TVSquad

She doesn't exactly come off as a Martha Stewart-esque homemaker on the show but Bethenny Frankel really knows her way around the kitchen. The star of Bravo's Real Housewives of New York City has launched her own line of baked goods. The NYC cougar is bringing us vegan cupcakes and other healthy desserts. The line is called Bethenny Bakes and she launched her new company at the Bridge Market Food Emporium in Manhattan on Sunday. Some of the products include lemon cupcakes, banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, fudge chocolate chip muffins, and blueberry muffins. There is no word on whether or not these will be in stores outside of New York.

I wonder if these treats actually taste good. More importantly, I wonder if Bethenny's boyfriend will help her run the business. He lost his Wall Street job as an executive at Patriarch Partners, LLC because he appeared on the show.

It's the end of an era today. One of the longest running syndicated talk shows is airing its last show. The Montel Williams Show wraps today after 17 years of discussion, controversy, interviews and inspiration. But just because the show is ending, that doesn't mean Montel is going away. At the final New York City taping in March, he explained to the adoring throng, "I'm not retiring. I am stopping The Montel Williams Show, but I am not, in any way, shape or form, stopping anything else that I'm doing."

Williams' show has actually been one of the more dignified syndicated daytime talk shows, a step above Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, but not quite The View or Ellen DeGeneres. His style could be compared to Phil Donahue, especially in his desire to be a change agent. He really cared about the people who appeared on his program; it wasn't about being a ring leader to a freak show, as Jerry is, or confronting people with DNA tests like Maury does. Montel was not into that stuff.

I've always enjoyed Richard Quest's reporting on CNN (if you don't know the name, the face and voice will remind you who he is). He was the wacky Brit who always had a funny take on politics, current events and pop culture. I thought he was just some crazy, comical Brit reporter. Now we find out that he's a crazy, comical Brit reporter/meth fan.

The New York Times is reporting that Quest was arrested in Central Park at 3:40 this morning. He was originally arrested because the park is closed between the hours of 1am and 6am and he was trespassing, but as he was being taken out of the park by police, he disclosed that he had meth in his pocket. In fact, his exact words were "I have meth in my pocket." At least you have to give him points for honesty and accuracy.

No official reaction from CNN yet, but stay tuned.

[via The Huffington Post]

New York, New York -- a place so big that had to name it twice. Isn't that what they say about the Big Apple? Recently, movie critic Leonard Maltin, host of the ReelzChannel original series Secret's Out named his picks for the 15 greatest New York scenes in movie history. That got me thinking about the television shows that are intimately tied to New York, series that are inextricably New York shows. Whether they are -- or were -- filmed in the city, here's 15 absolutely, positively New York TV shows (in the order in which they debuted!). You don't have to agree with me -- and I may have overlooked one or two (which I urge you to comment and let me know) -- but I have good reasons for every one of my choices!

If you've watched 30 Rock this past season, you've seen how funny actress Edie Falco can be. As C.C. (Celeste Cunningham), she's been a hoot opposite Alec Baldwin. Well, Showtime noticed, and they announced today that the three-time Emmy-winner, best known as Carmela on The Sopranos, will star in a new show for their network. She'll be playing a "strong-willed, iconoclastic New York City nurse juggling the frenzied grind of an urban hospital and an equally challenging personal life" is the 30-minute, single camera, dark comedy.

So there's a writers strike in Hollywood. That doesn't mean you can't see your favorite comedy stars performing!

Stars of NBC's Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock will be performing at the New York Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre on, November 17 and 19, respectively. The SNL show will go on Saturday night at 11:30 (of course) and will feature all of the cast performing sketches from the show. And as an extra added bonus, the show will be hosted by Arrested Development and Superbad star Michael Cera. (Don't even think of getting tickets; this one's sold out.)

The 30 Rock show will go on Monday night at 8 and will feature Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and Jane Krakowski (a very limited number of tickets for this one will be available at the door).

So you probably won't get to see these shows... but maybe you know someone? The shows are a benefit for the WGA.

(S01E12) "Fire him if you want. But I'd keep an eye on him. You never know how loyalty is born." Cooper, to Don, about Pete.

I don't think I'm giving anything away when I tell you that at the end of this episode, Kennedy wins. But it's not really about that anyway, despite the title. The first half of the ep is all about the election and the different pairings we see at the Sterling Cooper all night party - Harry and Hildy, Ken and a secretary, even Sal and Joan, though not in the way you might think - but the second half finally explains what the deep, dark secret is in the past of Don Draper.

And the secret is...

I'm so happy to see Mad Men getting the recognition it deserves. It doesn't get Grey's Anatomy numbers (it's on cable) and it hasn't spawned devoted web sites like Lost, but it's critically-acclaimed, loved by those in the know, and has been given a second season by American Movie Classics. And AMC has some treats in store for fans when the season finale airs on October 18.

(S01E11) "I saw this one where the husband gets this girl pregnant, so he kills her ... you don't want to be that woman." - Rachel's sister, about Rachel's affair with Don.

Several episodes ago, after the episode where Don/Dick was reunited with his younger step-brother Adam, we all wondered if Adam would reappear. Had we seen the last of him? Would he cause more trouble for Don? Would he show up in the season-ending cliffhanger? Those questions were answered in the very first minute of tonight's episode, as Adam gives the hotel clerk a package to mail to Don and then promptly goes to his room and hangs himself.

I was not expecting that.

(S01E10)

"Remember Don...when God closes a door, he opens a dress." - Roger Sterling

I'm having a real hard time trying to figure out if Roger Sterling is just misguided or an out and out sleazeball. He's married and has a daughter he desperately wants to understand, but at the same time he's having an affair with Joan and also tries to boff any cute girl that might come into the office. Or, in the case of tonight's episode, two girls that come into the office. Twins, to be exact, that he chose for a new ad campaign. He even asks them to kiss at each other at one point. Joan's going through that too, with her best friend Carol coming on to her as well, telling her she's been in love with her since college. All of the Mad Men episodes seem to have a theme, and tonight's seems to be "girl on girl action!"

To prepare you for tonight's return (AMC, 10pm) of Mad Men (OK, it was only off for a week, but a week without Mad Men is like a week without brushing your teeth*), Gridskipper has a really fun map showing all of the locations used on the show. They use Google to tell us where Sterling Cooper is located, where Mencken's Department Store is, even where Don and Betty live (Ossining, in Westchester County).

Not all of the locations are 100% accurate, because some of the exact locations haven't been mentioned in the show, but there are some good guesses here to go along with places they actually can pin down, such as The Gaslight Cafe, which was an actual establishment that opened in 1958 (it's the music/poetry place where Midge's beatnik friends take Don and Midge), and the Roosevelt Hotel, where Sal met the sales rep for a drink but couldn't go any further with their liaison.

*I have no idea what this means.

Woo-hoo!

Variety is reporting that American Movie Classics is going to renew the critically-acclaimed 1960 advertising drama Mad Men for a second season. The show is currently nine episodes into its first season.

With all the emotional goings on at TV Squad HQ, I got to thinking that we've gone way too long without putting names to faces. This doesn't just mean the writers -- I also mean you, the readers!

We'd like to get some idea of the interest level of a TV Squad meetup for fans of TV Squad. Want to meet a bunch of the TV Squad team? Meet with other readers and fans of your favorite shows? How about some chances to win some cool free TV stuff and see some of the latest gear? Well, we want to hear from you so we can start putting it together.

I've got a couple of polls after the jump. Please take the time to answer them and leave comments if you've got other ideas. We all think this would be a great idea and, if the first one is a success, we'll do another one in a different location!

UPDATE: We say San Diego because we'd do it during Comic-Con.

(S01E08)

"You know you have to leave the village for a decent screw." - Midge, when asked by a friend where she met Don

So Don gets stoned ("I feel like Dorothy, and everything just turned to color" - must have been his first time) with Midge and her hip beatnik friends and has a flashback of meeting a hobo when he was a kid. That was just one of the revealing moments in this episode, which was really about parties. Midge throws a party with her friends, and Don shows up smokes weed with them. Peggy and the girls and the guys from the office go to P.J. Clarke's to dance and drink (Pete goes too, the hell with helping his wife move into the new apartment), and Sal meets Elliot, one of the sales reps for the lipstick company, at a bar. Elliot makes a play for him (yes, readers, your instincts were correct), but Sal is too scared to do anything about it and just leaves after several drinks.

(S01E07)

"By the way, Matherton? He has the clap." - Pete, to a pretty store clerk.

I have a relative who's an alcoholic, even if he doesn't admit it. But even he doesn't drink as much as Roger Sterling does. My God, did you see how much he sucked down tonight? Straight vodka, whiskey, Martinis with chocolate cake. He even brought in a bottle of vodka as a gift for Don and took a glass - not a cup or bottle, but a glass - of booze and drove home with it. When Don said to him the next day that it looks like he got home OK, I was thinking, you knew he was drinking a lot, so why did you let him drink and drive? Even if it is 1960, the fact that Don wondered if he got home in one piece is proof that drinking and driving was a concern back then too.

I've been going back and forth on whether Roger is a nice, misunderstood guy or a first class jerk. This episode made me tilt a little toward the latter.