The new, recast version of Scrubs will arrive on ABC starting December 1, so someone tell Donald Faison to hold off on that bulk order of hair vitamins; he’ll continue playing the hairless Doctor Turk for at least another season.

Beyond Doctor Turk, John C. McGinley’s Docter Cox will also appear on the series, but the rest of the original cast will, at best, be only occasional guest stars. The new Scrubs will feature the work of Eliza Coupe, Michael Mosley, Kerry Bishe and Dave Franco as the new emotional centers of the show.

BBC One has announced that the second of four Doctor Who specials slated to air this year, featuring the swan song of series re-creator Russell T. Davies as well as David Tennant’s Doctor, will are on BBC One in under two weeks, on November 15. A subsequent airing on BBC America is sure to follow, though the air date in the US has yet to be announced.

Titles Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, the episode will feature Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide, the Doctor’s companion for the episode. Two more specials remain featuring Davies and Tennant at the helm of the TARDIS; both are expected to air as part of BBC One’s tradition “Christmas special” of Doctor Who; at the end of the fourth special, Tennant’s Doctor is expected to regenerate and reveal Matt Smith’s Doctor for the first time on screen.

After Tennant and Davies depart, Smith’s Doctor will see his fate rest in the hands of Steven Moffatt, who has worked under Davies for several years. Smith’s Doctor is set to be the youngest yet cast in the role of the Doctor, as he is still in his 20s. While there has been much talk of bringing back Tennant-era companions like Freema Agyeman’s Martha Jones, Catherine’s Tate’s Donna Noble or even – however unlikely – Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, instead, it has been announced that Moffatt and Smith will reset the table for the Doctor, granting him an all-new companion for the fifth series in the form of young Scottish actress Karen Gillan, who’s so young she may still require the best acne treatment, and will portray new companion Amy Pond.

Although Davies has made it clear he will make a clean break with Doctor Who after Moffatt takes control, what is less clear are the futures of the successful Doctor Who spin-offs, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Torchwood has survived largely without Davies’ input, but has credited him as creator and executive producer; The Sarah Jane Adventures has seen little direct involvement from Davies under similar circumstances. Time will tell.

Although it was looking iffy for a while, Fox has decided to renew Seth McFarlane’s “American Dad” animated sitcom, which means McFarlane now owns 90 minutes of Fox Sunday night programming, along with The Simpsons.

Previously, Fox had already announced renewals for Family Guy and The Cleveland Show. The new season of American Dad will be the sixth season. Networks like Fox who feature prime-time animated fare often make decisions for next season far earlier for animated shows than for live-action shows, due to the long production cycles in putting such shows together.

Personally, I’ve always mildly preferred American Dad to Family Guy since about the second season on, and The Cleveland Show is still growing on me, but at the moment seems the weakest of the three. Either way, with all three shows having their futures assured, MacFarlane can now go off on that ski vacation he’s been waiting to take for so long.

Rushing to get onto screens this weekend are four big movies that hope to get their piece of the holiday movie season early, before New Moon: The Twilight Saga arrives and dominates box office for a few weeks.

Hollywood is pinning a lot of hopes on the animated A Christmas Carol, featuring the voice of Jim Carrey as Scrooge. He’s delivered before over the holidays with The Grinch That Stole Christmas, but can he pull it off this far away from even Thanksgiving? Time will tell.

The most overhyped movie that seems almost certain to flop is The Box, a thriller with James Marsden and Cameron Diaz.

A movie that’s been repackaged to seem more like Paranormal Activity is the alien abduction thriller The Fourth Kind, but the presence of well-known actors like Milla Jovavich spoil the “could it be real” fun of a Paranormal Activity-style movie. This could take off or flop, depending largely on early word-of-mouth.

Finally, there is the screwball comedy, The Men Who Stare At Goats, which is loony enough to overcome the massive political overtones and agenda George Clooney often brings to the table. This one has a lot of flop potential, but could greatly benefit from strong early word-of-mouth, if the film is solid.

Of all these, the Fourth Kind seems like the sleeper of the group, but I expect the latest A Christmas Carol franchise to end up atop next weekend’s box office. Well, we’ll know in a week if I’m correct.

After topping the box office last weekend, Paranormal Activity slowed its momentum and settled into second place this week, finally overshadowed by the Michael Jackson concert movie, This Is It. The Jackson movie, riding the notoriety of his untimely death this past summer, hauled in $21.3 million in weekend receipts and had a total haul since its early opening of $32.5 million. This Is It is an even huger hit globally, raking in over $68 million overseas to open with a $101+ million weekend.

Paranormal Activity still had a better per-screen average than even This Is It, and added $16.5 million to its second-place total. Considering the movie cost about $15,000.00 to make … yes, you read that right … its six-week total of $84.7 million is simply outstanding and one of the best rags-to-riches stories in filmmaking this year. Certainly it now has to rank right up there with The Blair Witch Project. However, I still like the earlier cut of the movie the studio was considering, with the more naturalistic ending. Oh well.

Nothing else cracked the $10.0 million mark, meaning that moviegoers must be taking weight loss pills that work in terms of their moviegoing habits; after two straight weeks of Top 12 box office being over $100 million, this week it dropped significantly to around $84 million or so.

Several films had flopped … or, to be politically correct, “underperformed” … despite lots of good intentions. The most notable example is Where the Wild Things Are, which cost $100 million to make and market, but has barely cleared $60 million and has dropped out of the Top 5 in only its third week.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant was hoping to suck some pre-New Moon: The Twilight Saga-release blood from moviegoers, but in its second week is a distant 10th place, barely clearing $10.5 million against a $40 million budget.

Other movies bleeding and mortally wounded include Astro Boy ($10.8 million in two weeks, against a $65 million budget); Amelia ($8 million in two weeks against a $40 million budget); the Bruce Willis SF thriller Surrogates ($38 million against an $80 million budget); and even GI Joe: Rise of Cobra ($150 million against a $175 million budget and currently dead in the water).

With all these flops, it makes the indy success and slow-build campaign of Paranormal Activity even more amazing.