TVSquad

First off, isn't that a cool way to do titles for a two-part season finale? I'm waiting for the day when some show has a two-parter where the first episode is titled "The" and the other one is titled "End."

This season finale focused on a serial killer who killed prostitutes and the homeless and took them across the border into Canada.The previews with the pigs kinda creeped me out (I guess pigs are the villains in many ways this year). How was this finale? The show has been renewed for another season.

So last night at 9PM, everyone in the country was watching either the Lost season finale or another exciting elimination on American Idol. Or were they? Is there anyone out there who doesn't watch Lost or AI and actually tuned into Criminal Minds instead, even if it didn't guest star Alex O'Loughlin this week?

I bet a lot of Moonlight fans tuned into Criminal Minds last night to see Alex O'Loughlin star as a serial killer; if they knew he was on it, that is. Oh, who am I kidding? The real Moonlight fans probably knew about the casting before O'Loughlin did.

What did you think of the episode? Criminal Minds is one of those shows that does pretty well in the ratings but no one really seems to talk about. So, talk about it.

Question: is there anyone out there who still thinks that Robin Williams is funny?

I ask this because he's the very first guest (well, after the adorable niece and her drawings) on The Bonnie Hunt Show, the new talk show from the veteran actress/comic, and he pretty much ruins the episode. The first half anyway. The guy just can't shut up, and I suppose that would be rather great if he was funny, but with Williams, quantity doesn't equal quality. There are very few moments to breathe when Williams hits a talk show couch, and I think the only reason I get through his segment was because halfway through Joe Mantegna showed up with pizza for the audience.

Debra Messing's Emmy-award winning miniseries The Starter Wife is getting some new cast members. Joining the former Will and Grace star are David Alan Bashe of Lipstick Jungle, Danielle Nicolet of Heartland, Brielle Barbusca of Hope & Faith, and Hart Bochner of Die Hard.

The USA original series follows the post-divorce hi-jinx of Molly Kagan (Messing) as she embarks on a new chapter in her life. USA is bringing back the hit miniseries for ten episodes this fall. Messing is now executive producer as well.

Bashe will play Molly's ex-husband, Kenny Kagen. Nicolet will play Liz Marsh, Molly's new friend and wife a a pro-baseball player. Barbusca will play Jaden, Molly and Kenny's daughter. And Bochner will play Molly's new love interest and writing class teacher. Returning for guest appearances is Joe Mantegna of Criminal Minds who plays Molly's former boyfriend Lou Manahan.

The series will premiere on USA in October. What do you think? Will The Starter Wife work as a full-fledged series?

(S03E19) Talk about ending a season in an explosive way!

In the past three years, this week's episode was probably the second episode of Criminal Minds that I watched in its entirety. It's not a bad show but I just can't watch everything that airs on TV. However, since I stop watching any American Idol season after Hollywood Week, so I wasn't going to watch the finale, and because my usual Wednesdays at 9 PM shows were done for the season, I tuned in to CBS and watched the BAU at work.

Eat. Sleep. Pepto Bismol. Television. The four things that describe Thanksgiving for me. They all go hand in hand really, but let's be honest -- TV is the one that really matters. I can have turkey any time I want, but I can only watch my favorite shows once a week. Despite the WGA strike putting a wrinkle into my winter viewing plans, there's still plenty to be happy about.

There have been a lot of stories floating around about Mandy Patinkin's departure from CBS' Criminal Minds. That he's only going to be in one scene of the show to wrap up his storyline, that his costars didn't like him. Turns out neither of those stories are true.

Co-star A.J. Cook says that Patinkin has actually been phoning all of his Criminal Minds castmates and explaining to them what happened. Cook says that the cast didn't know what was going on, and now that they know they "just want him to be happy."

It's not going to be Harvey Keitel or Geena Davis or Michael Keaton or even Rosie O'Donnell. The new person in charge on Criminal Minds is Joe Mantegna.

The CBS show hired Mantegna over the weekend, ending speculation over who would replace Mandy Patinkin, who has already left the show and will not be making anymore appearances. Besides classic movies such as House of Games and Bugsy, Mantegna costarred on the USA series The Starter Wife earlier this summer, was on the gone-but-not-forgotten drama Joan of Arcadia, does the voice of Fat Tony on The Simpsons, and made a poor substitute for Robert Urich when they made those Spenser movies on cable (nothing against Mantegna, he was quite good, it just wasn't Spenser, you know?).

No word yet on how they'll write out Patinkin or how Mantegna's character will join the team, though some episodes are already done and Patinkin's abscence will be explained in the season premiere.

Jason Ritter is best known to television audiences for his role as Kevin Girardi in the CBS drama Joan of Arcadia. His other television credits include Hack, Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as a role in the movie The Dreamer of Oz. Ritter is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied at the Atlantic Theatre Company. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He is the son of actors Nancy Morgan and the late John Ritter and the grandson of famed film cowboy Tex Ritter.

1. Where were you born?
Los Angeles, California.

2. How many siblings do you have?
Three. Carly, Tyler, and Stella.

4. Do you have any pets?
I had a lot growing up! My apartment doesn't allow pets. I want a dog though! I love dogs. Thelma and Louise were our two dogs growing up. We also over the years had a bunch of cats. First we had Pippi, who my sister named (The Pippi Longstocking movie had just come out), and Pippi had two kittens, that my brother and I each got to name. I named mine "Fluffy," because I'm sooo creative, and my brother named his "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Ghostbuster," who was also known to the rest of us as "patches."

The USA six hour miniseries The Starter Wife presented a half and half panel as the closing event at Friday's TCA ... half of the panel was here in Pasadena, the other half in sunny and gorgeous Australia. Based on the novel by Gigi Levangie Grazer, the series is being shot down under, which doubles as Malibu, and follows the trials and tribulations of Gracie Pollock (Debra Messing) as a freshly dumped (via cell phone just beofre her 10th anniversary) "starter wife".

The miniseries is airing a bit oddly, if you ask me. Not that you did, but since I'm telling the story here, let's pretend like it happened. They're airing the first episode as a two hour show, and then four one-hour episodes after that. All on the USA Network this May. While that may be a bit odd, the show looks like it'll pull in fans of Sex and the City, and is directed by veteran Jon Avnet.

It also stars Joe Mantegna who had the two zinger quotes of the evening:

• Joe Mantegna, on starter wives: "I've been on the same starter wife for 32 years."
• Joe Mantegna: on hearing writer and executive producer Josann McGibbon say that she'd been bitten by a leech in Australia, but that it wouldn't have happened in Los Angeles: "Did you just say there's no leeches in L.A.?!"

You know, I used to love hearing the yearly announcement about which major celebrities will lend their voices to the upcoming season of The Simpsons. I think I liked it because I knew the writers would make good use of those voices, either making them a new character or somehow integrating a cartoon version of the celebrity into the plot (for instance: "Hi, I'm Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins." "I'm Homer Simpson, smiling politely."). But it seems like lately the list just shows how "with it" the producers of the long-running series still are, and the voices seem to be somehow forced into the episodes, either in pop culture asides or something the family watches on TV.

This year's list is no exception. Fox announced that the following celebrities will lend their voices for the show's 18th season: The White Stripes, Dr. Phil, Natalie Portman, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen. Also, Joe Pantoliano and Michael Imperioli will appear as Fat Tony's henchmen (Fat Tony, of course, has been voiced by Joe Mantegna since the beginning of the series). That last bit particularly screams "shoehorning", because Fat Tony's henchmen have been voiced by cast regulars for the last 17 years; why give them celebrity voices now?

The Simpsons has been using guest stars since the very first season. Some have returned on several occasions, sometimes as different characters (Albert Brooks), sometimes as the same character (Kelsey Grammer), and sometimes as both (Jon Lovitz). By my calculations there have been exactly twelve thousand guest stars on the show so far, so obviously a list of just five is going to be lacking just a tad. Nevertheless, these are five guest stars who stick out in my mind. Got some more? That's what the comments are for. Here we go:

Albert Brooks: Brooks first appeared in season one as Jacques, the man with the fake French accent who tries to woo Marge away from Homer with his knowledge of bowling and women. He later appeared as Hank Scorpio, a rather paradoxical character who is both very friendly and yet extremely evil. I think my favorite Brooks episode, however, was the episode "The Heartbroke Kid" when he played Tab Spangler, a ticking time bomb of a coach who tries to coerce Bart back to health after Bart gains weight and suffers a heart attack. "Every sign is wrong!" He'll also be appearing in the Simpsons movie, which is very cool.

I don't know who's more excited about this news, me or Joel. The brilliantly funny Bonnie Hunt is having another go at situation comedy on ABC. In her untitled project, she'll play a recently divorced woman who works as a detective.

Bonnie has convinced some powerful comedic talent to join the cast. Dennis Miller (yes, THE Dennis Miller of HBO and SNL) will co-star as Dr. Langley, Hunt's therapist. And Joe Mantegna will play Jack, her ex-husband. Both roles were meant to be guest stars only, but Bonnie reportedly talked the men into sticking around if her sitcom gets picked up by the network.