TVSquad

When I interviewed Susanne Daniels, the President for Entertainment at the Lifetime Network, she was high on the success of Army Wives, and anxious to bring more comedy to the network.

"Viewers tell us that they love our comedies, our movies, Army Wives. I would argue that more people identify Reba and Will and Grace with our network now than the networks that launched them. And I was at the WB when Reba launched!" she said in TV Week. Well, now she's launching a new comedy, this time for Lifetime.

Lifetime has ordered 13 episodes of a new sitcom called Rita Rocks for this fall and cast Nicole Sullivan as Rita. The show will be part of a one-hour comedy block with Reba. "We've assembled a fantastic team in front of and behind the camera," said Ms. Daniels in a statement today.

(S09E12 / S09E13) Last month, I wrote a post praising The King of Queens for not making their 200th episode into any kind of "special" episode, just doing the same goofy but funny comedy the show has always done. There was no character development, no great revelations, no massive earth-shattering changes, and no story arcs. I expected them to do the same for the finale; just show another day in the life of the Heffernans and fade to black.

We got none of that; in fact, everything I listed above was exactly what we got, not only in this one-hour finale, but the two episodes before that. Drama isn't this show's strong suit, and it made for a finale that was wildly out of character in comparison with the rest of the series.

I have to admit that I judged Jeff Goldblum's new show, Raines, before I even saw it. When I heard the plot description that was scattered about on the web several months ago, I think I actually sighed. Another show about an investigator who speaks to ghosts? Why had this become such a hot genre, like westerns or sitcoms many years ago? Did we really need another one, no matter what big name they had for the lead?

Well, I have to eat my words.

CBS has announced that, after nearly a decade of being on the air, King of Queens will end after its current season runs out in May. Now that Will & Grace and That 70s Show are out of the picture, the program is currently the longest-running sitcom on air

Although the show still experiences some decent success in ratings and only recently got their first Emmy nomination (a nod to star Kevin James, this year), I think it's time to pull the plug. I actually used to find the show relatively enjoyable (compared to similar sitcoms like According to Jim), but the whole "Check out the fat guy with the hot chick!" thing began to wear thin a few seasons ago.

Ooh! Here's an idea: A wacky sitcom all about a fat wife and her super-hot husband. Haha, I'm just kidding... We've already seen that on Roseanne, with Roseanne Barr and that smokin' super-fox John Goodman.

Look, I'm not a doctor; I don't even play one on TV. However, after watching Tuesday night's episode of Scrubs and reading brother Joel's review I got to thinking (which is always a bad idea): was the diagnosis wrong?

Well, no. To recap, in Tuesday's episode three patients at Sacred Heart died after rabies infected organs (liver, heart valve, kidney) were transplanted into their bodies. The organs came from a patient (Jill Tracy, played by Nicole Sullivan) who J.D. (Zach Braff) though passed away from an overdose.

In actuality it seems that the case of rabies-infected organs was 'ripped from the headlines' from an event that occurred in 2004. According to the CNN article,  three recipient patients at three different hospitals in the United States died after the infected organs (one liver and two kidneys) were transplanted. It also turns out that the organ donor also died of rabies, which infects the central nervous system and can cause symptoms such as hypersalivation (foaming at the mouth), insomnia and anxiety.

Rabies is normally not tested for during transplant procedures. More common infectious diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis are more commonly tested.

And you thought you couldn't learn anything from TV.