TVSquad

One of television's longest and hardest working actors is in the hospital.

Stage, screen and television actor Stacy Keach suffered a stroke and has been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital for observation.

Fortunately, it doesn't appear to be life threatening or extremely serious. His reps characterized the stroke as "very mild" and said it has not impaired or affected his speech "whatsoever." That's good news since he's still working on the stage and screen.

Lately, there isn't a day that goes by where we don't here something about the bird flu that may, or may not, be passed along to humans. Not to get too freaky, but experts are saying that a worst case scenario would be 20 million Americans affected, 2 million dead, schools and businesses shutdown to prevent the spread of the disease. So, you would think that the networks' entertainment divisions would give us something light and fluffy to keep our minds off of this fact.

Um, apparently not.

Disney-owned ABC, who gave us the nuclear war disaster movie The Day After back in the 1980's, will air Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America during the May sweeps period. The movie will star Stacy Keach, Joely Richardson, Ann Cusack and Justine Machado, and will ask the question 'What if bird flu was transmitted to humans in America?'. The producers say they made the movie because of its topicality.

Personally, I'll be skipping this movie and look for some more gentle fare, like 10.5:Apocalypse on NBC.