And another 80's favorite is gone...

Rue McClanahan of The Golden Girls has passed away at age 76. Betty White is now the last of the Girls...:(

Thanks for the laughs, Rue, and rest in peace.

80's sitcom stars, didn't I tell you to STOP DYING?

Gary Coleman died yesterday at 42. The Diff'rent Strokes star had terrible health and personal problems his entire life. :( May he rest in peace.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20389492,00.html?xid=rss-fullcontent

After Strokes ended, his career dried up and he became the butt of many jokes. Hollywood really does treat former child actors like crap. And his parents were no better.

All three of the kids on that show had it rough. Dana Plato died in 1999 (drug overdose, likely intentional), and Todd Bridges had drug problems as well, though he seems to have finally gotten it together.

Last week's Lost...

"Across the Sea"

This episode should have been done two years ago! Pretty good, though. It's just a little late to be doing a big backstory episode!

Sooooo, Jacob and MIB are twins, raised by a nut who killed their real mom after they were born. She tells them they're special and one of them will have to protect the light which is "the heart of the island". Good and evil...it's not so black and white after this episode!

Kid!MIB goes to live with the people his "mother" says are bad- they're learning about the island's odd properties, which makes MIB want to leave.

Nut!Mom "kills" MIB, she chooses Jacob as the protector of the island, she wipes out the Others, to MIB's horror. MIB (who is never given a name!) kills her, Jacob punishes him by throwing him into the light cave, which kills MIB but turns him into SMOKEY!!!

Jacob puts the bodies of his brother and fake mom in a cave...where centuries later, they are discovered by Jack, Kate, and Locke. "Our very own Adam and Eve".

WHOA that answered a lot of questions. Adam and Eve's identities are revealed, and we see how MIB and Jacob get to the island and how they become who they are. I actually felt bad for MIB part of the time. Odd that the mom is so intent on protecting "the light" that she slaughters a whole bunch of people. It's not just about good and evil, is it?

The music for this episode had a real Lord of the Rings sound to it.

Only one more episode, then the finale. As much as this show has driven me crazy over the past six years, I'm going to miss it!

House season finale...

"Help Me"- House nearly loses it again. Surprise, surprise. First he learns that Cuddy is engaged, then the patient he tried to help during a big disaster dies despite everything he tried to do. He goes to his secret stash of Vicodin, only to have Cuddy show up to stop him...apparently, she's broken up with Lucas and loves House despite her better judgement. Oh, boy.

This was a good episode until the last few minutes. The House/Cuddy ship sailed two seasons ago, IMHO! The big disaster leads to two Patients of the Week- the crane operator who caused the accident, and a woman trapped under the rubble of the building he destroyed. The crane operator's case isn't interesting at all. More interesting is House's interaction with the trapped woman- his efforts to save her leg leads to a big blow-up with Cuddy, making him back down from his position. House eating humble pie was totally unexpected! And of course, the lady dies anyway, which almost drives him to drugs again. And naturally it's Cuddy who stops him...

So where is this going to lead? Is House finally going to lose all the demons that make him, well, House?

Where was Wilson this episode?

Oh, yay!

I did not know this- Warner Bros. released Special Bulletin on DVD in January. I'll have to order it.

http://www.wbshop.com/Special-Bulletin-1983TV/1000147319,default,pd.html?cgid=

I don't think there are any special features or anything. But it's nice to have it on DVD and somewhat cheap!

Hey, HBO, why don't you guys release Countdown to Looking Glass on DVD now? :p

Dreading Lost tonight.

After last week's bloodbath (Sun, Jin, Frank, AND Sayid killed??) I'm almost afraid to watch tonight!

Anyway, here is my rambling response to The Candidate, last week's episode:

HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP!

Damn it. I haven't cried at a Lost episode since Charlie died. :( Sayid, Frank, Sun AND Jin? God damn it!

Kate got shot! YES! But she survives. DAMN! (I really don't like Kate!)

"There is no Sayid". Jesus, Jack, nice way of putting it. At least no one got a chance to say "You've got some Sayid on you".

Watching Hurley cry...that really got me started. Then Kate and Jack joined in.

Nice going, Sawyer...okay, he didn't know what would happen...but still!

So now we know what MIB/Locke wants...all the Lostie "candidates" have to be dead before he can leave.

Sayid: BIG DAMN HERO. I guess there was still good in him after all.

Sideways!Locke caused the accident that paralyzed him and left his dad a vegetable...and feels so guilty about it he won't let Jack fix him.

Sun and Jin in the end replaced Des and Penny as my favorite Lost couple. Damn it. :( :( :( :(

Wow...

Expect much more incoherent babbling from me after tonight. :p

There is a God!

Fox has nixed a reported plan to do an American version of Torchwood. What were they thinking, anyway? A: Torchwood makes no sense without Doctor Who. B: An American Doctor Who was tried and it failed. C: The U.S. of A. is not ready for Captain Jack Harkness!

Really, how could they have done it? It would have been boring. There would have been no inter-species sex! And Jack would have to be strictly heterosexual. It would never work. :p

Other stuff- last two episodes of Lost and Bones were awesome. I can't believe there are only four more Lost episodes left! Everything is coming together nicely...and I can't wait to see how it all will end. House was so-so this week.

I'm still going through Growing Pains episodes that had Boner in them. There were 25 in total...since I only have time to watch one or two a week, it's going to be a while before I finish them! I think I may write up a review of them later with a few screencaps- a little tribute to Andrew Koenig, though it's too little, too late. :( This week I watched the first episode- "Springsteen". This was so early that none of the characters had the personalities they would end up with- Boner was actually kind of a smart-assed jerk. Funny how Mike wound up the smart-ass and Boner the sweetie!

I want to watch some old Designing Women episodes, too. I miss that show. Why do TV Land, ABC Family, and Nick at Nite air endless episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Full House (GAG!), and Home Improvement...but great stuff like DW and Murphy Brown can't be found anywhere? :(

Kill 'em all!

Great Cracked.com article- the seven most soul-crushing endings for T.V. series. Gotta agree with Dinosaurs- THEY KILLED EVERYONE ON THE PLANET! Well, they were dinosaurs and doomed anyway...but kids watched this show! They must have been traumatized.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18490_the-7-most-soul-crushing-series-finales-in-tv-history.html

Number one is the end of St. Elsewhere- the hospital is in a snowglobe, and the whole show was an autistic kid's dream? That was the biggest WTF ending in the history of series finales. And they killed Mimsie the MTM cat in the closing credits, too. BTW, Mimsie was female, not male as stated in the article.

I'm getting worried about how Lost is going to end...:p

Dear stars of my favorite 80's sitcoms...

PLEASE STOP DYING!

Dixie Carter of Designing Women has died at age 70. I didn't even know she was sick. :(

I always loved Julia Sugarbaker's rants. Here's one of her greats, from "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV86kehwkc0

Lost- Happily Ever After

Oooooooo that was a good episode. Any Desmond episode is going to be good! Widmore has brought him to the island to see if he can survive the EMP effects he had in the past. While being "zapped"- Desmond experiences the "sideways" universe. Here, Widmore is his boss and he's never met Penny. While trying to deliver Charlie to a party Widmore is throwing, he has flashes of life on the island. He and Charlie aren't the only ones who know something is off about their lives- Daniel Widmore (not Faraday- here he's not a bastard!) shows him physics equations that he'd written despite never having done physics in his life! And both Charlie and Daniel have visions/feelings of loving someone and being loved by that someone (Claire and Charlotte, respectively). Desmond meets Penny- and the shock sends him back to the island. He agrees to do what Widmore wants to save the world...but then is taken by Sayid. But he goes along willingly...as if he wants this world to end.

So it seems that Desmond is going to be the big player in the end of the series. I wonder what sacrifice he's going to be asked to make (assuming Widmore can get him away from Sayid and Locke/MIB)?

One thing- I can't stand Zoe. Lame character, and I've never liked Sheila Kelley. She ruined both L.A. Law and Sisters for me. Thank God she's only in this last bit of the series...

I did it again!

*curses* I knew Law and Order: Criminal Intent was back with a two-parter, and I still forgot to watch. I hope it shows up on hulu fast.

And stupid me, I already know who dies, who gets fired, who quits, and who's left...damn spoilers. I have GOT to learn to stop reading them. I thought I'd learned my lesson after being spoiled for Torchwood: Children of Earth last summer. I guess not.

Ever since CI moved to USA, I've missed episodes.

Other stuff-

Yes, I have completely given up on L&O: Special Victims Unit. Bones is back with new episodes, but I missed tonight because of my church's Maundy Thursday service. Lost is getting very close to the end, and lots of things are finally starting to make sense- though some questions will probably never be answered. There's only six episodes left! And for some reason, I keep missing new House episodes. It's not that I don't care about it, I just plain forget to watch. I've been trying so hard to keep up with my reading that television takes a back seat. Which is actually a good thing...

I've spent the last month going through other Boner-centered Growing Pains episodes. I still can't believe Andrew Koenig is dead. :( He deserved so much better in life. Depression is just horrible. I hope in the end he is remembered more for Never Not Funny (the comedy podcast that his brother-in-law, Jimmy Pardo, hosts) than anything else. He was funny, thoughtful man. I've only recently started listening to NNF (screw Jay Leno, give The Tonight Show to Pardo!), but I know I'll miss Andrew's behind-the-camera antics- that wonderful laugh, his sometimes over-enthusiastic story telling ("Gobs and gobs", anyone?), his head-butting with Jimmy. And whenever he was on camera- seeing that sweet face and gorgeous mane of hair. Dammit. Now I'm sad again.

One last note- the rumor I saw about a possible second series for All the Small Things seems to have been just that, a rumor. Bummer. But at least Bryan Dick has been busy! He's been on Being Human this year (playing a ghost), and he's a bad guy in an episode of Ashes to Ashes this month. I've never watched Ashes, so that's a Bryan appearance I'll miss. I hate it when he plays bad guys...or when his characters die (at least in BH, he was already dead!).

Bryan in Being Human as Sykes the ghost...he looks like a little Jack Harkness!



I think that's it for now. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on Bones and CI- once Easter is over, I should have a little time to watch.

A brief wave of nostalgia...

I just watched the Semper Fidelis episode of Growing Pains- Boner's last episode. I hadn't seen it in probably 20 years- I forgot that it made me cry. And now it made me cry for a whole different reason. :(

I think a big reason Growing Pains went downhill after season 4 wasn't Kirk Cameron being born again and causing trouble on the set- it happened because they wrote out Andrew Koenig. Never, ever underestimate the importance of a supporting or recurring player on a long running television show! Mike and Boner was a good early example of a "bromance"- and with that team split up, some of the humor was gone.

I waited a while to watch this episode again- two weeks ago I couldn't have done it.

When I was in high school, the only two shows I would drop everything for were Family Ties (I always loved Michael J. Fox!) and Growing Pains. They're both still funny 20 years later.

My friends in school had pictures of Kirk Cameron as Mike plastered all over their lockers and bedroom walls...they thought I was insane for preferring Boner! I thought he was a sweetheart and not as smart-assed as Mike. Naturally, once he was gone, I lost interest in the show- I mainly watched the last seasons because of Carol, and even she disappeared (largely because of Tracey Gold's health problems).

I skipped Lost last night.

Oh, dear. It sounds like it was an important episode, too. Thank God for hulu!

And it's confirmed.

I watched the press conference on CNN during Nancy Grace. It was agonizing to watch Walter and Judy Koenig describing how Andrew was found, and that he had committed suicide. :(

I wouldn't normally watch Nancy Grace, but no other networks had the news. I can't stand her. She just takes too much glee in other people's misery. She's already questioning if Andrew's friends could be criminally responsible for his suicide, assuming they "missed the signs". That's crap. There were a lot of signs, but no one person in his family or circle of friends could have put them all together. Depression is like that. He may have been acting oddly one day and then absolutely normal the next. With some people, there is just no way to predict this kind of outcome. Thanks, Nancy, for making his friends feel more guilty than they already probably do. Bitch.

And a sad ending...

Andrew Koenig's body has apparently been found. Just breaking on cnn.com.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/25/growing.pains.actor.dead/index.html?hpt=T1

Dammit.

This does not sound good.

Former Growing Pains co-star Andrew Koenig is missing:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-etchi-growing-pains-actor-andrew-koenig-missing,0,7291938.story

:( I always thought he was a hoot on GP (even though I loathed Kirk Cameron). I hope he turns up okay.

His dad Walter played Chekov on Star Trek. So I'm sure all Trekkers out there will be praying for Andrew's safe return.

Another reason to stop watching SVU.

Christopher Meloni is planning to leave.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/news/a201729/meloni-quitting-law--order-svu.html

Not surprising, considering the continuing slide in quality, plus the writers have probably explored all there is to Dective Stabler.

Mariska Hargitay is probably staying on the show, but Benson without Stabler is like Kirk without Spock!

Lost: LA X

WOW!!! What a great start to the final season. When we last saw the Losties, Juliet had detonated the H-Bomb in 1977, in an effort to change the future. And the episode opens with a nervous Jack back on Oceanic Flight 815, along with various other Losties. The plane passes over the island with no trouble...and the island is actually underwater! So it seems that history has been changed...

But wait! After the first commercial break, we see Kate waking up on the island. She is joined by Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Jack, Miles, and the badly hurt Sayid. They are at the Swan station...the way it was after Desmond destroyed it. And Juliet is buried in the rubble...

Next, it's back to the beach with Not!Locke, Ben, and Jacob's followers- who found out the truth about Locke too late to help Jacob.

The epsiode goes back and forth between the two island groups and the plane...which safely lands in Los Angeles.

Juliet dies. :( Sawyer begs Miles to "talk" to her...and Miles reveals that Juliet told him that "It worked." Dead!Jacob tells Hurley to take Sayid to the temple or he'll die. The Losties are captured by the Others, but a message Jacob left saves them. Sayid dies anyway.

Jacob's followers attack Not!Locke...who reveals himself to be the "Smoke" monster.

The Losties are grieving for Juliet and Sayid...but then Sayid suddenly sits up and talks!

So much stuff to digest! The big things- Juliet's "It worked" comment- apparently, they now have two timelines going. In one, everything happened the way it did before. In the second, the island is destroyed, and Oceanic Flight 815 never crashes. Alt-Locke is still paralyzed but seems content. Alt-Hurley is still a lottery winner...but he's happy and has had nothing but good luck! It's not happy for everyone- Alt-Jack's father is still dead and the corpse is lost again, Alt-Jin and Sun are unhappy, Alt-Charlie is suicidal (Jack saves him), Alt-Kate is still a fugitive. And Desmond is on the plane! Wonder what that's all about...

So Not!Locke is Jacob's Nemesis, a really evil creature/person/whatever. That much was obvious from the season finale, but the fact that he's the smoke moster threw me!

Sayid dies but suddenly comes back...could he be possessed by Jacob (in a good way)? Is this final season going to be a classic Good v. Evil story? And where are they going with the Alt-Oceanic Flight 815?

Poor Sawyer. The death of Juliet really broke him. :(

It was nice to see Charlie again...even though he seems more broken than he was in the pilot. Boone also appears on the plane, but without Shannon. We don't see Claire until Los Angeles...when she's trapped in a taxi with an armed and desperate Kate!

This was an awesome night of television, and I can't wait to see how all of this is resolved.

This is so true...

Poor Conan.

*crosses fingers*

Just an unconfirmed rumor at this point, but Radio Times (U.K.) mentioned (in an article about Glee) that All the Small Things will get a second series. Oh, I hope that it's true! And I hope the whole cast will be back...though I think Sarah Lancashire (Esther) is already busy with another series. And Bryan Dick is filming a movie, as well as doing stage work. So the show will have to wait...can't have ATST without Esther and Jake!

NBC drama.

Jay Leno's show gets axed (no surprise, it was very weak), and NBC wants to put him at 11:30, moving Conan O'Brien and the Tonight Show to 12:05. And O'Brien is saying NO WAY. Meanwhile, David Letterman is laughing his ass off on the Late Show over at CBS.

I always liked Leno on The Tonight Show, but NBC's 10:00 p.m. "experiment" was a failure. It's time to let him go, and give O'Brien his chance. FOX could use a late night variety show. Leno could go there...or O'Brien if NBC decides to fire him.