Oh no. It's black Kojak and scary nurse-wife.

Mustard: is there anything it can’t do?

So the Rangers decided that they didn’t really want to win the division and so they tanked their last 5 games to blow the lead and end up with a friggin’ 6 seed in the playoffs again a hometown Devils team. Yeah, New Jersey isn’t exactly that much of a hometown advantage for New York but man oh man, talk about having no momentum going into the playoffs.

The Mets also had a nasty series with the Braves who once again proved that they can suck all year but if they play the Mets, they’re suddenly World Champion caliber. Seriously, back to back 3-hit games? Ouch. But congrats to Julie Franco who just became the oldest person ever to hit a homerun in the majors at 47 in what became the game-winning run against the Padres. And for the 3^rd year in a row, Kaz Matsui’s first at-bat was a homerun. Now if the Mets will please pay attention to Matsui’s historical record after his first at-bats, they’ll sit him the rest of the year.

So tragic news came today when it was announced that Gilmore Girls creator Amy Shermin-Palladino and her husband Dan won’t be coming back for the 7^th and possibly final season of the show. This is like Joss Whedon leaving any of his shows (and if you noticed how unfocused the first half of Buffy season 7 was when he was out working on Firefly, that’ll give you a clue of how negative an effect that could have). This show is seriously going to miss these two.

I’ve read that next season Josh Schwartz is going to “reboot” the O.C. and give it an overhaul by changing some recurring characters to full time and possibly killing off a major one. And honestly, I just don’t think I’ll care. I think the O.C. has gone terminal on me where once an episode Adam Brody gets to shine with one good line and the rest is just pointless. This is especially since I caught a couple “My Name is Earl” episodes and enjoyed them a helluva lot more. The one where Walt from Lost guest stars as a kid who Earl traumatized years ago by accidentally making him think he was the boogie man was hysterical. My dream is for Scrubs to get pulled back with that and the Office and then my Thursdays are going full time to NBC.

I started doing up the episode commentary on the strip (wow, long time since that linked appeared here). But I’ve got episode one done (just click on “turn on commentary” in any chapter and am working on doing episode two. Nothing too special, but if you want a little insight into my madness, this might help you out.

It’s amazing, I’d seen maybe 2 episode of Alias this year before catching the 2 hour return last Wednesday and I knew exactly what was going on. Based on what people have told me about past years, this just really proves this show is ready to head on out. But hey, last Wednesday’s episodes were enjoyable so I’ll watch to the end. It helps that next week Gina Torres (Zoe from Firefly) is back.

News and notes:

Eavesdropdc – because that could be you

Bizarre story going around that JJ Abrams will be directing a Star Trek movie about the early days of the original ST crew with Kirk and Spock and that Damon Lindelof (Lost) will be producing. If this actually happens, that’s one mighty interesting pedigree for a Trek movie.

Slow news week.

Until next time:

“You need to hear this. You need to know what to expect. It will start early.”

“What will?”

“The man's expectations. It starts early, at the wedding actually. At the wedding you are going to have to kiss him.”

“Mama!”

“Then you will be expected to share a bed tonight and when you are in that bed you have to do it with this boy. You're just going to have to do it. Hopefully if you’re lucky like me you'll only have to do it once.”