New Holiday DVD Shopping Guides Are Up -- Please Shop. Please. Pretty Please...
I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, so talking about holiday shopping may seem premature. But if you want to buy the perfect TV-on-DVD gift for someone, you can save a lot on shipping by ordering early. So shop soon -- and, because we're launching these nifty shopping guides today, please, PLEASE shop here... (more)

HOUSE Fox, 8 p.m. ET Last week’s ended with an agoraphobic on the verge of leaving his house and going outside, and with House on the verge of knocking on Cuddy’s door and going inside. The agoraphoric followed through. House didn’t. And tonight, he’s back to work, trying to solve a medical mystery involving a teen patient with an unsettling secret. |
NCIS CBS, 8 p.m. ET The unit discovers something that hits too close to home: according to the latest information, one of their members is a double agent. And early suspicion settles on someone we KNOW can’t be guilty… not with all that playful goth geekiness. |
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT TCM, 8 p.m. ET In 1944, director Howard Hawks bet on a beautiful but untested young model to star opposite Humphrey Bogart in this WWII drama. Hawks went with Lauren Bacall, who was 19 at the time – and whose acting debut here is incendiary. Especially when she’s lighting a cigarette, or teaching Bogart, who fell in love with her in real life, how to whistle. |
THE MENTALIST CBS, 9 p.m. ET “This ought to be good,” Jane says as he’s about to be introduced to a psychic and attend a séance. And it is – but not because she’s so easy to dismiss. Like him, she’s good at what she does. |
FRINGE Fox, 9 p.m. ET Here’s another walk down X-Files lane – a story about an attractive woman, on a lonely road, who seems to come from another time and place. So does this plot – but let’s see how it turns out. |
THE SHIELD FX, 10 p.m. ET This penultimate episode is a stunner – so good, I’m not about to ruin any of its surprises or defuse any of its tensions. But without spoiling anything, I can say this: There’s one scene where Michael Chiklis, as Vic, is completely silent, for an unsettlingly long time. And it’s a magnificently tense, bold, beautifully acted moment. |
YULE TUBE: It's beginning to look a lot like . . .
GET THIS: Inside scoop on the ratings
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NEW and RECOMMENDED
You wanna talk all-star cast? Let's look at the guest stars crammed into the new "Wagon Train" box of 32 seventh season episodes, the hit western's only year in color. Barbara Stanwyck. Carolyn Jones. Peter Falk. Richard Loo. Michael Rennie. Suzanne Pleshette. Annette Funicello. Bruce Dern. David Carradine. And Ronald Reagan. And that's only in the first 10 episodes . . . CLASSICS TO CONSIDER
The unmarked car cruising city streets comes to a tire-screeching halt. The stern-faced occupant bails out. He pulls a gun, he crouches, and shots burst forth. It's the title sequence of . . . Police Squad!? M Squad? Right. Both. The new full-series DVD release of M Squad lets us compare Lee Marvin's hardnosed '50s copfest with Leslie Nielsen's dead-on '80s parody. If the latter takes nothing seriously -- deliriously un-seriously -- M Squad is its fruitfully grave-faced source material. . . . |



















FOR BETTER OR WERTS
C'mon, it's only six weeks away! So no more complaints about Christmas coming too early. TV is officially declaring the season "on" this weekend, offering a fresh holiday episode and a new yule standup special. First up: "The Bill Engvall Show," old-time sitcom! (You know, like "Slap Shot's" six-fisted Hanson Brothers declaring "Old-time hockey!") We didn't used to consider hard-sell familycom laugh-track punchlines "quality TV," but now that they're so scarce, we're finding ourselves strangely drawn to their cliche-ridden merriment . . .
Maybe this isn't technically a TV-source set, but the films so constantly repeat on the tube, they might as well count. "James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set" includes every 007 flick through Daniel Craig's "Casino Royale" -- and Amazon marks it down today (Friday) to just $90. That's for 21 movies on 42 discs! Click
Curious what the ratings are for your favorite show? Wondering if it's waiting for the ax to fall? All network-related answers reside at The Programming Insider, a great weekday e-letter from Mediaweek's Mr. Television columnist, Marc Berman. He's got overnight ratings numbers, series opinions, longer-term trend observations, and a fun daily trivia question about vintage tube faves. Marc is an entertaining read who's also . . . 






