Gilmore Girls Network promos can...

Gilmore Girls
Network promos can be so deceiving! Didn't the WB's ads make the return of Dean (Jared Padalecki) sound so soapy? "Rory has 24 hours to stop her ex's wedding!" But no. Dean just gets drunk and tells Luke — not Rory — that he's still in love with her. And Rory makes like a lady and just discreetly avoids the wedding altogether. She never once even considers disrupting the nups. What gives, WB?

Anyway, this non-event was rather anticlimactic, yet the resolution was kind of a relief. I like this awkward situation playing out the way it probably would in real life, instead of on General Hospital. Besides, the real drama of this episode was Alexis Bledel's haircut! Why? In the name of God, why?! This was almost as traumatic for me as Keri Russell's cropping on Felicity. Or when Charisma Carpenter left Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Angel — and went from a long-tressed brunette 'do to a blond bob. (Ew!) I don't know about you, but like Dean, I loved Rory's long, straight chestnut hair. Of course, the show seemed to anticipate viewer disdain in the opening scene, by having Lorelai compare Rory's haircut to G.I. Jane. The yuks did soften the follicular blow a little bit...

Whoopi
George W. Bush's motorcade stops by Mavis Rae's hotel in Manhattan. She doesn't like it, so her starched-shirt brother reminds her Dubya's the president. Her retort: "According to whose ballot box?" Ouch! Even if you don't agree with her, Miss Whoopi's gutsy. Gotta give her that.

Bewitched Marathon on TV Land
I've seen every episode of Bewitched like 1,000 times since childhood. I loved this show. No, I really mean I loved it in a mad, obsessive, kinda sacrilegious way. Okay, so I never got around to converting from Episcopalian to Wiccan, but I came mighty close. Who wouldn't want to live in Samantha's magical world, where you can levitate, turn your in-laws into animals, and the worst illness you can catch is an uncontrollable need to talk in rhyme?

P.S. While there's only one Elizabeth Montgomery, I'm thrilled Nicole Kidman's playing Sam in the upcoming Bewitched movie. And casting Will Ferrell as Darrin? Genius. Original contender Jim Carrey would've been too attractive for the part. Like Dick York and Dick Sargent, Ferrell just has that goofy, asexual quality. You can't picture why a good-lookin' goddess like Kidman would marry this drab mortal, which is the perfect tribute to the original TV series. I just hope they don't switch Darrins halfway through the movie without explaining why!

The Guardian
Funny how producers of prime-time TV turn up their noses at my soaps, then totally crib those outlandish, tearjerker plotlines. A blind teenage girl — who looks just like beautiful, vacant-eyed Mary from Little House on the Prairie — is abandoned by her father. Meanwhile, a white couple is gearing up to sue the sperm bank when Mom delivers a black baby. Only it turns out the baby's African-American 'cause Mom cuckolded her husband with her secret black lovah! So hubby brutally murders the slutty Mom! Then, when the biological father doesn't want the kid, hubby doesn't want the kid, either, 'cause of the kid's coffee-colored hue. Nice. What the hell kind of message does that send?

Law &#038 Order: Special Victims Unit
Spunky Stephanie March's final episode as the D.O.A. ADA — complete with her return from the dead — was way cool. But SVU's stories aren't easy to pay attention to. Not with the appealingly masculine, blue-eyed Chris Meloni on my TV screen. I just keep on remembering his skanky cell-block shenanigans on HBO's Oz.

NYPD Blue
Ooh! Look, it's that red-haired hellraiser Sarah Buxton from Sunset Beach and The Bold and the Beautiful, playing a stripper! Love it. This actress — always so saucy, yet vulnerable — needs to work more. So does series regular Bill Brochtrup, who plays the police squad's gay secretary. Ever notice how he's in every episode, but barely gets to talk? And when he does, the man's gotta make it count. Each week, I like to make a little game of waiting for Bill to have just a line, a little something to say. This week, it was: "As soon as I hear, I'll call you." Try it. It's fun!