TVSquad

(S02E05) The Wild Thyme Cafe & Bakery.

That's where this installment of Big Love started. With Bill Henrickson's right-hand man and confidant telling him not to keep his frustrations about his personal life all bottled up inside.

Then, as if on cue, a waitress named Ana, in a frilly pink and black uniform descended upon Bill's table and offered a sympathetic ear to listen to his troubles. And she also offered him a sweet piece of pie.

Maybe it was the pie. Maybe it was her uniform. Or her accent. Or maybe, perhaps, Bill was just feeling a bit randy and wanted a distraction. But it was clear that, despite all of the current troubles with which the Henrickson family is coping with its three wives, Bill is in the market for a fourth wife.

Way back on September 30, 2005, the web site TV Shows on DVD announced that the third season of one of my favorite TV shows, Once and Again, would be available for sale in a 19-episode, multi-disc set, complete with actor commentaries and a blooper video. They even released an image of the DVD box.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the DVD shelves. Disney pulled the plug and indefinitely suspended the release of the award-winning show's (premature) final season.

(S02E4) Imagine a giant, sticky spider web. No matter where you get stuck -- whether it's over in the upper-left-hand corner, or along the edges on the right -- you're still essentially, trapped in that same large web.

The many disparate storylines that flowed through the fresh episode of Big Love reminded me, for some reason, of a spider web, with the Henrickson family playing the role of the web. No matter what was happening, it all led back to the Henricksons and their three homes sitting in a tidy row.

Thinking of everything sticking to the Henricksons in one way or another helped me get through this very busy episode which was chock-full of stories that went all over the place.

Summertime and TV in my house means three things: Watching new summer programming, catching up on TV shows I missed during the conventional September-through-May TV season and baseball, specifically Boston Red Sox baseball.

In fact, on summer evenings, my TV is most likely tuned in to a baseball game. But when the Sox are not playing -- or when they're getting clobbered or if they're playing a really late west coast game -- I turn on other shows such as:

1. Entourage. Yes, they're spoiled adolescents. They're narcissistic. They play video games all day and party all night as if they're entitled to live lives of luxury. But the guys from Entourage greatly amuse me and I love hating Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold.

Several weeks ago, Senator Hillary Clinton asked the public to help her come up with a theme song for her presidential campaign. And then The Sopranos ended its historic run. And it was too much of a good opportunity to pass up.

So Hillary and hubby Bill made a video for her web site discussing what song the Senator had selected. Only the video is a parody of the Sopranos' last scene in the diner, with Hillary as Carmela, Bill as Tony, Chelsea as the parallel parking Meadow, a bowl of carrot sticks substituting for onion rings (Bill's got heart problems) and an abrupt cut-to-black.

See the video after the jump. (And if you have a burning desire to find out what campaign song Clinton chose, you can go here.)

[Via Gawker.]

(S02E2) Poor Barb.

While reeling from cancer treatment years ago, she agreed to let her husband Bill plunge the pair into polygamy, even though she really wasn't keen on the notion.

Then she was publicly humiliated when her family's polygamy became quasi-public and she was disqualified from a state Mother of the Year contest. Ashamed, she withdrew from the world in order to figure out where she fit in her own life. Although she toyed with the idea of leaving the polygamist Henrickson clan, she finally agreed to continue playing "boss wife" because she truly loves Bill, and her sister wives.

It won Emmys for the best dramatic series, best dramatic actor and best dramatic actress. Right out of the box. In season one.

Nearly 15 years ago.

So how does the first season of the controversial Picket Fences stand up to time, in its new DVD collection? After watching the pilot episode, seeing all those shoulder pads, hearing the heavy-handed background music during some of the scenes and watching "tough" police interrogations in the form of raised voices, my initial thought was, "Picket Fences didn't age well."

Then I watched more episodes. And changed my mind.

Ever watch HBO's Big Love and feel a tad bit envious of the wives? Ever find yourself wishing there was another wife kicking around the house with whom you could talk, whose refrigerator you could raid and with whom you could watch repeats of the Sopranos and curse the series' ending?

Well, a Michigan woman does. In fact, Michele Gazzolo said in a Chicago Tribune essay that she covets the fictional Big Love wives' coziness and says she and her neighbors refer to one another as "sister wives," even though they don't share a hubby. "We found ourselves confessing that plural marriage didn't look so terrible, even in a drama filled with suffering and intrigue," Gazzolo wrote.

So that Kitchen Confidential thing didn't quite work out.

And Sydney Bristow has retired from the spy business.

So what's a former Alias regular and erstwhile competitive (TV) chef to do? Get a Nip/Tuck, of course.

According to TV Guide's Michael Ausiello, Bradley Cooper will appear in five episodes of the fifth season of the FX plastic surgery drama. "What I can tell you," Ausiello wrote, "is that Cooper will not be a love interest for anyone, male or female."

Well that's a shame.

Despite the pleadings of many fans, DVDs of the 20-year-old Emmy-winning dramatic series thirtysomething have yet to be (officially) released.

While fans (like yours truly) patiently wait for thirtysomething DVDs to go on sale, the four actresses who starred in the yuppie-focused show spoke with People magazine about being in their 50s, about cosmetic surgery, about the fact that they're spokeswomen for an arthritis prevention campaign (Arthritis? It has been a long time!) and about their love lives.

The last minutes of Jack Bauer's day, 6.0, have ticked off the clock. Now you get the chance to weigh in. Below are eight categories for you -- the illustrious readers -- to select the best and worst of 24 in a TV Squad poll.

1. Best villain. (The guy you really loved to hate.)

a) Cheng Zhi

b) Abu Fayed

c) Phillip Bauer

d) Dmitri Gredenko

e) Noah Daniels

*If you haven't yet watched the season finale of 24, go far, far away from this blog post.*

Of all the developments that bugged me during the two-hour 24 season finale, the Chloe O'Brian plot turn was on my list of irksome moments.

In the midst of the end-of-the-day chaos, while Chloe was trying to track down the whereabouts of Jack Bauer's evil papa, she collapsed as her ex-husband Morris rushed to her side. Immediately, the folks who were with me in the TV Squad 24 live chat jokingly suggested that Chloe was pregnant, but I didn't think her ailment would be that obvious.

On the heels of the 24 season finale, there's a new animated 24 "web event" which takes viewers into the time machine and re-sets the clock to Day Zero.

If you can ignore the pushy Degree deodorant ad campaign on the "Day Zero" web site (which is nearly impossible), you get the privilege of watching online shorts featuring Tony Almeida and Nina Meyers helping Jack on a mission. "For the first time ever, viewers will learn how trouble in [Jack's] home life with wife Teri and teenaged daughter Kim gave rise to his romantic entanglement with Nina," a press release promised. (I found the first installment dull.)

*Warning, spoilers from the last two hours of Jack Bauer's sixth bad day.*

(S06E23/S06E24) In honor of the two-hour, 24 season finale, we're going to do things a little differently. We're going to have a live chat during the show so you can post your snarky comments and reactions in real time. The full double-episode review will be posted in this space later.

Will we get the answers to our burning questions? Will there be a Star Wars-like father-son showdown between Jack and Phillip Bauer? We'll soon find out.

Click here to join the chat. Read the episode review below.

When I watch 24, I don't expect to see depictions of families trying to figure out whether it's time to bring the minivan in for service. I'm not expecting to see characters drinking copious amounts of java while revealing their angst to one another. That's what Grey's Anatomy is for.

I watch 24 for its depiction of counter-terrorism and of what U.S. agents might face when trying to protect the country, as well as for its dramatization of the political implications of fighting stateless bands of terrorists. Plus it's fun to watch Jack Bauer kick some bad guy behind. So why in the world would a New York Times critic assail 24 for being anti-family and for the fact that the program doesn't demonstrate "ordinary social intercourse?"