On Thursday night, it's coming to an end...

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

After fifteen seasons, the finale will air this Thursday night. There will be a one-hour retrospective, and then a two-hour finale immediately following. Thursday night, I'll be on NBC from 8pm-11pm. Why? Because ER is finally going to end. And it will be missed.

Because of its many characters and long history, it is nearly impossible to swiftly cover the basics of this show. Those who were there in the beginning (Carter, Benton, Greene, Lewis, Hathaway, Ross) are no longer there, and many who took part in the middle are long gone, too. We'll never forget treasures like Weaver, Boulet, Corday, Abby, Luka, and Ray. And the same with those nobody really liked... Romano, Moretti, Clemente. And those who weren't around long enough to garner an opinion... like Lucy, Anna, Hope, and Malucci. And Cleo, I always forget about her unless there's a rerun with her on television. This whole final season has really broke the bank bringing back old stars for guest appearances, and trying to wrap-up the stories which have been going on for so long. Abby and Luka had closure, Neela finally found a future,

They killed off Pratt. Neela is moved away. The new Banfield got a baby, which has really been her only storyline since her introduction. Morris got engaged last week. That leaves Sam and Tony, and Brenner. Not the best characters ever, but it should make for an amazingly interesting finale. Carter's been around on-and-off this season, and that's enough to take the breath away from many.

It's hard to believe that they were originally concerned that it would never make it as a primetime show. The writers thought the pilot would never even air. And Crichton's pilot sat a good twenty years before it even got a chance. Oh, and when Doug Ross (played by George Clooney) left in 1999, they began writing the series finale. Yep, ten years ago. Even after it was doing well, they were afraid that it wouldn't last. And producer/writer John Wells hasn't changed the idea of the finale all that much, which is odd when you consider the characters are nowhere near the same as those of a decade ago!

I saved this entry as the last one in this series because it is so near and dear to my heart. How did it get that way? Well, just as 7th Heaven did, ER caught my eye one morning in reruns during the summer. I got hooked seeing the show for two hours a day, and began watching the new episodes in undergrad. I got one of my friends hooked on it too, and we shared Thursday nights together until I got her the first two seasons on DVD, and then we were rather obsessed for a few weeks...

So, what can I say in a situation like this? I already gave a nostalgia for characters, but that doesn't help those who aren't already familiar with the series, and there are at least three times as many characters who've gone unmentioned. Because of the nature of the show, I've rarely gotten attached to the patients, and have very few *favorite* episodes. Aside from encouraging one and all to delve into the series, I'm left with hooking you by mentioning some of my favorite storylines (in no order)... even though this is kinda like a spoiler for those who haven't seen the show from the beginning...

- The end of Greene... his tumor, the operation, and the return. The pain, the sadness, and his life. Oldest daughter Rachel moves in with him, but she's troubled (drugs and such). He spends the end of his days trying to get Rachel back on the right path.
- Carter's addiction to painkillers... after being stabbed on Valentine's Day, Carter develops an addiction to painkillers which lasts a long time. Rehab, AA, the whole nine yards.
- Jeanie Boulet's HIV... she was in a bad marriage, sleeping with Benton, and working as a physical therapist. Husband announces his HIV-status, and she and Benton get tested. Benton is negative, Jeanie is positive. She has a very rough time dealing with her serostatus and working at County, but stays for years. She eventually leaves to be a stay-at-home mother to an HIV-positive adopted baby.
- Peter's devotion to Reese... Reese is Peter's deaf son with an old girlfriend. Battles for custody are fought more than once, but when Carla dies and custody needs to go wither to Peter or to Carla's husband Roger, things get tough. Turns out we don't know who Reese's biological father is, and that Peter commits perjury trying to win custody (which he does).
- Romano's death... well, I'm among the many who loved to hate him. So, when he was killed by a helicopter, I was not only shocked (since he had already had a horrible injury by another helicopter), but kinda glad. He was gone. And only Corday went to his funeral.
- Dr. Lewis's family issues... this is kinda multiple storylines. Susan has a strung-out older sister with a daughter whom Susan must often care for. Susan has horrible relationships, and never did get together with Greene in the way many viewers hoped. She eventually marries and has a baby, and one of my favorite scenes is Susan reciting All the Hippos go Berserk! over the phone.
- Kerry and Henry... Kerry was my favorite character for a long time. Her relationships were so touching. So when her life partner dies, she has to battle for custody of their son, which the partner birthed.
- Carter's departure... it was hard to see him go. But, it was one hell of an episode. Ray and Morris are at a party which injures hundreds of people when the building collapses. Abby has to make the call on whether they'll take casualties at County. Carter treats a patient who he delivered int he very first ER episode. And he passes on the immortal words that have gone from Morgenstern to Greene to Carter to Morris. wha were they? well, I think they'll use them again this week, so I'll leave you in suspense. :-p
- Alex's kidnapping... Alex is Sam's son, and his father comes to kidnap him and Sam by shooting up the ER. It takes a few days for them to return, and after being raped, Sam shoots and kills him. This disturbs Alex, and Sam ends up sending him to a special boarding school after he becomes destructive.
- Tony's "family"... Tony seems to have one close friend, whose daughter (Sara) he has pretty much raised. After her mother dies, Tony takes custody of her, even though he's not her biological parent. He deals with meddling grandparents, an alcoholic father, a failed relationship with Sam (and Julia for that matter), and failed flirtations with Neela, whom he called "Mayday."

Hank's reign ends in two months

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Two months from today, the final episode of King of the Hill will air on FOX. I will be among those counting down the days for when that mess gets taken off the air. Over the past TWELVE YEARS, that show has come on and interrupted an otherwise good Sunday night of television. Some 250 episodes will have aired, and I may never understand how the show has lasted that long. I've never met anyone who watches it regularly, and only a handful of people who don't change the channel immediately when the annoying character voices are heard.

The show takes place in Texas, and, as one might expect, was created by one of the guys who was also behind Beavis and Butthead. The family is pretty simple... Dad Hank works for a propane company, and is very traditional when it comes to male/female roles. Mom Peggy is a substitute teacher for Spanish, but she sucks. She also has huge feet and a bunch of other job-hobbies, like real estate and being a public notary. Son Bobby is a bigger kid, crappy at most sports, and not good in school or socially. Niece Luanne lives with the family since her mom is in jail... she spends a very long time at community college.

The other citizens of Arlen are in a lot of the shows, including Hank's buddies (like Bill and Dale), with whom he drinks beer during the theme song. And Bobby has some friends, Luanne dates some guys, and misogynist Grandpa Cotton Hill is around with his wife Didi and new son whom he names "Good Hank."

Why does the show annoy me? Well, for starters, I can't stand the "this town is all there is in life" mindset. That, and I don't appreciate a Christmas special that includes Grandma having sex on the kitchen table. And let's not forget that Joseph clearly has Native American features, but nobody wants to consider that Recorn might be his biological father. Oh, and Bobby living in the doghouse while the dog lives in the real house (and everyone in the Hill family is fine with that) is disturbing. It also bothers me that FOX and Cartoon Network often disagree about what the individual episodes should be rated (TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, etc)... either language/sexual content/violence exists, or it doesn't... c'mon now.

I've given the show a chance, via Hulu. Some of the Luanne storylines intrigue me, since she's just so dumb that she's funny. I saw a decent episode from Season 10 where Peggy is trying to sell a house that belongs to some really weird people. And a few episodes later there's a plot about a murder-mystery train ride, but that's a flop. And a month or so after that aired, there's a poorly-written episode where Bobby gets transferred to a "special needs" class so that his scores do not bring down the school's average. And I saw the one where Luanne has her baby (apparently she was pregnant for like 3 seasons??), which was mildly amusing because of the tips Peggy has... yikes.

And I won't include a video clip, because I don't want to watch more than one in trying to find a good one, ha.

Next week will be the final segment in this series. To have a say on the new series, be sure to vote TODAY, as the polls close in ten hours!

"You must be my new Secretary"

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

After last week's Reading Rainbow stint, I was considering taking this week to talk about Arthur, as several of his books have been on the show, and the show itself has pretty much kept PBS going, LoL. But, I can't bring myself to do it. I read up on the show for about twenty minutes, and just decided it wasn't interesting enough.

On my "big list" of shows I decided to cover back when I began this series last October, only four remain (after I removed Arthur). I'm also going to ignore Cheers. Although it was exceedingly popular, I didn't really care for it. I've seen a ton of episodes, but mostly because I have a Nick-at-Nite addiction. That, and my very first entry on this blog was about Cheers. And then there were three. I know which one I'm saving for last (and if you know me personally, you can probably guess what it is), which leaves two that have only been on this list for so long because I don't know much about them.

With that said, I now introduce Murphy Brown. It was a CBS show from '88 to '98, and starred Candice Bergen. I'm a big fan of Candice as an actress, and in this show she plays a journalist for a magazine. It got a lot of publicity back in the Bush-Clinton election, as Dan Quayle mentioned it in a speech. Basically, Quayle attempted to argue that the LA Riots were caused because of a "poverty of values" (like unwed motherhood... aka Murphy Brown's character). He didn't like that the show was so widely loved by the American public (it would also be worth mentioning that divorced Murphy gave birth to a boy in May 1992, just a week before Quayle made this speech in San Francisco. Quayle went on to criticize the "lifestyle choice" of a high-paid professional woman, who allegedly "mocked the importance of fathers." And the best that his aides could do to cover this shenanigan up? "He just wanted to stir up a debate about how Hollywood treats family values!" (this last quote is completely my words)

Anyway, now that we've had that introduction (which gives some premise to the plot), I should mention the other "controversial" things about the show. Well, the pilot has Murphy returning to work after a stay in the Betty Ford Clinic, as an alcoholic. In the episode following Dan Quayle's remarks (which ended up being the opening episode for the fifth season), the show addressed Quayle's remarks directly, and in turn made fun of him over the infamous "potatoe" incident (I was all of eight when that took place and remember it vividly) [Bergen personally agreed with Quayle]. Another controversy? The entire tenth season... Murphy deals with breast cancer, and gets attacked by various groups over her use of medical marijuana and her humorous shopping for prosthetic breasts. Oh, and how about the jokes on how Murphy was always moody around the 18th...

Other stuff that went on during the show... Murphy's house was continuously being worked on by Eldin. He does it for seven seasons, then makes an appearance during the final episode as well. Murphy and her friends also hung out at a bar, and the owner even "died" for a while. Murphy's baby (Avery) went through SORAS, and ended up being played by Haley Joel Osment (who, by the way, is somehow TWENTY now!). If you were a fan of the show, I'd love to hear about your experiences. I only made a few attempts to get into it (it played on Nick-at-Nite my final year of undergrad), but was unsuccessful.

The show never started with a theme song, but it did end with one. And, although it was considered very popular during most of its run, the DVD release of the first season did so poorly that future releases are not even being considered at the moment! The show won two Emmys, and Bergen won FIVE. That's a record, and she withdrew her name from future nominations after winning that fifth one. There are very few videos of Murphy Brown on the internet, aside from the episode where she gives birth, LoL. (and if you're still trying to figure out where the title of this post comes from, Murphy went through more than ninety secretaries over the 247 episodes)

For those who follow this in an RSS feed, please bump over to the blog itself for a hot minute and vote for which television topic you'd like to see covered next. If you're on the blog, look left and vote. Even if you're not a regular reader, I'd still appreciate your opinion so I might draw more readers in the future. Thanks. :)

Butterfly in the Sky...

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

... I can fly twice as high...

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't particularly care for Reading Rainbow as a small child. It took me until I was eight or so before I enjoyed the show for the books. Before that, I only liked the field trips. I did always have a thing for the books that featured other cultures (like Native American or Chinese) and would take facts from the books and use them in real life, no lie. And the opening, so great. Both the song and the animation. :)

The show began before I was born, and I was saddened to find out while I was compiling information for this post that it stopped being broadcast in November 2006. For 24 seasons, LeVar would read books to kids, and the show was aimed at getting kids to the library. There was a featurette at the end of every episode that recommended other similar books to the one read that day. There were occasional guest-readers, like Bill Cosby, Michelle Tractenberg, and Hulk Hogan. I'm sad that PBS just couldn't afford to keep going, as the show won 26 Emmys among other awards. But, it was funded heavily be "viewers like you" and while I'd beg my parents every year to pledge something during the PBS telethons, they never did. And I guess other parents gave up, too. :(

While a lot of the books were pretty plain, the later seasons (which I would catch occasionally in college) would include books with themes like poverty and prison, which I think was probably a wake-up call of sorts for the elementary-age viewers. Apparently, the pilot also dealt with financial difficulties, but I haven't seen that one. Reruns ran all the time, so it's kinda bittersweet I never saw the opener.

My Top Ten Favorite Episodes of Reading Rainbow:
10. Perfect the Pig - I really enjoyed the animation in this one. and that fact that Kermit guest-starred. It's about a runt piglet who wants wings.
9. Miss Nelson is Back - kids act up when they have a substitute teacher. oh, and LeVar gets great makeup.
8. Arthur's Eyes - the beginning of the Arthur phenomenon, I imagine. An aarvark that got glasses and dealt with the fear he'd be the geek of the grade.
7. The Bionic Bunny Show - another Arthur special, in a way. Arthur and Buster love Bionic Bunny, and the book talked about how a bunny was made-up to do the show. LeVar showed how he got dressed up for his Star Trek role as well.
6. Unique Monique - a private school has a dress code, and Monique is upset. But she finds a way to show off her style anyway.
5. The Patchwork Quilt - a little girl and her mother take on the family tradition of quilting after grandmother gets sick. It made me wish my grandmother did something really neat that I could learn. Perhaps that's how my interest in my grandmother's genealogy got started...
4. A Chair for My Mother - A family's apartment burns down and the neighborhood helps them save money to get new furniture. Meanwhile, LeVar and some other guys are rehearsing for a musical.
3. Mama Don't Allow - this is an all-time favorite of mine, and one I hope that my future children will love as well. The Weekend Special version also has a special place in my heart. It's set in a bayou of Louisiana, where animals play music (but not at the house, because Mama don't allow that).
2. A Three Hat Day - LeVar visits a hat shop. BUT, when you put on a hat you're transported to a place where someone would wear that hat. A jockey cap takes us to the horse races, an engineer's hat takes us to a model train place, and a goalie's helmet that takes us to the ice! The book is about a man who loves hats and meets his wife in a hat store.

My all-time favorite book that LeVar Burton featured was Meanwhile Back at the Ranch. A farmer is out of town, and we learn about his day while crazy stuff happens back on the ranch as his wife plants potatoes. I really find it hilarious. I can't find an audio, video, or even an image clip of the book, so I'm going to suggest you head over to your local library. The author's name is Trinka Hakes Noble. :)

If I was on Jeopardy! the other day...

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

I've talked about Jeopardy! before, but the other night at the gym I watched a great episode while I was running. It first caught my eye because the three contestants were of interest to me. There was Dan, a PhD student in theatre at Northwestern, who is writing his dissertation on French Closet Dramas. Bing (I loved his name) was a lawyer, and Diane was a bank teller-turned-librarian.

I came in when they were introducing the contestants, so I missed a few answers. BUT, thanks for handy-dandy Jeopardy! Archiver, I caught them at home. If I was playing along, and buzzed in first each time, I would have made $.

Round 1 ($6000, would've been in third place):
1909: got clue 1.
Seinfeld: got clues 1, 3, and 5. missed clue 2
Government Acronyms: got clues 1 and 3. no idea clue 5 existed.
Americana: got clues 1, 2, 3, and 4.
"CU": got clues 1 and 2. missed 3 (stupid mistake) and 4.
Later: got clues 1 and 3

Round 2 ($10,800) (plus $6, 000 from Round 1 = $16,800, would have tied with second-place)
International Playwrights (which, by the way, is a strange category to have when one of the players is getting a doctorate in the subject): got clues 1 and 4 (should have gotten 2 and 5)
TCM (pre-Oscar week movies): got none.
Games in Other Words: got all 5 clues.
I Probably couldn't Paint that: got 1 and 2, should have gotten 3
Let's Visit Cyprus: got none.
Contronyms (words that have meanings that are the opposite of each other): got clues 1, 2, 3. should have gotten 5.

I would have missed the Final Jeopardy! Question, so it's hard to say what I would have ended with, since my "placings" didn't take into consideration that if I took that many correct answers, the other players would not have the same scores. I just left their scores the same, which would not have been accurate. Nice time overall. :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaay

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

The Fonz entertained the world for eleven seasons (1974-1984), and was VERY MUCH an idealized decade (to have taken place in the 50s and 60s). My favorite part of Happy Days are the various catchphrases that came out of the show. And no, I'm not referring to "Aaaaaaay" but instead to things like "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome" and "Jump the Shark." The former comes from the fact that Richie and Joanie originally had an older brother (Chuck), but he disappeared without an explanation in the second season (think Judy from Family Matters as well). The latter stems from an episode in which Fonzie waterskis over a shark, and now it refers to any television show that has taken on a drastic move to try and save their audience.

I don't know of another television show that spawned so many spin-offs. Of course there was Joanie Loves Chachi and Laverne and Shirley and The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, but there was also Mork and Mindy, Blanksy's Beauties, and the problematic Out of the Blue which some classify as more of a crossover than a spin-off. In itself, Happy Days stemmed from Love, America Style, and was lucky to make it, since that show became known as the place where "sitcom pilots went to die." Oh, and then you can look at Arnold's character, who leaves the show to do Mr. T and Tina, which was a spin-off of Welcome Back, Kotter.

Let's review the stereotypes in the show. Dad owned a business and sat around reading a newspaper in his favorite chair. Mom was a homemaker... and that's it. Richie was a naive schoolboy who joined the army. Joanie was boy-crazy. Fonzie could make anything cool, although he did play that bad-boy, high school dropout, leather-clad teen. The show took place in Wisconsin (which makes me giggle when you consider other shows form this locale... That 70s Show and Step by Step). While clothing and storylines pretty much fit the 1950s, hairstyles didn't, mostly those of the male characters. Oh, and digital watches shouldn't be in the show, shame on the director for that.

I actually can't stand the show, and therefore have only seen like ten episodes. MAYBE. But what always bothers me when it runs on TVLand or Nick at Nite is the two-theme-song thing. They use both "Rock Around the Clock" and the "Monday, Tuesday, Happy Days" song. I know they're for early and late seasons, but it's really annoying. Here are the two different theme songs.


(Season 1)


(Season 8)