thirtysomething — Season 1
New releases announced today, April 29:
One Foot in the Grave - The 1996 and 1997 Christmas Specials & One Foot in the Grave - The Complete Series will be coming out September 8
thirtysomething - Season 1 will be coming out August 25
Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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McLean Stevenson (M*A*S*H), Terry O'Quinn (Lost), Leslie Hope (24)
We really should've known better. We waited two weeks for Brothers & Sisters' "shocking death," when all along we should have realized that what the network had been teasing for weeks (months even, among insiders) in the end wasn't all that shocking — especially when it didn't even really happen.
Oh well, maybe we're all patsies. But to make ourselves feel better, after the jump are the TV deaths that actually delivered a gutshot and had us talking about a character's demise the next day — for all the right reasons.
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Jon Hamm and January Jones in Mad Men by Carin Baer/AMC
Advertisers do not like controversy. Advertisers have thin skin. Just a few of the valuable observations to be taken from Sunday’s rich episode of Mad Men, written by Matthew Weiner and Rick Cleveland, which provided a fascinating window into how the TV and ad business worked circa 1962 (and in some ways it hasn’t changed that much since then).One major subplot, with surprising personal and professional repercussions, hinged on a controversial episode of CBS’s groundbreaking legal drama The Defenders, with a shockingly blunt abortion storyline that was causing sponsors to flee. Schlubby Harry Crane, disgruntled after inadvertently learning how much less he was being paid than colleague Ken Cosgrove ($200 a week to Ken’s $300), brought the episode to his bosses’ attention at Sterling Cooper—prompting a screening for lipstick client Belle Jolie, the idea being that women would likely seek this episode out, despite the controversy. (Peggy was on hand to he...
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Question: I love Brothers & Sisters but cannot stand Holly. I mean, how realistic is it for Nora to invite her late husband's mistress to her daughter's engagement and birthday parties? What annoys me the most about her is that she has no remorse for her actions and basically demands that the Walkers be nice to her. Also, it feels like the writers are making Sarah look like the bad guy sometimes, to make Holly look more sympathetic. In my opinion, the show should write out Holly. What is her purpose, anyway? She has no real storyline.
Answer: She is the odd person out in this series, isn't she? And that's no fault of Patricia Wettig, a fave of mine since her triumph on thirtysomething. What the show needs to do is give Holly more of a purpose — a romantic interest outside the Walker family, maybe? — because the character isn't going anywhere (and not just because Wettig is married to Ken Olin, one of the executive producers). Consider the show's premise, which is all about the Walke ...
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Although the February sweeps officially have been over for several days, Sunday night sure felt like a sweeps extravaganza, with game-changing episodes of two major series. Both pivotal hours, of Sci Fi’s Battlestar Galactica and ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, dealt with the fate of daughters whose respective departure and arrival is setting off shock waves for their unconventional families (the Galactica crew and the Walker clan).The episode that undoubtedly will cause the largest stir in TV fandom was Galactica’s riveting and ultimately devastating journey into the metaphysical, as Starbuck (a brooding, tormented Katee Sackhoff) finally faced and embraced her destiny. Which meant, in a series of visions and hallucinations guided by the specter of the not-quite-Leobon as if he were the Ghost of Psychodramas Past, that Kara had to confront the soul-crushing memories of her abusive mother, who instilled in the self-destructive Starbuck a belief that suffering was good f...
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I usually save these things for the Ask Matt Q&A, but I opened the following e-mail from Bill C shortly before watching this week’s episode of Friday Night Lights, and it haunted me (and, frankly, annoyed me) throughout the episode, which I found to be one of the most accessibly and endearingly entertaining of the entire season.Here’s what Bill wrote: “Would it be a real tragedy if Friday Night Lights got canceled? It’s not like we’re talking about a show that, however good it is, does not [sic] match the consistency and creative heights of superior shows like 24, House and Grey’s Anatomy.”Way to use the double negative there, a bit of a metaphor considering the disdain shown for one of the finest dramas network TV has produced in years.In my world of TV appreciation, which has to be flexible enough to include everything from guilty pleasures to reality shows, there are two types of top-tier TV. First and foremost, there are the great entertain...
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Polly Draper, Naked Brothers Band
Polly Draper has returned to series television — more than 15 years after audiences first fell in love with wry career gal Ellyn Warren on thirtysomething — as writer, director and executive producer of Nickelodeon's Naked Brothers Band (Saturdays at 8:30 pm/ET), a hat trick that keeps her busy in the background while her real-life sons, Nat and Alex Wolff, shine in the spotlight.
TV Guide: Naked Brothers Band is a real family affair. What made you decide to make your whole family into a TV show?Polly Draper: None of this
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Some random TV thoughts:Each week since its overly somber premiere, ABC's Brothers & Sisters has improved, slowly becoming a more entertaining, if not yet compelling, family drama. The most recent episode, involving a series of eventful dates for most of the major characters, had a mostly deft light touch, showing (I think) the influence of Everwood's Greg Berlanti on the creative direction of the show.It's becoming a more suitable companion for Desperate Housewives, which also has improved from last season's doldrums. Housewives is still far from perfect, but give me some Edie Britt bitchiness, a little manipulative scheming from Bree and several mysterious twists (why was Mike Delfino's phone number etched in ink on the season's mystery corpse?), and I'm relatively satisfied. I can even get past the tiresome Gabby-Carlos feuding and Nora meddling in the indifferently plotted Lynette-Tom story line. (Did you notice, by the way, a walk-on by Who Wants to Be a Superhero's Major V...
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Patricia Wettig on Prison Break
Patricia Wettig now has something in common with 24 alum Dennis Haysbert (currently on CBS' The Unit) — neither of them are any longer playing the president of the United States for Fox.
While Wettig's Prison Break character, the crafty Caroline Reynolds, was set to play the leader of the free world in the show's sophomore season, the actress — who wasn't under contract to the Fox drama — opted instead to accept a role on B
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Reunion, Love Monkey and Commander in Chief
Reunion. Threshold. E-Ring. Invasion. Emily's Reasons Why Not. Love Monkey. Commander in Chief. Heist.
What do these shows have in common? They all debuted at some point during this soon-to-wrap TV season, yet each saw their run either cut surprisingly short or handicapped by irregular scheduling. Was 2005-06 the worst year ever to sample a new show? Were the networks especially hasty in deciding the fate of freshman series? TVGuide.com consulted a panel of experts with unique points of view to examine this strange little season gone by.
Are New Shows Getting Short Shrift?Jeff Bader, executive vice president of ABC entertainment programming and scheduling, dismisses the suggestion that prime time is a crueler-than-ever proving ground for new series. "
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