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Wow, I never thought they would kill off Diane either. That was horrible. I don't know what else to say, oh except we don't know what Gibbs is seeing the doctor about. He made some mention of "headaches" so probably some major scare on top of this?

Hi shapeshifter, I currently have both cable and over-the-air with my Tivo, but I do like to watch some channels OTA, either because they come in better (or aren't on cable) or because I can record them from Tivo to my PC which TWC won't let me do. Regarding your question, the place I go for this kind of thing is AVS Forum, here's the link for Chicago over the air questions: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/45-local-hdtv-info-reception/815397-chicago-il-ota-408.html I had the worst time trying to get METV from Times Square - about 2 miles away - till someone at AVS Forum suggested putting the rabbit ears antenna in the window with the "ears" as horizontal as possible. Whether that will work for you I'm not sure but if the leaf isn't working maybe a pair of $25 rabbit ears like those I got from Radio Shack is worth a try? Oh I and I watch ION too, when I get a chance to re-view some of my favorite Law and Order Criminal Intent episodes...trying to stay on topic, heh.

Maybe this is the best place to mention this - apparently the producers of the show got the idea of asking Suzanne Pleshette to play Emily after seeing her chemistry with Newhart when they happened to be guests on the same Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Ironically, I don't think that would happen today since it seems every single late night show keeps their guests from sitting down together now. I don't understand why, it used to create some very funny situations in the old days.

I guess we can stretch this thread to include Retro TV? I found out on another forum that they have started transmitting over the air in the New York City area on Channel 42-7. Any way, I have been tuning in at 6PM on Fridays to watch Soupy Sales. Sadly, it's not the black and white show from his 1960s New York heyday - I guess I couldn't have expected that since most of those films were said to have been trashed by the channel (!) without Soupy's knowledge. What they are showing is a later color version of his show from the 1970s I think. While it's not so wild and crazy, it does have its moments, especially when Soupy's love of jazz and R and B come through. On tonight's show Pookie the lion puppet lip-synched (if a lion puppet can do that) to a rollicking R and B version of You Made Me Love You, and then Soupy proudly introduced his musical guest B.B. King! I bring all this up for anyone interested, I wish they would run a few of the remaining 60s episodes, but I imagine most are gone (and yes the "send me the little green pieces of paper" New Year's day show did happen, I saw it!).

Well they are an over the air broadcaster and I have occasionally had that problem with them even when they are being carried by a cable company. Don't know why but it did happen to me too with Cablevision. ETA: Oh you said over the air, sorry shapeshifter. Sometimes I have to be sure my indoor antenna cables don't overlap with some other wire, it can cause interference. My METV reception was unwatchable over Tivo recently until I took it off the splitter with my regular TV tuner.

Yes, I took particular satisfaction at that when I (also) thought about it later.

But to me it totally fails. My reaction to the ad was, "If she had a 60s hairdo and cool clothes like Barbara Feldon did, it would be fun". But it's a bank so.... ETA to Brattinella, just saw you posted the Get Smart clip, thanks for that! But you can see the woman in the commercial doesn't have the 60s cool of Barbara Feldon/Agent 99 at all - If there was any woman on TV I would have wanted to be as a girl, I think it would have been Agent 99 - but this commercial doesn't have that sense of fun the show did either.

Now that Stephen will have 8-9 months off before his next job at Late Night, I would love to see him in an acting role or two. I think he would be great as one of Sherlock's "irregulars" in Elementary - I could just see him nailing that kind of weird intellectual character. They film that show in New York don't they? Just a thought.

Thanks peeayebee and Galileo908. By the way, it just occurred to me that apparently Meryl Streep wasn't there, too bad because Stephen's interview with her when she was promoting her performance as Julia Child was just hilarious. And speaking of cooking, no Martha Stewart. Now I'm going to be thinking of past guests all day! Have to rewatch Stephen leading the singalong again soon. The whole ending with him in fact, riding off into the night.

Jeff Goldblum / the fly / "dead" rumor! one of my favorites: "The dead can twitter!" I was trying to think of guests who have since passed away - I know Pete Seeger (wasn't he 94 when Stephen interviewed him?) was mentioned, and Maurice Sendak but in nine years there must have been more? Sad I know but my mind's drawing a blank.

I don't dislike Kitty but I do have this same reaction, granted this is my first year watching but it's obvious that she's taking scenes away that would normally be shared with Holmes and Watson. Also, until this week it seemed more common that Kitty was making important discoveries than Joan. I don't see why they can't reduce Kitty's role and increase the Joan/Sherlock scenes for more balance. Sherlock's sadness at no longer being anonymous at the group was really well played I agree.

I'm catching up on recent shows on Hulu (the Smaug appearance was something else!) and I would have liked to see On Notice again, though I think the Threat Down was generally my favorite. Just watched the bit about letting Dewars rename the Report and that was hilarious.

That was an amazing string of performances. thanks for the video!

Well, I was just thinking that really talk show hosts are pretty much expected to work through out the year (though of course they get vacations - I remember when we had the big 2003 summer blackout in the Northeast almost all of them were away so couldn't comment on it) so probably Stephen won't mind having a break to prepare/focus.

I don't think that was the intent. I definitely feel they were bringing the show full circle back to its beginning with the toss to Jon (and I loved the 2010 outtake they threw in - I guess that was never shown before?) I think Stephen ending the show with Alex Trebek wasn't just a goof, I think "all of life's most important answers are in the form of a question" is kind of a mystical thing, I think on some level it was meant to be serious by Stephen. Wonderful ending. I recorded 3 replays because I know how random Comedy Central is with their scheduling and as mentioned above it tends to cut off but I have it all. Will be sure to rewatch. A lot. I also like the comment marceline made about Stephen being nerdy enough to make a perfect fan finale. I really wondered about the speculation that Grimmy would do "Stephen" in but did wonder how would he end the show then? Of course as expected it was a put on and the singalong with all the guests went out on a high. So sweet. I'm glad his family was there too. I guess Amy Sedaris wasn't there? I'm sure we'll see her appear with him on CBS. Thanks for a wonderful show Stephen.

I wasn't expecting the ending either, though maybe I should have been. I was probably distracted not so much by the hackers plot (though I did like seeing Ducky deliberately trying to get them ill looking at the corpse) but by following all the rules and flashbacks. It was really sad, losing a family member is hard enough without it being over Christmas, so I really felt for Tim. Also I'm sorry not to see Jamey Sheridan again, first he gets written out of Law and Order CI and now here. I wish they hadn't taken away his character so soon after Ralph Waite died.

I'm a little surprised to see any variety show being rerun, though from what I remember the Carol Burnett show pretty much had a regular recurring cast. I think usually the problem would be paying the rights for musical numbers, but I guess that isn't an issue since her show was pretty much sketch comedy throughout IIRC.

I just watched this on the rerun, and noticed that in the final scene in Gibbs' basement there is a mug with RALPH in large letters on it. I'm thinking that must be a shout out to Ralph Waite. Didn't see it the first time.

I actually could have sworn the Rube Goldberg intro was totally skipped the last two weeks, at least on the New York City CBS station? I try to turn the channel on early so I don't miss it.

I didn't mind it but i have to agree that the character interactions were better than the mystery which was disappointing considering that the very subject of a centuries old map and possible hidden aspects to it should have been plenty to build a good story on. I also more or less suspected the woman and I didn't know who the actress was either. I do think it would have helped if they had actually had at least one scene with the "old school forger" criminal. Also, it would have been nice to know exactly why Watson guessed the identity of the culprit when she did. I did like that they restored the usual intro to the show this week, they'd dropped it the last two, I suppose due to the episodes having longer running times?

I just missed the Christmas Dobie Gillis ep last night...sigh, will probably be months before they show Dobie again. I remember the colorization controversy, and it makes me think of a thread we had back on TWOP about black and white versus color shows - IMO, the movies and shows that were filmed in black and white, were *meant* to be filmed that way, either just visually, in terms of mood (the noirish, gloomy Fugitive should never have made the switch to color, but I'm sure the network felt compelled to do it) or whatever. Maybe the older Hollywood films and shows were saving money as well by going B/W but I'm sure the directors and cinematographers knew what effects they wanted that way. My 2 cents anyway.

Well, what I've noticed is that they try to show holiday-themed episodes; they ran the two Bob Newhart Thanksgiving shows back to back Monday night. I couldn't wait, for me "Over the River and Through the Woods" is one of the funniest sitcom episodes of all time. Unfortunately Channel 3.10 was breaking up to some degree, so at times I ended up laughing at what I *knew* were the lines. No problem, though, really, I went ahead and bought Season 4 of Bob's show on sale. Anyway, my guess is they may have tried to include other Thanksgiving themed shows this week. I kind of like that METV hasn't fallen victim to the "marathon" syndrome that TV Land and other networks have continually fallen into, I don't even watch some of those channels at all as a result.

It was an interesting episode, though I was distracted as soon as I saw the corrupt attorney representing the weight lifter. I'm sure that was Leslie Hendrix, ME Rogers of the Law and Order franchise! She has an unmistakable voice. To be honest I was also distracted by Watson being out of the episode; I thought she'd show up for the end at least. Sherlock made a big deal to Kitty out of Joan having written about him, then decides to forget it? There seems to be a lot he's not telling Watson. I hope this Kitty arc is going somewhere, at this point I don't know what the point is unless to reflect on the Holmes/Watson relationship, or alter it down the road.

Ha I would love that. Some of the funniest scenes ever in Law and Order Criminal Intent were ones when Goren and Eames would go undercover as a bickering couple. After giving up on episode one this year (I haven't watched the show previously) I have watched each episode and while I found this latest one compelling I agree that it seemed to end totally unresolved (I was waiting for the Part Two announcement also and stunned when it didn't come). I hope they revisit the anti-AI professor and his group at some point. I do like that Holmes and Watson are back on track with their friendship, though I didn't like him not telling her about his plan to force the professor into a confession. Sooner or later she'll have to know what happened anyway even if she would have not gone along with it, and this way she was off to Denmark when something important might have been about to happen.

I enjoyed this one a lot too, I love stories with snowbound backgrounds (the brief threat of a power blackout was intriguing to me also though I hate to go through them!) and I just loved Jamie Bamber's realization of Jake as a smart but adorable and slightly nerdy NSA attorney. The relationship between him and Ellie was believable, his remarking on all the changes in her, her annoyance that he hadn't mentioned the chatter, yet still the trust there. I tend to think of Tony as someone who would annoy me in real life, but MW always makes him so likeable (and ultimately competent) that I forget that thought. By the way I did think of Tony's "Beer" observation before he voiced it, but maybe we were meant to. I agree there were a lot of red herrings but I actually suspected the ultimate villain well ahead of time, and I am not usually good at that, still it it didn't bother me. A really good one, even though I don't believe Gibbs would actually make a snow angel. Heh.