TVSquad

I caught an episode of E!'s new reality show, Leave It To Lamas, the other night. All I could think was, 'Does anyone really care about these people?' Maybe that's the point. We don't care, and thus don't mind watching them all implode.

I'm betting that a lot of people have never even heard of the Lamas family. I remember Lorenzo from Falcon Crest; now he looks like a washed-up porn star. His daughter, Shayne, was recently proposed to by Matt Grant on The Bachelor: London Calling (the engagement is off -- I'm guessing it was all done for publicity for this show).

Before Dallas and Dynasty and Falcon Crest and Knots Landings captured the imaginations of American viewers, there was a British soap import that was even more compelling.

From 1971-75, PBS aired the British upper crust soap Upstairs Downstairs. And now Upstairs Downstairs is going to be remade. It'll be filmed and shown in England first before coming to America in 2011.

What made Upstairs Downstairs classic television – it won Emmys, BAFTAs and Golden Globes – was the way it depicted of the British class system. Upstairs you had the rich, privileged Bellamy family. Downstairs there were the servants who worked for them. The lives of all these characters intertwined in a well-written, brilliantly acted drama series.

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

• Mel Ferrer: He was best known for his movie work (including such films as The Sun Also Rises, War & Peace, and Lilli) but he was also a regular on the CBS series Falcon Crest. He also appeared on Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, Christine Cromwell, Hotel, Dallas, Return of the Saint, Hawaii Five-O, Baretta, the miniseries How The West Was Won, and many others. He also directed and produced many films and was married to Audrey Hepburn from 1954 to 1968. He died near Carpinteria, CA at age 90.

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

• Jane Wyman: She won an Oscar for her role in the movie Johnny Belinda, but is probably best known to TV fans as the matriarch on the primetime soap Falcon Crest and as the ex-wife of Ronald Reagan. She died at age 93 in Palm Springs, CA.

You don't know the name, but you know his work. He was the voice Ernie the Elf in the Keebler commercials and guest starred on...well, just about every single TV show produced since the early 1950s, it seems.

A partial list: The Waltons, Quincy, M.E., Stingray, Flamingo Road, Little House on the Prairie, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Riptide, Falcon Crest, Knot's Landing, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Dallas, Barnaby Jones, Gunsmoke, Columbo, Bonanza, Mannix, Mission: Impossible, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The Name of the Game, The Wild, Wild West, H.R. Pufnstuf, The Big Valley, Star Trek, Batman, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Maverick, The Bob Newhart Show, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

He was known for his voice work, and you could hear him in such shows as The Flintstones, Jem, The Smurfs, Spider-Man, and The Transformers. He also kept me up nights as a kid when he did the voice of that damn devil doll in the Trilogy of Terror movie in the 70s.

Edmiston died on February 15 in L.A. of cancer.