TVSquad

(S05E19) "I died just like I lived, as the complete, utter center of attention." - dead Edie

It's no secret anymore. Nicolette Sheridan is leaving Desperate Housewives, and this was her last episode as a series regular. Even if most major websites, newspapers, and magazines warned us in early February that the actress was exiting the show, some fans were still holding out hope that the news was untrue, as it wasn't the first time we heard a rumor about Sheridan leaving. Those fans must now come to terms with the fact that the sexy, perceptive, strong, beautiful, and one-of-a-kind Edie is now gone. If you ask Lynette, she would tell you that Edie looks like cat litter right now.

One thing is for sure, Edie/Nicolette went out with a bang with what may be the second best episode of the season (my favorite being the 100th episode featuring Beau Bridges).

Just in case you weren't sure that this upcoming eighth season of Scrubs was going to be Zach Braff's last -- and, considering both Braff and series creator Bill Lawrence have been alluding to this for months, it's a good bet that you were sure -- an article on Haaretz.com should convince you. Braff spoke to the magazine during his ten-day trip to Israel and confirmed that he has already left the show (which wrapped the eighth, but not necessarily final, season over the summer), mainly because "there's so much I want to do with my life."

One of those things, I guess, is getting back in touch with his heritage.

Ah, Rosie... we hardly had a chance to say hello, and now you're saying goodbye.

Actually, given what we've heard over the last few months, this isn't a big surprise: According to the AP, Rosie O'Donnell will leave The View in June. She was unable to come to a contract with ABC, saying in a statement that "My needs for the future just didn't dovetail with what ABC was able to offer me."

Of course, Rosie has been the best and worst thing to happen to The View since she started there last year. Her controversial presence raised the show's ratings. But producer and star Barbara Walters has had to support her host through many a verbal battle, including dust-ups with Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, and Clay Aiken. There's been speculation that Rosie is going to go back to hosting her own show, and the production company for her old talk show reportedly wants her back. But, for now, O'Donnell hasn't announced what her next move will be.

[thanks to MrsEldubya for the tip.]

FOX News TV writer Roger Friedman is reporting today that Rosie O'Donnell will probably leave The View when her one-year contract is up. The reason? Backstage tension, of course.

Friedman cites the it-just-won't-die flap with Donald Trump as one of the last straws in what has become a conflict with the show's matriarch, Barbara Walters. It seems like Walters is playing the two combatants against each other, according to Friedman, and Rosie is surprised that Barbara isn't being more supportive. Hence, once the "school year" is over in June, she'll take her ball and go home.

Zap2It is reporting that Horatio Sanz, Chris Parnell and Finesse Mitchell will not be returning to Saturday Night Live next season, and we'll assume that's true, though the only one we can be absolutely sure about is Sanz, who left a message on his MySpace page yesterday saying he would be leaving the show:

Hi my Dear fans and friends alike,
I have decided to not return to Saturday Night Live this season. I wish the best to everyone at the show and expect them to have a great season. It's been a wonderful eight years and I am grateful for all the friends I was able to make and all the great people I had the pleasure of working with. I want to give a big thank you to all my fans for your kind comments and well wishes. I look forward to making you laugh in the future, and hopefully not behind the counter at Burger King. Goodnight my dears!
XO,
H

Whether "I decided to not return" means he did this of his own volition or was coaxed to leave is for anyone to surmise, but the bottom line is that he ain't gonna be on the show no more.

Well, it looks like the relentless drum of depressing news put forth by the 24-hour news networks has claimed its first victim. Daryn Kagan, the late-morning anchor at CNN, has decided to leave the network after 12 years to start -- wait for it -- DarynKagan.com.

Whoa! What the hell is she thinking, right? But here's the kicker: the site, debuting in November, will only report "good news". Wow. Sounds ambitious, considering the fact that no one ever seems to want to read good news and all. But, she has an upbeat attitude about it, as she told her colleagues in an e-mail announcing her departure: The site "will be an inspirational, online community dedicated to the radical idea that the world is a good place. Sounds different, I know. It is."

Hm. Maybe her time dating Rush Limbaugh that finally sent her over the edge. Well, we wish Daryn luck. She's gonna need it.

I don't envy military parents, especially those with young kids. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to explain to a child why their mother or father has to leave for long stretches at a time. Sesame Workshop has produced a new DVD that will be distributed free of charge to military families next month that is geared towards helping parents talk with their children about the various stages of deployment. The DVD features Elmo and his father as Elmo's father prepares to leave, though it's never revealed where his father is going. The DVD will also feature interviews with military families, and was created mainly for those new to the military who are left behind and aren't always sure what exactly to say to their kids, or how much is too much. Wal-Mat has contributed $1.5 million to the project.

After a couple of days of speculation, CBS News made it official today: Dan Rather is leaving the network after 44 years. His contract was supposed to run out in November, but he negotiated an early release because a) he wasn't being used much and b) he could not get a new contract from the network that guaranteed he would get work.

The network is working on a retrospective of Rather's career, which will air in the fall. They will also make a contribution to his alma mater, Sam Houston University.

So what's Rather's next step? Well, he may work for Mark Cuban's HDNet, or he may do something else. But chances are, this isn't the last we've seen of Gunga Dan.

[via Mediabistro]

[This episode review contains spoilers]

Isaac Hayes' time spent on South Park was no accident. He was the always the first and only choice to play Chef, and creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone worked hard to convince him their silly little cartoon would be worth doing. Over the better part of a decade, Hayes seemed to really embrace both the character and the show's brutal satire.

And until a few days ago, everything remained seemingly copacetic. Suddenly, however, Hayes left the show over its jabs at religion, leading many, including the show's creators, to believe he had actually left the show over the "Trapped in the Closet" episode which made fun of Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology, of which Hayes is also a member.

Ted Koppel appears to have landed on his feet after the demise of Nightline, and yet another figure from that show has also found new employment. This time it's David Marash, who left Nightline as a correspondent last year. Marash will be the chief anchor and correspondent of Al-Jazeera International's Washington bureau when the new network launches this spring. Al-Jazeera International will be a 24-hour news channel. Four hours of each day would be dedicated to news out of Washington, in addition to a one-hour newscast co-anchored by Marash.

A little over a week ago, we gave you folks an opportunity to select the Saturday Night Live cast members that you thought might be leaving at the end of this season, based on a remark Lorne Michaels gave to The New York Times. We let you choose more than one person, since it looks like more than one person is going to leave.

So, who did you think was going to go? Well, there's no surprise here: Darrell Hammond and Horatio Sanz received the most votes, with the still-on-maternity-leave Maya Rudolph coming in third. It makes sense; Hammond's been on the show for eons and is basically down to doing impressions of Chris Matthews and Donald Trump, and Sanz is... well, let's just say he's not the most popular member of the cast. The surprise was the lack of votes for Seth Myers, even though his name has been coming up quite a bit in the rumors surrounding Michaels' pronouncement.

Full poll results are after the jump.