Anna Torv
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Question: To say that I loved the season finale of Fringe would be an understatement. It was amazing! And I know I will be thinking about it all summer long, so I applaud the fantastic writers of this show. What did you think? — Rachel
Matt Roush: I thought what most of the readers of this column probably imagine I thought: Wow! As an hour of emotionally engaging and suspensefully perplexing entertainment, I thought it was a terrific way to end the show's very best season to date. (And so, it seems, did those who've weighed in so far in my mailbox.) Time paradox storylines are always tricky, and risk ...
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Tina Fey
On Thursday's season finale of 30 Rock, Liz Lemon revealed what she thinks is a dream summer vacation: 12 weeks of community service on a chain gang. She gets to be outside, wear comfortable clothes, garden, and learn Spanish! But we know that Tina Fey has higher standards. To that end, we've come up with a handy list of activities for her to do on her hiatus (besides having her second child):
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Alan Cumming as Eli Gold, The Good Wife
His candidate may have just won the election for Cook County State's Attorney, but it looks like Eli Gold's work is just getting started.
Alan Cumming has signed a new three-year deal to appear on The Good Wife through Season 5, TVGuide.com has confirmed.
See photos from The Good Wife
Cumming, 46, first appeared last season as a recurring character on the CBS drama before he was promoted to series regular for Season 2. Cumming was nominated for...
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Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife
Sometimes it's not just about the ratings. And sometimes it is. That's the takeaway from an eventful week in the win-some/lose-some sweepstakes we call TV programming.
On the plus side: TNT's renewal of Southland, the latest lifeline for the gritty police drama that NBC ditched during that misbegotten period when Jay Leno put the 10 pm drama on the endangered species list. It will never be as popular as the network's signature shows like The Closer and Rizzoli & Isles (which got a funny shout out from 30 Rock's Liz Lemon this week), but Southland's uncompromising integrity helps give credence to TNT's "We Know Drama" credo.
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Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Dancing with the Stars trotted back to a formidable average of 22.3 million fans, though that's down from the 24.2 million who tuned in for last spring's debut.
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How I Met Your Mother
Cheers to John Lithgow for his chameleon-like performance on How I Met Your Mother. (And yes, Ted, chameleon is pronounced with a hard c.)
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Who better than the five-time Emmy-winner who's run the gamut from over-the-top comedy (3rd Rock from the Sun) to under-your-skin creepiness (Dexter) to embody the two faces of Barney's long-lost dad, Jerry? First, we saw him the way Neil Patrick Harris' ladies' man wished ...
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Steve Carell
Dancing With the Stars (Monday, 8/7c, ABC)
Here we go again. Time to strap on the heels, attach the sequins and apply the spray tan. TV's giddiest dance competition returns for a new season, with the outrageous Kirstie Alley (paired with fan fave Maks) the highest-profile celeb in the cast. Her competition includes the usual suspects: athletes (Hines Ward, Sugar Ray Leonard), C-list performers (Ralph Macchio) a rapper (Romeo), a reality "star" (Kendra Wilkinson), a flamboyant talk-show host (Wendy Williams), a supermodel (Petra Nemcova) and a Disney personality few of the target audience will ever have heard of (Chelsea Kane). The mirrorball isn't the real prize for most of the contestants. Instant (if sometimes fleeting) stardom comes with the flashy territory.
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John Lithgow, Neil Patrick Harris
One of How I Met Your Mother's biggest mysteries (no, not that one) will be revealed on Monday, but don't remind John Lithgow how big of a deal it is.
"I didn't watch the show ... so I didn't know that it was such a big deal to be asked to play Barney's father," he tells TVGuide.com. "I didn't know it was a six-year running gag: Who is his actual father? I said yes to it before I knew about all this. This is very typical of me — I don't really know what I'm doing. Everybody's so excited. There are great expectations now. I'm nervous!"
Will How I Met Your Mother end in two years? Our burning questions answered
Lithgow makes his first of two appearances Monday, as Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) at long last comes face-to-face with his absentee dad — the man he once thought was Bob Barker and the man his mom, Loretta (Frances Conroy), had previously told him was merely "Uncle Jerry." After receiving the letter Barney wrote him last month, Jerry surprises his son at his apartment to forge a relationship. "It's explained why [there was no contact] for 30 years," Lithgow says. "There's a lot of longing and need on both sides, as it happens when a child loses a parent at a young age. On both sides, it's a wanting to...
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How I Met Your Mother
In 2007, ABC gave Lost a multiyear pick-up and set an end date for the series. Last week, CBS renewed How I Met Your Mother for two years, but made no mention of a series finale for the mystery-laden sitcom.
How I Met Your Mother gets two more seasons
The order is not surprising: Mother is a solid hit, the cast was already contracted through eight seasons, and Carter Bays told TVGuide.com in the fall that he and co-creator/executive producer Craig Thomas had plotted out the rest of the series beyond its current Season 6. But now that the pick-up is official, will the next two seasons also be its last two?
Bays answers our burning questions about the show's future, why he doesn't feel pressure to introduce Mrs. Ted Mosby, and what's in store for the rest of the season.
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John Lithgow
One of How I Met Your Mother's mysteries is about to be revealed.
John Lithgow will play Barney Stinson's estranged father, Jerome Whitaker, Cobie Smulders confirmed on TV Guide Network's Hollywood 411.
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