Of course, the story would not be complete, satisfying, or must-watch worthy without conflict. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the unusual characters soon come to understand that their special abilities may serve a very special purpose in helping to save humankind from an eventual threat.

Does this sound exciting on paper/in cyberspace or what? Although the show’s premise may seem a bit 4400-ish to some, I can’t wait, especially given a cast that includes cutie pie Hayden Panettiere from the late great Ally McBeal (little Maddie’s all grown up now, incidentally) and Greg Grunberg from the recently departed Alias (Paging Agent Weiss. Paging Agent Weiss.). Panettiere will play a high school cheerleader incapable of breaking, while Grunberg will portray a Los Angeles police officer who can hear other people’s thoughts.

Look for NBC’s Heroes in the fall on Mondays at 9pm EST.

Now comes the sad news via PR Newswire that another one of my favorite TV commercial “personalities,” surreal Baby Bob from those Quiznos adverts, has been given the (baby) boot. It seems the popular sandwich-making business is going in a new salad-based direction with its latest ad campaign and there’s no longer room for the tot—not even on the back seat.

I guess it was inevitable since the U.S. population at least is getting fatter by the second. Still, I’m sure going to miss the creepiest tyke to grace the tube in recent years, not to mention those very special Stephen King moments I experienced the first few times I heard him talking to me oh so oddly from the confines of my TV set.

Bye, hon. :-(

The high point comes with a low(er) point as well, however, since Deal actually drew more viewers overall.

Even so, Dance fans can now brag about how their show was No. 1 this week, as long as they don’t mind leaving out that irrelevant addendum “…on Wednesday night between 9 and 10pm among viewers ranging from 18 to 49 years old.” :-)

Hey, why not? The networks do it all the time.

Even if not, this development is still great news for any viewers who have been waiting for a female detective on the long-running series. Govich certainly proved that she can be stony-faced enough when required on Conviction, often to the point of scariness.

While Govich may not have anything on Mariska Hargitay, Kathryn Erbe, and Annabella Sciorra, the other/first three regular female detectives on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Hargitay) and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Erbe and Sciorra), in the acting or familiarity departments, the newest addition to the L&O family is definitely making some television history of her own now. Here’s hoping she’s up to the task.

T[he] jockeying for a heart transplant is very competitive, and a patient’s position on the transplant list — in addition to the severity of his or her condition — determine the order. However, a prospective heart transplant patient would never sign a Do Not Resuscitate order — surgeons would not operate on such a patient because resuscitation may be necessary at any point.

Second, if a heart assistance pump were disconnected, a loud alarm would sound.

Third, interns could never monitor a sick heart patient for such a prolonged period of time without intervention by at least a nurse, if not a more senior physician. In the show, the interns watch Denny’s heart stop, resuscitate him, give him emergency medication — all without observation or intervention. In real life, such a stunt would be cause for Izzie’s immediate arrest for attempted murder; the other interns would likely be kicked out of the residency program.

It is also unrealistic how little time is spent trying to salvage the first heart that was originally intended for Denny.

My subconscious suspicions about the points mentioned in Dr. Siegel’s informal analysis (since I’m not in the medical field, that’s all I had to rely on while I was watching) are the main reasons why I gave the three-hour, overly long, and totally preposterous second-season finale of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ a resounding “Sucked!” vote. Sure, it’s just fiction and TV, but there’s still a certain standard of believability that needs to be maintained in a drama for sense to be made. What were the writers et al. thinking, turning compassionate but tough-cookie-in-progress Izzie into a driveling, sniveling, hyperventilating, delusional, sickeningly temperamental wreck? Surely there’s a better way to communicate intense feminine emotions than that.

It’s bad enough they killed off Denny. The least the Grey’s Anatomy people could have done was allowed Izzie to demonstrate a bit of composure in the face of such a heartbreaking situation. Women don’t need TV shows reinforcing tired stereotypes by portraying us as instant train wrecks whenever we encounter a critical problem in our personal and professional relationships. One illogical, irresponsible, and profoundly irritating Meredith on the show is more than enough, thank you.

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Personality Parade’s verbatim response to the fan was:

“After getting scores of letters, we called NBC. ‘The show will be back,’ a rep told us. ‘There are several unaired episodes in the can, but we’re uncertain of the broadcast dates.’”

The column then adds:

“Sounds a bit iffy to us. At press time, the network hadn’t announced its cancellations.”

Of course, NBC has revealed its cancellations now, and E-Ring is out. A search for the show on TV Guide.com regarding the information in Personality Parade revealed nothing to confirm or deny it, which likely means it’s a toss-up as to whether or not NBC will broadcast any remaining episodes in the future. In other words, if they feel like it, they will; if they don’t, they won’t. I thought E-Ring fans might like to know either way.

The episode opened interestingly enough, with Doc House and his team of merry interns being confronted by an irate former patient wielding a big fat gun full of real live bullets. We already knew House was gonna take one or a few pieces of steel in the kisser (or some other anatomical part) because the prior promos made sure to indicate that fact.

What the adverts didn’t reveal, however, is that the central medical case of the night, the one besides House’s dilemma that provided the most intrigue and really had me scratching my head and salivating in anticipation of the eventual correct diagnosis, would go completely and vexingly unexplained. I literally almost didn’t care about Mr. Grumpy and his suddenly healed leg and irritating ICU roommate, who, in a nice acerbic twist befitting our star doc, was the guy that put House temporarily out of business.

No, my concern was reserved for the poor man whose tongue was swollen so bad it wouldn’t even fit into his mouth, not to mention his ballistic eyeball (ew!) and most unfortunate explosive encounter with the urinal (double ew!!). How could the people responsible for the show leave viewers in the dark about such a fascinating case? It became pretty obvious what was happening with House when he realized he had imagined meeting the tongue patient’s wife.

Then all the technical babble and emoting from House, Wilson, and Cuddy about House’s miraculously healed leg just sealed the deal, making alert viewers even more conscious that the plot seemed more like wishful or drugged thinking than reality. When the end finally arrived just where I expected it to, with a newly shot House being wheeled into the emergency area surrounded by his frantic posse, my eyes were already rolled halfway to the back of my head. House will certainly survive, of course, but I still hope the third season will offer some sort of closure to the Case of the Guy with the Titanic Tongue, even if he wasn’t really real either.

Highlights included (1) the noble, voluntary death of Tom Grace—apparently still grieving over his dead wife—in the subway tunnel after almost single-handedly saving hundreds of commuters; (2) Marshall sticking it to Sloane by showing he’s a lot tougher than people give him credit for, yanked fingernails be damned; (3) finding out that seemingly imperturbable ace butt-kicker Kelly Peyton is afraid of, heaven help her, snakes (who isn’t?); (4) Sydney finally fed up and blowing Sloane away after he shot her dad Jack, only for Sloane to come back alive and invincible thanks to Rambaldi fever, and then Jack blowing the cave to smithereens with both of them inside so that the only enjoyment it looks like Sloane will be having for eternity is the company of all those rocks and bugs—even the ghost of Nadia walked out on his sorry self; and (5) gleefully watching Mama Bristow, aka Irina Derevko to most folks, get a fitting comeuppance (or should I say downfall?) when she greedily chose to crawl after that little ball, aka The Horizon to Rambaldi freaks.

Among the lowlights were (1) stupid Rachel Gibson opening her front door without bothering to look through the big peephole right in front of her face (I hope government secret agents are only that dumb on TV); (2) cringing in brutal agony as Sydney once again naively whined and pined for her evil mother not to die (I guess some people will just never learn); and (3) suffering a teary-eyed headache when my beloved Jack got shot and then blew himself away to rid the world of psycho Sloane.

It’s over: no more Alias, and as of last Sunday night, no more Charmed. Who will girls look up to on TV now when they need a little bit of reassurance that they, too, can grow up to battle with the best of them, man or woman, and foil evil wherever it raises its ugly head? Charmed certainly may have been cheesy, but I still give it props for putting the strength and prowess of women front and center. Even petite Special Agent Dana Scully was my heroine on The X-Files for her willingness to throw down with anybody that dared to try and walk all over her. Ditto for Alias. Sydney Bristow, Irina Derevko, Anna Espinosa, Allison Doren, Nadia Santos, Renée Rienne, and Kelly Peyton—they were all “my girls,” no matter what side of the divide they fell on, and it was such a rush witnessing their boldness, ingenuity, and, yes, fighting skills as they kept pace with and often surpassed the (big) boys. Thank goodness then that Bones was renewed because it seems capable Dr. Temperance Brennan is just about all we women have got left in prime time to deliver the punches and kicks when the (bad) guys need to remember their place.