This review is for the Canadian DVD release, which has season 1 (6 episodes) and season 2 (22 episodes). The American version only includes the first season (though the American release does have two things missing from the Canadian version: an interview with Susan Saint James and writer Bill Persky, and a gag reel).

Kate & Allie is one of my favorite shows. Yeah, I know, what's a 41 year-old guy doing loving some show about two divorced women raising their families together? The show was not only well-written and cast (Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, Allison Smith, Ari Meyers, and Fred Koehler), but it had a lot of smart things to say about family, relationships, and living in New York City (the show was one of the few sitcoms actually filmed in New York, at the Ed Sullivan Theater).

This news instantly reminded me that Dennis Farina can be really funny in a comedy. You can see the movies Out of Sight and Get Shorty for examples, or try to track down copies of this short-lived CBS show from a few years back, Buddy Faro.

Farina starred as Buddy Faro, a famous private eye who disappeared in 1978 and is found twenty years later by Faro buff and fellow P.I. Bob Jones (Frank Whaley). It's hard to describe the plot (plots aren't that important anyway, as long as the cast and writing is good) except to say that the two team up to solve cases, and Faro tries to get by as a Rat Pack-type old school guy in an Internet world. To top off the casting, Allison Smith (Kate and Allie, The West Wing) played an actress who helped the duo, and Charles Robinson (Night Court) played a character named "El Jefe."

This shows seems like a natural for DVD (a cult show, short-lived, you can fit the whole run in one set), so I hope we see it some day. There are actually several episodes that never even aired.

When I was in high school, I had a thing for redheads (I think it was because I had a long unrequited crush on this girl Tracy, who just happened to be the only person ahead of me academically in my class... oh, it's a long painful story that I'll tell one day... for profit). So, in the entertainment world of the mid-eighties, that meant that I lusted after the same two girls every other ginger-crazed teen did: Allison Smith and Molly Ringwald. I haven't seen a lot of either lately (and judging by the most recent shots of Allison, if I had seen her, I wouldn't recognize her).

Indeed, the last time Molly did TV was in a TNT movie in 2002. But in May, she'll come back to TV in an episode of Medium. She'll play some woman in distress that Patricia Arquette's character will use her psychic powers to help. It really doesn't matter; I'll probably just tune in to see Molly. Or not; I'm a little more into brunettes these days.

A couple of months ago I told you that Universal was putting one episode - yeah, that's one as in "one less than two" - of Kate & Allie was going to be included in the season one set for Gimme A Break! Well, now Universal has announced that the entire first season of Kate & Allie will be released on May 2! No word yet on extras or box art.

The first season was only six episodes long, but still, I'm a happy camper today.