There's no doubt about it: New TV hits can bring old, short-lived shows to DVD.Just ask Taye Diggs, who's hot enough in Private Practice that his 2006 effort, Day Break, will hit stores at the end of this month. Or Kim Raver: Her old show, Third Watch, was in hugely high demand for a DVD release... but the studio didn't actually pull the trigger on getting it out (early last month) until Raver was cast in the new series Lipstick Jungle. Christina Applegate is doing well with Samantha Who?, so naturally more season-set releases are getting dug up for Married... with Children (Season 8 hits in a couple of weeks). Ditto for Party of Five, which finally returns to DVD later this month, thanks to Matthew Fox's current hit show, Lost. (Jennifer Love Hewitt's good-enough turn in Ghost Whisperer doesn't hurt there, either!)This phenomenon is not only limited to cast members, either. With Heroes having hit superpower levels in the ratings, is it any wonder that creator Tim Kring's previous s...
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How’s this for irony? All last week, trying not to get too depressed about what a protracted writers’ strike might mean for the TV season and the industry at large, I was secretly looking forward to a weekend getaway: catching former Alias star Jennifer Garner’s Broadway debut in a revival of Cyrano, opposite Kevin Kline and Rescue Me’s Daniel Sunjata. Unfortunately, my tickets were for Saturday night, by which time the stagehands’ union had initiated their own sudden walkout and work stoppage.At this rate, I might actually finish the book I’ve been reading since mid-October.(Thankfully, I was lucky enough to catch Aaron Sorkin's new play, The Farnsworth Invention, before the strike. It was scheduled to have its official opening night later this week, but when it reopens, I predict a healthy run for this fascinating, entertaining play recounting the birth of television.)While consumers of TV, movies and even theater wait for unions and producers to reac...
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Party of Five's plucky violinist keeps plugging along. In Lifetime's What If God Were the Sun? (premiering tonight at 9 pm/ET), Lacey Chabert stars opposite no less than Oscar nominee/Emmy winner Gena Rowlands, playing a nurse whose world unravels upon the sudden death of her father. Transferred to a long-term-care facility, she meets Rowlands' character, a real character who teaches her to embrace life anew. Balancing out this emotional fare for Chabert is her sitcom pilot at Fox (whose fate will be decided this week). TVGuide.com asked her about both projects, her latest thoughts on "big brother" Matthew Fox's Lost,
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Applause to Ghost Whisperer for a wicked-cool Grammy Awards tie-in with Mary J. Blige as a guest star. She did a great job acting, and didn't seem at all to be "big music star playing actor," which often happens when pop stars get cast in TV shows and movies. It was actually her performance this evening that made me cry when her character realized her little brother was in the light. I also thought it was clever that we wound up hearing one of her songs through the cheerleading competition, rather than through an obligatory forced concert at the end of the show. Very clever and smooth Grammy Awards cross-promotion for CBS.Melinda was an adorable little freak in high school, wasn't she? She looked like a cute manga character, which I wouldn't exactly consider "nerdy," even by today's standards. But I s'pose to cheerleaders and the popular types, she would seem a bit different and be treated like a freak. Actually, her character in high school reminded me of the role that J. Love play...
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Last season, back in April, I made a comment that I was officially old since Mare Winningham was playing a soon-to-be grandmother. That's because, even though I know she was Oscar-nominated for Georgia, I will always think of Mare as Wendy, the gal that Billy (Rob Lowe) discovered was wearing a girdle in St. Elmo's Fire. Are you with me here? But it was good to see her back tonight as Susan Grey, the current wife of Meredith's dad, Thatcher, and the timing made sense since Susan and Thatcher's daughter, Molly (Mandy Siegfried), was there for an emergency C-section. I won't refer to Susan as Meredith's stepmother since Meredith doesn't seem to want to associate herself with Susan and Molly: "You are not my family." Oh, Meredith. So harsh. But I have friends who are in the same boat — they don't really want to become close with their father's new family. I did kind of want Meredith to take Susan up on her offer to become part of their family. What made things better was the poign...
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