Medical drama ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ will soon wrap up its eighth season, and with the status of several stars’ contracts in question, the finale is set to feature at least one character death and several potential exits for those who will not return next season.

Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Justin Chambers and Patrick Dempsey are among the original stars of the series, which premiered on ABC in March 2005. They all have deals expiring at the end of the 2011-2012 season, and fans have speculated for months over who will be back for a ninth season in the fall. While ABC has yet to formally renew ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ for a ninth season, the series remains one of the network’s strongest programs and a Thursday night anchor, so a renewal is all but a given.

Pompeo portrays main character Meredith Grey, therefore one would assume that the future of the series is dependent on her renewing her contract for another season. Back in September, Pompeo told TV Guide Magazine, regarding her returning next season:

“I would love the opportunity to discuss it. I would never turn up my nose at Grey’s. As long as the stories are honest and truthful … and I feel there is material for us to be passionate about, it still beats a nine-to-five job any day. If I hear from the fans that they want us to keep going, then I would continue because we owe them everything.”

Similarly, Oh, who has won a Golden Globe and SAG award for her portrayal of Cristina Yang, told ‘George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight’, in April, that:

“In my heart of hearts, I’ll tell you this: I love my job. I do. I love my job, and I love the show, and I love that character, and I would love to continue playing her.”

Chambers, who plays Alex Karev, sounded unsure last summer when he told TV Line:

 “I don’t know if I’ll go farther. I don’t know if the show will go farther. When we get to that point, we’ll go from there… We know it’s going to end sooner or later. It’s just about ending well and the audience getting what they want out of it.”

Shonda Rhimes, creator and executive producer, has finalized her plans for the season finale and it has now been revealed that one character will die. The character’s identity is unknown, however, there are suggestions that the departing actor will be one of the cast whose contract does not expire this season. Whatever happens, Grey’s weekly audience of 10 million viewers will be tuning in on May 17th to see how things unfold.

Image Courtesy of   http://abc.go.com

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On Tuesday April 17, the first season finale of The CW’s ‘Ringer’ aired, and many have doubted if the series will live to see a season two. Despite premiering to a strong figure of 2.8 million viewers in September, the ratings have been in a steady and ultimately precipitous decline to the point where just 1.16 million viewers watched Tuesday’s finale. The fate of the series is now in serious question.

This all marks quite a contrast from this time one year ago when ‘Ringer’ was one of the most buzzed-about and eagerly-awaited new pilots. It marked star Sarah Michelle Gellar’s return to series television after an eight-year break following a seven-year run on the critically-beloved ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, and brought together an eclectic supporting cast including Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd and ‘Lost’ star Nestor Carbonell.

Originally developed for CBS by ‘Supernatural’ writers Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder, the series features Gellar in a dual role as twin sisters Bridget and Siobhan. In the pilot, Bridget, a recovering drug addict and former prostitute, was set to testify against a murderer when fear for her own life prompted her to contact her estranged, not to mention extremely affluent, sister Siobhan for protection.

However, once reunited, Siobhan faked her own death for unknown reasons and Bridget in turn assumed her sister’s identity in an effort to escape from her predicament, but consequently placed herself in even more danger due to her sister’s own problems.

The plot itself is perhaps indicative of why ‘Ringer’ failed to connect with a mass audience. From the first episode alone, ‘Ringer’ featured a convoluted story and a multitude of storylines. As the season progressed, further twists were introduced including, but not limited to: affairs, kidnappings, murders, corporate blackmail, faked assaults, and a paternity mystery which was not resolved until Tuesday’s finale.

With every twist, ‘Ringer’ became more and more of a plot-driven series which relied on sensationalism and shock-value as a means of compensating for its under-developed characters and rushed narrative developments.

Add this to the fact that ‘Ringer’ was paired on The CW’s schedule with the younger-skewing ’90210′, and that it aired opposite heavyweights ‘The Voice’, ‘Dancing With the Stars’, and ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ which cumulatively attract upwards of 35 million viewers, and it becomes clear that ‘Ringer’ was not in the position to come out of the gate with an intricate premise which depended upon undivided attention from its audience from the get-go.

To make things even more challenging for the creative team behind the series, The CW placed ‘Ringer’ on a nine-week hiatus in the middle of its season, meaning that production on much of the second half of the season went on without any audience feedback.

Once ‘Ringer’ returned to the schedule at the end of January, it was too late to make any changes, and all The CW has been able to do is to sit back and watch the ratings drop in a year where almost all of its other series have been in significant ratings decline.

‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Nikita’, ’90210′ and newcomer ‘Hart of Dixie’ are all hovering around similarly low levels, but none had the expectations of success that ‘Ringer’ had, nor did they have the spectre of Gellar’s cult-classic ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ looming over their heads.

Now with its season wrapped well before May sweeps, a renewal for ‘Ringer’ is looking less and less likely. Even if The CW did consider giving it a last-minute pick-up, the new season would not premiere until September, meaning that the series would be off the air for at least five months, a break twice as long as the one ‘Ringer’ already went through this season and which already proved detrimental to any ratings momentum ‘Ringer’ may have had in its early weeks.

It would take a giant leap of faith on the network’s part, and an even larger creative restructuring behind-the-scenes for ‘Ringer’ to live to see another season.

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An actor smoking a cigarette in a movie may soon be considered as racey as explicit sex scenes. A number of health organizations argue that smoking on camera should make a film “R” rated. Drug use, obscene language and nudity are the common characteristics moviegoers expect of an “R” rated film. In the future, film watchers may need to add “lighting up” to that list.

Research conducted by Department of Primary Care and Public Health at The Imperial College in London, found that approximately one in five teenagers worldwide, ages 13 to 15, is a regular smoker, with nearly 100,000 children taking up the habit every day. The study concluded that “exposure to smoking in movies is a potent stimulus for youth smoking.”

<pAn article published by the Public Library of Science stated similar findings. It pointed to the connection between tobacco imagery in films and the likelihood of youth to experiment with smoking. “Essentially eliminating smoking and other tobacco imagery from youth-rated films would substantially reduce the total exposure of onscreen smoking images delivered to youth,” explained the article.

The World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, suggest that all future films that include scenes with smoking be given the adult content rating.

The movie industry is aware of health organizations’ concerns with smoking on screen. According to the CDC, Hollywood is less likely to show actors lighting up on in movie scenes than they were five years ago. However, health groups are still determined to view the smoking scenes that are still being included in films with a more critical eye.

Not all researches are on board with the notion of rating smoking in films more harshly. In an article, also published by the Public Library of Science, a study at the University of Sydney argued against the idea of giving smoking an adult rating in films. The article pointed out that youth are likely being exposed to smoking, to a greater degree, outside the context of the movie theatre. The researchers also expressed an overall concern with the notion of regulating cultural expression.

While no new standard has been passed, anti-smoking advocates continue to push for a more serious rating of movies that choose to include the addictive habit.

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It’s never been easy to evaluate a quarterback and the impact a quarterback has on whether a team wins or loses.  We have had the Quarterback rating which has been used over the years to put a value on signal callers after each game.

Now ESPN has unveiled a new way to evaluate arguably the most important position on the football field; it is called the Total Quarterback Rating.

ESPN describes this new system as a way of “understanding what each play means to the team, then gives credit to the quarterback for what happened on a play based on what he contributed”

In this new approach to the position, a quarterback will be graded from a scale of 0-100, of course 100 being the highest, 50 being average or middle of the pact and 0 being the lowest; I doubt we will see any one ranked that low, unless Jimmy Clausen starts for Carolina.

The probability of winning becomes important in rewarding points to a player, in this new system every play in which a particular quarterback is involved will affect his overall rating.

A player like Michael Vick will benefit in this new system because last year, the 600 plus yards he gains on the ground did not affect his rating as  signal caller; he will be rewarded for those yards in the  system but at the same time, so will fumbles and yardage lost.

Every aspect of playing the position will be accounted for- interestingly enough, players will be penalized for overthrowing or under throwing receivers, an aspect of this that seemed to be a little hard to compute.  If a quarterback places the ball in a great spot that allows the receiver to gain more yards after the catch that will bode well for his total rating.

There are those who believe this will answer the question of who is the best quarterback in a season yet meaningless numbers won’t be rewarded like they have been in the past. In fact, you will be rewarded as a quarterback for making the right play when it means the most to the outcome of the game.

The clutch factor which we have seen in many quarterbacks and that which many other quarterbacks lack will play a large role in how their season will be judged.

“A clutch play is defined before the play by how close the game appears to be. Down four points with three seconds to go and facing third-and-goal from the 3-yard line — that is a high-pressure and high-clutch index situation because the play can realistically raise the odds of winning to almost 100 percent or bring them down from about 40 percent to almost zero percent.”

As described by the ESPN article, a play of this nature at midfield is relatively less meaningful therefore the clutch index is lowered.  The outcome of that same play at midfield will mean less to the overall outcome of the game.

The whole premise of this new approach is that, football is played by a team and the offense functions as a team.  In order to evaluate one position (the Quarterback), it is important to understand how he contributes to the team winning.  It becomes less about the totality of the yards or touchdowns scored by the team and more about the individual plays, when they were made and how they were made.

There is more to examine about this new approach to evaluating quarterbacks in the NFL.  The Total Quarterback Rating will take some getting used to, but sports fans and NFL fans will have to learn and adapt quickly.

Many former signal callers appreciate the way this has been done because it tries to incorporate everything involved in running a play in the National Football League.  As Cosell was quoted saying in the article, “Football is not complex, but it is very detailed.”  That is clearly evident in the Total Quarterback Rating.

Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com

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