The 22 fight-trained pit bulls recovered from disgraced NFL star Michael Vick's property after his dogfighting ring was exposed will have their "rehabilitation" chronicled in Dogtown, a new series on National Geographic Channel. According to the New York Post, the series will focus on four of the dogs as the Dogtown no-kill animal sanctuary in Southern Utah retrains and resocializes them as part of their abuse recovery. For more on this story, see the TV Guide Sports Report.
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Sunday's NHL All-Star Game — a wild 8-7 win for the Eastern Conference — was seen by just 796,717 viewers on Versus. But before you laugh, keep in mind that this represents an increase of almost 16 percent from last year (672,948). In other hockey news, NBC has picked the Anaheim Ducks/Detroit Red Wings showdown for its Game of the Week on Sunday, Feb. 10 (3:30 pm/ET). The game is a rematch of last year's Western Conference Finals (won by the Ducks, who went on to win the Stanley Cup)....Speaking of all-star games, the reserves for the NBA's version will be announced Thursday during NBA Tip-Off (Jan. 31, 7 pm/ET, TNT). The NBA All-Star game airs Sunday, Feb. 17 (8:30 pm/ET, TNT)....The National Geographic Channel will keep tabs on those poor pups that were part of Michael Vick's dogfighting enterprise. Per the network, Dogtown will follow "the attempted rehabilitation of 22 dogs that belonged to Michael Vick and are now residing at Dogtown, the Best Friends animal sanctua...
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Whoopi Goldberg's Tuesday arrival as a cohost for The View nearly went without incident, save for her take on the Michael Vick controversy. Opining that dogfighting "isn't that unusual" in the South (where Vick hails from) and positing that "there are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country," Whoopi drew fire from a myriad of media bloggers and columnists, as well as PETA. "A lot of people who live and work in the South... will not appreciate the view that cruelty to dogs is an accepted Southern pastime," PETA's prez said in a statement. "What unites [dogfighters] is lawlessness and callousness, not whether they eat grits."For our Matt Roush's own take on Whoopi's first day, see the Roush Dispatch.Related: The View to Unveil Another New Cohost on Sept. 10
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Whoopi Goldberg has always had a wonderfully distinct point of view, and one that’s probably just right for her new job on The View. But unlike her immediate predecessor in the cohost seat, this POV is not trained entirely on herself. For me, that’s a relief.Tuesday’s 11th-season opening of ABC’s daytime squawk show was a pretty low-key lovefest, as the gang embraced Whoopi while catching fans up on how they spent their summer vacation: Elisabeth Hasselbeck became more noticeably pregnant, Joy Behar nursed a virus and Barbara Walters made progress on her memoirs. Elizabeth and Joy displayed family photos. And Whoopi? Didn’t have much to reveal about herself (though she did sit for a pro forma taped biographical profile at the end). She’s just a hardworking gal these days, spending four hours on the radio each early a.m. before heading over to the Hot Topics table.Are these back-to-back morning gigs going to stretch her too thin? Whoopi seemed almost too...
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Disgraced NFL star Michael Vick will give his first interview to Tom Joyner's syndicated radio show on Tuesday, says the New York Daily News. Vick is expected to receive a 12- to 18-month sentence for financing a dogfighting ring at his Atlanta home.... Tyler Bensinger and Steven DeKnight have been upped to show-runner/executive-producer status at CBS' Viva Laughlin, replacing Bob Lowry (who, as first scooped by Ausiello, will retain his e.p. title).... Inside the Actors Studio's James Lipton sits down with Charlie Sheen on Sept. 17.... Luke Skywalker's original Jedi light-saber will blast into space when the space shuttle Discovery embarks for the international space station in October.
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