Memo to “The View” & Barbara Walters!

Ok, time to dump Hasselbeck! Really, I am so amazed that Joy has not hit her with a shovel and Whoopi hasn’t walked off the set. If the show needs a token Republican, what’s wrong with Meghan McCain? The woman has brains, looks, class and obviously that chip in her brain that Elizabeth seems to be missing. You know, the chip that prevents you from saying unbelievably stupid things that make people want to punch you out? Time to make the change, Barbara!!! Send Elizabeth to O’Reilly!

Betty, Betty, Betty: “SNL”

You gotta hand it to Facebook! 450,918 fans want Betty White to host “Saturday Night, Live!” and you know what? It’s gonna happen. Who says social networking doesn’t work?

Snooki Update

So there was Sherri backstage at “The View” today, one-on-one with a hair-don’t moment with my Snooki. Clearly, Elizabeth (in an “Everybody ♥’s The Situation” t-shirt – I kid you not!) and Sherri watch “Jersey Shore,” but Joy and Whoopi had no clue who these people were. When Sherri asked Snooki when she realized she was famous, she simply answered “at birth!” And when she was asked why she gets all the attention, she responded with “well, just look at me!” That’s my Snooki! Then Joy (who had no idea who any of them were) asked the guys if they use condoms. Say what? (they do). And their future as they see it for themselves? “The Situation” wants to try acting and if that doesn’t work, then plan B…except he has no plan B.  Whoopi, in a Mad Hatter hat, did indeed fall down the rabbit hole. Her expressions were priceless. And in case you missed “Jersey Shore,” the first season DVD is out.

“Lost” Report

Last week’s episode, “The Substitute,” started out by giving us Katey Sagal, back as John Locke's fiancée, Helen. How wonderful is that! I am really loving the meeting of the passengers in the alternate reality. Or is it the real reality? Hurley’s not a loser at all and Rose working for Hurley, both trying to help John. Jack still in the picture with his offer to help him too, even though John ripped up the card, the number’s still on his cell phone. And then Ben, turning up in the faculty lounge at the school where John is working. How good is the “real” Locke as opposed to what my friend Bill Ervolino refers to as “Not Locke.” On the whole, “The Substitute” was a bit of a snooze-fest compared with the previous episodes, but that just means that tonight’s episode, “Lighthouse,” should slap us back into whatever reality is real, or not real. I’m just thinking it's good vs. evil, but as soon as we think that, this show always takes a turn in the opposite direction.

For the BEST in “Lost” recaps, theories and such, go to my pal Bill Ervolino’s “Completely Lost” site. It’s a Losties’ dream! http://blogs.northjersey.com/blogs/completelylost

OK, Addicted!

I’ve been a late-comer to many shows, from “ER” to “”LA Law” and now to “Ghost Whisperer.” You’d think, sci-fi junkie that I am, I would have caught onto this one earlier (it’s been on since 2005!)…so I’m a little slow on the uptake. Not to mention being a huge Camryn Manheim fan, but “Ghost Whisperer” and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Melinda Gordon is now my newest addiction for those Friday nights before “Caprica.”

“Caprica”

For all of us “BSG” junkies going through withdrawl, “Caprica” is feeding the habit. It’s slow going at first, but there are little tidbits going on that give us “aha!” moments. Now with the rumor that Lucy Lawless has been asked to reprise her role as D’Anna, one of the “Final Five,”  can the other toasters be far behind?

“All My Children” Alert!!!

The magnificent five-time Emmy Award winning David Canary will be leaving his role as Adam Chandler this spring. He has chosen not to renew his contract, mainly because of the show’s move to LA.  Losing Canary is a major blow, since he’s not the kind of actor who can be replaced with another star. Rumor is that when he stops shooting in March, Adam will leave Pine Valley alive, or maybe with Brooke (Julia Barr, back for a short visit). This way, in true soap fashion, the door will be left open in case Canary changes his mind or chooses to return or an extended visit that would be a story arc.

Soapbox Moment of the Day: Grey’s Makes the Grade!

I’ve never been shy about my love for “Grey’s Anatomy,” but last week’s episode, “The Time Warp,” was one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was one of those flashback episodes of “defining cases” that changed the life and direction of three of the doctors, Bailey, Callie and the Chief, ok, ex-Chief.  Callie, the divine Sara (be still my heart) Ramirez was a study in Speech 101, or “how NOT to give a speech,” and was more humorous than gut wrenching. Bailey (the magnificent Chandra Wilson) started out as the timid “Mandy,” overshadowed and belittled by a nasty, insecure, threatened resident, until the mouse devoured the hawk, and she became the Miranda Bailey we all know, much to the delight of the Chief. The Chief, that’s the story that made the show for me. In the matter of full disclosure, I must mention that I went to Bowling Green with James Pickens, Jr. (he was doing his BFA when I was in grad school) and his talent was apparent even then. The storyline followed a young Richard Webber and Ellis Grey in one of their early cases, that of a young man who'd come in for a hernia operation and was getting sicker by the minute. The chief went on to talk about how Ellis Grey was brilliant but was cast off because she was a woman, so they paired up to figure out what was wrong with their patient, using tissue sample tests to discover their patient had a rare fungus. In the flashback, he and Ellis asked him some uncomfortable questions: namely, they were going to probe the possibility that he might have "GRID," which was Gay-Related Immune Deficiency in 1982, now known as AIDS. The patient was insulted by the question and threatened to sue for slander. The disease was rare the time, and very few cases had been detected. Even their attending didn't know how to handle it, and was upset with their hypothesis, putting them on probation. Soon, their "GRID" patient was back with Kaposi’s Sarcoma on his face and apologized to them, as all the other doctors and nurses stood a significant distance away with surgical masks covering their faces. "Please help me," he told them. Ellis and Richard went over their patient's scans and they wanted to operate, but their attending refused, saying the man was a lost cause because he had AIDS. Richard said they took an oath to heal the sick and the attending told him that "10 years ago you wouldn't have even been allowed in this program." They went ahead with the surgery on their own, asking him to let them operate on what they could, in case there was "a cure for this tomorrow or next week." The chief said they knew what they were doing was dangerous, because at that time nobody knew how the disease could spread. Their patient survived the surgery, but came back eight months later with pneumonia and died a week after that. As the scene came to a close, Richard and Ellis held their patient’s hands as he quietly passed. The Chief reminded the doctors to remember the physician's oath they took when they graduated med school, "because it is too easy to lose your way." Then he raised his right hand and gave the oath as we saw a montage of Callie's patient, Bailey's patient as they were cured and his and Ellis' patient as he died. This reminded me of how AIDS was treated in the early ‘80s with everyone in gowns, gloves, caps and masks, afraid to get too close, lest they catch this dreaded disease. And it reminded me of all those friends I lost over the years, and all those who died with no human contact, nobody to hold them as they slipped away, frightened and alone. We tend to forget how things were before the “cocktails” and medication that made AIDS and HIV no longer a death sentence. Thank you to Shonda Rhimes, for a magnificent episode.

See you next week…

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