TVSquad

Reunions are hot, you know? On February 12, for example, Oprah reunited (most of) the kids from The Cosby Show, with Bill appearing via satellite. Well, never one to let a good idea go to waste, NBC jumped on the theme. They recently had a Family Ties reunion on Today, so now the morning show is commencing tomorrow with a series of more "Together Again" features. Tune into 8:00 a.m. hour each day so you don't miss a thing!

(S04E13) "Denny Crane, to serve and protect" - Denny Crane

Only a couple minutes into the show and the crazy meter is off the charts. Nutjob Leigh is threatening Katie. Denny is having anonymous sex with Shirley's friend and I'm having a Murphy Brown flashback.

I've lost a lot of respect for Jerry. What could possibly compel him to get involved with Leigh again other than his being a pitiful loser? It seemed like he was making progress for a while there. Doesn't he know that a woman who leaves you once is very likely to leave you again? I just hope he never takes her on a date to an electronics expo.

When one of our favorite TV shows goes off the air, it always brings sadness. However, many times, the silver lining in the cancellation is the birth of a spinoff. Sometimes it can be a great thing (Frasier) and sometimes the results can be less than ideal (The Art of Being Nick). Last month's spin-off ideas were so popular, I decided to make this a regular post. Here are some more spinoff ideas that I would love to see.

The Sherwood-Forrest Report
After the retirement of veteran newswoman Murphy Brown, Corky Sherwood-Forrest and her husband Will Forrest become the hosts of a new show on Court TV. Corky is the moderator while Will provides legal expertise along with a rotating team of guest legal scholars (Marcia Cross, Star Jones, Greta Van Susteren).

Here's a story that got lost amidst all of the other new fall season hoopla. . .

Candice Bergen, presently a cast member on the ABC drama Boston Legal, suffered an apparent stroke last week. After falling ill, the 60-year-old actress was promptly treated and released from the hospital, and was expected to make a full recovery. According to news reports, nurses say Bergen was in good spirits during her short stay.

Known for her Emmy award winning work on CBS's Murphy Brown, Bergen was hired to play Shirley Schmidt on Boston Legal, where she trades barbs with co-stars James Spader and William Shatner. Whether or not the stroke will have any implications for Bergen's role on the show is unknown at this time.

Actor Pat Corley was probably best known as Phil, the gruff owner of the bar where the Murphy Brown hung out all the time. But he had a long career in TV and movies.

Besides appearances on tons of TV shows, from Kojak and Starsky and Hutch and Magnum, P.I. and Hill Street Blues, he was also in several movies, including Coming Home, The Onion Field, The Rose, and Night Shift. Corley actually started out as a ballet dancer!

Corley died earlier this week after coronary stent surgery.

April 24th begins the annual "TV Turnoff Week". For seven days we are to turn off the boob tube and focus on other activities inside and outside our home. For instance, talking to the other members of our family or walking out the front door into that space full of yellow light and green grass. I think we call that the outdoors.

Of course, the purpose of "TV Turnoff Week" is the total opposite of what we do here at TV Squad, which is, um, report on television. So, as a public service to you we present this special episode of The Five: Reasons to not turn off TV during 'TV Turnoff Week'.

You can post comments on TV Squad articles:  We love your comments, even when you say we're messengers of Satan because some of us don't like Pearl Jam. However, if you don't turn the TV on, you're not going to be able to comment on any of the shows that we review. That will make all of us sad, and probably make our bosses even sadder. We'll end up losing our jobs, which will have a domino effect for all of our other blogging sites. Of course, that will cause AOL to go out of business, and the Internet will probably collapse unto itself. Dogs and cats will fight, cows will stop giving milk, and, yadda yadda yadda. We'll eventually be beating each other over the heads with clubs in order to grab the carcass of a dead brontosaurus.