TVSquad

Hell has officially frozen over. A DVD I expected never to exist finally has. The complete series of the television show Quark is being released on DVD this coming October. This lost icon from the 1977-78 season was created by Get Smart co-creator Buck Henry and lasted a grand total of eight episodes.

The show stars Richard Benjamin as the captain of a garbage-hauling spaceship who yearns to be given more important duties. The show is pretty much a satire of Star Trek and parodies the standard plot devices of sci-fi television and movies up to that time (such as the concept of "evil" parallel universes). Conrad Janis (of Mork and Mindy fame) is particularly funny as Otto Palindrome.

The show didn't last that long, but thanks to the Internet fan sites of the show have sprung up enough to likely garner the attention of some executive looking to make some easy money (note I didn't say a quick Buck. That would have been too easy). Had it been made today...well, it probably still would have been canceled (particularly if it was on Fox), but the DVD release would have happened much sooner.

With seven separate nominations in the Guest Actor and Actress categories, it's hard to believe that any 30 Rock guest stars were left off this year's list. The men nearly swept the nominees list for Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, earning four of the five available spots. The ladies made up half of the Guest Actress category; not bad!

Still, a few brilliant and hilarious performances were left out. You can't argue with nominations for Will Arnett and Elaine Stritch, but I'd swap one or two of the nominees with a few of my own favorites. Check out my list of overlooked 30 Rock guest stars after the jump. And yes, I left out Jerry Seinfeld. Emmy got that one right.

I went to see Get Smart the other day. Judging by the box office numbers, I wasn't alone. Of course, I was curious about how one of my favorite TV shows from the '60s would be translated to the big screen. Would it be an inventive retelling in the tradition of The Fugitive, Maverick and The Addam's Family, or would it make me want to weep in horror like the dreadful I Spy, Bewitched, The Wild, Wild West and The Avengers? (And that's only the tip of the awful iceberg).

Would you believe it if I told you Get Smart falls somewhere in between? I could use the line many other reviewers have copped; you know, "The new Get Smart missed it by that much." Yes, well, it's true. Get Smart is not great on the big screen. It's okay. Nothing too shameful, but neither is it that inspired or wickedly built on the premise of the original situation comedy.

Every Christmas I look forward to the new slate of holiday episodes. Since I have seen most holiday specials more than enough times, I always enjoy a new holiday themed episode of a current show.

Last year, it was The Office. Michael's hilarious trip to Benihana was a delightful addition to the collection of classic episodes that TV Land will eventually show every year at this time. While I was also happy to see it repeated again this year, the feelings were bittersweet because I knew that if it weren't for the current WGA strike, there would have probably been another great one.

(S02E09) "That's not a Christmas tree. It's a way to lure tourists into the basement for $20 salads." - Kenneth, about the Rockefeller Center tree

I'm a sucker for Christmas episodes. The plots, the lessons learned, the music. And it doesn't matter if it's a corny, traditional type of holiday episode or a modern, irreverent look at the holiday. This 30 Rock episode is more the latter, but it doesn't mean that there isn't some crazy traditional aspects to it too. These characters - even the ones who get on each others nerves - care about each other in their own way. When Jenna sings "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" and you see a montage of people arguing and Guatemalan kids destroying their Christmas gifts, that's a nice mix of the old and the odd, and the capper of having Jack and his pain in the ass mom wish each other a Merry Christmas just fits so perfectly.

"AhmadineMinute": Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad paid a visit to New York City, home to some of his biggest fans. There's nothing quite as warm and fuzzy as forced hospitality. Actually, I take that back. The graphic joke of a Holocaust deniers carpool lane made my insides all warm and fuzzy.

"Clusterfuck to the White House": 2008 candidates continue to get all the support they can muster, either by reaching out to the old folks ("grey cred") or showing their "average Joe" side by letting a fly buzz and crawl all over them throughout debates. In other news, "Okay, shoot you later. 9/11" is my new favorite sign-off.

Barry Bonds finally hit that 756. The media has already milked that coverage cow dry. Even Daily Show couldn't do anything exciting with the news. Senior Correspondent Rob Riggle then talked about his random adventure, full of coyotes and stuff. I didn't really know what he was talking about, actually. Riggle, you're a crazy one.

"Mess O' Potamia": The US can't find nearly 200,000 weapons given to Iraqi security. Loads of oil, weapons, and money have simply "vanished" in the past few years. Well, this goodness just writes itself, doesn't it?

Friday at Comic-Con got underway with the Warner Brothers presentation. The swag bag included a Get Smart t-shirt with "KAOS" written on one side and "CONTROL" on the other. Not so surprisingly, no one under the age of 20 seemed to know what this meant, but Warner Brothers needn't worry because the kids love The Rock. And, because this is Comic-Con, The Rock (Agent 23) put in an appearance along with his Get Smart co-stars Steve Carrell, Masi "unofficial Comic-Con poster boy" Oka, Studio 60's Nate Torrence and Borat's Ken Davitian mercifully wearing pants.

Movin' Out, choreographer Twyla Tharp's take on the music of Billy Joel, is coming to television, thanks to PBS warhorse Great Performances.

Movin' Out received mixed, leaning towards favorable, reviews during its Broadway and out-of-town runs. Tharp won a Tony for her choreography, and Joel shared a Tony for its orchestration. This Joel-inspired outing hasn't been nearly as panned as Tharp's most recent take on Bob Dylan's catalog - The Times They are A-Changin'.

While the show has yet to be filmed by PBS, we can expect to see it on the air in the late winter or early spring of 2007.

We told you a while back about the first season Get Smart DVD set that will be released via mail order (and only mail order, for now at least ) from Time-Life. Now comes information on what extras we'll see in the set.

Actress Barbara Feldon and creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry will do commentary on episodes. Feldon on the "Kisses for KAOS" ep and Brooks and Henry on the pilot. There will also be an episode of The Bill Dana Show, the episode where Maxwell Smart made his first appearance (I never knew that). The set will also include the Museum of Television & Radio roundtable from 2003 that included Don Adams, Feldon, Bernie Kopell, director Jay Sandrich, and producer Leonard Stern.

It looks like earlier news that HBO would be putting together the Get Smart DVDs was mistaken. Instead, Time-Life will put out the 5 DVDs!

No word yet on the exact street date for the DVDs, but an inside source has told TVShowsonDVD that the first season set will include all 29 episodes, the black and white pilot, commentaries from Barbara Feldon, interviews, and a gag reel.

I was obsessed with this show when I was a kid (watching reruns in the 70s). The show was funny, but I was also intrigued by the opening, where Maxwell Smart went through all the secret doors and finally went into the phone booth into headquarters. I even used to like to see which car Smart was driving when he pulled up in front of the building, because it changed over the seasons. I liked the blue Karman Ghia.