Zooey Deschanel, Saturday Night Live
The tragic death of Whitney Houston went unmentioned during Saturday Night Live, but the variety show paid silent tribute by going to commercial with a picture of the pop star with Molly Shannon from a 1996 Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch. (Strange timing: Up All Night star and former cast member Maya Rudolph, who did a Houston impression when she was on the show, is hosting next week.)
Host Zooey Deschanel opened the show with her ukulele to perform a humorous song about that guy who forgets Valentine's Day and tries to cover it up with Happy Birthday balloons, an old copy of USA Today and an 11:15 "reservation" at Olive Garden...
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Christina Applegate, Molly Shannon
Molly Shannon's guest appearance on NBC's Up All Night is now officially a recurring role. I've just learned that Molly has been invited to reprise her single-mom character, Nancy, early next year.
The new storyline will find Nancy, an incompetent associate producer on Ava's talk show, jumping back...
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Lisa Kudrow, Web Therapy
Showtime will check in for another season of Web Therapy, the network announced Monday.
Created and starring Lisa Kudrow, the series centers on Fiona Wallice (Kudrow), a self-professed therapist who treats patients for just three minutes via webcam. Among the guests planned for Season 2: Meryl Streep, Rosie O'Donnell, Conan O'Brien, Molly Shannon, Minnie Driver and Selma Blair. Lily Tomlin will return as Fiona's mother and Victor Garber is back as Fiona's husband.
Lisa Kudrow on her cable-TV comeback, Web Therapy
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Andrew Lincoln
Some selective highlights and mini-reviews to get you through the long holiday weekend:
WEDNESDAY
Last week, she was a hapless office assistant on Up All Night. Tonight, in the same time period on a different network, she's an insufferable sibling who makes Thanksgiving a chore, as Saturday Night Live vet Molly Shannon shows off her range, playing Frankie's demanding sister Janet on ABC's The Middle (8/7c). A holiday visit to Frankie's mom and dad (Marsha Mason and Jerry Van Dyke) becomes a recipe for disaster: "Stir in one broken toy, one passive-aggressive sister and let stew overnight ... Take unresolved issues and soak in alcohol." Frankie insists that "Everybody in one house is what makes holidays special," but anyone who's ever spent the festivities sleeping on an air mattress will relate to this first-rate episode.
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Molly Shannon
Lost in all this week's understandable hubbub over NBC putting Community on midseason hiatus — and no, I'm not happy about it, either — was the welcome news that NBC is at least doing the right thing by its freshman sleeper comedy Up All Night and moving it to Thursdays come January, swapping time periods with Whitney. (What took them so long?) On this week's new episode (8/7c), yet another Saturday Night Live alum makes a guest appearance:
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Caterina Scorsone, Kate Walsh, Taye Diggs
These are the guest stars and events that the networks have planned for the second week of November sweeps:
Monday, Nov. 14
8/7c
How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Will Barney and Robin be able to keep their kiss a secret? They're going to try!
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Molly Shannon
NBC's Up All Night is upping the funny with the addition of another Saturday Night Live veteran.
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Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton
Turns out, not everybody loves Raymond. Or at least The Middle's Frankie Heck (Patricia Heaton) doesn't.
Fall Preview: Get scoop on your favorite returning shows
And viewers will learn why on the one-hour season premiere of the ABC comedy, which reunites Heaton with her Everybody Loves Raymond husband Ray Romano.
"We hadn't gone to him before," co-creator and executive producer DeAnn Heline tells TVGuide.com. "As a new show, you want to give it time to develop. Plus he was busy with his show — he's a busy guy. But, now, all the stars aligned."
Romano appears via flashbacks that are brought on by a Heck Family camping trip. As Frankie and Mike (Neil Flynn) take the kids into the woods, the couple reflects on the last time they went camping — on their honeymoon.
"Ray plays a friend of Mike's who happens to stumble upon them during their honeymoon and causes problems," Heline says...
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Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Alec Baldwin
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream has released their newest limited-batch flavor, Schweddy Balls.
An homage to the Saturday Night Live skit featuring Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon as NPR hosts and Alec Baldwin as their guest, Pete Schweddy, the treat consists of vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum and filled with fudge-covered rum and milk chocolate malt balls.
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Molly Shannon
Jeers to The Talk for turning Molly Shannon into a parody of herself.
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The skilled sketch comic used to spoof tacky TV shows like CBS' daytime trainwreck during her Saturday Night Live stint. As guest cohost during September, Shannon has...
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