TVSquad

(S02E01) Man, it's been a long time since last season. I remembered very little of what they showed in the recap and after being reminded, I was hungry for the new season.

It occurs to me as I'm watching this episode that Michael Westen is a less philanthropic MacGyver. He knows a lot of tricks that will help you in sticky situations but he's smart enough to keep most of them to himself. I, personally, have never had to run from the police but if I ever do, I now know the best way to stop the airbags from going off.

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Don S. Davis: The veteran actor appeared on numerous TV shows over the past 25 years, including Stargate SG-1 (he played Major General George Hammond), Twin Peaks, The X-Files, The Dead Zone, Psych, Highlander, Supernatural, Flash Gordon, The West Wing, NCIS, The Chris Isaak Show, Profit, M.A.N.T.I.S., MacGyver (also serving as Dana Elcar's body double), L.A. Law, Joanie Loves Chachi, and many others. He also appeared in dozens of movies, including A League of Their Own, Con Air, Miracle, The 6th Day, Hook, The Fan, and Best In Show. He died this week at age 65.

Miami in June is hot. Very hot. On the set of Burn Notice, however, everything is cool. In fact, when I arrive at the Coconut Grove studios where the USA spy drama is shot, I find myself smack dab in the middle of a full-fledged film studio.

The old convention center, where I remember going to an indoor flea market in the late 1970s, has been completely transformed. There are trailers, production offices, standing sets, all geared up and working to bring Burn Notice back for season two.

Another week, another list issue of Entertainment Weekly.

I'm not sure what to make of all of these lists. We do them here too, but it seems to me the more giant lists that are done the more meaningless they become. This EW issue is "The New Classics," the 1000 best TV shows, movies, books, and music of the past 25 years. Since this is a television blog, I won't get into their book, movie, and music picks (but if I can just say as a side note, they pick both Clueless and The Naked Gun before L.A. Confidential?!), but let's talk about their TV choices.

And argue about those choices in the comments, of course.

OK, so one of the scenarios below is actually true. Can you guess which one?

a.) Superbad star Jonah Hill is going to write and star in a big screen adaptation of 21 Jump Street.
b.) Nicolas Cage is going to star in a big screen version of the action series Riptide.
c.) George Clooney will star in and direct a movie version of Magnum, P.I.
d.) Ian Ziering will star in a big screen version of The Greatest American Hero.

After the jump, the answer.

Get your paper clips and elastic bands out because there is a MacGyver movie in the works! According to the Dark Horizons website, MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff announced over the weekend at Maker Faire 2008 that a big budget movie based on the series was in the planning stages.

Sadly, he revealed no specifics about the movie other than he got the movie rights a few years ago and has total control over the movie.

We've talked a lot here about theme songs and how they just don't make them like they used to. The openings to shows used to be a lot longer, a real part of the show. Today we're lucky if we get a few bars of music and maybe a credit or two. Heck, one show, Lost, only plays one note and shows the logo.

The Popcorn Trick has a list of the Top 25 Opening Credits of '80s Action Shows, and you can't argue with most of the picks. Magnum P.I. is on the list, as is Riptide, Miami Vice, and The A Team. I would quibble a little bit with the choice of The Rockford Files. One of my favorites, but it was really more of a '70s show than '80s (it ended in 1980). I was 13 years old when Vegas premiered (in 1978 - it ran until 1981) and I wanted to be Dan Tanna and live in Vegas and have hot girlfriends and drive around with a lion in my sports car.

Cagney and Lacey shouldn't be on the list though. It should be replaced with one of several other shows from the '80s. After the jump, the five shows they missed.

NBC is going classic, with a twist. The network has ordered 13 episodes of a new drama series based on the Daniel Defoe classic Robinson Crusoe. This is far from the first time Defoe's 1719 novel has been filmed. The most recent incarnation was a 1997 Pierce Brosnan feature. In 1964, it was the basis for a French TV series.

This version is going to be a new take on the old story of a man who sets sail from England, his ship is wrecked in a storm and he's thrown overboard winding up alone on a deserted island where he has to fen for himself. In time, he is joined by an escaped slave whom he names Friday. Ben Silverman, NBC's head honcho, described the proposed series in this way: "It's part MacGyver, part contemporary morality tale about race and personal discovery, part comedy and part Castaway meets Survivor." As envisioned, this Robinson Crusoe will need to be clever indeed. It's going to keep the time period 1650's, but when Crusoe finds Friday, he'll presumably be treating him as if it were today with regard to race relations.

Recently, TV Squad reported that NBC has added all kinds of classic TV shows to their online outlets. Now comes the announcement that CBS is also bringing a variety of well-loved TV dramas to the web. CBS Interactive is raiding the CBS Library, which is "one of the largest television programming libraries in the entertainment business," to present TV series online across the CBS Audience Network.

Like the NBC fodder, the CBS offering is gangbusters: full-length episodes of classic Star Trek, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O and Melrose Place. CBS plans to add more programs and clips in the coming months, including sports and other kinds of entertainment.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• Absolutely Fabulous - The White Box
• Charlie and Lola - Vol. 6
• The Christmas Blessing (TV movie)
• The House Without A Christmas Tree (TV movie)
• Ironside - Season 2
• MacGyver - The Complete Series
• Masters of Horror - Season 1, Vol. 2 and The Damned Thing
• Medium - Season 3
• Mythbusters - Collection 2
• Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (UK) - Vol. 1
• Roseanne - Season 9
• Squidbillies - Vol. 1
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - The Complete Series
• That 70s Show - Season 7
• Wanted: Dead or Alive - Season 3

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

Jimmy Hall: Hall was a documentary filmmaker and Discovery Channel host. He is part of the network's annual "Shark Week," which will air this year starting July 29. Hall was killed in a parachute accident while filming a documentary for the network near the Arctic Circle. He was 41.

Hello, everyone. Are you enjoying your Saturday? That's great. Here's some funny videos I found:

First of all, our own Paul Goebel is doing a series of funny vlogs for NBC's DotComedy as The Remote Controller. He's already predicted the demise of FOX's Drive before anyone else. Will he use his Nostradamus-like skills to make even more chilling predictions? Who knows?

Have you been watching Human Giant on MTV? You should, it's a damn funny show. Check out this sketch of one of the most intense job interview you'll ever witness. It'll make you "put on your marshmallow pants and hit the boo-hoo button."

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

Since I've already done a list of the greatest police detectives and the greatest private eyes, the next list is a natural: Greatest Spies and Agents!

The guidelines for this list? A spy that worked for an agency or someone that worked in an official governmental capacity, such as the FBI or CIA. Here we go:

1. Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott (I Spy): These two guys weren't only resourceful, but they were the coolest cats around. Robinson and Scott were spies, but they travelled the world working on cases disguised as a tennis pro and his trainer. How awesome is that? The show was filmed on location (you hardly ever see that), and a lot of the dialogue was improvised and casual. Great theme song too.

Anyone who had a collection of action figures growing up knows you can't have an action figure without the proper weapon. Chewbacca had his crossbow, Cobra Commander had his laser pistol, and the Battlestar Galactica action figures had all kinds of cool weapons. But what about MacGyver? What's the accessory of choice for his mass-produced toy lookalike? The answer, you'll find, is quite obvious. Sure, it may just look like a paper clip, but it's a MacGyver paper clip, which means you can use it for anything. You can open doors, blow up tanks, impregnate spider monkeys, improve your bowling score, go back in time, drill for oil, slice pineapple, raise the dead and many other things. That's power at your fingertips, boys and girls.

Oh yeah, and if you haven't figured it out, the "toy" isn't real.

[via Digg]

(S02E10) Finally! After waiting all summer, and ten episodes into the new season, Supernatural fans get the answer they have all been waiting for. It's not quite a complete answer, but it's enough for now. That five week break between "Croatoan" and "Hunted" was a rough one given the cliff-hanger ending. The writers had one more surprise for us though, as it turns out Dean didn't really have the secret.

When Dean revealed that John had told him he had to save Sam, and that if he couldn't he'd have to kill him, I was left thinking, "And...." There had to be more to it than that. Apparently Dean didn't get the full story, but luckily for us, and I guess for Dean and Sam too, Scott Carey (Richard de Klerk) got the full scoop straight from the demon. As he tells his therapist, "There's a war coming, and people like me, we're gonna be the soldiers."