NUMBERS RUNNING: 4 NOW AND THEN

The number "4" from the 'Lost' sequence showed up twice today in my "toobing": one was from a classic detective drama and the other was so fresh, it only happened ten minutes ago as I write this!

First up, its appearance in the 'Burke's Law' episode "Who Killed Avery Lord?" And then it was the number worn by the winning team of Calvin Borel and Super Saver at the 2010 Kentucky Derby.
(I'll post this once I get up from my pre-work nap and I can get some actual photos from the Derby.....)

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV NEWS: "CAMELOT" CASTING

The History Channel has announced the major cast members for its controversial mini-series on the Kennedy family:

John F. Kennedy - Greg Kinnear

Jacqueline Kennedy - Katie Holmes

Bobby Kennedy - Barry Pepper

Joseph Kennedy, Sr. - Tom Wilkinson

The mini-series is being drubbed because it's being produced by Joel Surnow, the ultra-conservative creator of '24'. However, Stephen Kronish, who claims to be a Democratic liberal, is writing the script.

We'll see what we shall view.....

BCnU!

HUNTIN' PECK

This is one of those posts I call my "days off stories", because it takes so long to work it all out....

'Fringe' has really been delivering the goods this season and a recent episode - "White Tulip" - was a fascinating look at time travel; made even better with the guest performance by Peter Weller as Alistair Peck, an astrophysicist specializing in bio-temporal travel. Basically, he was a home-grown quantum leaper.

But as good as the episode was, there was still a problem with its use of time travel.

Here's what happened: back in 2009, Peck's fiancee died in a horrible car accident. And since then Professor Peck worked on realizing his time travel theories so that he could go back to the accident. (We were led to believe that he wanted to change history by saving her life.) But every time he tried, Peck could only go back to a moment on board a "Mass Transit" train. (Not sure on the actual name of the train system, but I think it was a commuter service like a lower level Amtrak, more like NJ Transit.)

This ended up killing everybody in that train car - his "quantum leap" needed to drain all of the energy in the immediate area upon Peck's arrival and that included the bio-electrical energy in human bodies. With an assist by Walter Bishop, Peck was finally able to get back to before the accident - in time to join his fiancee in the car before the crash and so he died with her.

But here's the thing - what happened to the Alistair Peck of 2009?

On that date, at the time of the crash, Peck was standing in a field looking at a hot-air balloon. He chose to go back to that field so that the energy drain would only kill the surrounding vegetation - the grass and the trees. (No idea where the guy was who was supposed to be tending that hot-air balloon.)

But if he was already there, he would have been killed as well. And that would have negated his whole future, which would have rewritten history or created a parallel timeline. By rights, Peck should have faded from existence as soon as he reached the past if this happened.

Now, let's suppose the 2009 Peck didn't reach that field before the 2010 Peck arrived from the future. He was a genius so it wouldn't be long before he realized that he'd have to change his identity while he continued his research. But the plan of action would alter history as well since he no longer would be following his original timeline. In the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Idiot's Lantern", the Doctor and Rose Tyler were enjoying the neighborhood block party celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on June 2, 1953 at the end of their current adventure....

Out on the street, 50's music is playing, people are out on the street dancing and talking. Trestle tables line the centre of the road covered in pastries, cakes, drinks, etc. The Doctor and Rose walk down the street.

ROSE

We could go down the mall, join in with the crowd.

THE DOCTOR

Nah, that's just pomp and circumstance.

This is history right here.

ROSE

The domestic approach.

THE DOCTOR

Exactly.

[courtesy of the Doctor Who (2005+) Transcripts site]
History isn't just the big events; it's the result of the small interactions we have with other ordinary people. Change just one of those encounters, and history could be affected. It brings to mind that classic example of Chaos Theory - kill a butterfly in the primordial past and you could alter the future timeline.

So if 2009 Peck had to abandon his previous life, that means he could no longer have any interaction with the people he should have met in his previously played-out future - family members, business associates, friends, neighbors, grocery clerks, his doctor and dentist, etc. And those lost encounters would remove the ripple effects which could have led to other "historical" events. Small they may have been, but ultimately they could have led to something of greater impact.

We could use such an alteration to the timeline to splain away any discrepancy in a TV show episode that took place between May 18, 2009, and whenever "White Tulip" took place. (That's a project I have not yet looked into. I was hoping it could be used to wipe out the appearances of Governor Shalvoy from 'Law & Order', but Tom Everett Scott began playing that role in 2008.) So if you think of anything that causes a discrepancy in a TV show after May 19, 2009 (in the Toobworld timeline), let me know. Maybe we can bring that show back into the fold using this rewrite of history.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BUSTER KEATON

BUSTER KEATON

AS SEEN IN:
"Lucy"

AS PLAYED BY:
Ian Mune

You can read about Lucille Ball's association with the legendary silent film star here.

And here's a picture of the real life Buster Keaton with Lucille Ball..... BCnU!

TELE-GENETICS: DUNPHY DADS

I think Fred Willard's appearance as Frank Dunphy on this past week's episode of 'Modern Family' has to be the top contender for Best Tele-Genetics in the 2010 Toobits Awards!

Frank Dunphy Phil & Claire Dunphy

Just sayin', is all......

BCnU!

THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY: PINKY AND DAISY

In order to pay tribute to Dorothy Provine, who passed away this week at the age of 73 (according to the IMDb; I've seen her age listed as 75 as well.), I went to the Paley Center for Media today and watched two episodes of 'The Roaring 20's'. (I would have watched the only other one that they had in the library, but it was on tape and not digital; I would have had to access that from a different terminal.) There were no episodes from her other TV show, 'The Alaskans', which I would have liked to see, nor anything from her guest work on such shows as 'Hawaiian Eye' and '77 Sunset Strip'. (In two episodes separated by several years - "Downbeat" and "Upbeat" - Miss Provine's character of Nora Shirley participated in a crossover between '77 Sunset Strip' and 'Bourbon Street Beat'.)

Dorothy Provine played Delaware "Pinky" Pinkham on 'The Roaring 20's', a flapper entertainer at the Charleston Club in Manhattan, but who also performed in burlesque houses like B.F. Keith's Palace. And it was during her rendtion of "Ain't We Got Fun?", dressed like a hobo, that I had an idea for a "Theory of Relateeveety".

Prohibition ran from 1920 to 1933, but since the show is called 'The Roaring 20's', we'll limit the range of the series to the decade from 1920 to 1930. Allowing that Prohibition was underway for about a year (Everybody seems to have become comfortable with the situation), I'm thinking that Pinky was the same age as Miss Provine when she filmed the series. So Pinky Pinkham was 23 in 1921, and that means she was born in 1898.

It'll be my contention that when she was 15 or 16 years old and before she was professionally known as "Pinky", Delaware Pinkham had a child out of wedlock and either gave it up for adoption, or gave it to a family member to raise.

A child that young having a child of her own is not unheard of. (Consider Nancy from the 'Doctor Who' episodes "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances".) By the age of 15, Pinky could have already embraced the easy morals that would come to be associated with the following decade.

Whether Pinky had any relationship with the child once she gave it up is as unknown as the actual truth to this theory. But either way, the child - a daughter who was given the name of Daisy and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, - grew up to have the same natural talent as her birth mother. (And we got to meet her in the TV series 'Dead Like Me'.)

In her adopted family (or in her foster family if she was raised by a family member), there was another girl whom Daisy considered to be her own sister. (They may have been half-sisters.) During the course of the series, it was suggested that Daisy's sister had been killed by an abusive husband/boyfriend/lover.

Whether she was adopted by a family named "Adair", or it was a stage name she took upon starting her own career, Daisy Adair headed west when she came of age to seek out a career in the movie business.

Sadly, Daisy's life was short-lived. She died at the age of 25, a year after Prohibition ended. (The cause of death was asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation; she would tell people she died giving head to Clark Gable during the making of "Gone With The Wind".) After death, she became a reaper, collecting the souls of those who were about to die violently. Well into the Aughts of this millennium Daisy Adair was still reaping souls.

It is unknown if she ever learned the truth of her birth and that her mother was the entertainer known as Pinky Pinkham. As always, this is all pure conjecture.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: ZDENEK MLYNAR

I think this may be the most obscure entry in the "As Seen On TV" gallery this year....

ZDENEK MLYNAR

AS SEEN IN:
"Invasion"

AS PLAYED BY:
Paul Chapman

From Wikipedia:
Zdenek Mlynár (Müller) (22 June 1930, Vysoké Mýto – 15 April 1997, Vienna) was a Czech intellectual who went against the grain during a critical time in the development of Eastern European political history. Mlynár wrote the noteworthy political manifesto “Towards a Democratic Political Organization of Society” which was released on May 5, 1968, at the height of the Prague Spring. He also wrote, while in exile in Vienna, an autobiographical account of the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion that put an end to it in August, 1968. It was published in an English translation called "Nightfrost in Prague: The End of Humane Socialism".

BCnU!

THE HAT SQUAD: DOROTHY PROVINE

Actress Dorothy Provine has passed away in Washington State. She was 75 and had been in hospice care for emphysema.

For Toobworld, her biggest contribution to the Tele-Folks Directory was Pinky Pinkham, a flapper entertainer in the crime drama 'The Roaring '20s'.

But even though it was from another fictional universe, that of the "Cineverse", this Caretaker of Toobworld will always remember her as Emmaline Marcus-Finch in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Emmaline never wanted to join in on that search for the "Big W", but she was pulled along unwillingly by her older husband, her battle-axe of a mother, and her thick-headed brother. And yet she was the first one to discover the secret of the "Big W".....



As Emmaline, Dorothy Provine was one of my early crushes......
Good night, and may God bless.
BCnU.....

OPEN MIC KNIGHT*

A bit of "serendipiteevee", that fortunate chance to hit a channel at just the right moment......

British Prime Minister made the mistake of talking about a woman he met during his election campaign walk Wednesday through Rochdale... while his lapel mic was still in operation:

While wrapping up the story about the open mic gaffe, Kyra Phillips of CNN then threw it over to Tony Harris who was taking over the anchor chair for the next hour. And Tony's response was something along the lines of "You gotta watch out for those open mics, isn't that right, Kyra?"

He was referring to this incident from about five years ago....



BCnU!

*I don't care if he's not knighted. I'm not going to sacrifice a good pun!

AS SEEN ON TV: BRET MICHAELS

BRET MICHAELS

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Jason Sudeikis

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Doctors plan further testing to help pinpoint the source of the brain hemorrhage that is keeping Bret Michaels in intensive care, according to a post Monday on the rocker's website.

A report from doctors is expected this week. The website doesn't say where Michaels, 47, is hospitalized.

"Please remember Bret is, and always has been, a fighter and survivor and is under the best medical care possible," the post added.

His New York-based publicist, Joann Mignano, on Friday confirmed a report on People magazine's website that said the former Poison frontman was rushed to intensive care late Thursday after a severe headache. Doctors discovered bleeding at the base of his brain stem, the report said.

Michaels is a contestant on Donald Trump's competitive reality show, "The Celebrity Apprentice." He has served as one of the season's most outspoken celebrities and has so far avoided being fired in the boardroom.

At the end of Sunday's episode, an announcer acknowledged his condition and said everyone at NBC "wishes Bret Michaels a speedy recovery."

BCnU.....

HENRY XII: SOME TIDDLEYWINKS & A BIT O' WISH-CRAFT

Another curio from the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Beast Below"......

Before revealing herself to be the Queen on board the Spaceship UK, "Liz 10" told the Doctor how she knew about him from his involvement with past members of her family:

"The Doctor: Old drinking buddy of Henry XII. Tea and scones with Liz Two… Vicky was a bit on the fence with you, wasn’t she? Knighted and exiled you on the same day! And so much for the Virgin Queen, you bad, bad boy!"

We've seen his involvement with Queen Victoria and he mentioned how he married Queen Elizabeth the First to Sigma Ood. As for Queen Elizabeth the Second, it's an easy assumption since she seemed familiar with him when he saved Buckingham Palace from the crash of the starship Titanic.

But like Elizabeth the Tenth, Henry the Twelfth is from sometime in the future of Toobworld. I'm hoping that we'll see his story told someday on the show.

However, it could be that Liz 10 was referring to somebody from her family's past....

From Wikipedia:
Henry the Lion (German: Heinrich der Löwe; 1129 – 6 August 1195) was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180.

He was one of the most powerful German princes of his time, until the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty succeeded in isolating him and eventually deprived him of his duchies of Bavaria and Saxony during the reign of his cousin Frederick I and of Frederick's son and successor Henry VI.

At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, and from Westphalia to Pomerania.

In 1168 Henry married Matilda (1156 -1189), the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and sister of Richard Lionheart.

He was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, stayed with his father-in-law, Henry II of England, in Normandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. He was exiled again in 1188. His wife Matilda died in 1189.

So Henry the XII referred to by Liz 10 might not have been a British monarch at all, but instead a German prince who was an in-law.....

Personally I'm still hoping it's somebody from the future. And as a bit o' Wish-Craft, I'd even sacrifice one of my suggestions for casting a future Doctor to play the role: James Buckley, better known to you Wankers as Jay from 'The Inbetweeners'. I think it would be perfect - Buckley and Matt Smith are close in age, with Buckley only four years younger. I could see him being one of those "boy-kings", reckless and immature, and out for a good time, with the Doctor tagging along at some point to keep him out of trouble. And it could take place in one of those near-futures, maybe from around the era of 'Star Trek', so that they'd still be on Earth but everything would feel... well, futuristic. Or here's another casting suggestion: Bradley James. Same arguments in his defense as those raised for James Buckley, with the added benefit that it might suggest a genetic link all the way back to King Arthur of the 'Camelot legends (as seen in 'Merlin'). Toobworld Central has already decreed that 'Merlin' takes place in an alternate TV dimension, but there's nothing that says Arthur Pendragon of the main Toobworld didn't look like that as a young man.....

That would be my hope anyway.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: SADDAM HUSSEIN

Happy birthday, Saddam Hussein... IN HELL!

SADDAM HUSSEIN

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Phil Hartman

From Wikipedia:
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006 was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power.

As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 through 1988, and throughout the Persian Gulf War of 1991. During these conflicts, Saddam suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs venerated him for his aggressive stance against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians, other Arabs and Western leaders vilified him as the force behind both a deadly attack on northern Iraq in 1988 and, two years later, an invasion of Kuwait to the south.

By 2003, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush perceived that Saddam remained sufficiently relevant and dangerous to be overthrown. In March of that year, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, eventually deposing Saddam. Captured by U.S. forces on 13 December 2003, Saddam was brought to trial under the Iraqi interim government set up by U.S.-led forces. On 5 November 2006, he was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites convicted of planning an assassination attempt against him, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam was executed on 30 December 2006.

BCnU!

WINDER UP

This is a picture of Hawthorne, the Chief Winder in the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Beast Below". I'm not sure if Hawthorne's position was considered a combination of Prime Minister and Chief of the Secret Police.

I doubt this will ever be verified, but I wonder if the name of "Hawthorne" was an in-joke tip of the hat to Nigel Hawthorne. The late actor played the "power behind the throne" (as it were) in the series 'Yes, Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister'. And as Hawthorne was played by Terrence Hardiman, I'm tempted to suggest that either he was a direct descendant of Abbot Radulphus ('Cadfael'), or the Abbot's soul was "born to rerun" all those centuries later..... That's right, I said a "direct" descendant! Come on, even Brother Cadfael had a son! He couldn't have been the only one at St. Winifred's who was monk-ing around!

BCnU!

FOR SHAME, BBC! FOR SHAME!

Just nearly a month after ABC threw the viewers out of the world of 'Lost' with their stupid 'V' countdown clock, the BBC pulled a similar stunt with a cartoon version of Graham Norton across the screen during the pivotal speech by the Doctor in the climax of this week's 'Doctor Who' episode "The Time Of Angels'.

Network suits. Even across "the Pond", they should be nibbled to death by ducks as Harry Reasoner once said.

"If that is a duck pond, why are there no ducks in it?"
The Doctor
'Doctor Who'

SO SAYETH THE QUEEN

I've seen a couple of online pans of Sophie Okonedo's accent as "Queen Liz Ten" in the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Beast Below". (One made me laugh - calling it "Dick Van Dyke bad", a reference to his role as Bert in "Mary Poppins".)

But that would only be a valid complaint if it was an accent from the present day. This episode was set in the 32nd Century (approximately) and who knows how much the accent may have changed in those intervening ages.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: PETER GRAVES

I don't know if you noticed, but there have been a few Phil Hartman impressions from 'Saturday Night Live' showing up in the "As Seen On TV" showcase over the last few days. These have mostly been in connection to specific dates, like with Jack Nicholson's birthday or the closing of Dame Edna's Broadway show earlier this month.

Hopefully you still enjoy seeing them, because it'll be nothing but Phil Hartman impressions when I go on my first vacation of the year!

So here's another one, for Two for Tuesday, which I chose in order to add another tip of the hat to the late Peter Graves....

PETER GRAVES

AS SEEN IN:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Phil Hartman

PETER GRAVES

AS SEEN IN:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Will Ferrell

You can expect another Phil Hartman impression tomorrow!

BCnU!

YOGI, HUCKLEBERRY, & RICKY GERVAIS

I've been enjoying 'The Ricky Gervais Show' on HBO, an animated version of the podcasts produced by Ricky, Stephen Merchant, and the true star of the show, Karl Pilkington.

It's already in line to win several Toobits Awards: Best Tooniverse production, Best League of Themselves (on a technicality of course), and Best Theme Music.

If you've seen the show, then you know what the opening credits look like, especially the title card for the series: So this could all be in my head, but doesn't it remind you of the title cards to two previous classic series in the animation genre? Ricky's "Tooniversion" would fit into the Hanna-Barbera genre, especially. For alls I know, in the Tooniverse he could be descended from Barney Rubble! (And yes, I know Bam Bam Rubble was adopted.)

Just sayin', is all........

BCnU!

WELCOME ABOARD SPACESHIP UK!

(The "Beast Below" has only just aired in the United States, but I've had two weeks to ruminate over various points in the plot since it was first broadcast in Britain.....)

In the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Beast Below", Amy Pond figured that Scotland had to be represented somewhere on Spaceship UK. But young Mandy shot down that idea.

Mandy:
"They wanted their own ship."
Amy:
“Good for them, nothing changes.”

But is that what really happened?

They may have wanted their own ship, but could it be that they never got one? Could it be that the people of Scotland were left behind to fry in the solar flares that swept the Earth?

I'm not the only one to consider this.....

From an online acquaintance (via the blog "The Medium Is Not Enough"), author Marie Phillips posted: (My contrary head was full of questions like how come the whale's tentacles had teeth, and if Scotland really had gone on a "different ship" does that mean that they all died?)

I can't back this up because I can't get too clear an image, but apparently Scotland is represented on the map seen in the Vator that Timmy takes in the opening of the episode:

It could be that the plans were to include a cross-section of Scottish society on board, but there was no time to get them into Spaceship UK.

It's standard practice in Toobworld, that if a character tells you something, then it must be true. But they never present the facts to back up those statements - so how do we know that the Spaceship UK starwhale was the last of its kind? Just because Liz 10 told us so?

When it comes down to it, I've long held that the Doctor himself is a liar, liar, pants on fire - about his age, about the ability to "slide" between dimensions, etc.

This could then be another example. What if there just wasn't room for Scotland, did the same happen to Wales? At least with Northern Ireland, we know it must be on the spaceship - or spaceships - for Ireland, as the Emerald Isle was reunified in 2024 (fourteen years to go!), at least according to 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'.

I find it hard to believe that Great Britain was supposedly unable to get its own spaceship out there before countries like Zimbabwe, Burundi, Eritrea, or Somalia (some of the top ten poorest countries in the world). In fact, I doubt any of them were able to afford to build spaceships at all, let alone get them completed in time before the solar flares swept Earth Prime-Time in the 29th Century. ('Doctor Who' provided the precedent for that occurrence with the second of the Tom Baker stories, "The Ark In Space".)
But like Grandma Esther Walton once said, you say a thing often enough you begin to believe it. Indoctrination in the classrooms by the Smilers would have had the future generations on board Spaceship UK believing that every other country escaped before them. When it's likely that the British took advantage of the arrival of the starwhale and escaped without any concern for the rest of Toobworld. And should anybody later question why they never did come across other spaceships from other countries, maybe those "Winders" in charge would have come up with an excuse like - oh, I don't know... - a giant space goat? (Thank you, Douglas Adams!) And it seems doubtful to me that Spaceship UK would have been big enough to house the entire nation - who knows how much the population expanded by the 29th Century? I'm thinking it was a government-selected cross-section of the population - all of the children, (even captured and tortured, the starwhale would have raised a ruckus otherwise), and qualifying members of society like doctors, agriculturists, nuclear scientists, electrical engineers, historians, mathematicians, phone sanitizers, and sadly, probably the entire government and of course the Royal Family of the time.

(It's part of the movie universe, but a good demonstration of this kind of winnowing of the human population is depicted in "When Worlds Collide".)

The adults that were left behind would have boiled, roasted, or been fricasseed by the solar flares in agonizing pain and torment......

Cheerio!

LOST ON THE FRINGE

In the most recent 'Fringe' episode, "The Man From The Other Side", a known crossing from the alternate TV dimension (apparently being dubbed "the Walternate Universe") played hob with local TV signals. And somebody in that area was recording the frequency at the time.

The dimensional blip lasted only seconds, but the good folks at FringeTelevision.com were able to snare the relevant images from the broadcast....

TV ON THE OTHER SIDE

Several of those shots are pertinent in pointing out the differences between the two dimensions - the glass dome of the White House, the number of stars on the flag - but the 'Lost' frame grabs would appear to be a Zonk.

It's O'Bvious why they were chosen - despite his involvement being in name only on 'Lost', JJ Abrams is the executive producer of 'Fringe' as well and they probably thought it would make for a cool in-joke. (If I remember correctly, there was also a reference to 'Star Trek' that episode.)

But it makes for a Zonk as far as Toobworld goes unless we come up with a splainin. And this is all that I've got: The scene showing Greg Grunberg and Emilie De Ravin was of their characters "the Pilot" and "Claire" - but it was airport security footage somehow picked up and transmitted by the interdimensional anomaly.

If you have anything better, I'm willing to consider it....

BCnU!

DEEP SIX: QUIRKYVILLE, USA

I'm a big fan of quirky small towns only to be found in Toobworld. And even though I've only seen the first episode, I can already tell that the creators of 'Happy Town' have put a lot of thought into making Haplin, Minnesota, a "real" place. They seem to have worked out the town's political structure, history, and economic base. They've even got a fictional movie and its own history to play a role in the story. It looks like we'll be delving deeper into its dark corners, and in all sorts of weather as the season progresses. It may be focused on the mystery of the Magic Man for now, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more aspects of 'Happy Town' in time..

So to celebrate this latest addition to the landscape of Toobworld, here's my Deep Six list of six other fictional small towns that are near and dear to whatever passes for a heart in this ol' caretaker.

1] Hooterville, state unknown
Three bodacious sisters swimming naked in the water tower? Come on!
('Petticoat Junction', 'Green Acres')

2] Fernwood, Ohio
I don't think we'll ever see the full series out on DVD, but I was so invested in this small town that I still hope to finally see the final weeks of 'Forever Fernwood' (which was cruelly terminated by Channel 5 in NYC and replaced with repeats of - 'Hogan's Heroes'!)
('Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman', 'Fernwood 2Nite', 'Forever Fernwood')

3] Cicely, Alaska
If it turned out that people moved to Alaska because of this show, I wouldn't be surprised. They had the quirk down!
('Northern Exposure')

4] Dunn's River, Connecticut
The action didn't stray far from the homes of the Campbells and the Tates, and when it did, they'd end up usually in NYC, but still there is that feeling of "home-town pride" for this former Nutmegger.
('Soap')

5] Twin Peaks, Idaho
Sure, they went overboard with not only the supernatural elements but also the just plain freaky, but even now - twenty years later - the images of the town still come easily to mind.
('Twin Peaks')

6] Rome, Wisconsin
Located in Hogan County, the quirkiness of Rome begins with the fact that there are actually two real towns named Rome in Wisconsin. A lot of strange things happened in Rome, usually concerned with death - intentional nicotine poisoning, pulverized by steamroller, frozen to death in a deep freezer, and a serial bather eloctrocuted in a bathtub. But at its core it was the love story in the family dynamic of the Brock family.
('Picket Fences')

Similar to 'Picket Fences', 'Happy Town' looks like it will have the family of the sheriff at its core, which will also bring the show into the central business of "Our Daily Bread", the bakery corporation. (The deputy sheriff's wife works in the company's public relations.)

Check out the show when it airs this week on the 28th. It may be just the thing to that serialized mystery jones once 'Lost' is over.... BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN WILKES BOOTH

JOHN WILKES BOOTH

AS SEEN IN:
"The Day Lincoln Was Shot"

AS PLAYED BY:
Rob Morrow

From Wikipedia:
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838–April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well known actor. He was also a Confederate sympathizer vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South's defeat in the American Civil War. He strongly opposed the abolition of slavery in the United States and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves.

Following the shooting, Booth fled on horseback to southern Maryland. He eventually made his way to a farm in rural northern Virginia; he was tracked down and killed by Union soldiers 12 days later.

BCnU!

SON OF BLUBBER

As we in America saw earlier tonight on 'Doctor Who', Starship UK was strapped to the back of a giant starwhale. According to Queen Elizabeth the Tenth ("Liz 10"), there used to be millions of these gentle creatures in space, guiding lost space travelers.

There may still be others, somewhere off in the Gamma quadrant, perhaps, but as far as the Space Brits knew, this starwhale was the last of its kind.

I think it's highly likely, and Toobworld Central is going to proclaim it so, that the space whale which found its way through the Rift to end up in Cardiff (as seen in the 'Torchwood' episode "Meat") was of the same general species as the starwhale seen in "The Beast Below".

And sadly, its fate could splain away what happened to all of the other starwhales across the universe.... BCnU!