TVSquad

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Why didn't somebody tell me that they were going to release The Guardian on DVD? I really liked that show. I don't know if the show is being released because Simon Baker and The Mentalist are a hit or if it has been in the works long before that, but it's a nice surprise.

• The Barbara Stanwyck Show - Vol. 1
• Battlestar Galactica - The Plan
• CBS News Sunday Morning - On The Road with Charles Kuralt: Set 1
• The Diary of Anne Frank - Miniseries

Harlan Ellison is a great writer and also one guy you don't want to piss off.

He wrote the classic Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever" (often called by best episode of the original series by fans and non-fans alike), and now he's suing CBS-Paramount over what they have done with the story since he got paid for writing it in 1967. He got paid for the script and got residuals, but in the years after the episode aired the studio has not only published a sequel trilogy with Pocket Books based on the episode, they even had a "Guardian of Forever" talking Hallmark Christmas ornament that said Ellison's lines from his script, so he wants his money.

In sports parlance, every now and then a rookie sensation comes along and is an instant success. Like Robert Redford in The Natural, only it's fact and not fiction. In TV parlance, Simon Baker -- who kind of looks like younger Redford (think The Sting and The Way We Were) -- has pulled off a rookie success that makes him look like pure gold.

The latest weekly Nielsen ratings are in and The Mentalist is number one, just slightly ahead of NCIS, with 18.8 million viewers. Simon Baker has a certifiable, solid and probably long-term hit series on his hands, and you know the powers that be at CBS have to be dancing in the corridors at the Black Rock.

(S03E12) There's no way that Kripke and the team over at Supernatural HQ could have foreseen the strike, only completing 12 episodes, and an extended break after episode 12. Had they been able to do that though, it's hard to imagine a better send off as we head into the break than what we saw in "Jus In Bello." The return of Henricksen and the introduction of Lilith made for a great mid (3/4) season intermission.

I finally watched the original, British version of The Office, and it's quite good. I still like the American version more though. That has nothing to do with the quality of the British version, really, it has more to do with the pace, the rhythm, the American-ized problems that the show focuses on, and the cast. Though I do think it's just funnier too.

This UK critic agrees. Though he thinks the Ricky Gervais original is a masterpiece and that some of the darker nuances have been lost in the American version, he thinks it's more entertaining and hasn't had that feeling that it had to burn out after a dozen episodes. He loves the fact that after three seasons it's still "remarkably fresh," and likes that Michael Scott is a different sort of annoying boss than David Brent and appreciates the real drama in the Jim/Pam relationship.