amnesia

Christina Applegate is the "it" girl right now in television. When casting directors look for sitcom stars, she's always at the top of their list.

Well, Christina finally found something she likes. She has signed on to star in an ABC comedy pilot called Sam I Am, where she'll play an amnesia victim who has to rediscover her life. It's the first starring television role for Applegate since the late '90s. Of course, she was the legendary Kelly Bundy on Married, With Children, from 1987-1997. Since then she starred in 1998's short-lived Jesse, and won an Emmy for a guest-starring role on Friends. Otherwise, she's stuck to movies for the last ten years.

Jean Smart, formerly of Designing Women and 24, has also taken a role in the comedy, and Jennifer Esposito will co-star as Applegate's best friend.

I've never seen an episode of Coronet Blue. It was on television two years after I was born, it only lasted one season, and I don't think it has been repeated much in the past 40 years (and it's certainly not on DVD yet). But I've always been intrigued by it, since it had to do with a man (Michael Alden, played by Frank Converse) who climbs out of the water and has no memory of who he is or what he has done, only that people are after him. He has one clue, the words "coronet blue" that keep repeating in his head. Very Fifth Corner/Bourne Identity-ish.

Unfortunately, the show only lasted one season, so fans never found out what the answer to the mystery was, who this man was and what those mysterious words meant. But now comes the answer...

(S17E20) Last night The Simpsons revisited a lot of familiar territory, making this episode not one of the best of the season, though there were a few good moments.

The title, which I didn't catch right away, is a reference to the film Regarding Henry in which Harrison Ford contracts amnesia. Marge gets dizzy on cleaning products and passes out, smacking her head on a stool and causing her to briefly lose her memory. Fortunately for her children and neighbors everything comes back to her. What she can't seem to remember is Homer, which is especially bad news since there doesn't seem to be any real logic behind why they were together in the first place. All of Homer's quirks which she might have once found endearing now seem weird to her.

The episode had some decent "throw away" gags, such as Homer painting an homage to the '74 Oakland A's on his curb instead of his house number, and Dr. Hibbert asking Marge how many fingers he's holding up before revealing he's actually holding up severed fingers from a jar. I can't fully dismiss an episode that made me laugh out loud more than once, but the basic plot trod upon a lot of old ground, such as Homer and Marge becoming estranged, Homer being kicked out, and, of course, Homer finally coming to his senses and proving his devotion to Marge. This same story has been told before with slight variations, and I'm sure we'll see it again, as the relationship between Homer and Marge has been, since the first season, one that isn't without its blemishes. In that regard, my minor gripe isn't that they've been here before, but that they've done it better.

The short-lived series John Doe is airing on the SciFi Channel beginning next week. John Doe premiered on FOX around the same time as Firefly, and suffered a similar fate (John Doe got a full 21 episodes). John Doe is (obviously) a science fiction series about a guy who wakes up on an isolated island, knowing pretty much everything about the world except who he is. Doe, played by Dominic Purcell, helps Seattle detectives solve crimes as he searches for his own identity. It premieres on SciFi on January 20 at 9pm EST.

I never saw this series when it first aired, did you? Is it good?