Sydney

Hey Melrose Place fans: remember on the original show when Sydney was run over by a car and killed? Well, forget about all that. She's alive!

Laura Leighton will reprise her role as Sydney on the new relaunch of the show that The CW is doing. When we last saw Sydney, she was run over by Samantha and her dad on the day of her wedding. No, I don't remember that at all because I didn't watch Melrose Place, but I did read about it on Wikipedia. Seems like Sydney was kinda crazy, eh? In the new version, she's going to be the landlord. No word on whether she will be a crazy landlord.

Wow, reading about what happened on that show makes me feel like I missed something good. I was a Knot's Landing guy. I did see the Melrose Place episode where Marcia Cross went nutty and blew up the entire condo complex. That was pretty wild.

Do you like KISS? Sure, we all do. I can't get enough of Gene, Paul, Ace, Benji, Maynard, Cuddle Pie, and Pooky Bear.

Okay, so I'm not a KISS fan, but if you are, you might want to tune in to VH1 Classic tomorrow evening.

As a promotion for the upcoming DVD, KISSology: Volume Two 1978-1991, band members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley will host KISSology: The Volume 2 Special on VH1 Classic starting at 10:00 p.m., August 10. The special will feature material from the DVD, including music videos and rare footage of the band.

Actor and comedian Bill Bellamy will host the fifth season of Last Comic Standing when it returns to NBC this summer, but that's not the only change for the comedy showcase / reality series. In addition to holding auditions in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, San Antonio and Tempe, Arizona, the show will also be seeking out talent in Sydney, London and Montreal. Season two finalists Ant and Kathleen Madigan will serve as judges along with season three winner Alonzo Bodden. Auditions kick off this month in Los Angeles on February 26.

I stopped watching the series after the first couple seasons, and even then I didn't watch it religiously. Nevertheless, I'm always surprised how many comedians I've grown fond of have actually appeared on the show. None of them have actually won, but maybe that means I should watch and root for the underdog. In other words, if you end up on the show and I like you, you're probably not going to win.

Reality Blurred is reporting that ads for production assistants have popped in Australia for a possible Real World production down under. While the ads aren't always the best indication that The Real World will be taking up residence in your town, they do come courtesy of the show's production company Bunim-Murray.

The Real World hasn't been abroad since their lackluster London and Paris seasons, but seeing how dramatically the show has changed since the seminal Las Vegas season of debauchery, a trip to Sydney is bound to play like an over-privileged college kid's junior year abroad. They'll be lucky if the brain trust they send down there does anything but marvel at the lower drinking age and the availability of beer other than Foster's.

(S05E16/S05E17) TV finales can be so tricky. You want to please longtime fans, you want to bring some closure, but you still have to tell a good story. Some finales are great (Newhart, The Fugitive, Cheers), while others are downright horrible (Seinfeld, The X-Files). I'm happy to report that this episode ranked in the former category.  Was it perfect? No, not at all. But it certainly tired up all loose ends and provided a very entertaining last two hours. What else could you ask for?