Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Yesterday's News

A few TV-related stories I thought were interesting:

* Oprah to appear on Dave - after years of jokes and being "totally out of town," Oprah Winfrey has finally relented to appear on Late Show with David Letterman. Not surprisingly, the musical version of The Color Purple premieres that night. I doubt they'll spend much time reading from the Oprah Log.

Please tell me that the other guest that night is Uma Thurman...

Speaking of Dave, be sure to tune in tomorrow when Dave makes his annual guesses as to what pies his mom made for Thanksgiving dessert. And if you'd like compete in the guessing rather than just watch, you can try to win a pie by submitting your own guesses.

* Simon Cowell no longer on American Idol? It's a possibility, as he's still negotiating his contract with the show and is involved in a lawsuit with show creator Simon Fuller, who claims that Cowell stole the format for his popular British talent/reality show The X Factor. The winner of this year's American Idol also won't be required to sign with Cowell's label, and he's not particularly interested in making a star for someone else.

Assuming he does leave, I'd expect Nigel Lythgoe to step in based on his work on both American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance?. Given that I found the latter show dull and its panel of five judges irritating beyond belief, I don't see such a replacement going well. Based on his performance as a guest judge, I'd rather see Mark McGrath take the spot - he wasn't as cutting as Cowell, but he's more likely to not get involved in a contestant-praising tongue bath than Lythgoe, Randy Jackson, or Paula Abdul.

* Speaking of actual news, Ted Koppel anchored his final episode of Nightline last night. There's some sort of anchor team in place to replace him, and considering that one of the members is noted Michael Jackson interviewer Martin Bashir, I don't have good feelings about the future of the program. Good night and good luck, indeed.

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