Pat Corley, whom TV fans may best remember as Phil the bartender on Murphy Brown, died of congestive heart failure on Sept. 11. He was 76. The actor's five-decade career also included roles in the films Coming Home and Against All Odds, and TV's Hill Street Blues.... An estimated 6.9 million viewers tuned in for Meredith Vieira's Today debut on Wednesday, maintaining the NBC morning program's lead over Good Morning America (which had 4.4 mil).... Fox News Channel has axed its long-running DaySide ? is that what those studio-audience recruitment signs outside our building have been about? ? and replacing it with The Live Desk with Martha MacCallum, starting Sept. 25.
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Question: Who cares about the Lost snub and Ellen Burstyn? The Emmys got a big one right this year: Leslie Jordan has made me howl in everything he's done, from Murphy Brown to Dharma & Greg. Kudos to the Academy for awarding him for his guest role on Will & Grace. To me, this makes up for nominating Kevin James.
Answer: To me, Kevin James' clowning falls under the same heading as Leslie Jordan's broad and often very funny shtick. Be that as it may, I have no gripe with Jordan winning the guest-performer Emmy. The only one of those guest-actor wins that made my jaw drop was Christian Clemenson (a fine actor in an over-the-top role) beating Michael J. Fox for Boston Legal ...
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Martin Sheen, The West Wing
Question: When The West Wing closes down for good on May 14, Bartlet & Co. will leave and a new president will be sworn in. What a simply perfect way for a show to end — when it's supposed to! It's no secret that the series lost a lot of fans and critical appreciation after Aaron Sorkin left three years ago. So here's my question: Years from now, when you think back to The West Wing, how will you remember it? Will you remember a top-notch Emmy-winning drama that influenced the face of dramatic TV, or will you remember a disappointing show that went downhill and never recovered?
Answer: What an interesting legacy question to welcome me back from some time off (so much to catch up with). This got me thinking about other shows that went off the air long after they peaked, and I think it's fair to say that most of us will remember The West Wing kindly, without even putting an asterisk after it. The show's impact, and its overall quality up to the reelection season (after which the show
...
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Question: Can you tell me who played Mr. Hall (the flying man) on Ally McBeal and what show he used to be on?
Answer: You mean the Mr. Hall who winged it across the river and collapsed of a heart attack so that narcissist Ally (Calista Flockhart) could once again make someone else's tragedy all about her? (No doubt it was only the belief that a better script lay across the river that kept the poor man aloft, and the disappointment at finding it wasn't there laid him low.) And did I mention that whole flying plot was ripped off from William Wharton's far superior book Birdy (though since no one in Hollywood reads, Kelley and Co. probably cribbed it from Alan Parker's movie version, which definitely had its moments, too)?
Oh, yeah — your question. Well,
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Question: I'm a Reba watcher and would like to know if Christopher Rich is the same person who played a reporter on Murphy Brown. Thanks.
Answer: That he is, Patricia. The Dallas, Texas, native — who portrays estranged husband Brock to Reba McEntire's Reba Hart on the WB sitcom — played anchorman Miller Redfield on the hit CBS show from 1995 to 1997. Fans will recall that on the series, the newsman's job depended on style rather than substance. You also might remember him as Dr. Neil, a plastic surgeon who hung out at the bar with George Carlin's George O'Grady on Fox's short-lived The George Carlin Show, as Sandy on Another World or from his work in a variety of TV movies.
Or you may have caught him on
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HouseThe good thing about a House repeat is getting a second chance to savor the one-liners. The show is full of them, and Hugh Laurie's delivery is dead-on. Though you wouldn't be able to tell that from his surly staff. If House were a documentary rather than a drama, there's no way I'd believe that doctors Chase, Foreman and Cameron wouldn't at least smirk occasionally at some of the stuff that comes out of House's mouth. Instead they all give him that disapproving I-need-a-laxative look. Even his dry-erase marker is a source of amusement. When House isn't admonishing Cameron about touching his pen, he's writing something snarky with it on his board, like "dead man dying" regarding his death-row-inmate patient. There's a certain macabre humor that I could see C
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Singled out: Candice Bergen, Murphy Brown
Question: Once again, your humble readers call upon you to settle an argument, Mr. T. My dope of a brother claims that years after Dan Quayle criticized Murphy Brown for its single-mother story line, Candice Bergen came out and said she agreed with him after all. I can't believe that. Is there any truth to that?
Answer: None whatsoever, Dee. For those who have already forgotten, the whole dustup assumed gigantic proportions when then-vice-president Quayle took his famous potshot at the show as part of the GOP's 1992 "family values" campaign. It again reared its ugly head briefly when former Quayle speechwriter Lisa Schiffren claimed in a 1998 Los Angeles Times op-ed column that Bergen had seen the light and stated in an interview that "the body of the speech was completely sound." Bergen fired back in a letter to the p
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Faith Ford
Sunny, funny Faith Ford cut her prime-time teeth with a 10-year run as Murphy Brown's Corky Sherwood, a role for which she earned five Emmy nods. For the last two years she's been playing homemaker Hope to Kelly Ripa's flighty Faith in ABC's Hope & Faith. (Yes, it's confusing, and it always will be.) As the show readied for its hourlong third season premiere (airing tonight at 9 pm/ET), TVGuide.com spent a few minutes with the Louisiana native to discuss the Ted McGinley curse, today's crazy teens and the scene she never wants to do again.
TVGuide.com: Hope & Faith's creator, Joanna Johnson, is no longer with the show. How is that transition going?Faith Ford:
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