Kneejerk!

I can't help it. I want to help it. I want to remember the Gilmore Season of Pain, the repercussions of which I feel every Tuesday night as I watch the screen through my fingers, wincing at reminders of what once was, contenting myself with what is now.

And yet? My heart skips a beat: Amy Sherman-Palladino has a development deal for pilot with the Fox Network.

ASP, make it up to me. I'm apparently willing to forgive you.

Fox, you? Not so much. Cough *O.J., Arrested Development, American Idol* cough.

No more needed, Santa, we're good now!

We here at M&C tend to hang around in the rage-fury-despair bands of the emotional spectrum most of the time, but once in a while we feel the love. It's usually a furious love, a little bit wrathful, but it's love all the same. And when two things we love occupy the same space at the same time? There aren't even words.

So just pretend that there's like choir music and angels and haloes of sunlight and stuff while I announce this: A song by one of our favorite favorites, Matt Nathanson, finally (finally, Zach, jeeeezus) appeared on one of our other favorite favorites, Scrubs, on Thursday.

Matt's got the clip up at his MySpace page, for your enjoyment. (While you're there, check out to see when he's playing at a venue near you. Do it. Trust us.)

And also, while we're on the topic, let's just consider this a public service announcement: All you folks who got to our little BFE of the Internets via the search terms "Matt Nathanson's wife" (and there are so many of you that I'm a little scandalized), we know Matt Nathanson's wife (through a friend) and she's awesome, so step off. Thanks!

Wham-my!

So, I'm listening to the dance music station (yes, I know, credibility shot, blah, blah, blah), when I hear the DJ announce that Wham! are . . . getting back together.

I'll pause here for the screams to subside.

When I heard it, I found myself hollering at the radio: "Andrew! You know better than this!"

The Andrew to whom I referred (and to whom my special magic two-way radio immediately rebroadcast my shouting) was, of course, Andrew Ridgely, the sensible member of the group.

Because it would be no use talking to George Michael about it. This crackpot idea is right up George's current alley, if you don't mind my saying. Wham! getting back together would totally seem like a good idea if you were, say, slumped, stoned, behind the wheel of your luxury automobile in some London backwater.

I have searched the Internets for confirmation of this news. I find rumblings of a reunion concert and George wisting after Andrew (I told you it's so George's idea), but no outright confirmation.

There may still be time. Everyone, pray.

Actually, I do know how to quit you

Entertainment Weekly, O, EW. We must have a word.

You and I have been like old friends. Those early golden years were glorious. Your weekly arrival was a point of anticipation -- and even contention between my brother and me. Fights broke out over who got to read first, who got to quote what to whom first. You were a thick, heady, densely-packed beauty of insider trivia and careful analytical introspection.

Then came the falling out. Photos replaced text on your pages, then advertisements replaced photos. You transformed from the textbook of "You are here, Hollywood" to a series of love notes crafted by and to celebrity publicists. Even worse, you were routinely behind the Mr. Showbiz curve. I left you, EW, for that whore the Internet, and she was good to me, very good to me, for a long time.

But, unexpectedly, you and I reconciled. I re-subscribed, not even out of some sense of how much I had missed you, but to make some extra points with a coworker whose child needed to up her headcount in the annual magazine drive. I agreed that, indeed, there was original content within your pages the equal of which I could not get from Defamer. You agreed to continue to fill at least some of your pages with insightful, informative, even snarky text, rather than just the same photographs of the celebrities over and over again. In the last year, I have grown to love you again.

Which makes what I'm about to say even more painful for me. But here goes:

1) Putting Mel Gibson on your cover is not exactly taking a neutral position on the whole anti-Semitic rant question. "People won't really refuse to work with you?" you ask him, disingenuously. EW, have you not already put him on your cover? Have you not already interviewed him? Have you or have you clearly not refused to work with him? You make the point ever so finely yourself: If there's profit involved, honey, anyone will work with him.

2) The Holiday Gift Guide? I expect shopping advice from Lucky. I find it less acceptable from you. And then? In the midst of it all, you go and call Masi Oka "pudgy"? No. You. Di'n't. Back off my new crush, bitches. The word you were looking for is "smokin'."

3) And while you're backing off, I was wondering if you could stop ragging at least once an issue on my favorite film of 2006, Stranger than Fiction. Unless "soulless piece of Charlie Kaufman lite" is supposed to be high praise, by which you mean that it's a film that doesn't make me want to cut my wrists immediately? Because if the difference between Charlie Kaufman and Charlie Kaufman lite is that I actually leave the theatre not despising humanity and conscious existence in general, then I will take me some lite any time.

EW, thanks for reminding me that you're selfish and materialistic. And also that you're mean and not in a good way.

For all you JD and Turk lovers out there

Finally: the moment of truth! I laughed, I cried. Truly beautiful moment.

Enjoy! Watch the love story unfold. They're my favorite couple on primetime.