Category: Television
RIP Kirstie Alley
Actress Kirstie Alley, best known for her role in the comedy series Cheers, the Look Who’s Talking movies & Star Trek in the 1980s and 90s, has died of cancer at 71, according to a family statement. Her breakout role was as pub manager Rebecca Howe in the NBC sitcom Cheers (1987–1993), for which she received an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe in 1991. From 1997 to 2000, she starred in the sitcom Veronica’s Closet, earning additional Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Alley appeared in various films, including Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Summer School (1987), Shoot to Kill (1988), Look Who’s Talking (1989) and its two sequels (1990–1993), Madhouse (1990), Sibling Rivalry (1990), Village of the Damned (1995), It Takes Two (1995), Deconstructing Harry (1997), For Richer or Poorer (1997), and Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). She won her second Emmy Award in 1994 for the television film David’s Mother. In 1997, Alley received another Emmy nomination for her work in the crime drama series The Last Don.
In 2005, she played a fictionalized version of herself on Showtime’s Fat Actress. She later appeared on Kirstie Alley’s Big Life (2010), and was a contestant on the 12th season of Dancing with the Stars (2011–2012), finishing in second place. In 2013, Alley returned to acting with the title role on the sitcom Kirstie. In 2016, she appeared on the Fox comedy horror series Scream Queens. In 2018, she was a contestant on the 22nd series of the British reality show Celebrity Big Brother, in which she finished as runner-up.
Alley was married from 1970 to 1977 to high-school sweetheart Bob Alley, who coincidentally had the same name as her father. Alley married actor Parker Stevenson on December 22, 1983. Following a miscarriage, the couple adopted son William “True” one week after his October 5, 1992, birth, and in 1995 adopted daughter Lillie. The marriage ended in 1997. In 2016, Alley became a grandmother after her son William had a son of his own.
Y The Last Man (Season 1 Thoughts & Review)
RIP Angela Lansbury
Dame Angela Lansbury, who won international acclaim as the star of the US TV crime series Murder, She Wrote, has died aged 96. The three-time Oscar nominee had a career spanning eight decades, across film, theatre and television. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Tony Awards (including Lifetime Achievement Award), six Golden Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award and the Academy Honorary Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, eighteen Primetime Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Born in 1925, she was one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Dame Angela died in her sleep just five days before her 97th birthday, her family said in a statement.
Lansbury was born to an upper-middle-class family in Central London, the daughter of Irish actress Moyna Macgill and English politician Edgar Lansbury. She moved to the US in 1940, studying acting in New York City. Proceeding to Hollywood in 1942, she signed to MGM and obtained her first film roles, in Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), earning her two Academy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award. She appeared in eleven further MGM films, mostly in minor roles, and after her contract ended in 1952 she began supplementing her cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Her role in the film The Manchurian Candidate (1962) received widespread acclaim and is often cited as one of her career-best performances, earning her a third Academy Award nomination. Moving into musical theatre, Lansbury finally gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), which won her her first Tony Award and established her as a gay icon.
Amidst difficulties in her personal life, Lansbury moved from California to County Cork, Ireland, in 1970, and continued with a variety of theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade. These included leading roles in the stage musicals Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and The King and I, as well as in the hit Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971 – and a personal favourite of mine). Moving into television in 1984, she achieved worldwide fame as fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunit series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running and most popular detective drama series in television history.
Lansbury received an Honorary Academy Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BAFTA, a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award and five additional Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and an Olivier Award. She also was nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress three times, various Primetime Emmy Awards on 18 occasions and a Grammy Award. In 2014, Lansbury was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She was the subject of three biographies.
Lansbury was married twice, first to actor Richard Cromwell, when she was nineteen and Cromwell was 35. They eloped and were married in a small civil ceremony on 27 September 1945. They divorced in 1946, but remained friends until his death in 1960.In 1949, Lansbury married actor and producer Peter Shaw, and they remained together for 54 years until his death in 2003.
Midnight Mass (My Review Of This Netflix Mini-series)
Binge-Watch Or Week-to-Week When Watching Tv Shows?
Do you prefer to binge-watch TV or keep up week-to-week? Why or why not?
I guess I can do both and as I watch 7 to 8 tv shows during the fall season and then others that stream for 2 to 3 months, I balance them out as much as I can. I grew up watching weekly tv show episodes airing on tv and cable for most of my life and only started getting dvds (the cheaper kind first) since 2010. Hence I didn’t binge watch any show until that year and if I am not mistaken the first show that I did binge watch, not the first time I was watching it, was Star Trek Voyager and then Friends.
Now I think I like the binge watching option however that limits how many other shows that I can watch during the week. I usually do not spend as much time watching tv as much as I used to (or want to) and hence I might get 2 to 3 hours a day. Binging makes sense in that case but there are also so many tv shows that come out weekly which I would like to watch and catch up during those days. That makes it hard – also I tend not to watch tv shows on the weekends and instead only watch movies. Maybe I should change that.
Keeping up week to week is also good as it gives you a lot of variety in your shows. During the week you might be watching 1 each of horror, cop drama, medical, comedy, science fiction and adventure – which is exciting in it’s own way. So I guess a mix of both binging & week to week is best for me.
Prompt from 68 Fantastic Daily Writing Prompts for Everyone at Journal Buddies
Midnight Mass
Midnight Mass is an American supernatural horror streaming television miniseries created and directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Zach Gilford, Kate Siegel, Hamish Linklater, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Kristin Lehman, and Henry Thomas. The plot centers on an isolated island community that experiences supernatural events after the arrival of a mysterious priest. A young man returns to his isolated hometown on Crockett Island, hoping to rebuild his life after serving four years in prison for killing someone in a drunk-driving incident. He arrives at the same time as a mysterious, charismatic young priest who begins to revitalise the town’s flagging faith. However, the community’s divisions are soon exacerbated by the priest’s deeds while mysterious events befall the small town.
RIP Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher, the imposing, steely-eyed actress who won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her role as the tyrannical Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, died on Friday at her home in the town of Montdurausse, in Southern France. She was 88. The death was confirmed by her agent, David Shaul, who did not cite a cause. Ms. Fletcher also had a home in Los Angeles. She was also well-known for her recurring role as the Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–99), as well as for her role as Helen Rosemond in the movie Cruel Intentions (1999).
Born in Alabama to two deaf parents, she was initially taught by her aunt. She was nominated for two Emmy Awards for her roles in the television series Picket Fences (1996) and Joan of Arcadia (2004). Her final role was as Rosie in the Netflix series Girlboss (2017). Fletcher began appearing in several television series including Lawman (1958) and Maverick (1959) before her two guest roles in Perry Mason in 1960. She was a relatively unknown 40 year old when she was cast as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).
Since then he made several financially and critically successful films, while others were box-office failures. Her roles in more successful films such as Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lady in Red (1979), Firestarter (1984), Invaders From Mars (1986), Flowers in the Attic (1987), Two Moon Junction (1988), Virtuosity (1995) and Cruel Intentions (1999, as Sebastian’s aunt). Additionally, she played the character Ruth Shorter, a supporting role, in Aurora Borealis (2005), alongside Joshua Jackson and Donald Sutherland, and appeared in the Fox Faith film The Last Sin Eater (2007). She also was in tv movies but her most famous role on tv was as the recurring role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the scheming Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami.
Let me tell you something – I will always associate her as Adami (I have also watched her in Flowers In The Attic & Exorcist II: The Heretic. And I, like most people hate the character. That is a credit to her acting; she really played that role so well. Similarly in Flowers In The Attic she plays another character that I despise but man what a talented actress. I feel a profound sadness on the loss.
RIP ANNE HECHE
The US actor Anne Heche has died, a week after she was critically injured in a car crash. The news was confirmed by a representative for her family to the US online media outlet TMZ. On Friday afternoon representatives for Heche, 53, confirmed she was “brain dead”, which under California law is the definition of death. It was announced earlier in the day Heche would be taken off of life support. It is understood her heartbeat was being maintained in case appropriate organ donation could take place. The American actress who came to recognition portraying twins Vicky Hudson and Marley Love on the soap opera Another World (1987–1991), winning her a Daytime Emmy Award and two Soap Opera Digest Awards.
She came to greater prominence in the late 1990s with roles in the crime drama film Donnie Brasco (1997), the disaster film Volcano (1997), the slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), the action comedy film Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), and the drama-thriller film Return to Paradise (1998). Following her portrayal of Marion Crane in Gus Van Sant’s horror remake film Psycho (1998), which earned her a Saturn Award nomination, Heche went on to have roles in many well-received independent films, such as the drama film Birth (2004), the sex comedy film Spread (2009), Cedar Rapids (2011), the drama film Rampart (2011), and the black comedy film Catfight (2016).
She received acclaim for her role in the television film Gracie’s Choice, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and for her work on Broadway, particularly Twentieth Century, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Heche starred in the comedy drama television series Men in Trees (2006–08), Hung (2009–11), Save Me (2013), Aftermath (2016), and the military drama television series The Brave (2017). Anne has struggled with mental health issues. She was also known for her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres and the events following their breakup became subjects of widespread media interest.
In 2000, Heche reportedly left DeGeneres for Coleman “Coley” Laffoon, a cameraman whom she met the previous year on DeGeneres’s stand-up comedy tour. On September 1, 2001, she and Laffoon married. They divorced on March 4, 2009. She was found to be intoxicated on August 5th when she was involved in a sequence of two car crashes in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, first when the Mini Cooper she was driving hit a garage at an apartment complex, and second when she crashed into a house, resulting in a fire that left her severely burned. She leaves behind two songs – Heche’s eldest son, Homer, 20, released a statement on behalf of himself and his half-brother, Atlas, 13.
Seven Facts About Nichelle Nichols
1. She was the first African–American actress to play a mainstay role on US television and paved the way for other African-American actors in the industry.
2. Nichelle influenced many intergalactic movies with her unique 60s fashion style of skirts and thigh-high boots.
3. Uhura and Captain Kirk shared a kiss on screen that was one of the first interracial kisses to be shown on US television.
4. Nichelle had partnered with NASA to recruit women and those belonging to minorities for their space programme.
5. Nichelle initially had left the cult show for a Broadway play but Martin Luther Jr. was the driving force that made her return to the show. According to Martin, the show portrayed a non-stereotypical character that inspired many that had never been seen on US television before. Nichelle got inspired by his words and decided to keep portraying the character.
6. Her character Uhura became a role model for minority astronauts Sally Ride and Colonel Guion Bluford who were a part of Nichelle’s space programme.
7. The late actress had a soulful voice and a musical resume. In one of the Star Trek episodes, Uhura partners with Spock to treat her crew members to a melodious song.
Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) Sings “Beyond Antares”
Nichelle Nichols The First Lady Of Science Fiction Has Passed Away
Actress and singer Nichelle Nichols, best known for her groundbreaking portrayal of Lt. Nyota Uhura in “Star Trek: The Original Series,” has died at age 89, according to a statement from her son, Kyle Johnson. Nichols died from natural causes, he said. Nichols portrayed communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura in the “Star Trek” TV series and many of its film offshoots. When “Star Trek” began in 1966, Nichols was a television rarity: a Black woman in a notable role on a prime-time television series. There had been African-American women on TV before, but they often played domestic workers and had small roles; Nichols’ Uhura was an integral part of the multicultural “Star Trek” crew.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called it “the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a Black woman in television history.” Nichols is widely known for participating in one of the first interracial kisses on US television when her character kissed James T. Kirk, portrayed by White Canadian actor William Shatner. In an interview with CNN in 2014, Nichols said the kiss scene “changed television forever, and it also changed the way people looked at one another.” After “Trek’s” three-season run, Nichols dedicated herself to the space program. She helped NASA in making the agency more diverse, helping to recruit astronauts Sally Ride, Judith Resnik and Guion Bluford, among others.
George Takei, who portrayed the USS Enterprise’s helmsman Hikaru Sulu, posted a touching tribute to his co-star. “I shall have more to say about the trailblazing, incomparable Nichelle Nichols, who shared the bridge with us as Lt. Uhura of the USS Enterprise, and who passed today at age 89,” wrote Takei on Twitter. “For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend.” NASA tweeted “We celebrate the life of Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek actor, trailblazer, and role model, who symbolized to so many what was possible. She partnered with us to recruit some of the first women and minority astronauts, and inspired generations to reach for the stars.”
Nichols was born Grace Dell Nichols near Chicago in 1932. (Unhappy with Grace, she took the name Nichelle when she was a teenager.) Her grandfather was a White Southerner who married a Black woman, causing a rift in his family. Blessed with a four-octave vocal range, Nichols was performing in local clubs by the time she was 14. Among the performers she met was Duke Ellington, who later took her on tour. She also worked extensively in Chicago clubs and in theater. She moved to Los Angeles in the early ’60s and landed a role in a Gene Roddenberry series, “The Lieutenant.” A number of “Star Trek” veterans, including Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig and Majel Barrett, also worked on the show. When Roddenberry was creating “Trek,” he remembered Nichols. She was in Europe when she got the call.
Nichols was once tempted to leave the series; however, a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. changed her mind. Towards the end of the first season, Nichols was given the opportunity to take a role on Broadway. She preferred the stage to the television studio, so she decided to take the role. Nichols went to Roddenberry’s office, told him that she planned to leave, and handed him her resignation letter. Roddenberry tried to convince Nichols to stay but to no avail, so he told her to take the weekend off and if she still felt that she should leave then he would give her his blessing. But it took Dr. Martin King Jr to convince her to stay on the show. King personally encouraged her to stay on the series, saying she “could not give up” because she was playing a vital role model for Black children and young women across the country, as well as for other children who would see Black people appearing as equals, going so far as to favorably compare her work on the series to the marches of the ongoing civil rights movement.
Former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison has cited Nichols’ role of Lieutenant Uhura as her inspiration for wanting to become an astronaut and Whoopi Goldberg has also spoken of Nichols’ influence. In her role as Lieutenant Uhura, Nichols kissed white actor William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk in the November 22, 1968, Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”. The episode is cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on scripted U.S. television. The Shatner/Nichols kiss was seen as groundbreaking, even though it was portrayed as having been forced by alien telekinesis. There was some praise and almost no dissent. Despite the cancellation of the series in 1969, Star Trek lived on in other ways, and continued to play a part in Nichols’ life. She again provided the voice of Uhura in Star Trek: The Animated Series.
Nichols co-starred in six Star Trek films, the last one being Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Between the end of the original series and the Star Trek animated series and feature films, Nichols appeared in small television and film roles. She briefly appeared as a secretary in Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding! (1967), and portrayed Dorienda, a foul-mouthed madam in Truck Turner (1974) opposite Isaac Hayes. In the comedy film Snow Dogs (2002), Nichols appeared as the mother of the male lead, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. n 2006, she appeared as the title character in the film Lady Magdalene’s, the madam of a legal Nevada brothel in tax default. Nichols released two music albums. Down to Earth is a collection of standards released in 1967, during the original run of Star Trek. Out of This World, released in 1991, is more rock oriented and is themed around Star Trek and space exploration.
In her autobiography, Nichols wrote that she was romantically involved with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry for a few years in the 1960s. She said the affair ended well before Star Trek began, when she realized Roddenberry was also involved with her acquaintance Majel Hudec (known as Majel Barrett). Nichols married twice, first to dancer Foster Johnson (1917–1981). They were married in 1951 and divorced that same year. Johnson and Nichols had one child together, Kyle Johnson, who was born August 14, 1951. She married for the second time to Duke Mondy in 1968. They were divorced in 1972. In early 2018, Nichols was diagnosed with dementia, and subsequently announced her retirement from convention appearances. Asteroid 68410 Nichols is named in her honor. Nichols died of heart failure in Silver City, New Mexico, on July 30, 2022, at the age of 89.
RIP David Warner
David Hattersley Warner (29 July 1941 – 24 July 2022) was an English actor, who worked in film, television, and theatre. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked in the theatre before attaining prominence on screen in 1966 through his lead performance in the Karel Reisz film Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Warner portrayed both romantic leads and villainous characters across a range of media, including The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs, Cross of Iron, The Omen, Holocaust, The Thirty Nine Steps, Time After Time, Time Bandits, Tron, A Christmas Carol, Portrait in Evil, Titanic, Mary Poppins Returns and various characters in the Star Trek franchise, in the films Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-part “Chain of Command” episode.
Warner moved to Hollywood in 1987, where he lived for 15 years. During that time, in addition to Titanic, he was a regular fixture in US television, cropping up in science fiction shows to Twin Peaks and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I will always remember him for his fun role as Prof. Jordan Perry in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, his tragic turn in Omen as the doomed photographer, his role as the human representative St. John Talbot in Star Trek V : The Final Frontier & his awesome portrayal as the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. However most Trekkies will know him from his iconic role as Gul Madred the Cardassian who tortures & interrogates Captain Jean-Luc Picard (there are 4 lights) in the double episode Chain of Command in Star Trek TNG.
Married and divorced twice, he leaves behind 1 child.
Star Trek : Picard Season 3 Cast Images In Teaser Trailer
Ranking The Star Trek Tv Shows
Star Trek is going though a second golden age on television. In that we currently have 5 Trek shows that are running and active on streaming services. Out of those 5, 3 are live action and 2 are animated and one, Picard, is gonna end next year with it’s 3rd and final season that was planned well in advance. Despite Strange New Worlds having just completed their first season and Prodigy having only had 10 of their 20 episodes of the first season aired as of this date, I thought it would be a good time to rate the shows. So here is my list:
- Star Trek : The Next Generation
- Star Trek : Deep Space Nine
- Star Trek : The Original Series
- Star Trek : Enterprise
- Star Trek : Voyager
- Star Trek : Strange New Worlds
- Star Trek : Lower Decks
- Star Trek : Picard
- Star Trek : Prodigy
- Star Trek : Discovery
RIP James Caan
Veteran American actor James Caan, best known for playing Sonny Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, has died at the age of 82. The veteran actor, who also appeared in films like Misery, Thief, and Rollerball, was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Sonny. Caan was awarded a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978. After early roles in Howard Hawks’s El Dorado (1966), Robert Altman’s Countdown (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People (1969), he came to prominence playing his signature role of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (1972), following which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He reprised the role of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974) with a cameo appearance at the end.
Caan was born on March 26, 1940, in The Bronx, New York City, to Sophie (née Falkenstein; 1915–2016) and Arthur Caan (1909–1986), Jewish immigrants from Germany. His father was a meat dealer and butcher. One of three siblings, Caan grew up in Sunnyside, Queens. He was educated in New York City, and later attended Michigan State University (MSU). Caan began appearing off-Broadway in plays such as La Ronde before making his Broadway debut in Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole. Caan’s first television appearance was in an episode of Naked City. After several guest roles in tv shows, Caan’s first substantial film role was as a punk hoodlum who gets his eyes poked out in the 1964 thriller Lady in a Cage.
He was fourth-billed in a Western feature, The Glory Guys (1965). In 1965, Caan landed his first starring role, in Howard Hawks’ auto-racing drama Red Line 7000. It was not a financial success. However Hawks liked Caan and cast him in his next film, El Dorado, playing Alan Bourdillion Traherne, a.k.a. Mississippi, in support of John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. He then had the starring role in Robert Altman’s second feature film, Countdown (1968) and was second billed in the Curtis Harrington thriller Games (1968). Caan went to Britain to star in a war film, Submarine X-1 (1968), then played the lead in a Western, Journey to Shiloh (1968).
He had a big hit with Funny Lady (1975) playing Billy Rose opposite Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice. Caan starred in two big action films, Norman Jewison’s Rollerball (1975) as a star athlete of a deadly extreme sport, and Sam Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite (1975). Both were popular, though Caan hated Elite. The movie was not a popular success but Alien Nation (1988), where Caan played a cop who partnered with an alien, did well. The film received a television spinoff. Caan was planning to make an action film in Italy, but then heard Rob Reiner was looking for a leading man in his adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery (1990). He also starred alongside Arnold in Eraser, and won, the role of Montecito Hotel/Casino president “Big Ed” Deline in Las Vegas which he played for 4 seasons.
Caan was married four times. His son Scott Caan, who also is an actor, was born August 23, 1976 to him and second wife Sheila Marie Ryan. Caan was married to Ingrid Hajek from September 1990 to March 1994; they had a son, Alexander James Caan, born 1991. Caan married Linda Stokes on October 7, 1995, they had two sons, James Arthur Caan (born 1995) and Jacob Nicholas Caan (born 1998). Caan filed for divorce in 2017, citing irreconcilable differences. Caan was a practicing martial artist. He had trained with Takayuki Kubota for nearly 30 years, earning various ranks.
The Flight Attendant (My Review With Some Spoilers)
The Flight Attendant
The Flight Attendant is an American dark comedy drama mystery thriller television series developed by Steve Yockey based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Chris Bohjalian. It stars Kaley Cuoco in the title role and premiered on HBO Max on November 26, 2020. In December 2020, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on April 21, 2022. American flight attendant Cassie Bowden is a reckless alcoholic who drinks during flights and spends her time having sex with strangers, including her passengers.
When she wakes up in a hotel room in Bangkok with a hangover from the night before, she discovers the dead body of a passenger on her last flight lying next to her with his throat slashed. Afraid to call the police, she cleans up the crime scene, then joins the other airline crew traveling to the airport. In New York City, she is met by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who question her about the layover in Bangkok. Still unable to piece the night together, and suffering intermittent flashbacks/hallucinations about it, she begins to wonder who the killer could be.