TVSquad

As I mentioned before, I recently completed my summer project of watching the entire series of The West Wing from start to finish. After using a month or so to cogitate, I decided that while the show feign realism, it didn't quite achieve the mark.

Many of the events I refer to occurred after creator Aaron Sorkin was ousted from the series. I take that as more than coincidence.

Major spoilers for the show follow after the jump, so if you haven't seen it yet, turn back now.

(S03E22) "There's no such thing as bisexual. That's just something invented in the 90s so they could sell more hair products." - Liz

OK, so how long before "We Need A Kidney" is available for download from the NBC site or from iTunes? I suspect it will be up before you finish reading this review.

I was going to talk about how this episode was a little disappointing, but then I hit rewind on my DVR and watched it again and realized, wow, they actually hit all of the season finale notes rather perfectly. Not in a "we're having a baby!" or "he has amnesia!" way, but in a way that symbolized that "this is the end of the season but we're not going to go overboard" way. Some might think that having 20 big-name musical guest stars on a season finale actually is over the top, but it didn't turn out that way. This episode was quite funny.

Alan Alda returns as Jack Donaghy's dad tonight on 30 Rock for the show's season finale, "Kidney Now." The plot finds Jack trying to put together a benefit concert for Alda, who is in need of a kidney. That, of course, means the ep will be loaded with appearances by famous musicians.

Guest stars include Elvis Costello, Mary J. Blige, Sheryl Crow, Maroon 5's Adam Levine and Clay Aiken. The clip below reveals some shocking truths about some of these famous crooners, including Aiken's relation to NBC page Kenneth Parcell.

(S03E21) "Liz Lemmon, I may hug people too hard and get lost at malls, but I'm not an idiot" - Tracy Jordan

Maybe Jack Donaghy is right. More family does mean more aggravation. The search for Jack's real dad yielded a plot based on Mama Mia (apparently, I've never seen it, and I'm pretty sure I'll die that way) and an appearance by TV's most recognizable liberal – Alan Alda.

Don't get me wrong. I love Alan Alda. I was looking forward to seeing him on the show. He was great. But imagine ultra-conservative Jack's heartache when he found out that Hawkeye Pierce was his dad. The look on Jack's face when Alda stormed out of his office and cursed in Yiddish said it all. And I'm pretty sure Jack never imagined himself living out the plot of an Abba musical. Liz Lemon seemed pretty excited about it, though.

Well, it's official. Yesterday, ABC announced their new line-up for the eighth season (!) of Dancing With The Stars. And, as usual, the names chosen range from weird to ... even weirder (really, David Alan Grier?). Not that we necessarily disagree with the producers' choices, but we'd like to take a moment to suggest seven potential choices of people we believe to be fully primed for a spot on the dance floor.

Listen up, DWTS producers. Season nine is just around the corner, and Alan Alda is probably waiting by the phone. (...In our wildest dreams, that is.)

(S02E08) I like it when old friends of the main character show up for a visit. Generally, because they inevitably give out some personal information. For example, it seems that Michael has had a fondness for yogurt for some time now. The other tidbit was that Michael didn't have such high moral fiber back when he was working for the government. I'm willing to bet it was the reconnection to his family and friends that brought him back from the dark side.

The other thing that visits from old friends bring us is cool guest stars. Tim Matheson doesn't work near enough for my tastes and to see him turn up as a douchebag ex-coworker of Michael's was fun.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to take you into the world of how a writer of TV-related items thinks during his day. After reading about Jerry Seinfeld's new role as pitchman for Microsoft's Vista operating system my mind didn't turn to thoughts of how Jerry has become a corporate shill and will do anything to get his mug back on television. Nor did I think about the many pluses and minuses of Microsoft Vista. No, what I reflected upon was the fact that Jerry is not the first high-profile television personality to promote a computer.

That, in turn, brought me to YouTube and its glorious library of video history, from which I was able to cull a few examples of those other big-time TV folks who expounded on the glories of those new-fangled personal computers. New-fangled, you question? Yes, because these examples all come from the 1980s: the dawn of the personal computer era. Here are five examples of our favorite stars promoting the dickens out of their Commodore, Atari, and Texas Instruments computers.

A lot of M*A*S*H fans were upset when Wayne Rogers left his role of Trapper John on the CBS show. Many thought he wouldn't have the success he had on the show and others just missed the character (he was replaced by Mike Farrell's B.J. Hunnicutt). He went on to many guest roles and a short-lived, 1976 private eye series I liked, City of Angels. But he actually made most of his money over the past 30 years from smart financial investments. So much so that he's now a commentator on the FOX Business Network. His recent guest was his former co-star Alan Alda.

The two talk about several things in the first video, including Alda's new movie (Diminished Capacity), memory loss, Alda's award nominations, and their days on M*A*S*H. In the second video, Alda sticks around for a discussion with an expert on shows that are actually good for you, and two of those shows are shows that Alda starred in (M*A*S*H and The West Wing).

This is a post about a TV show I've never even seen.

Coronet Blue was a short-lived TV show that ran on CBS in 1967. It was actually filmed in 1965 and CBS canceled it, deciding to burn off the episodes during the summer. The show actually did better than expected, but by that time the people involved in the show had moved on to other things. The show's star, Frank Converse, went on to N.Y.P.D. (hey, if you mix that show title with this one you get...NYPD Blue!).

AOL has an interesting slide show over at their TV section, about the cast of M*A*S*H and what they're up to now.

Of course, we know what happened to a few of them. McLean Stevenson and Larry Linville both passed away, and Alan Alda almost became President of the United States. But I wasn't aware that Wayne Rogers wasn't acting much anymore and had made a ton of money in the business world and was on the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company and appears on a FOX business show, Cashin' In.

That's what Starpulse is saying, and based on a search of Google News, it's the only site saying it. However, a quick scan of Random House's site revealed the book does in fact exist, and will be out on September 4. The book is titled Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself and will be Alda's second book after Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. His first book is one of very few non-fiction books I've read in my lifetime, and it's quite interesting. Even if we didn't know Alda as that guy from M*A*S*H, The West Wing and Scientific American Frontiers, the stories of his childhood --his mentally unstable mother, living above a burlesque house-- are more than engaging enough.

This new book will apparently feature highlights from various speeches Alda has given over the years, a kind of guide on how to enjoy life and get the most out of it. I would say Alda did enough heavy-handed proselytizing when he started writing M*A*S*H episodes, but apparently Alda even pokes fun at his early rhetoric in this book.

When I was in college I heard my favorite author of all time, Kurt Vonnegut, give a speech that included a quaint (and wrongheaded) defense of snail mail. He went on and on about the wonderfulness of buying a stamp and putting pen to paper -- all that stuff that makes sense when you're dealing with your thirtieth Erectile Dysfunction spam of the day, but which falls apart the second you want to send a picture of your cool new scar to all of your friends at once (or similarly important things).

Well, here I am at thirty about to do what Vonnegut did at my college. A silly and wrongheaded argument for something that I know in my heart we're all better without. I always knew I'd follow in Vonnegut's footsteps as a writer...

Adam told you in September that TV Land was going to start airing M*A*S*H, and now comes word that the network will have a week long marathon of just M*A*S*H episodes in January. The marathon will start on New Year's Day and run until January 7.

In addition to the marathon, the TV Land web site will have a trivia game for fans of the show and will also include bios of the cast and other information about the show.

Starting on January 8, the show will go into it's regular time slot. It can be seen Tuesday through Sunday at 10pm, and there will also be another episode at 10:30pm on Monday and Wednesday.

There was a time when I was obsessed with this show and watched it every single day. But then I just stopped watching it, so I'm ready to watch it again and it's great that it will be seen on a regular basis again. There's a new DVD box set of the complete series that looks pretty cool.

[via TV Tattle]

For anyone I owe money to (friends, family, phone company, etc), you might just have to wait several months if they keep releasing these damn complete series DVD sets.

It's not official yet, but TVShowsonDVD is reporting that a box set for M*A*S*H is on its way November 7. The set will include every episode on 36 discs, along with the original Robert Altman-directed film, and two discs of bonus materials including a trivia game and a 30th Anniversary cast reunion. Throw in a special collector's booklet and you have the ultimate Christmas gift for the 4077 fan on your list.

Hopefully one of them is me.

Well, I know what I'm giving myself for Christmas this year.

Warner will release The West Wing: The Complete Series on DVD November 7. The set will include every single episode of the series (154 episodes) on 45 discs. The set will contain the same sets as the individual sets already released, but will also include a copy of the pilot script, including a special intro by creator/head writer Aaron Sorkin. The set will sell for around $300.

The set for the last season will also be released that day, separately, with bonus materials.