Question: It seems like every other movie I see advertised is based on a TV show, like The Dukes of Hazzard. But what about the other way around? I know there was a series based on My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but what other TV series have been based on a movie, and were any of them good?
Answer: There have been a handful of top-notch TV shows based on movies. The flop Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) was revived as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003); Robert Altman's acerbic M*A*S*H* (1970) became the long-running M*A*S*H (1972-1983); Neil Simon
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Seth Green is one of Four Kings
Four Kings, the new NBC comedy (premiering tonight at 8:30 pm/ET) from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, treads Friends-ly territory with the story of four lifelong buds — Barry (Seth Green, the Austin Powers movies; Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ben (Josh Cooke, Committed), Bobby (Shane McRae) and Jason (Todd Grinnell) — who inherit an improbably fantastic New York City apartment when Ben's grandmother passes away. With a quartet of young actors onboard, the backstage shenanigans probably rival what you'll see on screen. "One of the games we play, involving a blue fuzzy pillow being wi
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Josh Cooke is one of Four Kings
Four Kings, the new NBC comedy (premiering Thursday at 8:30 pm/ET) from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, treads Friends-ly territory with the story of four lifelong buds — Barry (Seth Green, the Austin Powers movies; Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ben (Josh Cooke, Committed), Bobby (Shane McRae) and Jason (Todd Grinnell) — who inherit an improbably fantastic New York City apartment when Ben's grandmother passes away. With a quartet of young actors onboard, the backstage shenanigans probably rival what you'll see on screen. "One of the games we play, involving a blue fuzzy pillow being w
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Question: CBS is doing a great job counterprogramming American Idol with NCIS. So my question is: Now that the season premiere of Fear Factor tanked in the ratings against repeats, why don't they try The Book of Daniel in that time slot instead? In my book, giving it Dateline as a lead-in on Fridays at 10 pm/ET shows zero faith in the show. And on another matter, what do you think of NBC's new two-hour comedy block on Thursdays?
Answer: If NBC had put The Book of Daniel on Tuesdays at 8 pm/ET, in the teeth of Idol, just as many complaints would likely pour in that NBC is trying to kill it there. (Wednesday at 8 would have been a better option. A night of Daniel leading in to West Wing, which deserves to move back to Wednesday for its final episodes, leading in to Law & Order would be the sort of high-quality night NBC generally lacks nowadays). The Friday time period will not be easy for Daniel, which is probably going to be a tough sell to begin with. (I'd love to be surprised.) But
...
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The O.C.So it's another Chrismukkah for the folks at The O.C. But apparently it's spawned a child that goes by the name Chrismukkah Bar Mitzvakkah. Ryan's the honoree of this newly formed rite of passage. I don't know about you but I always get a wee bit uncomfortable for Ryan when he has to partake in group fun like getting up in front of Newport's elite and giving a speech. And just how many times can the word "Chrismukkah" be uttered in one show? Apparently 3,743,686 times, and that's not including the 23 times it appears in this column. Flashdance's Michael Nouri is back as Summer's dad; he makes a connection of sorts with Julie Cooper and explains what happened to Summer's mom. The show may have touched a bit on this before, I don't really remember. But at least we got
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Now that the dust has settled a bit on all the 2006 mid-season changes that will be kicking in as soon as the holidays are over, here's my night-by-night scorecard of the imminent battles we'll be covering a month or so from now.
Monday
The big news is the return of 24 on Fox, with a four-hour blast January 15-16, followed by all-new episodes through the rest of the season. For the first two months, Skating with Celebrities (a rip-off of Dancing with the Stars) will be 24's lead-in. But come mid-March, Prison Break will return. What a one-two punch that promises to be!
CBS will coast along by capping off its popular comedies with
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Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke in Scrubs
NBC has announced its mid-season game plan, and it goes a little something like this: Effective Jan. 2, My Name Is Earl and The Office, as speculated, move from Tuesday to Thursdays-at-9, where they will follow a pairing of Will & Grace and the new sitcom Four Kings (starring Seth Green, Shane McRae, Josh Cooke and Todd Grinnell). Filling the Tuesday void are back-to-back airings of new Scrubs episodes, which will have Fear Factor as its lead-in. Succeeding The Apprentice: Martha Stewart on Wednesdays at 9 is The Biggest Loser: Special Edition, a series of standalone and themed spec
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Magnum P.I. himself, Tom Selleck, will guest-star on the Feb. 21 episode of ABC's Boston Legal. In a role written for him by series creator David E. Kelley, Selleck will play Ivan Tiggs, the eccentric and cocky ex-husband of Candice Bergen's Shirley Schmidt, whom he asks to be the best man at his wedding to Monica Geller. Oops, sorry. [Sigh] I miss Friends.
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Question: When can we expect to see some Friends on Joey?
Answer: Well, it's not Ross or Rachel, but it's probably as close as we're ever going to get: Adam Goldberg — aka Chandler's obsessive roommate, Eddie — will show up in December playing a completely different character: a high-school chum of Joey's named Jimmy. As of now, it's just one episode, but considering the huge twist that's in store for Jimmy, I'm fairly certain we'll be seeing him again.
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Question: Now that Arrested Development's run appears to be over, I was wondering what you think of how Fox handled the show over its three seasons. Fox definitely deserves some credit for sticking with the show longer than some other networks might have, but I feel very strongly that Fox blew several opportunities to expand the show's audience. Why, for example, didn't Fox put Arrested Development on after the Super Bowl during its first season (The Simpsons certainly didn't need any more national exposure)? Also, I don't understand why Fox never tried putting the show on after episodes of American Idol to try to build up its audience base. House became a hit and gained a wider viewing audience because it had Idol as a lead-in and I don't see why the same thing couldn't have worked for Arrested. I just hope that another network will pick up this great show. NBC definitely needs some good sitcoms and Arrested would be a perfect companion piece to a show like Scrubs. Arrested would be a ...
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