Late Shift

I'm sorry if I got your hopes up to see a Tom Hanks vs. Tom Hanks grudge match tonight. It seems somebody at CBS also noticed the scheduling coincidence and The Eye blinked. So they've replaced America's favorite actor with America's favorite actress:


Hanks for nothing, CBS!

However, CBS will be replaying Hanks' chat with Letterman on Friday, so if you want to achieve the same effect of an all-Hanks, all-channels universe, I suggest recording Leno and then playing it back at 11:35 pm Friday so you can switch back and forth between Hankses.

The Two Timers Club

We here at The Dish just love fun little late night scheduling quirks - even when they involve Toms other than Cruise. While browsing ahead in the TiVo schedule, a new one popped up, as coincidental as any plot turn in The DaVinci Code - Tom Hanks vs. Tom Hanks! At 11:35 PM on May 31st, Hanks will complete his quest for world domination by appearing on both The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman (through the magic of re-runs).


Tommy Two-Time

My suggestion for the best way to view this lunar eclipse of talk show appearances? Flip back and forth between the two every few seconds, seeing if you can catch Hanks delivering the same spontaneous amusing anecdote at the same time.

Immigration Sweeps

Why does it seem like President Bush only plans to address the nation during Sweeps? Does he really think that bumping the season finale of Prison Break or the most powerful person in the world is going to boost his approval ratings?

At least he has the good sense not to make an enemy out of Jack Bauer like a certain other president.

Super Size Free

Morgan Spurlock strikes again!

Less than a month ago, when NBC announced plans to revive their old sweeps strategy of inflating sit-com running times, their press release billed it as a "SUPER-SIZED COMEDY NIGHT." However, now, their online banner ads refer to the episodes as "extra long," "expanded" and "extended" - pretty much everything short of that gluttonous phrase once so popular at McDonald's until they coincidentally eliminated it just after Spurlock's Super Size Me debuted at Sundance (though this move had "'nothing to do with that (film) whatsoever.'").


I'll leave the phallic double-entendres to Will & Grace for one more week

And on NBC's website, the Super Size extra long episodes of Will & Grace, My Name is Earl and The Office are again referred to as either "Special Extended Episode" or "Special Extended Season Finale."



Oh, I'm on to you, NBC. You can call it whatever you want... I still know that each episode is one-third more fattening than your average portion!

(S.O.S.)³

In what must be a television first, three episodes of three different series, all airing in the same week, all share the same episode title (not including episodes titled "Pilot," of course). Last week's Lost and this week's Medium and Alias are all entitled "S.O.S." The Lost and Alias overlap may not be a coincidence, but Medium? Sure, this isn't necessarily on par with John Munch appearing on three shows in one week (Homicide, Law & Order and The X-Files), but I find it odd nonetheless.

Will & Restraint

I'd like to nominate Will & Grace for a special Emmy for doing an entire episode about a gay cowboy bar without a single reference to Brokeback Mountain (not even a "Just Jack? Just Jack Nasty!"). Pretty impressive.

Also impressive - NBC apparently ran something of a Shohreh Aghdashloo theme night, featuring the brilliant actress on both Will & Grace and ER. Sadly, I didn't learn of her stint in the ER until it was too late, and I'm afraid she's not quite as adept at comedy as she is at heart-breaking drama (to be fair, it wasn't the best written special guest role ever on the show), but still... bravo, NBC.

Now if only 24 could stop killing characters off long enough to bring Dina Araz back from the dead.