Rosie Live Died

Only 5 million people tuned in to watch Rosie Live on NBC last Wednesday. So, there won't be another episode. On her Blog Rosie O'Donnell had very little to say about her cancelled show, simply saying, "There will b no more. No ratings, bad reviews. yet still - a thrill 4 me."

Rosie Live was rolled over in the ratings by Rosie's old nemesis, Barbara Walters and her interview with Barack and Michelle Obama.

There may be other reasons Rosie's show did not do so well. Clay Aiken was one of the guests. That's him next to Rosie in the photo.

Rosie said there'd be no politic talk on her show and that was the case, except for a howdy to Barack Obama, who was visiting Barbara Walters at the time.

Rosie opened her show cracking wise about her weight, saying she was wearing a girdle called Spanz under her black sequined outerwear. She said it was a onsie for chubby fortysomethings.

Liza Minelli helped kick off Rosie Live, singing a duet with Ms. O'Donnell singing "City Lights."

Two 30 Rock actors, that's another NBC show that doesn't do too well, Alec Baldwin and Jane Krakowski, did bits on the show. Baldwin gave Rosie a stage door which Conan O'Brien opened to get a pie in his face.

Ms. Krakowski did a sort of strip tease, prompting Rosie to ask her 13 year old son, "Parker, did you like that strip tease?"

Other guests were singers Ne-Yo, Harry Connick Jr., Gloria Estefan and Alanis Morissette.

Kathy Griffin also showed up. Kathy Griffin is one of favorite TV stars. I think she's an A-Lister.

On Kathy Griffin's My Life on the D-List, at some point in that Bravo TV reality show's latest run, Kathy and entourage dropped in on Rosie O'Donnell. Kathy was looking for advice about, I think, entertaining wounded vets at Walter Reed Hospital. Rosie wanted Kathy to use her connection to Kathy's then boyfriend, Steve Wozniak, to get Rosie into some sort of high tech seminar. If I remember right, in exchange for that, Rosie agreed to get Kathy in to see Cher, backstage in Las Vegas. A phone call was made by Kathy to Wozniak, who agreed to get Rosie in to whatever it was she wanted.

There was a disturbing thing during the Kathy Griffin and entourage visit with Rosie, Rosie insisted they all work on crafts. Rosie's house seemed to be one giant crafts room. Working on crafts is one technique used in mental institutions to give the inmates something to do and to keep them calm. In my limited experience with crafters it seems there is a connection between mental health issues and spending hours working on crafts. I'm pretty sure this isn't the case with Rosie.

TV Celebrity Gossip

It's time for some random Hollywood TV Celebrity Gossip....

LINDA BOLLEA
Poor ol' Hulk Hogan's ex-wife, Linda Bollea, needs more money. Apparently she is unable to get by on the $40,000 a month alimony payments from the ex-husband. I first met Linda on the reality show "Hogan Knows Best." I also met her daughter Brooke and jailbird son Nick. Brooke got her own reality show, the name of which escapes me. If Linda needs money maybe she could get her own reality show again. Or sell some of her pets. Too many pets, including a monkey, seemed to be Linda's one character oddity.

JOEY FATONE
The former NSYNCer bandboy mate of Lance Bass trashed talked the dance moves of Lance and Kim Kardashian, saying Lance "had to have two Red Bulls before doing the jive." Joey Fatone came in second on his season of Dancing With the Stars. This Two Bulls remark does not seem to be very bad trash talking, to me. Now, if Joey had said Lance dances, at times, like a bug-eyed fruitcake, now those might be some fighting words.

KIEFER SUTHERLAND
24's Jack Bauer regularly gets put through a living hell of torture and other forms of mayhem. But that's acting. In real life Kiefer didn't take too well to the torture of being in jail, saying "The lights never go out, 24/7. You can't even put your head under a blanket. All the cells have cameras in them."

PARIS HILTON
Paris ended up in tears, again, when she was booed while being introduced to the crowd at a friend's birthday party. Paris left the party without taking the stage. I don't know why dear Paris was put through this living hell. And where was her new BFF? Isn't the Paris Hilton: Search for a New BFF over?

PADMA LAKSHMI
Last Wednesday's Top Chef was all about cooking Thanksgiving Dinner for the Foo Fighters. The chefs who's food the Foos liked best got to go to their concert. Apparently everyone's favorite Top Chef host, Padma, got all rocking and rolling too, including going backstage with the band, where drummer, Taylor Hawkins, couldn't stop himself from doing some heavy duty flirting with Padma. But, despite a valiant effort, Taylor was unable to shake loose Padma's phone number.

DEREK HOUGH
The just completed Dancing With the Stars' winner, Derek Hough, he the professional half of the Star Winner, Brooke Burke's team, says the reputed feud between him and Warren Sapp was blown way out of proportion. Supposedly the pair got into a fight when Sapp interrupted Hough's rehearsal. Yeah, this sounds like real good feud material.

KATHERINE HEIGL
The annoying Izzy girl from Grey's Anatomy is such a McDonalds addict that she went to Mickey Ds while out celebrating her 30th birthday. I don't know if she had a McDreamy Big Mac or a McSteamy Fish Sandwich.

BILLY RAY CYRUS
The achy breaky boy got a tattoo last week. Billy took his daughter Miley and Miley's boyfriend, Justin Gaston, along to watch. But, Perez Hilton claims that Miley and the boyfriend got real busy smooching while Miley's dad suffered in pain, in more ways than one.

MARTHA STEWART
Every ones favorite homemaking jailbird still talks to all the friends she made during her unfortunate incarceration at the Alderson, West Virginia Federal Prison known as Camp Cupcake. Ms. Stewart says, "There are some very interesting women there of great value to society, and I keep in contact with them."

Well, there you go. That's my TV Celebrity Gossip for today.

Nielsen Ratings November 17th-23rd

The November sweeps have ended. The Nielsen Ratings Fall Sweeps period runs from Oct. 30-Nov. 26.

The only shows in the Top 20 that I watched are Dancing With the Stars, Survivor & 24: Redemption.

Clearly I need to watch more TV.

I don't even know what NCIS is. Another CSI type show? Why do so many people watch CSI and it's copies? I don't get it. But, I also don't get how a show about ballroom dancing manages to be America's #1 show, even though I do watch that one.

Here are the ratings for the week of November 17th-23rd:

1. Dancing With the Stars (19.6 mil)
2. CSI (18.4 mil)
3. NCIS (18 mil)
4. Dancing with the Stars (17.6 mil)
5. Criminal Minds (16.3 mil)
6. Grey's Anatomy (15.9 mil)
7. The Mentalist (15.8 mil)
8. CSI: Miami (15.5 mil)
9. Two and a Half Men (15.2 mil)
10. Sunday Night Football (15.2 mil)
11. 60 Minutes (14.9 mil)
12. CSI: NY (14.1 mil)
13. House (13.3 mil)
14. Survivor: Gabon (12.5 mil)
15. American Music Awards (12.2 mil)
16. Cold Case (12.1 mil)
17. 24: Redemption (12.1 mil)
18. Without a Trace (11.9 mil)
19. Dancing with the Stars Recap (11.6 mil)
20. The Mentalist (repeat) (11.5 mil)

Top Chef Foo Fighters Thanksgiving

I'm liking Bravo's Top Chef 5 a lot. It seems like everything about Top Chef as been amped up a bit. Maybe it is due to being in New York City. I don't recollect the chefs being thrown so many curves and twists in previous seasons.

The guest judge in Episode 3 was this wiry little guy with a bad goatee, named Grant Achatz. He's an American chef who the James Beard Foundation recently named as Best Chef in the United States for 2008.

For the Quickfire the chefs had to make a recipe found in the Top Chef cookbook. Then part way in Padma threw them a curve and told them to make soup out of what they'd already cooked. We saw a lot of Swanson's Broth being opened and poured. Swanson's Broth was the sponsor of this episode. Leah's soup won the Quickfire, despite it containing white asparagus, an ingredient she did not like.

For the Elimination Challenge the chefs are told they will be preparing Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters and their entourage of about 60. As the Quickfire winner, Leah gets to pick her team. She picked both of the Europeans, the sort of annoying Stephan and the funny, likable Italian, Fabio.

Ariane cooked the turkey for the non-Leah team. Everyone liked Ariane's turkey the best, but overall her team was judged by the Foos and the judges to not be the winner. That meant the Leah team got to go to the Foo Fighters concert while the losing team washed dishes.

The chefs had to cook the Thanksgiving dinner at the concert location. With no kitchen. They cooked outside with only a single burner, microwaves and toaster ovens. Eugene made a makeshift BBQ. I like Eugene. He seems to be one of the better chefs. His BBQed pork went over well. As if all the twists being thrown at them weren't challenge enough, Mother Nature made it tough on the chefs too. By raining.

The desserts, as they so often are, were the downfall of the losing team. Richard made some twisted version of 'smores. I have never liked 'smores. No one liked Richard's 'smores. Carla, who is really amusing, made some sort of pie thing that the judges didn't hate. But they all hated Jeff's strange parfait. One of the Foos called it barfait. Those Foos are funny boys.

So, it ended up with Richard packing his knives and going home due to his 'smores. He cried quite a bit. This leaves only one member left of Team Rainbow. That being Jamie. So far one of the Top Chef staples has been missing. That being drama and fighting. There was some indication in this episode that the Top Chef staple of having at least one very angry lesbian might be brewing, with Jamie getting cranky at Dave for being a slob and dropping food on the floor.

Playboy Does Not Want The Real Housewives Of Atlanta Kim Naked

Kim Zolciak, she of Real Housewives of Atlanta habitual liar fame, has been claiming that she is constantly on the phone negotiating with Playboy over taking her clothes off for a centerfold. And to be on the cover.

Kim told Paper magazine that, "I'm working on shooting a cover of Playboy. I guess 30 ain't that bad."

However, a source at Playboy says, "She is not scheduled to appear in Playboy at this time." The source also pointed out that Playboy rarely guarantees a model that they will be on the cover. You have to be someone like Farrah Fawcett or Pamela Anderson to get a cover shot for certain.

Kim has been a busy girl since the last episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta aired. She has been on the Bonnie Hunt talk show. Kim gave Bonnie a wig.

Kim's ever changing cancer story has her now saying that 3 years ago she worked for a doctor who ran some blood tests because he thought she might have cancer. The tests showed she had some other ailment, which Kim did not identify. And that she was in a coma for 3 weeks. On the reunion show Kim said she got her cancer-free test results while sitting at a Chilis. She did not mention the 3 week coma.

Kim said she did not want to say anything about her tragic illness because her daughters did not know about it. Uh, didn't the daughters notice she was in a coma for 3 weeks? Maybe they just thought their mom was drunker than usual.

Kim once again denied that real estate mogul, Lee Najjar, is the Sugar Daddy she calls Big Papa.

Kim admitted she did not work with Dallas Austin on her upcoming single and album. Kim changed the name of the single from what she said on the reunion show. There she said it was called "Tightrope." Now she says it is called "Two Hearts." And is about her daughters.

I imagine Kim realized she had to drop the Dallas Austin habitual lie when he put all over his MySpace webpages, "Dallas Austin is NOT working with Kim!"

24: Redemption Kill The Cockroach

I got around to watching 24: Redemption last night. It was 2 hours of classic 24. Very slickly done, looked like it would have worked as a movie in a theater.

An R-Rated movie, due to violence, including gun-toting, machete wielding, head chopping little kids and one 24 staple, that being Jack Bauer getting tortured.

At the start of the movie we see kids being kidnapped and then indoctrinated into a rebel militia in the non-existent African country of Sangala. At the rather brutal indoctrination we see one of the rebel leaders exhorting the kids to kill. We see kids practicing with machine guns. Then the rebels drag out some government guy who had been beaten to a bloody pulp. A machete is given to one of the kids, the rebel leader gets them chanting "Kill the Cockroach." The kid with the machete obliges.

It was unsettling.

Meanwhile Jack is working at a camp for orphan boys run by a former agent friend. The agent friend gets word of kids getting kidnapped. He is worried about some of his boys who were playing soccer nearby. Too late. The rebels had already been there, taken the boys, shooting 2, killing one.

The agent friend rushes back to his camp, calling Jack on the way, telling him to get the kids in the shelter. That is barely accomplished when the rebels arrives. Soon, Jack goes all Jack Bauer on them. That means there was a lot of killing.

Eventually the rebels catch Jack, and while they torture him to get him to tell them where the kids are, the agent friend flashes a signal. Jack then points the rebels towards the signal. The agent friend then goes all Jack Bauer on the rebels, killing all of them and freeing Jack.

They get the kids out of the shelter, along with the cowardly UN peacekeeper. They get on a bus and make haste for the safety of the capital and the U.S. Embassy.

Unbeknownst to Jack, back in the U.S., the President has ordered the evacuation of Americans.

Oh. I forgot a plot point. A government guy showed up at Jack's camp to serve him with a subpoena ordering Jack back to D.C. to testify before congress. Jack refuses. This plot point figures big in the coming season of 24.

After traveling in the bus for several miles they realize they have to hoof it because the rebels have the roads to the capital blocked.

Soon a helicopter is chasing them, firing machine guns at the running boys. The helicopter lands. As they run through the woods one of the boys steps on a mine. The agent friend tells the kid not to move and puts himself on the mine so the kid can get away. Soon the rebels find the agent friend, demand to know where the kids are, when he won't answer the rebel shoots the guy a couple times. Then the agent friend tells the rebel to go to hell as the mine goes off, killing all of them.

Jack and the kids make it to the city, but then are ambushed by rebels determined to avenge the death of one of the rebel leader's brother. One of the countless rebels Jack had killed during the 2 hours. Jack dispatches the rebel ambushers til there is only one, a little kid pointing a machine gun at Jack and repeating "Kill the Cockroach" over and over again. Jack talks him out of the gun.

They make it to the gates of the embassy, which is in pure Fall of Saigon mayhem mode. The subpoena server shows up. The only way the subpoena server will rescue the kids is if Jack gives himself up. After a bit of back and forth Jack gives in. Everyone gets on a helicopter and is heading to America.

There were several sub-plots back in D.C. during the movie that must figure in the new season of 24. The new President's son is one. Jon Voight is a bad man who sold the rebels the arms that allowed them to be rebels again, after having been previously beaten.

Anyway, 24: Redemption held my attention for 2 hours. That doesn't happen all that often. And after the movie was over a strange thing happened. I went in my kitchen and there was a cockroach on the floor. I killed the cockroach. I'd never seen a cockroach in here before. Unsettling.