Ed Asner will reprise the 'Hawaii Five-0' role he first played more than 30 years ago.

According to CBS, the 'Mary Tyler Moore Show' veteran will once again play August March in an early 2012 episode. Asner first played the role in the 1975 episode of the original 'Hawaii Five-0' titled 'Wooden Model of a Rat.'

"It is thrilling to, for the first time, merge the original 'Hawaii Five-0' and our new show by having the classic, versatile and award-winning actor Ed Asner reprise his role of August March, a character Mr. Asner first played 36 years ago. There is no better way to form a bridge between our reboot and the original series," Peter Lenkov, 'Hawaii Five-0' executive producer, said in a statement.

For the first time, footage from the original series featuring Asner will be used. The archive footage will show his character in his smuggler days. When Asner's character appears in the new series, he'll be a reformed man after serving 30 years in prison for murder. The Five-0 team approach him for help on a smuggling case.

In other casting news ...

When Ellen Burstyn received an Emmy nomination based on a fourteen-second cameo appearance in the HBO film Mrs. Harris, many critics used the nomination as an example of how out of touch Emmy voters were with the viewing public.

Even Burstyn herself was shocked by the nomination as she told AP Radio. This was the first time she made any public remarks about the nomination, and as one would expect, she thought it was as silly as everyone else thought it was. "My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear," she joked.

The critics had a good point; as good an actress as Burstyn is (she won an Oscar thirty-two years ago for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), fourteen seconds is not long enough to determine whether a performance is award-worthy or not. Luckily, she didn't win; he co-star in Mrs. Harris, Cloris Leachman, took the award.

Ellen Burstyn snagged a sweet Emmy supporting-actress nomination for her role in Mrs. Harris, an HBO original film. One good way -- best I can tell -- to get nominated for an award, is to have a shelf-full of accolades already, and Burstyn certainly does.

Ray Richmond goes on a tear over the nomination, which then extends to all behaviors Burstyn and award-related, in a rant that makes for some fun reading at Past Deadline.

I especially take to his point that this calls into questions whether Emmy-nominators actually watch the performances they pick from, or they merely check boxes based on reputations of those involved. Maybe the TV screens at the old folks home are blurry and they thought Burstyn was someone else in the same movie. I would not heed Richmond's call to decline the nomination if I were in Burstyn's position, though. If anyone wants to give you a stupid award, I say let 'em.

[Thanks, tvrayz, for the tip!]

In the middle of his sermon, Reverend Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn) poses this question to the congregation:

"If there were no temptation, how can there be redemption?"

The Book of Daniel made its much anticipated debut Friday night on NBC with a two-hour episode. If you saw it, you know there were so many subplots that trying to recap them here will make your (and my) head spin.

In a nutshell, Daniel's life is a complicated one, to say the least. This Episcopalian man of the cloth has to deal with his teenage daughter (Grace) being arrested for dealing pot, to having a gay son (Peter) that causes confusion for him, to having an adopted son from China (Adam) who pokes fun at his Asian features and heritage, to having a neurotic wife taken to having martinis as soon as noon passes, to having a female bishop critiquing his Sunday sermons, to finding out his brother-in-law has embezzled $3.2 million from the church, to dealing with a stiff and wooden father who happens to be a bishop, to his mother suffering from Alzheimer's, to interacting with a Mafia-connected Catholic priest. (I could go further but I think you get the general idea.)