...... PATION!:  Tim Curry, as the Criminologist.

Shout-out to Eric J for calling it!

DEMAND SATISFACTION:  Longtime ALOTT5MA Fave Jay Rayner (remember when that was A Thing?) lists his 12 Dining Commandments, "atrocities" he hopes to see gone from restaurants in 2016. This one has come up regularly in Philadelphia:

All restaurants must install big enough tables to accommodate their small-plate-sharing menus. The small plates menu was your idea, not mine. Most tables can’t manage more than four dishes, and you want us to order seven.

YOU'RE NO KELLY BISHOP:  That's my response to today's announcement that Debra Messing will play Marjorie Houseman in ABC's upcoming Dirty Dancing remake.  Still no Johnny Castle casting.

HOW CAN WE NOT TALK ABOUT FAMILY WHEN FAMILY'S ALL THAT WE'VE GOT?  Time to complain about (see title, absence of black acting/directing nominees) and hail (Stallone, the Inside Out v. Straight Outta Compton battle in Original Screenplay) this year's Oscar noms.

I AM AN EXCEPTIONAL THIEF, MRS. MCCLANE:  You don't want to reduce a great actor's career to one role, but it's hard to make a debut as memorable and compelling as Alan Rickman's in Die Hard. From there to Sherwood Forest to the halls of Hogwarts to the deck of the NSEA Protector to a delicious slow burn at a department store counter across Rowan Atkinson, Alan Rickman brought charm and true talent to all his roles.  Fuck cancer; he, too, was 69.

BUT THEY DON'T HAVE A PLAN, THEY JUST HATE MINE!  Should you listen to the Hamilton soundtrack before seeing the musical? Margaret Lyons investigates.

REVENANTING/RECKONING:  Oscar nominations tomorrow. What do you hope to see? I'm pulling for the unlikely Michael B. Jordan nod for Best Actor, and anything for Trainwreck. (Screenplay?)

CHUNG-CHUNG:  11 years ago today on Law and Order, Arthur Branch fired Serena Southerlyn, leading to one of the greatest non sequitur episode endings in TV history.

YES, BUT WILL THEY INVESTIGATE CRIMES? A new sitcom from Mike Schur (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks and Rec) would be exciting enough in and of itself, but that it's going to be toplined by Kristen Bell and Ted Danson makes me even more interested (even if the premise seems to be a bit of a My Name Is Earl retread).

IF YOU THINK JIMMY FALLON WILL STILL BE OUT THERE TRYING TO BE MICK JAGGER AFTER AGE FORTY, THE YOU ARE SADLY, SADLY MISTAKEN:  Who shirked the burden better: Jimmy Fallon and Billy Joel, or Bette Midler with Mick Jagger?

[Hint: one of the option is plainly incorrect. And it makes me wonder if, in a less sexist version of the 1980s, Midler could've been a heck of a late night host.]

THE ICON: David Bowie was truly singular. As one of you said on Twitter already, while I may not have been in the right spot to fully fall in love with him, I sure know a legend when I see one. Glam, punk, genderqueer, disco, Philly soul, industrial—he absorbed it all, made it his own, and a world full of outsiders looking for a hero remains in his debt.  Had he only given us "Changes," dayenu.

Fuck cancer. He was 69.