Bastet

Completely. Mr. Steele is a gentleman; he wouldn't sit there and let anyone get pummeled. To nonchalantly watch as Laura takes one for the team is ludicrous.

Miracle Man Hmm, now I have to pick the two I like least, as that's the last of the ones I dislike. Ghost in the Machine Gender Bender

Well, someone did, because it isn't a word.

Or "swap-ortunity." Or "hangry" and whatever else Tina Fey has to say in her AmEx commercial. This trend can fizzle out any time now. Language is dynamic, yes, but it should evolve, not devolve.

Oh, thank heavens I'm not the only one bothered by that.

Or Blanche and cats -- in that "how they met" flashback at the market, Blanche offers to rent the room to Rose, with the cat, because "I like you, and I like cats," but in another episode, she doesn't like them. I think pretty much every time Rose brought an animal home, Blanche was initially resistant, so her not liking cats - or at least not wanting to live with one - is probably the accurate characterization. And now, of course, I have Sophia in my head: "Frankly, I'd rather live with a lesbian than a cat. Unless the lesbian sheds, then I don't know."

B is for Bringing Up Baby, the title of the episode in which the girls care for a pig named Baby, which of course is an allusion to the classic screwball film of the same name, in which Baby is a leopard.

I was ridiculously excited to tune in last night and see they'd cycled back to the beginning. I didn't watch the pilot in real time - the first episode I ever saw was the one with the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match - but I know I'd have been hooked on the show from the start if I had. And for a second episode, Glean is very strong. The actor playing Gwen as an adult does a terrific job playing the anger and lashing out, the trauma of having seen her mom after the explosion, and especially the devastating realization her dad had done it. Church-going People is on today, and the first time I saw that episode was late at night (when TNT ran this and Without a Trace in the wee hours), so I was half asleep and just drifting back into full consciousness when I opened my eyes to see the flashback of the wife coming after her husband. That woman freaked me right out. Thankfully, tonight's block of episodes takes us through A Time to Hate, one of my favorites. The boyfriend and the mother meeting in present day never fails to get me. And I could not love Tinkerbell more.

Shit, I used to eat Denny's while drunk. How bad could White Castle be?

Yeah, he's written pretty awful in that episode. I wouldn't have blamed Laura if she had just kept on walking after she got out of the limo. Four years in and he'd rather fake marry a hooker than be honest with her? Why not just come to her and say, "We've got trouble" and explain the situation with INS? Laura is resourceful, and she doesn't want to lose him personally or professionally; who better to help him figure something out? As much as I hate "season" five, I'm glad it exists, because if Bonds of Steele had been the series finale instead of Steeled With a Kiss it would be pretty hard to imagine them ever getting out of their own way long enough to make a go of things. I will give it this, though: Ever since, whenever I've had the opportunity to say "Hooray for you" in Laura's tone of voice, I've taken it. That scene makes me smile so hard. Stephanie's line delivery during that phone call is pitch perfect. "Hooray for you" when the guy on the phone says who he is, "Are you kidding?" when he asks if Mr. Steele is in, and repeating "The Little Chapel of Perpetual Happiness?!" All with ratty hair hanging in her face and trying to put on sneakers in place of her broken heel. I love her.

Hmph. The Jersey Devil is on my most-liked list for the season. This reminds me of the game with the plusses and minuses we used to play on TWoP. But here we just vote for least favorites, three at a time, and whichever three episodes get the most votes each round get knocked off the list until there's one winner left standing? My votes: Miracle Man Young at Heart Born Again

It's actually September 15, not tomorrow. TCM just extended what was already planned for her 90th birthday.

She wasn't taking off to marry the guy or something; she was going away with him for a weekend. Emptying out one's apartment and not so much as leaving a note seems a rather extreme reaction. She didn't pull that shit when he was deciding whether he wanted to be with Anna again.

While I really enjoy most of this season's episodes, this is where the show started getting in its own way coming up with one reason or another to stymie Steele and Laura's attempts at romance. The end of the season finale, with Laura sitting on his bed staring at the empty closet, was brutal. Him disappearing without a word was always her big fear - and no wonder, given not just his history but hers ... she comes home from school one day and her dad is gone, she comes home from work one day and Wilson has packed up and left ... girlfriend comes by her issues honestly - and now here she is living it.

I like Ruth Hussey, period, but I just love her in The Philadelphia Story. Her delivery of "The little dears" is pitch perfect. I also love young Virginia Weidler as Dinah. Holding your own in that cast is a feat for an adult, let alone a child. But she's a highlight of the film.

I'd have liked to see it once. I wouldn't have wanted the show to suddenly start revolving around their domestic life once they started sleeping together or anything, but simply acknowledging that they were sleeping together and then moving on would have been appreciated. Chris could have looked to the Thin Man films for inspiration if he wanted to keep things mostly off-screen but still acknowledge the nature of the relationship; thanks to the Production Code, we never even saw Nick and Nora in the same bed together, let alone having sex. But there was no doubt they routinely had a good time in bed. Those movies simply dropped in some affectionate banter and let the actors' natural chemistry do the rest. And once XF reached the point of twisting itself in knots to play coy on the whole thing, I was disgusted. And that was just reading about it! Had I still been watching, my TV might not have fared well. And then CC wasted all that time doing the same thing in IWTB for the big "reveal" that they're in bed together. Grow up.

CC seems to have an obsession with non-sexual love, or at least a fixation on the idea that sex sullies romantic love. I'm very glad I am not Mrs. Carter. Anyway, I think the reason writers and actors could get things past him - and he'd come to include them himself - is because he always embraced the notion of their coming to love each other, just not to fall in love with each other. Or at least not sleep together.

I recently discovered that one thanks to another thread here, and I love it. I wonder how many other draft busts they approached who declined to poke fun at themselves, but good on Leinart, Shuler and Bosworth for doing it because it cracks me up.

Bringing Up Baby is one of my favorite movies. Hawks felt, in retrospect, that its one flaw was the lack of a "normal" character; everyone in it is wacky. He'd go back and make someone like the gardener more of a stand-in for the audience, a relatable observer of all the craziness around him. I take his point, but I enjoy it immensely as it is. And I adore Grant with Katharine Hepburn. I love them both individually - in fact, she comes in second to Myrna Loy as my all-time favorite - but together they are even better. Especially in Holiday. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is another DVD that gets some real wear and tear in my house. And, yes, that paint color scene is one of the many reasons why. Here is the TCM Remembers for Lauren Bacall.

As soon as we met the nurse, I knew they'd played a game with the "What does it take to become a foster parent?" promo and was so relieved I could just sit back and enjoy the episode. I still think it was overkill to make Tasha so unbelievably perfect, and given her seemingly endless capabilities they sure didn't do a good job of explaining why she'd suddenly implode upon being placed in a group home when she'd been able to thrive on the streets. Even though I'd have still preferred a scene in the opener in which the pregnancy turned out to be a false positive, I like the low-key way in which the pregnancy has been handled and now finally resolved. Angela was less annoying to me this time around, although I could have done without the "me too" miscarriage story. Not that I want to see Tommy, and I know the show's hands are tied, but his absence was a bit glaring. They should have tossed in reference to contacting Casey, but this show is so far removed from reality that I can't bring myself to care. On with the normal show, please!

Coincidences can be poignant sometimes: About 30 seconds after a friend and I raised a glass to Ms. Bacall tonight, the shuffle mix on my iPod started up Bertie Higgins' Key Largo. You know -- "... We had it all, just like Bogey and Bacall ..." -- that schmaltzy guilty pleasure from the early '80s.

Hopefully, James Garner counts as the first and we're not due for another one.

Well, we can assume TCM will knock it out of the park like usual with its annual In Memoriam segment.

I just saw the news in the TCM thread. She was one of the last of the "living legends" from Hollywood's Golden Age, and someone who stood up for herself and others. An outspoken liberal in Hollywood when that wasn't at all fashionable. She admired many people I admired, and was in turn respected by many I respect. What a loss, but what a life.

Oh, man. She sort of felt like the last of the living legends.