typically much quieter for television ratings, but even so, CBS new police drama “Blue Bloods” starring Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg pulled in 12 million viewers and a 2.2 demo rating at 10 p.m., doubling NBC’s “Outlaw,” the legal drama starring Jimmy Smits, which pulled a 1.1 rating and 5 million viewers. ABC was second in the hour with 20/20, which drew a 1.5 rating and 5.5 million viewers.

NBC led at 8 p.m. with “Dateline,” with 6.5 million viewers and a 1.4 rating. CBS was in second with the seventh season premiere of “Medium” with 6 million viewers and a 1.4 rating. The premiere of the tenth and final season of “Smallville” was in third with a 1.2 rating and 2.9 million viewers. ABC and Fox were last in the hour with repeats.

CBS ruled at 9 p.m. with the Friday premiere of “CSI: New York,” which led the hour with 10 million viewers and a 2.0 rating. “Dateline” was second with a 1.8 rating and 8 million viewers. “Supernatural” had it’s Friday premiere and remained in line with last season’s numbers, with a 1.1 rating and 2.8 million viewers. The season premiere of “The Good Guys” was watched by few on Fox, pulling a 0.9 rating and 2.9 million viewers. The show was watched by few during it’s summer run as well, and appears headed to cancellation.

According to Michael Ausiello over at EW.com, Teri Hatcher will guest star on the tenth and final season of “Smallville.”

Hatcher will be playing the mother of Lois Lane, portrayed by Erica Durance on the show. For those that remember the early 90s show, Hatcher actually got a big career boost by playing Lois Lane as well in “Lois and Clark.”

Hatcher will appear in the eighth episode of the season.

The CW Network today announced that its series "Smallville" will return in the fall of 2010 for a 10th season.

"Smallville," a modern retelling of the Superman legend, stars Tom Welling as Clark Kent. The series moved to Friday nights this season, where it currently ranks as network television’s No. 1 show in its time period among men 18-34 and men 18-49.

It averages more than 3 million viewers per week.

"Smallville" joins "The Vampire Diaries," "Gossip Girl," "90210," "Supernatural" and "America’s Next Top Model" as shows renewed for another season on The CW.

I’ve never met anyone, anywhere who watches the CW’s “Smallville,” but if you do, then you witnessed Microsoft market its Project Natal motion-sensing technology on the show over the weekend.

The video is embedded below, but I just don’t know. It’s a kind of awkward segment. Certainly didn’t rescue me from the waters of uncertainty about Microsoft’s new technology. Also, could only find a French-subtitled version, so there’s that.

But you decide.

More than 20 years after it delighted TV audiences, the Ruby-Spears Superman series finally hit DVD yesterday.

In addition to the thrills of Superman’s weekly adventures, each episode included a mini-segment called Superman Family Album that told the “real” story of what it was like to grow up as the most powerful boy in Smallville.

Joe Ruby and Ken Spears talked about the DVD and series recently, and the studio sent the interview over:

QUESTION: How was the title character developed for your Superman series?

JOE RUBY: “We went through a lot of different directions in development as to what kind of Superman we wanted. We had several different models – the crying/feeling Superman, the lecturing/do-gooder/save-the-day Superman, then there was the hip Superman and even the long-haired Superman. And, of course, there was the old straight-as-an-arrow Superman. Ultimately, we settled on the Christopher Reeve model – he had personality and a sense of humor, and yet he was still Superman. We figured that it worked for the films, so it would work well for us.”

QUESTION: Why were there only 13 episodes to the entire series?

JR: “I think the problem for us was our timeslot. It turned out 8:30 in the morning was a killer for Superman. Only the little kids were up, and they don’t understand Superman as well as the older kids. It wasn’t for 4- to 5-year-olds”

QUESTION: Was there a guiding theme to the series?

KEN SPEARS: “I think we were true to Superman to begin with – we produced a show that the audience expected Superman to be. He was the tried and true Superman, That’s who they wanted to see – that’s the feedback that we continue to get today.”

JR: “We basically had Superman tackling anything and everything, with the marching orders to have bigger-than-life fights.”

QUESTION: What did you see as the strength of your Superman series?

KS: “We had the best talent in the business at the time – that was our strength. They were excellent. When you first create a show, you hope your talent will be able to plus it – and they really plussed it. There are so many shots in the show that weren’t written into the script – those kind of great additions come straight from the artists and the storyboarders.

JR: “We had a pretty amazing crew – and an especially great crew of artists – including some of the best comic book guys in the business, and that made for good filmmaking. Guys like John Dorman and Gil Kane – we had an army of great talent on that show. Give credit to John Dorman – he’s a filmmaker and that’s the difference. He made sure the show had all the creative shots, the movement, some of that great left-to-right or down-angle camera moves. The show was well paced, well boarded, and I think John really put these things together well.”

QUESTION: Did splitting the production between two overseas studios in Japan and Korea cause any problems?

JR: “It was an experience for us, from a production standpoint, traveling overseas and working with two different interpreters having to translate in three different languages. They’d be answering before I’d get done with my question. It was the worst torture I ever had in my life.”

QUESTION: Looking back now, can you see how Ruby-Spears Superman fits in the canon of productions surrounding the Man of Steel?

JR: “As a kid, we all grew up with Superman. He’s the favorite, always. Your heroes stick with you. So we wanted to make the best Superman show we could, to really set it apart. I think everyone that worked on it felt that way. He’s Superman.”

KS: “It was like an honor to do something that classy and classic as Superman. He’s the No. 1 guy. We wanted to do it justice.”

Michael Shanks is an actor, and while it’s easy to get lost in the character he has played on, off and on again for a dozen years, there’s a lot under the surface.

Born in Vancouver and raised in small town British Columbia, Shanks began his acting career playing Charlie Brown in the fourth grade play. He witnessed his first television production in college while taking a beach break from trying out for a play. Ironically, it was “MacGyver” that Shanks saw being filmed, not knowing of course that he would one day star beside Richard Dean Anderson in “SG-1.”

He made his television debut in a 1993 episode of “The Commish,” a popular ABC crime drama. He landed a lot of minor roles before getting his big break on “Stargate SG-1″ in 1997, staring in 196 episodes in the series as an adventurous archeologist named Dr. Daniel Jackson. Since the end of “Stargate SG-1″ in 2007, Shanks, 38, has been trying to remake himself as an actor

“Well its a double-edged sword, I will say this,” Shanks said in his interview with Blast. “The things that come down the pipe, career-wise, that are offers to pay the bills are sort of sci-fi related projects.”

But, humbly, Shanks admits that all he can do is keep trying to land roles — hopefully roles that aren’t nerdy archeologists. “You just have to get back in a line as if you’re starting all over again,” he said.

We saw some of this. Shanks left “SG-1″ after season 5 and landed a few small roles, including two episodes of “Andromeda,” where he met his wife. It’s possible we may never have seen Daniel Jackson again if Shanks was offered another starring role (pure speculation). But Daniel’s was a popular role, and Shanks returned to “Stargate,” first as a guest, and then in his everyday role.

After “Stargate,” Shanks got to show some range by playing a pseudo-villain in the popular USA series “Burn Notice.” He played Victor, a rogue secret agent taking revenge on the shadowy intelligence agency that killed his family. He also recently landed a role that could bring him more into the mainstream by appearing in The CW’s “Smallville,” as comic book hero Hawkman. It’s still in the realm of sci-fi/fantasy, but the show has a wider following.

Still though, we can’t forget what Shanks and the “SG-1″ crew did in making the Sci-Fi/SyFy channel what it is today. A new Stargate show, “Stargate Universe” began this year, even as a rumored “SG-1″ straight-to-DVD movie is on the shelf.

“Stargate Universe” is a much younger, more melodramatic, almost juvenile take on the franchise, and fans are conflicted. Shanks is too, even though he’s slated to appear in at least four episodes this season.

“It is really slick and pretty,” Shanks said. “[But] from what I’ve seen I’m not on board. … I’m not hooked in.”

Shanks said the drama and conflict seems forced. “They’re creating tension, pathos and angst,” he said. “The conflict with the characters seems a bit forced.”

One thing I did not dig deeply into was Shanks’ relationship with Christopher Judge. At the San Diego Comic-Con International in 2008, Judge boasted that he and Shanks started their own production company. We later heard about a production about the archangel Michael. But Shanks said the production company was off. He didn’t discuss his relationship with Judge, and I didn’t press him any further on the matter.

BLAST: So you and Christopher Judge are best buds. You have a production company you’re putting together? What’s happening with you guys?

MICHAEL SHANKS: Yeah. Let’s just say the production company’s not happening anymore, and I’d rather not go down that road and talk about Christopher Judge at this particular junction.

Shanks lives in Vancouver with his wife, the beautiful British-Filipina-Canadian actress Lexa Doig (Jason X), whom he got to work with when she played a doctor in 11 episodes at the end of “SG-1′s” run. She is also known for her sci-fi/fantasy work. The couple has two children, and Shanks has an 11-year-old Daughter, Tatiana, born in 1998 to then girlfriend Vaitiare Bandera, who played Daniel Jackson’s wife, Sha’re on “SG-1.” Shanks also said he’s been known to enjoy a good game of Hockey — like any true Canadian.

Editor’s note: After readers called out Blast — and called us liars — for not including the audio of the Christopher Judge portion of the Michael Shanks interview, we are posting it in the interest in full disclosure. We wouldn’t lie about or improperly quote an actor who agreed to give an interview to Blast.

Blast will be running a feature-length podcast interview with Michael Shanks. Our readers will recognize Shanks as Daniel Jackson in all those years of “Stargate SG-1.” The interview will be up next week, but we wanted to confirm his appearance on The CW’s “Smallville.”

Shanks will play Hawkman in two episodes, “Society” and “Legends” which he told Blast are due to air in early 2010, possibly January.

The Canadian actor is working on a few other projects, but it wasn’t all good news. Shanks said that the next — and currently untitled — “Stargate SG-1″ movie is “not coming any time soon,” as the DVD market is down and financial issues aren’t making things easy for MGM to green light another Stargate film.

Make sure you read Blast in November. Did we mention we’re doing a Stargate-themed giveaway? Make sure you register an account to be eligible.