TVSquad

Kona told you recently that Benjamin Bratt is coming back to Law & Order for a short time. S. Epatha Merkerson's Van Buren character has been diagnosed with cancer, which always gives shows a chance to bring back old characters. But it also gives a show a chance to bring on new characters, and that's what's going to happen starting this Friday.

Ernie Hudson is joining the show for several episodes. He'll play a guy that's "the love of her life."

(S04E06) If there was a theme this week, it's about nurturing and guiding people with abilities. We followed up with Sylar, now in the nefarious embrace of the Sullivan Brothers Carnival, as well as Peter and Hiro, and by extension Emma. The quest to save Hiro's life from the brain tumor that's killing him even affords Noah the opportunity to atone for his cold past by providing support to a former kid he and the Haitian had "visited" back in his Company days.

We got some very nice character moments this week. I like Hiro in the role of mentor to Emma, as it gives him a focus for his crazy optimism. Plus, we got to see how stopping time makes a magic show even more awesome -- I know that's the kind of crap I'd be doing with that ability. Screw saving the world, watch me make this woman vanish.

The late Capt. Lou Albano wore many hats in his career (some wrestlers wear hats). But in my nostalgia filled mind, none of those hats were greater than the red service cap with the giant "M" on it.

The famed wrestler played both the live action and animated version of video game hero Mario on the top rated syndicated kids' show The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, along with actor Danny Wells as Luigi who Jeffersons fans will recognize as Charlie the bartender. Mario Bros. is a show I vividly remember from my childhood because my parents never bought me a Nintendo and that just drove me to want and watch anything and everything with the Mario Bros. on it.

Here's my all-time favorite episode because it combined the two things I worshiped as an organized religion: Nintendo and Ghostbusters.

(S04E05) I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but sometimes I wonder if we don't have more people reading TV Squad than Heroes has viewers. And so I want to keep reminding fallen fans who may have jumped ship over the past two not-so-great seasons that things are going much better this season.

There's a better balance in each episode than there's been. In the past few weeks, we've been sticking to mostly three storylines per week. This time around, we checked in on Peter, Claire and Sylar (after his unearthing last week). They're allowing the characters room to breathe and be themselves, rather than just rushing into the next adventure.

It was character growth and development that I'd missed the most, and we're finally getting it. Zachary Quinto was fantastic this episode, and even Hayden Panettiere showed an inkling of range. Oh, who am I kidding, she was as wooden as ever, but that's why we like her ... right? That kind of looks like a cardboard cut-out up there, doesn't it?

Former Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson has "seen sh*t that'll turn you white!" I guess that makes him the perfect guy to chase down fugitives in the strange, super-powered world of NBC's Heroes.

The veteran genre actor will join the cast of Heroes next season as Captain Lubbock, a Baltimore cop hunting down another character on the show.

It's good to see Hudson returning to TV. He's a great actor who has turned in some memorable TV performances in the past (HBO's Oz, Desperate Housewives), but he always seems to get stuck working in the B-movie ghetto.

(S03E09) In what is becoming an annual tradition for USA Network, Psych has returned for a holiday-themed episode before it goes back into hibernation once again. Last year's episode introduced us to Gus' parents. This time around, his parents are joined by Gus' sister, Joy, who ends up helping the guys on their current investigation while trying to keep a secret from her brother.

Sounds promising. The only downside is the episode was directed by John Landis, whose Psych record is less than stellar. Come join me after the jump to find out if he redeemed himself this time around.

Barry Livingston, who played Ernie Douglas on the 60's/70's sitcom My Three Sons (TV's second longest-running live-action show after The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) will be appearing on the Hallmark Channel this coming Saturday at 8 p.m. in an action movie called Final Approach. He joins a cast that includes Dean Cain, Lea Thompson, Richard Roundtree, Ernie Hudson and Anthony Michael Hall.

Livingston has appeared in other TV shows including Mad Men, Eli Stone and Crossing Jordan. The 54-year-old former child star will play an aeronautical engineer on a plane who helps Dean Cain's character foil an attempted hijack.

(S03E13)"Friends don't let friends' fathers go to the electric chair." -- Angela, on why she wouldn't testify against Bones' dad

Doubt. A word that many of us use in some context at least once a day. We don't doubt it, we doubt it happened or, used in a positive manner, we prove that there isn't any doubt about it. In the legal world the word has a much more powerful connotation. Should a shred of doubt exist during a criminal trial, there is always that slim chance that the judge or jury will see past the crime of the defendant and rule in the opposite manner.

Sometimes, the physical evidence that the prosecution provides is the reason for doubt. Other times, it is the testimony of the witnesses that causes the judge or jury to think. Then, there are those times where doubt is seeded by the team of lawyers who are trying to get their client off.

Finally, there are those very rare occasions where the doubt is provided by the client's daughter. Guess which type of doubt was used in this week's episode of Bones?

(S02E10, sort of) "He's going to shoot his eye out, isn't he?" -- Burton "Gus" Guster

"Yes he is." -- Shawn Spencer

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you -- The Gusters. Yes, after a season and a half we finally get to meet the people that made Burton "Gus" Guster the man that he is today. I was starting to think that we would never meet the parents who kept Gus out of one of the most prominent high schools in the area. Perhaps they would have been like Vera on Cheers -- heard and talked about but never seen. Luckily, the producers were generous enough to connect some pretty big faces to Gus' lineage.

When it comes to program scheduling the cable networks don't need no stinkin' badges to do what they normally do. That's why there are Law & Order marathons on TNT during every federal holiday and episodes of Dog, The Bounty Hunter on A&E. It is also the reason why we see new holiday episodes from shows like The Closer in December when their seasons end in September.

So, it should be no surprise that new holiday-themed episodes of Monk and Psych are airing this Friday on the USA Network. Actually, it should be no surprise that Monk is offering a holiday tale since it has done so for the last three years. This is Psych's first entry into the holiday episode universe. And, regardless if it is their first or third holiday entry, both shows look like interesting viewing.

(S02E14) A bottle of fine wine. A candlelit dinner. A three-week old decomposing body surrounded by flies. What better way to conclude another St. Valentine's Day? Don't get me wrong, I love a decomposing body, but this one was particularly gruesome. I can usually handle Bones' corps de la semaine (that's 'body of the week' in French, you Anglophiles), but I actually had to look away this time. Luckily, the body was stripped of all its needless soft tissue at the Jeffersonian Institution and we were left the usual broken down skeletal structure that Bones and her squints use for their investigations.

Moving on now. I liked this episode . . . kind of. I say this because the episode had a different tone to it, almost like an episode of Law & Order (the original, not the ones with all of the letters.). Being one who didn't watch a single episode of the show last year I don't know if this was something unique or if it appeared early in the show's run. I enjoyed it, I just wasn't used to it.