TVSquad

I've been a fan of Tyne Daly going back to her Cagney & Lacey days. I loved that show! It kind of made me want to be a cop - for about three minutes anyway.

So I was ultra excited when I heard she would be playing McDreamy's mom on Grey's Anatomy. Isabelle posted a spoiler about it last week. Apparently, Tyne will be playing Derek's mom, Carolyn, who travels to Seattle to meet Meredith for the first time. You know, I can really see her as Derek's mom. That's good casting.

I've got a little clip below from Access Hollywood, but first, let me sing Tyne's praises for a minute. Here's a woman who never really fit into the Hollywood "mold" (i.e. blonde and/or thin and/or a party animal), and that's probably why she's been working steadily in the entertainment industry for some 50 years. Yes, on her IMDB page, her first credit was "girl" in a TV show called Foreign Intrigue in 1954. She went on to do bit parts in dozens of TV shows until landing the role of Detective Mary Beth Lacey in Cagney & Lacey from 1982 to 1988.

I was really excited about the prospect of Life on Mars coming to ABC television. I speak in the past tense because everything that has happened since that initial announcement has me doubting that ABC's Americanized Life on Mars will ever make it out of the first season. It may not even air six episodes.

There have been production changes, the first pilot was trashed, they've inserted new characters, they've remade the mythology of the show (with the approval of the British creators), and now more news. The character of Annie Norris on Life on Mars will be played by Gretchen Mol. Yes, the beautiful, sexy and very blond Gretchen Mol. (Okay, she can dye her hair.)

I have the ultimate respect for Ms. Mol. She was excellent in 3:10 to Yuma (a really amazing Western that should have gotten some Oscar consideration). I just think she's the wrong choice for the role of Annie.

On my recent visit to the set of Burn Notice, I had the pleasure of meeting the cast, including the irrepressible Bruce Campbell, the plucky Gabrielle Anwar, and the fascinating star of the show, Jeffrey Donovan. They were all wonderful and I was thrilled to participate in a round-table interview with them. However, when I had the chance to shake the hand of Sharon Gless, the Emmy-winning actress who starred in Cagney & Lacey, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill and played amazing characters on Queer as Folk and Nip/Tuck, I have to confess -- I gushed. I couldn't help it. She's Sharon Gless!

I discovered that as brilliant as she is a performer, Sharon Gless is also a class act with the media. She talked about another Cagney & Lacey, Tyne Daly, acting, playing villains, Kim Cattrall and much more. Read on and you'll see -- as I did -- why you'd gush to if you were face-to-face with Sharon Gless.

• At 8, FOX has a new Cops.
• AMC has One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest at 8.
• At 9, FOX has a new America's Most Wanted.
• CNBC has a new Suze Orman Show at 9.
• TV Land has an Andy Griffith Show marathon starting at 9.
• Cartoon Network has a new Naruto at 9, followed by new episodes of Fantastic Four, Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo, and One Piece.
• Also at 9: Sci-Fi has Supergator, about (you guess it) a giant alligator.
• At 10, Garrison Keillor is interviewed on a new episode of C-SPAN's Book TV.
• There's a new Design on a Dime on HGTV at 10.
• BBC America has a new Graham Norton Show at 10, with guests Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey!), and Natalie Imbruglia.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Before you get a copy of this DVD you have to do two things: Watch the TV movie with Loretta Swit as Chris Cagney, and completely forget that Meg Foster ever played the part at all.

The DVD collection of the first season of Cagney & Lacey contains no episodes featuring Meg Foster. This comes as little surprise considering all the drama that accompanied getting C&L on the air in the first place.

As with most DVD collections, this one is really only for original fans of the show. The picture quality has been improved very little, if at all, and the episodes are dripping with '80s cop drama earmarks, but still you can't ignore the groundbreaking plot lines. Aside from the daily struggle Christine & Mary Beth face as female detectives, there are also episodes about drug abuse, date rape and struggles with alcoholism that, for the time, were incredibly ground breaking.

Are you a fan of Cagney and Lacey, or do you just enjoy collecting things that have the words "Cagney" and "Lacey" on them for reasons you can't really explain? If so, I have good news: Cagney and Lacey is coming to DVD. TVShowsOnDVD linked to this USA Today story that reads the DVDs will be out soon, though what exactly those sets will consist of is still unknown.

Cagney and Lacey starred Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless as two female police officers working in a male-dominated profession. Gless replaced actress Meg Foster as Cagney after the first six episodes. The series ran from 1982 to 1988 and was almost canceled after the first season, but was brought back when ratings improved during the summer reruns and fans wrote to CBS in protest. The series actually began in1981 as a made-for-TV movie with Loretta Swit playing the role of Cagney.