So what did I really think?
Yes, I was the byline on the faux Oscars review William Shatner showed to host Seth MacFarlane in the opening number on Sunday's telecast ("Seth MacFarlane Worst Oscar Host Ever").
I didn't know it was coming. I was watching the show at home with my wife. Staring at the byline, it took a few seconds to absorb that it was being seen by an audience of one billion viewers — a nice jump over the 12.8 million people who see each issue of TV Guide Magazine. After my name appeared a second time, every electronic device in our apartment was ringing, buzzing, pinging or vibrating...
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The trend of so-called "hate-watching" is hardly a new TV phenomenon. We've been doing it with the Oscar show for years: picking apart the fashions, groaning at the witless banter, griping as we drift through the seemingly endless midsection where no awards of major consequence are presented, and nearly always regarding the unlucky host as a piñata ripe for the bashing.
This year's tuneful but torturously overextended production (ending just past the three-and-a-half-hour mark) was much the same. With one major exception: The musical numbers were no joke, especially when mighty divas as legendary as Barbra Streisand and Shirley Bassey and as electrifyingly current as Adele and Jennifer Hudson took the stage. No Rob Lowe-Snow White fiascos this time.
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Will Shawn's dad live?
That's been the burning question on the mind of every Psych-O since Henry (Corbin Bernsen) was shot in the April finale, and when the cast and crew visited Comic-Con Thursday to show new footage from Season 7, they were happy to keep the mystery alive.
Sporting a T-shirt with question marks on the front and the back, Bernsen was introduced last when a chair and name tag were pulled out from behind the stage for him. He said he didn't know if he had a job. But despite the lack of clues about Henry's status, the cast and executive producers were more than happy to offer plenty of other spoilers...
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OK, when did Rookie Blue get so good?!
ABC's Canadian cop show returned last night and we gotta say, this thing deserves more than a summer fill-in slot. It's like Grey's with a badge and less Shonda-isms.
For its third-season premiere, the series — about recent police-academy graduates cracking crimes and yeah, hooking up — trotted out William Shatner for a guest spot as a drunk driver who winds up leading the 15 Division to a twisted kidnapping case. Being Shatner, there was a fair share of over-the-top dramatics, but the frequent flares of comedy, and the super-likable ensemble (particularly Missy Peregrym and Gregory Smith) more than made up for those moments. Oh, and the closing scene with his character's recently recovered granddaughter was a total eye-wetter. We are not ashamed to admit that.
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As a longtime country music fan, Top Chef Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard was more than willing to serve as executive chef at the 2011 CMT Artists of the Year gala airing Tuesday (9/8c, CMT) but looked to the honorees for inspiration when designing the evening's menu.
"I got a list from each of them, of the different things they like to eat and don't like to eat," Izard tells TVGuide.com. "Taylor Swift said she liked sausage and gravy from Cracker Barrel, so I did an itty bitty sausage and gravy thing for a passed hors d'oeurve."
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