I think this story is very credible. Alicia was cast in NBC's The Singles Table last year so she may be willing to commit to Mother long term if it goes that way.

As for people thinking they would not cast as "name" actress in the role as it would be a give away, they may do just the opposite, seeking out a "name" for the role as people will initial be on the fence on if it is just a guest role...

I think CBS is calling it a "season finale" to avoid another nuts incident. If they are planning to bury the show this time there is going to be no warning and no turning back once the decession is made and that will be made clear at the very last moment possible. Just look at how Veronica Mars was abushed last year for the template on how to string fans along just enough to not be bombarded with "save my show" activities.

I really think the siern is going to sound during the live show tonight before the eviction vote occurs and among the surprises will be that tonights vote is not for a couple but a single person that is on the block. The hamsters have no time to plan their strategy and Allison is sent out. After the vote some of the previously evicted hamsters are returned.

Maybe NBC will pull the same stunt as last year and announce their schedule before anyone else then completely shuffle everything around once they know the plans of everyone else.

Oh yeah, can't forget about their plan to not schedule scripted shows outside of the 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm block.

Good luck NBC, you sure have fallen far from your must see tv hayday...

Looking back over the entire run of the show one thing really struck me, the children were portrayed largely in sterotypical gender roles. For example, there is no question Sophia was constantly cleaning and cooking and trying to keep order, but where is the girl that has sheer brute strenght of someone like Greg? Where was the boy acting as a peace maker when there was a scuffle between other children? That is definitely one thing I would change next time out.

I think that with the current writer's strike a second run is almost invenitable at this point. Other than finding participants to break the gender sterotyping my other changes would be that if the journal is needed to keep some structure force the council to make a choice -- what is more important to your town education or religion? Running water vs microwaves, etc. The choices presented as rewards after the showdowns were far too easy to make.

The council should be restricted to equal represenation between the genders. Perhaps a boy and a girl from each district? Not totally sure how to make that work unless districts were split on gender.

And speaking of the makeup of districts, at the half way point the current council should be forced to change things up. They would pick a new district that is equal between genders and equal in representation from the original distrcits. So each district would then be 2 yellow, 2 red, 2 blue and 2 green plus the council member. The remaining extra kids could then be put in any district.

My final comment goes to Taylor and what a truly awful person she is, it was the last day there and it was completely unnecessary to be intentionally exlcuding Savahan from the clique. I am please to see the Migel stepped in the calm things down. For that alone she deserved the gold star.

I really think Amanda will take it all. She made the move at the right time to get James out but she is still playing it smart sticking with her alliance.

I think if PG wins immunity next week it will be Denise that is sent home. It was made pretty clear this week she is close to the bottom of the pecking order with even her thinking she is likely fourth out so next week would only be one week early.

From the previews of next week it is clear that there will be at least one final star worth significantly more than the weekly ones. It almost looked like there were three on each table suggesting that each district might get one.

That said, regardless of the number of stars, if this is a reward worth more than the previous gold stars Sophia deserves it more than any other person on the show. She is worked consistently from day one through to the end and has tried her best to keep everyone on task even when she wasn't sherif. She also did not resort to the same sometimes gruff approach as Greg.

I sort of doubt the kids will award someone a second star though so my second choice would be Zach. He has made efforts to try and salvage the yellow team that Taylor put together which has been a big contributing factor to their difficulties.

The other thing to keep in mind going into next week is that 5 kids were on council and have not received gold stars Anjay, Taylor, Mike, Zach and Guylan. I had said it before and it would still not surprise me if those five all end up with a star before the show is done.

Since we have not seen Divad nominating herself for a few weeks or otherwise being featured I think it is pretty safe assumption that she is not getting a gold star.

Finally, it would not surprise me by any strech to see Campbell and Savannah, the only two green without gold stars, each pick one up next week.

Must be nice to be raking in all the green if you are in the green district. Laurel's much deserved win brings the running totals to 5 green, 3 blue + Blaine and 1 Red. With only 3 episodes remaining it is not possible for an even distribution of stars to occur between distrcits.

The real question becomes if any of the four remaining green members will receive a star.

So the original power house teams continue the pretty much alternate on winning the gold star with Blaine, an original blue district member winning the fourth "blue" star putting them on an equal footing with the green district. I sort of wonder why the kids haven't clued into that one, espically since none of the original yellow members have even been given much serious consideration yet.

The whole town shakeup could have been handled better which more people being moved around, taking equal numbers of kids from each original district to form new districts, esentially 2 blue, 2 red, 2 yellow and 2 green on each team also with an even distribution between genders.

One other interesting obsevation from last night is that it almost seemed like the election was setup a little in that everyone not on council wanting to be elected has previously one a gold star. Based on previous episodes Laurel and Zach defintely could win a gold star yet their chances are very slim while on council. With a new council of only gold-star winners the whole delima of can you win a gold star while on council is solved.

Going to be interesting to see if next week we get a normal episode cycle with a journal, showdown, town hall meeting and gold star. I could see it focusing on the election and the fall-out for close to the entire episode to act a bit as a filler episode.

Which brings me to my finale thought, Survivor is going to be running a clip show on Thanksgiving. There is a lot of unused material from Kid Nation. Is there any chance it will also have a clip show that week to show us outtakes of what the kids have been up to?

The reality is that Apple needs to pop out a CDMA version if they plan to make a serious attempt at entering the Canadian market. CDMA is a more competive format in Canada and Apple could really crack things open if they went that route, not to mention it would solve the whole "unlocking" issue.

The odds of a new GSM carrier entering the market are also pretty slim as it would require a major infrastructure investment. The sort of investment that Rogers could make you regret by starting a significant price war.