Question: For two weeks you said you would have some Criminal Minds scoop, but I have yet to see it. What gives?
Answer: Sorry for the delay, but I didn't want to scoop the item I had running in this week's TV Guide, which went a little something like this: Think you're smarter than Mandy Patinkin? Here's your chance to prove it. In Criminal Minds' May 10 season finale, Patinkin and his fellow agents will find themselves at the mercy of a serial killer who leaves behind a series of coded clues and riddles — all of which lead them to a hostage. By the end of the episode, the team (and you guys) will have every clue they need to solve the case, and they'll have four months — until the second-season premiere in September — to do so. All of which brings me back to my original question: Think you're smarter than
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Question: I know CBS has won every week of the season. I bet they'll win every week until ABC's Bowl season starts. I bet they'll also win every week, with the exception of the Super Bowl week and the two weeks of the Olympics. Should CBS really celebrate this? Of course! However, once people get tired of the crime dramas, the whole schedule will collapse. I mean, they have nine procedurals on their schedule (excluding Saturday repeats of, you guessed it, more procedurals), so it's bound to happen. I hope that it does. I can't even watch CSI anymore because of how much I now hate procedurals. But to my question: Do you think that the same thing that happened to ABC with its multiple airings of Millionaire will happen to CBS? If so, when? Because I can't wait!
Answer: I'm not quite as bloodthirsty about the prospect as you seem to be. But to me the most depressing outcome of the season so far has not been the cancellations of promising shows like Threshold and Just Legal (most of the
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Mandy Patinkin
He has played Che Guevara and Georges Seurat on Broadway, is a constant presence on concert stages, and his TV roles include a doctor, a hunchback, and a dead guy. Now, on CBS' Criminal Minds (Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET), Mandy Patinkin plays FBI profiler Jason Gideon. We talked to the actor-singer about the series, his role, his health and his blessings.
TVGuide.com: So who's Jason Gideon? He has to get inside the minds of truly vile and evil perps, and he's — shall we say — intense.Mandy Patinkin: He's somebody who has a dark past, has made mistakes through impulsive behavior and doesn't intend to go [there] again. He's about eliminating suffering, sa
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Question: Two weeks ago on Criminal Minds, an episode ended with Mandy Patinkin's character pumping gas in Virginia then going into the adjacent store to pay for it. He sees pictures behind the attendant, played by Lucas Haas, of various people but does not draw attention to it. The next moment Gideon leaves and the attendant follows shortly after with a shotgun pointed at Gideon's back. Will this story line come up again?
Answer: What you saw was a rerun of the pilot episode, which ended on that preposterous cliff-hanger. The situation was ludicrously resolved in the following episode (which CBS did not repeat, I guess), so it isn't likely to be revisited in future episodes. I will say, for those who keep asking what I have against it, that try as I might to make it through an episode of this show from time to time (like when Lost and/or Veronica Mars are in repeats), Criminal Minds still seems to me to be the least original, least entertaining and most exploitative of all of CBS'
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Criminal Minds
Two and a Half Men
9:10 am The session begins, and with Charlie Sheen up there like a sitting duck, I'm bummed that the first question isn't, "So, why did Denise dump you?" Does that make me a bad person? I think it does.
9:19 "We have to have fart jokes [on the show]," reasons Sheen's TV mom, the regal Holland Taylor, "because everyone in the cast farts constantly." Tee-hee. Holland Taylor said "farts."
9:25 A reporter asks another question that isn't, "I have to ask: You. Denise. What's the deal there, huh?" Bummer.
9:40 Scoop! Charlie confirms that his real-life pa, Martin Sheen, will guest-star this season.
9:45 Speaking on behalf of chiropractors everywhere, a reporter informs Jon Cryer — who plays a back-cracker on Men — that "they love the fact that you're giving them a face."
9:50 Scoo
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The "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" doctrine is alive and well at CBS. At least that's the impression you get after spending two days in the network's company as the first of the broadcast networks presenting a fall lineup at the summer press tour.
Although No. 1 in prime time, with the hottest nights of drama (Thursday) and comedy (Monday), they're not especially cocky. They didn't produce the breakout hits of last season (that would be ABC), and they're not likely to this year, either. But who's complaining when you have Survivor, The Amazing Race, CSI and all those other Bruckheimer shows, plus Two and a Half Men, as tentpoles?
Most of CBS' new shows appear solid, and a few even feel unusually fresh for a network that loves its formulaic procedural dramas and standard-issue sit
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