Pasadena, Calif. -- A poised, well-spoken Jennifer Lopez showed up at press tour late Thursday, but on her new MTV series "DanceLife" (10:30 p.m. Monday), she's still Jenny from the Block, keeping it real as she auditions young dancers for an unspecified performance.

	Nuyorican Jennifer Lopez auditions dancers in the new MTV reality series "DanceLife," for which she is also an executive producer. Click photo for larger image.

"DanceLife" follows six dancers -- three guys, three girls -- as they audition for assorted dance gigs. Lopez appears in only two of the eight episodes of the series, including Monday's premiere. The show is as slickly produced as its opening credits, which makes almost every scene appear to have been rehearsed or at least outlined. You can almost hear a producer coaching the kids: "OK, in this scene, Nolan, you tell Kenny that you don't like Blake. He's gonna be the designated arrogant bad guy on the show."

If you can get past how fakey-fake "DanceLife" feels, the dance moves are impressive.

For Lopez, "DanceLife" marks a return to the spotlight after she went underground for a few years following her well-publicized romance with actor Ben Affleck, who's now married to Jennifer Garner.

"My life for me had become uncomfortable in the way it was affecting my personal life and the people in it," Lopez said, "and so I decided I needed to take a look at that and my own responsibility in that. I realized there was a way to pull back from it in the way I lived."

The results? She went out on the town less, or, when she did go out, she'd go to places the paparazzi wouldn't find her.

"If you want to be in those magazines, you can," she said. "And if you don't, you don't have to be."

Britney Spears, are you listening?

Lopez, who is married to singer Marc Anthony, will be more visible this year (two movies, two albums are on the way), including her role on and executive producing "DanceLife." She said she also watches ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and Fox's "And So You Think You Can Dance," her favorite of the two.

"I started my career as a dancer, and so I know what that life is, but I realize that a lot of people don't," she said. "The heart of the series is the struggle of loving something so much and doing it and wanting to do it and at the same time how hard a life that can be."

Gunn, Abdul get shows

Tim Gunn, star of Bravo's "Project Runway," will host a new series, "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style." Each episode will explore one person's fashion dilemma, and Gunn will come to the rescue.

Bravo executive vice president of programming and production Frances Berwick said Gunn will also return for the fourth season of "Project Runway," which will air sometime this year.

The network also announced plans for a reality series that chronicles the life of "American Idol" judge Paula Abdul. No air date was announced.

Bravo cancels 'Queer Eye'

Bravo will air a final, 10-episode fifth season of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" this summer. The series burst onto the network in 2003 and became an immediate hit and a signature series for Bravo, but ratings have declined in recent seasons.

Nora Roberts on Lifetime

Fans of romance novels by author Nora Roberts will get four weeks of movies based on her books.

For four Mondays beginning Jan. 29, Lifetime will air TV movies based on "Angels Fall" (Jan. 29) starring Heather Locklear and Jonathon Schaech; "Montana Sky" (Feb. 5) starring John Corbett and Ashley Williams; "Blue Smoke" (Feb. 12) starring Alicia Witt, Matthew Settle and Scott Bakula; and "Carolina Moon" (Feb. 19) starring Claire Forlani, Oliver Hudson and Jacqueline Bisset.

Executive producer Stephanie Germain said Roberts' books appeal because they each have a relatable, contemporary female protagonist.

"Many of them are career women," Germain said. "And she's a woman who along the way usually stumbles on to a situation that's a murder or a mystery, and she's wrapped into it and has to get through it and find the solution and hopefully at the end is with the right guy."

Locklear said it should be a lesson to all: "Just give women what they want; we'll all be happy."

Longo quits NATAS

WTAE news director Bob Longo, who was voted onto the board of governors of the mid-Atlantic chapter of the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences in June, sent an e-mail to the group announcing he was quitting NATAS this week.

"From my vantage point in Pittsburgh, the 'regional' chapter appears to be nothing more than a Philadelphia TV social club," Longo wrote. "Events, funds, and awards are controlled by and centered on Philadelphia. Other markets within the region, including Pittsburgh, are given token attention and, in my opinion, are ignored. The bias is palpable. When it comes time for awards, entries are encouraged openly, but once in, those awards, and the funds they generate, are put to use running a Philadelphia chapter and annual party."

NATAS administers the regional Emmy awards. WTAE was the only commercial station to regularly enter the Emmy competition. At one time, WPXI and KDKA made it a policy to not enter at all due to some of the same concerns Longo expressed.

"As news director at WTAE, I am also ending station participation in this chapter," Longo wrote. "WTAE will no longer sponsor any awards entries, and I will encourage individuals to abstain as well. If time and energy permits, I will petition the national organization to seriously look at establishing a truly regional NATAS chapter that more honestly represents Pittsburgh."

An official from NATAS did not respond to a request for comment.

Unless other commercial stations now increase their participation, Longo's move leaves WQED as the last remaining Pittsburgh station to enter the Emmys race in earnest. Emmy nominees will be announced in August.

Each Emmy entry comes with a fee, so cutting out entries can also save a TV station money.

Channel surfing

New episodes of "Crank Yankers" and "Celebrity Deathmatch" premiere on MTV2 at 10 p.m. Friday beginning Feb. 9. ... The basic cable premiere of edited episodes of "The Sopranos" did -- bada bing! -- big business for A&E, drawing 4.3 million viewers Wednesday night to make it the most-watched off-net premiere in cable history. ... Season two of "The Hills" begins on MTV Monday at 10 p.m. ... Mark Burnett ("Survivor") will executive produce the first-ever live "MTV Movie Awards" ceremony on June 3. ... Wanna see what's become of some '90s-era boy band members? VH1 will show you this spring in a new reality series -- titled either "Man Band" or "Band of Men" -- starring Chris Kirkpatrick (N'Sync), Jim Timmons (98 Degrees), Rich Cronin (LFO) and Bryan Abrams (Color Me Badd). ... Comedy Central's "South Park" returns with new episodes on March 7. ... On March 1, NBC Universal will launch a new channel, Chiller, devoted to the horror genre. DirecTV has committed to carrying the network. ... Sci Fi Channel will re-activate "Flash Gordon" with a new live-action series based on the classic comic strip to air this summer. ... Alan Cumming has been cast as the Tin Man character in its update of "The Wizard of Oz," set to air in December.