When 'The Middle' returns for its third season, it'll have one very funny addition: 'Saturday Night Live' veteran Molly Shannon!

According to TVLine, Shannon will play Janet, Frankie's (Patricia Heaton) sister. Shannon is set to recur on the series.

'The Middle' returns on Sept. 21 at 8PM with Heaton's former 'Everybody Loves Raymond' husband, Ray Romano as a guest star. Romano will play a man from Frankie's past.

In other casting news ...

The letter I got this week required me to do a little digging but I eventually found the answer...

"Dear Paul, I was wondering if you knew which building exterior was used as "The Center" on "The Pretender" - it is a HUGE building. I hope you can help me - you haven't let me down yet! Wishing you happy holidays. All the best, Tamara"

I really should pick up the DVDs for this show. I really enjoyed the first couple of seasons, though I think it sort of strayed after that. The four seasons of the show have been released on DVD, and now FOX is releasing the two TV movies they made after the show was canceled.

The first one, Pretender 2001, was a good continuation of the series. The second one, The Pretender: Island of the Haunted, if I remember correctly, was rather lame. It had Jarod and Miss Parker on an island where they somehow found out some (more) secrets about their past. It will be released as one disc, with one movie on each side. Hopefully that won't cause tech glitches as double sided discs sometimes do.

This show had a great premise and, like I said, the first two seasons are quite good. But it just kept on getting more and more ridiculous. The cast was good though, especially Michael T. Weiss, Andrea Parker, Jon Gries, and a pre-Desperate Housewives James Denton - only he was called "Jamie" back then.