TVSquad

One of the Golden Girls has died.

Estelle Getty, who played Bea Arthur's mother (even though Arthur was a year older in real life) on the NBC hit comedy Golden Girls (which also starred Betty White and Rue McClanahan), passed away this morning in Los Angeles. Getty was 84 years old and had been suffering from a disease known as Lewy Body Dementia for a number of years.

Getty appeared in several other TV shows over the years, including the Golden Girls spinoff The Golden Palace (which also starred a young Don Cheadle), Empty Nest, Nurses, Brotherly Love, Mad About You, Touched By An Angel, Blossom, Newhart, Hotel, and many others. She also appeared in the movies Tootsie, Mask, Mannequin, and Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!

Interesting trivia: Getty played her Sophia Petrillo character in no less than five different shows: Golden Girls, Empty Nest, The Golden Palace, Nurses, and Blossom. That's gotta be some sort of record. She also played a character named Sophia in an episode of Ladies Man in 2000, though the character had a different last name.

• At 8, ABC has a new episode of The Bachelorette, then the season premiere of The Mole.
• NBC has the Red Wings/Penguins Stanley Cup Game at 8.
• TCM has Sydney Pollack movies starting at 8: The Slender Thread and Three Days of the Condor.
• At 9, Lifetime has the new movie The Capture of the Green River Killer.
• USA has a new Monday Night RAW at 9.
• Discovery has a new Dirty Jobs at 9, followed by a new Verminators.
• GSN has a new World Poker Tour at 9.
• G4 Rewind debuts at 9 on G4.
• Also at 9: TV Land has a Mad About You marathon.
• At 10, VH-1 has the series premiere of Legally Blonde: The Search For Elle Woods.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Although TV fans would know him from his role as Will's dad on Will and Grace, he was also, of course, an acclaimed film director, helming such movies as Three Days of the Condor (one of my favorite films), Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Way We Were, The Firm, Havana, Absence of Malice, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Jeremiah Johnson, and The Interpreter. He also directed several TV shows back in the 60s, including The Fugitive, Ben Casey, Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Defenders, Slattery's People, and many others.

Pollack's other acting roles included spots on The Sopranos, King of the Hill, Frasier, Mad About You, Playhouse 90, and The Twilight Zone, along with the movies Michael Clayton, Eyes Wide Shut, Husbands and Wives, A Civil Action, Death Becomes Her, and The Player. His last acting role was in this year's Made of Honor and his last directing job was 2005's Sketches of Frank Gehry.

Pollack died of cancer this afternoon in Pacific Palisades, CA. He was 73.

Everybody loves lists, even MENSA members.

Jim Werdell, the chairman of the brainy group, has picked what he considers the ten smartest TV shows of all-time. While some of the shows are no-brainers (ha!), I'm not quite sure why he picks some of the shows he does. The full list is after the jump, along with my suggestions for other shows that should be there.

I mean, seriously...Mad About You?!

Veteran comic/director/writer David Steinberg has a lot of stuff going on.

The second season of his TV Land talk show, Sit Down Comedy, began a couple of weeks ago with an interview with Jerry Seinfeld. This Wednesday, Steinberg sits down with Daily Show host Jon Stewart. The show airs at 10pm. The following weeks, Steinberg will interview Garry Shandling and then Ray Romano.

But that's not all: Steinberg also has a book coming out in June, The Book of David. And he's a busy guy in his life as a director too. He's directing his seventh season at Curb Your Enthusiasm, episodes of Campus Ladies, and a pilot for Dane Cook.

There might be a lot of people who aren't familiar with Steinberg since a lot of his work has been behind the camera for a while, but he has quite a resume.

New TV DVDs in stores tomorrow.

• Anything But Love - Vol. 1
• Baywatch - Season 3 (Syndicated)
• Charlie and Lola - Vol. 3
• Charmed - Season 7
• Kate & Allie - Season 3
• Mad About You - Season 3
• Teen Titans - Trouble in Tokyo
• Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles - Season 6

When NBC announced their new Thursday night schedule, a lot of people (including NBC) started to say that this was "Must-See TV" all over again. And not only does Newsday's Verne Gay agree, he thinks that the new schedule is better than the old one.

What do you think? There were many different "Must-See" Thursday night schedules on NBC over the years, so we could pick and choose. Some had Frasier, some had Wings, some had Mad About You. But let's make it an even 10 years ago. The 1996 "Must-See" Thursday night schedule was Friends at 8, The Single Guy at 8:30, Seinfeld at 9, Suddenly Susan at 9:30, and ER at 10. The schedule now is My Name Is Earl at 8, The Office at 8:30, Scrubs at 9, 30 Rock at 9:30, and ER at 10.

• NBC might have canceled its West Wing retrospective for next Sunday, but EW gathers the cast and crew and goes down memory lane. Among the tidbits: Sidney Poitier was the first person talked about to play the President; producers offered Bradley Whitford the role of Sam, but he wanted to play Josh; John Spencer was the first person cast, but Sorkin had originally seen Judd Hirsch as Leo and had to rewrite the character for Spencer; Eugene Levy auditioned to play Toby; CCH Pounder auditioned to play C.J., as did Janel Moloney; and NBC bought the West Wing only if John Wells agreed to also do Third Watch.
  
• Paris Bennett says "Don't be sad."
• Gillian Flynn answers the question: what is the worst show to have a long run?
• New DVDs: they give a B+ to the first and second season DVD set of The Facts of Life, and an A- for the Scrubs third season set.
• Funny review of 7th Heaven by Ken Tucker, calling the series finale flashback "creepy."
• Bruce Campbell gives a guest review of Supernatural. He says it's fun, but it's scare factor is too conservative and the lead actors pose too much.
• A look at the new Lost tie-in book, Bad Twin.

As my newborn son (part of a twin set; the other is a girl) rests in my arms, I just want to take this moment to thank two cable channels for being there for us as we struggled through the sleepless first night home:  Nick@Nite  and The Hallmark Channel.

Yes, I said the Hallmark Channel!

The Hallmark Channel was on during the 11 P.M. till 1 A.M. shift with four episodes of M.A.S.H . When I was younger I never liked the early episodes with Frank Burns, Colonel Blake, and Trapper John. Now I like those more, as well as the first two seasons where Colonel Potter and B.J. Hunnicutt joined the cast (these are the episodes The Hallmark Channel is showing now). Once Frank Burns left and Charles Winchester joined the 4077th the show got a bit too preachy for me, and Col. Potter began to spout too many southern cliches.