Discovery

This Sunday, the Gosselin clan of Jon and Kate Plus 8 will welcome Planet Green's Renovation Nation host Steve Thomas into their home to retrofit it with some eco-friendly upgrades. Steve and his crew will help install electric solar panels and solar thermal panels onto the house, as well as solar powered lights along the driveway. They'll also build a picnic table for the family using reclaimed wood. Of course, the kids will also lend a hand (or 16) with the projects, and learn a few things about being green. Unfortunately, the hefty needs of the large household are not helping the family's carbon footprint! Catch the special at 9 p.m. EDT this Sunday, April 19, on TLC.
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Saturday, Sept. 20, TLC will premiere another new series, Over Designed, hosted by design expert Kenneth Brown. Brown will help overzealous homeowners who have taken a motif to the extreme, by enlisting the help of their family and friends to create more livable and inviting spaces. Think palm trees, penguins galore, all things Africa, or an extremely played-out Hawaiian theme. "The series will strive to celebrate each person’s unique design sense of style, but will help streamline their look and offer ways to better celebrate their collections," explains Kenneth. The show airs at 8:30 p.m. EST/PDT, so be sure to tune in. I can't wait to see these magical transformations!
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In these days of growing environmental awareness, it's not unusual for a network to have one or two TV series — or, in the case of NBC, a whole week — dedicated to all things green. But on June 4, Discovery will trump them all, giving green issues their own channel.

Planet Green will show up wherever Discovery Home currently is on your cable box, and it's billing itself as the first ever 24/7 green network. Already, it has a slew of star-studded programs helping it on its way. A few examples:

• Greensburg — Pictured above, this documentary series from Leonardio DiCaprio's production company follows the green rebuilding of a town in Kansas following its destruction by a tornado.
• The Green Life — Entourage's Adrian Grenier will take viewers on a tour of his own environmentally aware life, including the green renovation of his LA home.
• Emeril Green — Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse will show families how to cook meals using fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients.
• Battleground Earth: Ludacris vs. Tommy Lee — The craziest of all, this series pits Ludacris and Tommy Lee against each other to "battle against the toxic forces destroying Mother Earth" as they travel around the country on the greenest tours possible.

There are several news programs lined up, too, as well as series like Stuff Happens (hosted by Bill Nye!) and Wrecklamation, described as "recycling on steroids."

I'm curious to see several of the series, especially Greensburg and a home-improvement show called Wa$ted hosted by Annabelle Gurwitch of Dinner and a Movie. But I'm wondering: Is this more green programming than you're ready for? Do you think you'll check any of the shows out? And, as a side note, since they've already got Tom Green hosting a program, which other Green-named celebrity will be next? Seth Green, Brian Austin Green, Eva Green, I'm looking at you.

Photo courtesy of Discovery

While Emeril Live may be a thing of the past, we can now look forward to Emeril Green, a daily show on Planet Green, the new eco-lifestyle network from Discovery. The new network is launching this Summer and Emeril Green begins in July. The series will highlight Emeril's love of fresh, top quality foods and will be shot entirely on location at Whole Foods locations across the country. He'll share how to create great meals using quality produce, meats, and seafood, and he's hoping to try and inspire families to use fresh and seasonal ingredients. Here's what he had to say:

Since my early days as a chef, I've always been passionate about using the freshest quality ingredients from farmers, fisherman, and ranchers. I try a little harder every day to think greener and be respectful of our environment and our resources. On Emeril Green we'll unearth how easy and fun it is to cook with what's fresh, tasty, and in season and find smart ways to make each day a little greener for you and your family.

Personally I think it'll be refreshing to see this side of Emeril. The BAM! antics always make me forget that he's a solid chef with a lot of skill.

What do you think? Will you tune in to Emeril Green?

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It was probably only a matter of time before Oprah Winfrey staked out a TV network of her very own, but now it's official: Oprah will launch her own cable channel, OWN, in mid-2009. She issued a statement saying:

Fifteen years ago, I wrote in my journal that one day I would create a television network, as I
always felt my show was just the beginning of what the future could hold. For me, the launch of The Oprah Winfrey Network is the evolution of the work I’ve been doing on television all these years and a natural extension of my show.

The channel will be part of Discovery's cable networks (which also include TLC and the Travel Channel) and will take over for the current Discovery Health network. It won't carry Oprah's talk show, at least at the start, because rights to new and repeat broadcasts are already spoken for through 2011. But the Associated Press reports that some of Oprah's regular contributors could find a home on OWN. Paging Dr. Phil!

Discovery says OWN — a pretty great acronym, if you ask me — will have the same mission statement as the rest of Oprah's ventures: inspiring people to live their best lives. So, do you think Oprah TV would be something you'd want to watch? Or is it all just a little too much?

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One day over July 4th weekend, I was feeling under the weather and staring listlessly at the TV with my boyfriend when "Man vs. Wild" came on the Discovery channel. My boyfriend wanted to watch an episode and I was feeling too weak to argue. But after just a few minutes, I was hooked and glad I'd started watching the show during a marathon! Now I can't get enough of this adventurous/scary/disgusting and intriguing show, which airs Friday nights at 9:00 PM during its normal season. I've even converted several friends, some of whom have gone so far as to buy flints in case they need, um, a fire, I guess.

The host is Bear Grylls, who is the only human we see throughout the show, so it's a good thing he's a fearless yet boyishly adorable British man formerly a part of the British Special Air Services with a seemingly bottomless knowledge about nature and survival. At the start of every episode he parachutes into a remote part of a jungle/desert/glacier/other unforgiving terrain. His mission? To survive long enough to make his way to some kind of civilization. The fact that he makes it through every mission is cool enough, but there's more to this show that I love, so read more