TVSquad

(S05E08) Ah, Dave Foley. His sad sack Tom has been good for a laugh more than a few times, and he was used to good comic effect again this week. In the double blind-date scenario with Christine and Richard, his counterpart was the lovely Jennifer Grey, real-life wife to Clark Gregg.

The New Adventures of Old Christine is a rare comedy in that it can work in guest stars like this without it detracting from either the ongoing character moments, or taking the spotlight away from the main cast. Too often when a show gets deeper into its run, like Will & Grace in its final years, it becomes a cavalcade of celebrity guest-stars, as if the writers have run out of ways to keep things fresh with their own core group.

Christine has mixed things up just this season by breaking up Richard and New Christine and having Matthew move in with Richard in a swinging bachelor pad. And they shook it up again this week.

I love the dynamic that New Christine brings to the show. She's so much more than a dumb blonde, though she is that, too. She's passionate and opinionated, and there's something about Emily Rutherford's awkward deliver of her lines that makes that character seem somehow even more real.

So I was getting worried that the further apart they were separating her and Richard, the harder it would be to keep her involved. When she showed up having picked up Ritchie from school, I got really concerned. Will it just be through forced moments like this that she'll stay a part of the show. I'd almost rather she be dropped if they can't find a way to tie her more into the main stories.

Well, they did. After Richard chickened out of his vasectomy awhile back, I forgot about the possible repercussion of that. Besides, who thought he and New Christine would be so definitively over back then. So when New Christine dropped the pregnancy bombshell, it's exactly what I was looking for. That'll keep her in there.

Of course, we've seen series drop babies into the middle of them to try and liven things up, but it's not like they had Old Christine get pregnant out of nowhere, or adopt a new child (I think Trevor Gagnon has a few good years left in him before they need to find a "replacement" cute kid). New Christine is a satellite to Old Christine's world, as is Richard, so having the baby out there complicating their lives works perfectly.

And since Old Christine is who she is, it will of course have the greatest impact on her life, out of all three of them.