TVSquad

If you've been wondering why Anderson Cooper hasn't been on his CNN show this week (I believe Soledad O'Brien has been filling in for him), it's not because he was busy spending the day with Barack Obama for a special episode that airs tonight. It's actually because he had cancer surgery on Monday.

Cooper describes on the Anderson Cooper 360 blog that "a small spot of skin cancer" was removed from under his eye. He says he wasn't even going to mention the surgery, but he still has stitches, and when he returns to the show tonight people would have noticed and he'd have to explain anyway (of course, he's probably still going to explain what's wrong, since I'm sure a lot of people don't read the 360 blog).

Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts will return to the ABC show on Monday.

Roberts underwent surgery last week after discovering she had breast cancer. The surgery went well and Roberts is now awaiting test results to figure out what her next step should be. ABC spokesperson Bridgett Maney says that Roberts is feeling great and is looking forward to getting back to work.

Roberts will be returning at an interesting time, as the newest Nielsen numbers indicate that the ratings for the 18-49 demographic are down 10% for all morning shows (GMA, Today, and The Early Show) compared to the same time last year. Meanwhile, the cable news morning shows have seen increased ratings.

Yeah, you read it right. This will be season 14 of NBC's ER, and probably its last. There were rumors that the show would be renewed for another two years, but they never came to fruition.

Last season brought a number of changes to the Emergency Room over at County General. We were introduced to John Stamos as Tony Gates and Busy Philips as Hope Bobeck and said good-bye to Laura Innes as she left the series and her role as Kerry Weaver. By the end of the season we saw Luka Kovac leave his role as ER chief to be replaced by the more intense Dr. Kevin Moretti (played by Stanley Tucci), Ray Barnett lose both legs to a car accident, and Neela (our favorite object of attention) being trampled upon during a peace rally gone bad

Want to know what will happen to your favorite docs during the (supposed) last season of ER? Well, you can find out after the jump. Oh, by the way . . . .SPOILER WARNING!!!! You have been duly alerted.

David Letterman is actually going to appear on someone else's show. He'll be the first guest to welcome Regis Philbin back to television when he returns this Thursday.

Reeg has been recovering from triple-bypass heart surgery for the last six weeks. Dave and Regis have always had some weird, sort-of love/hate relationship. When Dave has his own heart bypass surgery in 2000, Regis stepped in several times to host for him. Regis did the same when Letterman was out with the shingles in 2003.

Dave didn't step in to host with Regis, but that's probably a good thing because I think Dave would've killed Kelly Ripa on live television. And he doesn't exactly have a sunny disposition to match the cheerful morning show. According to his IMDB bio, the last time Dave was on Regis' show was in 2004 when Kathie Lee was still co-hosting.

This morning, Regis Philbin announced to his co-host Kelly Ripa and his audience that he will be having triple heart bypass surgery later this week. He said he's been having chest pain and shortness of breath and "all those little symptoms you hear about". Reg, 75, would've preferred an angioplasty, he said, but there's too much plaque build-up in his arteries so major surgery is necessary. To lighten the mood, Kelly offered to be Regis' nurse and give him sponge baths.

It's not yet clear who is going to fill in for Regis, or for how long. It will probably be a rotating list of celebrity hosts. I can only hope that David Letterman will make an appearance or two- since Regis was so supportive and filled in for him when he had his quintuple bypass 7 years ago.

(S13E06) So, in the case of Ames vs. Kovac, the jury found in favor of the defendant. Shocker. What, Luka gets to keep his job? What will ER do now? Hi, I'm Jen, and I am reviewing ER this week for Rich Keller, who has a really cool gig tonight. In the interest of full disclosure, despite my opening snarkiness, I am a fervent, weekly fan of ER, and have been for years.

(S01E05) This show is just too formulaic. It's not that the plots aren't a tad innovative - not just hostages at a bank but hostages in a airport control tower, a diner, and in this episode, a hospital operating room - it's just that the structure is just so formulaic and tedious. Guy with a gun takes over a place, the only two hostage negotiators in L.A. are called in, one of them calls the guy with the gun, things seem to be about to go well, then someone screws it up and this pisses off the guy with the gun and it makes everything harder for the FBI team. So they have to work harder to figure out what is motivating the guy, by going into his past (with the help of the cute girl with the Apple laptop back at HQ). That's pretty much what happens.

Not sure how this story didn't catch my attention sooner: yesterday, representatives of Farrah Fawcett announced that the former Charlie's Angels star has been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Fawcett is currently undergoing radiation treatments in preparation for surgery and chemotherapy. According to Extra, she is apparently trying to keep a normal routine, as the show documents the fact that she worked out with longtime boyfriend Ryan O'Neal on Monday. But I'm sure she's freaking out a little about what she's about to face. I sure would be.

The article goes on to point out that Fawcett was the spokesperson for the American Cancer Society in the 1980s. Her older sister died of lung cancer eight years ago.

If I tried, I couldn't make this up. People reports that former Idol contestant Elliott Yamin is recovering from surgery for a broken finger. That's all well and good, but the bizarre part is how he broke his finger. Apparently, after a night out, Yamin was picking up rocks and throwing them at a sign. Somehow he managed to get his finger "caught on a rod holding down a rock."

The hell? How big was that rock? When I go out for a round of throwing rocks at signs I generally stick to the smaller stones. They are generally much less likely to be rooted to the earth with rebar. A plate, two screws, and a cast later Elliott seems to be on the road to recovery.

Oh, man. Poor Judy Reyes, who plays 'Carla' on Scrubs, has fractured her pelvis. That's supposedly a very painful break. A rep for Reyes tells People that she had an "accidentall fall" at her home on Wednesday. Apparently she didn't realize she was in that bad of shape until she went to the Scrubs set on Thursday, where she was in a lot of pain. Reyes ended up having surgery to set her pelvis later that day and she is supposed to be released from the hospital today. Reyes will be on crutches for at least six weeks. Luckily, Scrubs isn't on the fall schedule so the shooting schedule can be moved around to accomodate Reyes' recovery.

I can't even begin to understand how this happened. David Hasselhoff, currently seen on NBC as a judge for the horribly-titled but surprisingly entertaining America's Got Talent, had an accident in a the bathroom of a London gym yesterday that resulted in him having surgery. A spokesperson says Hasselhoff was shaving in the bathroom when he hit his head on a chandelier and glass showered down on him. At least one piece actually severed a tendon on his right arm. Ouch, that's a deep cut. Hasselhoff is already out of surgery and is recovering. Tomorrow, he'll resume filming an ad campaign for British internet company, Pipex.

My first reaction is: 'A chandelier in the bathroom? That has to be one nice gym.' My second is: 'What had to happen for his head to make contact with the chandelier? Was it low? Was he jumping?'

When this episode ended, I just wanted to turn off my TV. I knew that nothing coming after it could possibly approach my now-heightened television standards. This show now ranks in my top-five list, greatest hours of TV ever. Seriously.

And it wasn't just the dramatic circumstances - the bomb inside a patient, the impending birth of Bailey's son, the threatened death of her husband, the sexual tension between Alex and Izzie, the looove tension between Shepherd and Meredith, Burke and Cristina. It was the film work, the emotion, the music, the heart-stopping fear and love and agony and ... just wow. And the shower scene, my lord, that was truly great stuff. Every bit of dirt that sullied my conscience after loving the shower scene that opened last week's episode was [yes I'm conscious of my double entendre] washed away.

Thanks, ABC, for advertising the Season 1 DVD at the end of this episode! Great. 'cause all I want is the DVD of this season now.

Katherine Heigl, who plays Izzie on Grey's Anatomy, is dropping hints about what's going to happen during the second half of the season at Seattle Grace Hospital. Stop reading here if you don't want to know any more.

Heigl says her character is going to be involved in a love triangle, there is some sort of prom episode coming up, and she also says that someone is going to leave the show. That last revelation comes as no big surprise to me as it is becoming painfully obvious that they are going to get rid of a certain intern whom I will not name. Fine by me, as that character has pretty much run its course. There's always the possibility that they will boot Addison Shepherd off the show but I find that extremely unlikely considering all the drama she causes among the interns. Plus, I'm rooting for her in the other love triangle. What Katherine doesn't do is reveal the big question that everybody seems to want to know: will Meredith and Dr. McDreamy reunite?

The next new episode of Lost isn't until Wednesday, January 11th, so ABC is kindly airing a recap of the season so far. It airs at 8 pm on January 11th, and is called "Revelations," and then the new episode about Eko and his stick, called "The 23rd Psalm", airs at 9 pm the same night. By then, we will have gone for six whole weeks without a new episode of Lost! If you've never seen Lost, but you want to get in on the excitement, I would recommend watching the DVDs for Season One and then watching the recap. You can also read recaps of all this season's episodes here.

And, if you're like Ryan, and you're wondering what all the excitment is over Grey's Anatomy, ABC is also airing a recap episode of that show on Sunday, Jan. 8th at 10 pm. The next new episode of Grey's is a week later. This won't be nearly as hard to catch up on as it will be to catch up on Lost. Basically, Meredith Grey is a really skinny surgical intern in Seattle who had an affair with another surgeon who is married. She has pretty much spent this whole season pouting about it. Yet, I can't stop watching...