Showing posts with label CBS Watch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBS Watch. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

RIP Mrs. Wolowitz

Carol Ann Susi, 1952-2014
I was so sad this afternoon to hear about the death at age 62 
of Carol Ann Susi, the actress who voiced the unseen character of Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg)'s harridan mom on The Big Bang Theory.  I've long been a fan of Carol Ann's, and was thrilled a few years back when I got the chance to interview her for a CBS Watch! magazine story about the secretaries of Murphy Brown.

With a long resume in both TV and film, Carol Ann was one of those character actresses with such perfect comic timing, you knew the moment you spotted her in something you'd be in for a laugh.  She was Michael J. Fox's secretary Jean in The Secret to My Succe$s, and a psychiatric patient in Death Becomes Her.  She made her TV debut with three episodes of Kolchak:  The Night Stalker in 1974, and never stopped working since, popping up in all my favorite comedies of the last few decades.  I still laugh out loud when I think back to her hilarious appearance as Maya's (Laura San Giacomo) crazy neighbor Mrs. Boukidis on a 1998 episode of Just Shoot Me.

I had the pleasure of running into Carol Ann quite a few times since my move to LA last fall, including just a few months ago, immediately following a live taping of Big Bang on the Warner Brothers lot.  Her death comes as a shock to all of us who loved her work, including her millions of Big Bang devotees around the world.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I Swear, As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly!

Les Nessman reports from the horrifying
and hilarious scene. "O, the humanity!"
Last year at Thanksgiving, CBS' Watch! magazine ran my interview with WKRP in Cincinnati creator Hugh Wilson about that show's most beloved, and Thanksgiving-themed, episode, "Turkeys Away!", which first aired on October 30, 1978.

I've always been a big fan of Wilson's work, including his critically acclaimed but short-lived 1987 series, Frank's Place.  Now 69, this writer who got his start on The Bob Newhart Show is semi-retired and teaching a course in screenwriting and television writing at the University of Virginia.  Below, his reminiscences on perhaps THE classic Thanksgiving-themed sitcom moment.



October 30, 1978


WKRP in Cincinnati Creates a Classic out of a True Thanksgiving Tale

I had been in advertising in Atlanta, and so when I had the idea to do the pilot for WKRP, I went to observe friends there in the radio business.  At the time, the #1 rock station in Atlanta, WQXI, was run by a wonderful guy named Jerry Blum, a longtime “station doctor” who had bounced from one station to the next.  When I was just hanging around there, he told me about how he’d gotten fired from a Dallas station for throwing live turkeys out of a helicopter.  And I said, “Jerry, tell me more.  I think I just won an Emmy.”
Then, in five minutes, the story we used in our episode, “Turkeys Away!” pretty much all came from this fellow’s lips.  It’s been my experience that the real stories are the ones that lead you in great directions.  Jerry was from New York City originally, and didn’t know that turkeys can’t fly very well.  I’m sure most people don’t know that.  So when they started their promotional stunt, the turkeys just went down like bombs.  What’s worse is, when they saw their error, they landed the helicopter to release the rest of the turkeys – and the turkeys fought back, chasing people and running into traffic.  It was the perfect nightmare a comedy writer would want to hear about.
Hugh Wilson in 2008
In our episode, our reporter Les Nessman reports that one turkey went through the windshield of a car – well, I took a liberty with that.  Bill Dial wrote the first draft of the episode, and I did the rewrite.  We had the idea to make Les’ whole report sound like the famous radio broadcast of the Hindenburg tragedy, with the line “O, the humanity!”  But the rest of it had all come from Jerry.
Even now, it’s amazing.  When people find out who I am, they come right up to me, and the first thing out of their mouths is, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”  I have to take credit as the author of that line, because I’m really proud of it.
--Hugh Wilson, creator of WKRP in Cincinnati 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Rally Around Cougar Town

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for an upcoming of CBS Watch Magazine, about the historic moment when, due to popular outcry, CBS' '80s cop show Cagney & Lacey was brought back from the dead.

Since then, only a select few shows have been saved by the fans; as Judah Friedlander's character Frank Rossitano once said in my favorite line from 30 Rock, "They sent peanuts to save Jericho, and they sent douchebags to save Entourage" (although I don't think in real life Entourage was ever in any danger.)

Now, in today's social media world, Cougar Town is taking the same approach -- but, brilliantly, they're doing it preemptively.  When the show didn't land a spot on ABC's schedule for this past fall, we Cougar Town fans were worried -- as was Abed on NBC's similarly endangered Community, who in a brilliant gag, had to console himself with YouTube episodes of the show's British inspiration "Cougarton Abbey."

But this winter, when ABC announced its spring schedule with Cougar Town STILL missing, that's when fans really got worried -- and the show's creator/executive producers Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel began a clever word-of-mouth campaign to keep their show alive.  As Lawrence notes in an email just this morning to TV critics, "Trying everything; we just all like our jobs too much."

Presumably at the show's expense, the producers have flown the CT actors to appear at episode screening parties in cities across the US, and plied fans with T-shirts -- and as Lawrence admits, to ABC's legal department's dismay, also free wine and the chance at a walk-on role.  In another ballsy move, they even held a cocktail party for the critics of the TCA last month, in the bar of the very hotel where ABC had presented its Cougar Town-less spring schedule just hours before.

Luckily, when the network's Work It bombed after two episodes (too many), it became clear that Cougar Town could inherit that half-hour time slot, and it was quickly announced that that was the plan.  So the show is now set to return on Tuesday, February 14 at 8:30 PM Eastern/Pacific.  I'm concerned that this fun, snarky show might have an incompatible lead-in in Tim Allen's new family sitcom Last Man Standing, but I'm not going to quibble -- I'm just glad that Cougar Town season 3 is about to begin.  (And as Lawrence notes in his email, at least Fox was kind enough to take the time slot competition Glee off the air for 7 weeks.)

Below, the season 3 highlight reel teasing great stuff to come on Cougar Town.  I've seen several of the episodes, and can tell you that the show remains as sharp and funny as ever, with many romantic, beautiful moments masterfully mixed in.  Enjoy!
 
Bill Lawrence on WhoSay

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Eric, Julia, and Marriage Equality

I couldn't believe when I came across this video on YouTube, with two of my favorite TV stars of all time. Please -- back in 2004, I would not rest until I got the assignment to write a book about Eric McCormack, and now have threatened the lives of my fellow editors at CBS Watch! magazine if any of them attempts to sidle up to Julia Louis-Dreyfus before I do.

Now, to see them both together, not only being their funny and gorgeous selves (yes, I'd go both ways for them) but advocating for marriage equality? I'll admit it -- I think I just messed myself a little.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

CBS Watch January/February 2010 issue on Newsstands... NOW!

Now on newsstands and in your mailboxes: the January/February 2010 issue of CBS Watch!

Check out Jennifer Goddard's cover story on Harrison Ford, whose newest movie, Extraordinary Measures co-starring Brendan Fraser and Keri Russell, comes out in theaters from CBS Films on January 22. Other pieces include my travel piece about the Rome Cavalieri hotel -- aka the hotel the Drapers stayed in last season on Mad Men; my roundup of the "Tough Broads" in CBS' history; my "Now Hiring" job application to become a Hollywood agent, and Frank DeCaro's reminiscence of a CBS classic, The Lucy Show.

Watch! can be found on newsstands in stores like Target, Barnes & Noble, and Hudson News -- and you can subscribe for free! Just go to www.cbswatchmagazine.com and sign up for your free subscription -- no strings attached!

Monday, November 9, 2009

CBS Watch November/December issue on newsstands NOW!

Now on newsstands and in your mailboxes: the November/December 2009 issue of CBS Watch! Check out my cover story on NCIS: Los Angeles and its stars LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell, as well as other pieces like my experience at Neil Patrick Harris' L.A. theater show, Accomplice Hollywood, and Frank DeCaro's reminiscence of a CBS classic, Designing Women.

Watch! can be found on newsstands in stores like Target, Barnes & Noble, and Hudson News -- and you can subscribe for free! Just go to www.cbswatchmagazine.com and sign up for your free subscription -- no strings attached!

The Ranch Fence Goes Up, The Wall Comes Down

It was a strange coincidence the other day when, conscious that we were approaching today's 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was researching a piece for CBS Watch! magazine, and came across an interesting anecdote. I was interviewing Guido Meyer, who, Frank and I discovered on a press trip to Florida with the handsome German journalist last fall, is an expert on all things Dallas.

As Guido explains, one Stuttgart-based Dallas fan club, of which he is a member, is currently planning to build a replica of the Ewing family’s Southfork Ranch as a tourist attraction in
Bavaria. "Germans have always had a thing for Westerns, for Texas, and for cowboys," he says.

But the lingering affection for the series, he notes, also arises in part from the fact that for some of his countrymen, the show was particularly inspiring. Even though Dallas was never aired by the state-owned broadcasters in the communist former East Germany, viewers there were able to receive the show via West German signals. “For the people in Eastern Europe, Dallas was the West,” Guido explains. “Rich people, driving fancy cars, living on a luxurious ranch. They saw this lifestyle, and wanted it for themselves.”

I checked into his theory, and found that in his 2001 memoir Hello Darlin’, the series’ star Larry Hagman agreed. “I watched CNN’s coverage of the Berlin Wall being torn down and realized that Dallas had impacted that side of the world,” Hagman wrote. “I honestly believe that as Dallas crossed the borders into Soviet-controlled countries, it played a big part in the downfall of the Soviet empire. When people from the Eastern bloc countries saw what they were missing, they realized what a farce communism was.”

It just goes to prove: never doubt the power of television!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Watch for Watch!, the September/October issue

Any day now, you subscribers to CBS Watch! should be getting your September/October issue -- with a new twist. This issue features 7 different collectible covers, featuring each of the five stars of the red-hot Big Bang Theory and two with group shots from our day at New York's glam Hotel Pierre.

Me, I just got a whole box of copies today, featuring Mr. Howard Wolowitz himself, Simon Helberg. Inside, check out the interview with Helberg, Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco and Kunal Nayyar, and the gorgeous photos expertly styled by our own Angelique O'Neil and shot by the amazing Mark Mann.

Also, more from yours truly: a tribute to the legendary Bea Arthur, Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan talks about his cross-country bike race to raise money for MS research, and a preview of each of CBS' four new fall series: Accidentally On Purpose, The Good Wife, Three Rivers and NCIS: Los Angeles. On the last page, there's also a job "application" which purports to tell you how to break into the business as a wardrobe supervisor.

If you're not already subscribed to CBS Watch!, the issue should also be arriving on newsstands right about... now! And for the future, to subscribe -- for free! -- just visit our web site, www.cbswatchmagazine.com.

It's the best entertainment that meets the eye. (That's the slogan I pitched, anyway. They didn't go for it. :)

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Neil Patrick Harris talks about our trip on the Orient Express

On tonight's Late Show with David Letterman, Neil Patrick Harris spends the majority of his time being teased for taking a trip on the Orient Express with Watch! magazine.

Wow, we could not have asked for better promotion for Watch! -- thanks, Dave!

Check it out below. And for a FREE subscription to Watch!, go to www.cbswatchmagazine.com.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Watch for Watch! with Neil on Dave!

Check out tomorrow night's Late Show with David Letterman, where Neil Patrick Harris stops by and talks about his trip with Watch! magazine aboard the Orient Express. And watch Dave get jealous -- I've heard he's hilarious in his jealousy of the likes of Larry Hagman in the pages of our July/August issue.

That's tomorrow night (Friday, 9/4) at 11:30 PM Eastern on CBS.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

And Then There's Maude

How fun is my job at CBS Watch, that I had to dig this up for a story I'm working on. I thought I'd share!


Maude TV Opening Theme - The best video clips are here

Monday, July 20, 2009

Entertainment Tonight covers CBS Watch

On tonight's show, ET covered two stories in the current issue of CBS Watch magazine -- both by yours truly. Click through to ET's coverage of Neil Patrick Harris' trip aboard the famed Orient Express train, and the photo shoot accompanying my candid interview with Mary Hart.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Watch for Watch!

If you're among the thousands who have signed up for a free subscription for CBS' Watch magazine, keep an eye on your mailboxes. The July/August issue is off the presses and on its way to you.

On the cover, Neil Patrick Harris poses in front of the famed Orient Express train, which I then had the privilege of taking with him from Venice to Paris this past April. Inside, the actor talks about being Barney, about travel and life with his partner, David Burtka. Check it out!

And for a free subscription to future issues -- September's cover shoot and story, with the cast of The Big Bang Theory, will be hot, too! -- sign up here, at www.cbswatchmagazine.com. That web site, by the way, is relaunching any minute now, and itself will have great original content you won't find anywhere else!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Big Bang Theory photo shoot video

Check out this short video Kunal Nayyar made of himself and his co-stars at the photo shoot at New York's Pierre Hotel for the September cover of CBS Watch.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Dressing Up the Big Bang

As Michael Ausiello reported yesterday in his blog at EW.com, last week, we at CBS' Watch magazine staged an incredible photo shoot starring the cast of the red-hot sitcom The Big Bang Theory at New York's Pierre hotel.

Check out this sneak peek at some decidedly non-geek chic. Catch the accompanying story (once I write it!) in the September issue of Watch, available as a free subscription here.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Nurse Jackie: Vital Signs Positive

Nurse Jackie on Showtime

On Tuesday night here in New York City, Showtime rolled out its newest comedy series, Nurse Jackie.  Edie Falco, in her first regular series role since her career-making portrayal of mob wife Carmela Soprano, stars as Queens native Jackie Peyton, a married mother of two who pops pain pills to soothe her back and shtups her coworker doctor (played by her recurring Sopranos co-star Paul Schulze, aka Father Phil Intintola), all to get her through the rough days at Manhattan's All Saints Hospital.

Okay, so Jackie may have her flaws.  And it's quite possible -- and I already heard from one nurse who called in to The Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius OutQ yesterday -- that there may be some in the medical profession who balk at this portrayal, and at some of the unorthodox and yes, even illegal, things we see Jackie do.  But the heart of the show -- and some of its darkest, most hilarious moments -- comes from Jackie's machinations to make The System work, to save lives even if it means completely breaking the rules.   (And by the way -- the show does employ several actual RNs as consultants, to keep things real.)

Produced by a highly pedigreed team that includes creators Linda Wallem (Cybill, That '70s Show) and Liz Brixius, Sex and the City alum John Melfi and a rotating group of highly esteemed directors like Falco's Sopranos costar Steve Buscemi,  Nurse Jackie had a lot going for it right from the start.  No wonder Showtime was able to lure Falco right back to TV.  As the actress told me a few weeks ago, in an interview for an upcoming piece in the July/August issue of CBS Watch Magazine, she spent her post-Carmela time reading scripts in all different genres -- plays, screenplays, TV scripts.  "As far as something that I was going to be interested in doing, and be challenged by, the options were few," she explained.  "I've gotten very picking, because the writing was so good on Sopranos that it's hard to compare... Nurse Jackie was the first thing that really grabbed me."  And it's a testament to Falco's immense talent that, moments into Nurse Jackie's pilot episode, you forget that such a looming pop cultural icon like Carmela Soprano ever existed.

Nurse Jackie grabbed me, too, in its first two episodes which Showtime screened on Tuesday night.  The network, its CEO Matt Blank noted in a funny introduction at the Directors Guild Theater, is already the socially responsible home to a pot-dealing suburban mom on Weeds, a serial-killer forensics expert on Dexter, and now a pill-popping nurse.  In the crowd, I spotted Buscemi and Schulze as well as Jackie co-stars Eve Best, Peter Facinelli, Anna Deavere Smith, Haaz Sleiman, Dominic Fumusa and Merritt Wever and guest stars Eli Wallach and Swoosie Kurtz, Falco's former Sopranos costar Aida Turturro, Bobby Cannavale, Julianna Margulies, LL Cool J, Donna Karan, Caroline Rhea, Richard Kind, Daphne Rubin-Vega, BD Wong, CBS News' Bob Simon, and later, at the jam-packed after party at the Parker Meridien hotel, Andrea Martin and Tovah Feldshuh, who stopped by after their respective Broadway shows.

Check out Nurse Jackie starting this Monday, June 8 at 10:30 PM Eastern/Pacific.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Now, get your FREE subscription to CBS Watch Magazine!

For more of the best coverage of TV on the screen and behind the scenes, get your FREE subscription to CBS Watch magazine, where I just happen to be a Deputy Editor.

It's a great, bi-monthly publication that has access to CBS shows no other publication has -- and we bring you the best in celebrity, fashion, travel and more!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

How I Met Your Mother and The Best Burger in New York

This past Monday night, we learned another of Marshall Eriksen's endearing quirks: he's been bedeviled (as is Regis Philbin, it turns out) by a cosmically good burger he had eight years ago, somewhere in Manhattan. The problem is, he forgot where.

It was a fun episode -- particularly if you're a New Yorker. Because unlike so many sitcoms, this is a show that quite often gets it right. Sure, Ted and Marshall live in an apartment that would be a castle by NYC standards; but at least it's not Monica and Rachel's a-little-too-nice Greenwich Village pad on Friends or Paul and Jamie's inexplicably huge flat on Mad About You. Besides, Ted and Marshall's place can't be made too small -- because as How I Met Your Mother's executive producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas reminded me when I visited them on the set last year while reporting for CBS Watch magazine, the cameras, after all, do have to fit!

In particular, Monday's episode, "The Best Burger in New York," got it right on several fronts. We New Yorkers do bemoan the loss of the real Upper West Side stalwart bar Fez, at 85th & Broadway. (And yes, every available retail space does seem to have turned into a Goliath bank lately -- although possibly that trend is over as of this week!) And, Carter and Craig had told me, they personally mourn the recent real-life loss of Midtown pub McHale's at 47th Street & 8th Avenue; it's one of the inspirations for Maclaren's bar on the show, and was where the two guys first started writing comedy together over a beer, as they took breaks from their MTV internship during college. And finally, there's the fun moment where Marshall goes ballistic on a guy who haplessly suggests the West Village bar The Corner Bistro -- the stereotypical answer to the question "Where can you get the best burger...," even though it's tiny and always packed (and I've never had the patience to wait for a table.)



By the way, just in case you are about to visit New York and want to, like Marshall,go on a quest, here's what you have to do: go to the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. But do it soon -- it will close for the season in early December.

A very close second: somewhere new Frank and I just discovered, a place called Five Napkin Burger at 47th Street and Ninth Avenue. It's run by the owners of UWS favorite Nice Matin, and let me just say that the classic, titular burger, with its caramelized onions, soft Boursin-like French cheese and rosemary aioli, is so good that, like Barney, I want to make burger babies with it.

This week's episode not only made me laugh, but it made me hungry -- and now I'm passing it forward. Feel free to blame me at your Weight Watchers meeting.


How I Met Your Mother
Season 4
Mondays at 8:30 PM Eastern
CBS

Monday, September 29, 2008

Behind the Scenes at... The Amazing Race





Season 13

Now it can be told.

I went along, as a journalist, on the first leg of this season's Amazing Race. This is the show's 13th season -- and I admit, I'm a latecomer to Race fever. But having watched a few iterations before pitching the editor-in-chief of CBS' Watch! magazine on covering the behind-the-scenes of the show, I became an instant fan.

As you probably know from watching last night's season 13 opener, the 11 teams opened their envelopes at LA's Olympic Stadium, and headed off to Salvador, Brazil -- with me close behind. I'd never been to South America before, but had always dreamed of it. And Salvador did not disappoint -- it's gorgeous, a little bit Boston, with its version of colonial architecture, and a lot Miami, with spicy Latin food and glorious beaches.


My first-person diary piece about traveling with the show will hit newsstands in early November -- please do check it out. Meanwhile, here on my blog, I thought I'd do something different and post some of the photos I took (and a few courtesy of CBS' photography dept.) along the way. I'm sure this will be fun stuff for those of you always looking for tidbits on how this huge organization comes together so efficiently. Believe me -- this show truly is "Amazing!"



4/23/08, late AM: Waiting for our connecting flight to Salvador -- which was late -- in Rio de Janeiro's airport. When things like this happen, producers whip out their cell phones and alert those already waiting for us on the ground to push things back.



The teams' first task in Salvador: to steer these rickety pushcarts, loaded with a gum brand called Blong!, into the elevator which links the commercial district to the old-city section of Pelourinho, atop the cliff. Once there, they have to look for the show's trademark red-and-yellow flag on a candy vendor's cart to receive their next envelope. (Luckily, the envelope says they're done for the day.)



The teams may have been done for the day, but I wasn't. Instead, I was invited to "test" the two stunts they'd have to choose from the next day at the Detour box. I refused to do the cargo net climb (see photos below), but crawling up the church stairs was a piece of cake -- despite how everyone else seemed to think it was the tougher challenge.


The plaque says that this church, O Pagador do Promessas (Payer of Promises) was the setting of a 1962 film which won the Palme D'Or at Cannes.

That night, I got to stay at the posh Pestana Bahia hotel. The teams were not so lucky -- they stayed pressed up against each other in these two-man mosquito nets in the incredibly humid jungle. It had just rained, so the ground was covered in several inches of mud, and there were bugs the size of Volkswagens. Still want to audition?

4/24/08, 8 AM: The first stop is the Detour box, located in the forecourt of the Third Church of Sao Francisco. Which of course is located next to the First and Second Churches of Sao Francisco, just to be confusing. At about 10:30, we get word from roving scouts that contestants are on their way, so we duck into the doorway of the post office across the street. When they do come, they're so focused on finding the box that they blow right past and don't notice us. Most of them blow right past the box, too, and enter the church before realizing their mistake.


















My incredible simulation of opening the envelope at the Detour Box. Photo by Robert Voets.


The Detour box offered two options: "The Hard Way Up," which is crawling up the church stairs, or "The Soft Way Down," which involves climbing down a cargo net strung over the tower of the Elevador Lacerda which climbs up the cliff. That's 240 feet high, people -- are you insane? But 10 of the 11 teams choose the net, partly due to the deliberately misleading name "Soft Way Down."





Terence and Sarah finish and disconnect from the net. The next step is to grab the envelope which has the Pit Stop location (the finishing line for this leg.) Nick and Starr have already beaten them to it.







Kelli and Christy finish on the net.


From the base of the net (the Elevador Lacerda tower is the skinny white structure in the center of the photo, behind the white boat), it's just a run down this dock to catch a boat to the Pit Stop: a fortress several hundred yards out in the Bay of All Saints.

A short but scenic boat ride. We tried to duck out of sight while waiting for the boat in case teams came, because we didn't want to clue them in that they were in the right place. And we also couldn't hog either of the two boats going back and forth, for fear of delaying a team. But it turns out, we'd picked a lull between teams and shot right out to the fort.




Walking up the entry gangplank to the stone fortress.

This is the view facing right once you walk in the front gate of the fort. In the back is a ramp, which leads up to the cannons on the roof. That right side ramp was the one Production used; there's a symmetrical one on the left side which the teams used. They couldn't see us to the right because of a barrier the show constructed.




The ramp up to the top...

...Where it's nearly 100 degrees, in blazing sunshine. (Remember, this is the tropics in early autumn.) When host Phil Keoghan is not interviewing finishing teams on the mat, he's often filming "stand-ups" where he explains the rules and challenges to the camera. This is a rare break, hiding from the oppressive sun with the show's publicist Mitch Graham.







The famous Amazing Race mat.

4/25/08: The teams left this morning for city #2.

Me, I half wish I could go with them and observe, but I'm quite happy here on the beach at Barra...

...As are my tired feet in their new Havaiianas, made right here in Brazil. From this beachside bar, I walked back all along the peninsula that makes up the city to the Pestana Bahia hotel -- all the while hoping I'll get to come back here someday. With or without 22 crazed adrenaline junkies racing each other for a shot at the cash.








Click HERE to check out the full episode on CBS.com


The Amazing Race
Season 13
Sundays at 8 PM Eastern, starting September 28
CBS

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sam Page Goes "Mad"

If you were watching last night's Emmy Awards, you must have realized that AMC smartly held off on airing a new episode of Mad Men, pushing the show's schedule back by one week so as to avoid head-to-head competition with the awards show -- on which Mad Men ended up winning the top prize for best drama.

And if you watched Mad Men the week before, you must also have noticed the adorable actor playing Joan's fiance, Dr. Greg Harris, and wondered why he looks familiar. Back when Sam Page was a regular during the first season of the now-cancelled James Woods procedural Shark on CBS, I had the chance to interview him over lunch for CBS' Watch magazine. Click here for a link to the story, for some more info on this cute new guy to whom my fave secretary Joan is betrothed.



Sundays at 10 PM Eastern
AMC