Mike Hughes on TV

Bitty Schram finally returns tonight (Friday, Oct. 23) to "Monk," a show she enlivened for three seasons. It's a good episode, so give it a try tonight or in the reruns (listed below) on Saturday and Thursday

Since the show is coming up quickly, I'm including the story I sent to papers. Pleace take a look at this one and at the story on "Endgame" (this Sunday on PBS), two blogs down:

For Bitty Schram, it seemed like just
another job she wasn't going to get.

“I was auditioning a lot,” she
recalled. “I didn't think anything would come of this.”

Then it did. “Monk” became a movie,
a series, a pioneering step for basic-cable networks. Schram's career
soared … then dipped.

The latter came when she suddenly left
after three seasons. “It was a contractual issue,” she said.

Now she's back, for a fun episode
during the show's final season. On Friday, Sharona (that's her
character) visits her old boss Adrian Monk.

“The way I approached it was just
love,” said Schram, 41. “We can fight; I can hate him, but I also
have a love for him.”

Not much was expected when “Monk”
began in 2002. Back then, basic-cable didn't usually try its own
drama hours. “The Shield” had just started, but others --
“Damages,” “The Closer,” “Psych,” “Battlestar
Galactica” – were in the future.

Still, the USA Network had its idea for
an obsessive-compulsive detective. “This was supposed to be just a
movie,” Schram said.

Tony Shalhoub, fresh from situation
comedies, would star. Playing his nurse and assistant was Bitty
(short for Elizabeth) Schram, who had glimmers of a comedy career.

She had grown up in New Jersey, where
she did so-so in education – “I had issues with authority in
school” – and well in theater. She went to the University of
Maryland, then scored:

– On Broadway, in Neil Simon's
“Laughter on the 23^rd Floor.” She was the only woman,
opposite Nathan Lane, Mark Linn-Baker and more.

– In movies, in a famous scene from
“A League of Their Own.” She was the one whom Tom Hanks informed:
“There's no crying in baseball.”

Sharona fit Schram neatly. She was from
Jersey, too; she dressed flashily, which was Schram's idea.

The movie did well and became a series,
drawing solid ratings and honors. Shalhoub has received Emmy
nominations for each of the first seven seasons, winning three times.
Other Emmys went to two guest stars (John Turturro and Stanley Tucci)
and to Randy Newman's theme song.

Schram received a Golden Globe
nomination as best supporting actress. Then she was off the show.

“It's standard practice and procedure
to renegotiate a contract when a show is a success,” she said.
Several of the supporting actors asked for raises; all eventually
backed down …. except for Schram.

The four years since then have seen
only scattered work. There was talk returning for an episode.

Now here it is. “My uncle dies and
leaves me the money,” Schram said. “But Monk doesn't think his
death was an accident.”

He always suspects murder; he's always
right. And for one night, he has both his current assistant (Natalie,
played by Traylor Howard) and Sharona, dealing with him in opposite
ways. It's a fun return to what was once a great role.

– “Monk”

– 9 p.m. Fridays, USA Network

– The Sharona episode is Oct. 23,
repeating that night at 12:14 a.m.; it also airs at 10 a.m. Saturday
and 11 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29.

Please do me two favors:

1) Watch "Survivor" tonight (8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22). It brings surprises and an emotional jolt. An advance copy didn't arrive in time for my regular column, but I wanted to tell about it now. A medical emergency -- to one of the strongest players, no less -- creates a crisis, with host Jeff Probst having to intervene; deep feelings are stirred. Please watch it and add your comments.

2) Read the previous blog and then watch "Endgame" at 9 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 25) on PBS' "Masterpiece Contemporary." It's a terrific film about a fascinating round of secret negotiations; the blog tells the details and interviews the man who made it happen.

I interview a lot of silly people about a lot of silly things. That's sort of the nature of television and ... well, of me.

Occasionally, however, there's an interview that stirs me on different levels. That includes the one with Michael Young, who led secret talks that helped end apartheid. His story is told at 9 p.m. Sunday in "Endgame," the superb film that launches the season for PBS' "Masterpiece Contemporary."

Young is someone you'd never notice in most corporate law offices. At 63, he's handsome, white-haired, well-dressed, well-spoken; Steve Martin could play him without going to the make-up trailer. Guys who look like him have made (and, alas, lost) billions for us on Wall Street.

But between 1985 and 1990, he led the talks that paved the way for South Africa to save itself; it's a fascinating story.

I don't usually use this spot for the feature stories that I send to newspapers; mostly, the Web site is for regular blogs and TV columns. Still, I want to get this story out as widely as possible. Please read it and comment:

It was a joyous day in 1990. The secret
talks had finally finished; apartheid was ending and Nelson Mandela
was coming home. South Africa had saved itself.

That's when one negotiator turned to
Michael Young, a quiet businessman. “He said, 'It takes a big man
to be invisible,'” Young recalls.

Then everyone else returned to South
Africa and the spotlight. Young returned to invisibility.

“I was prepared to never talk about
it,” he said.

That wouldn't be necessary. Four years
later, word leaked out about the secret talks that helped change
history. There was a book on the subject and now “Endgame,” a
fascinating TV movie that opens the “Masterpiece: Contemporary”
season at 9 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 25) on PBS.

Jonny Lee Miller plays Young, who
organized the negotiations. “I saw him as a quiet man,” he said
“It gives you a chance to do some subtle work.”

In real life, there is nothing
invisible about Miller, the former “Eli Stone” star. He has
colorful tattoos (covered by make-up in roles that require short
sleeves) and a colorful ex-wife (Angelina Jolie).

Now, however, he was playing the man
trying to silently nudge together two firm forces:

– The white South African government,
unofficially represented by Will Esterhuyser. He's played here by
William Hurt.

– The blacks, who had no votes and
few rights. They were represented by Thabo Mbeki, who would later
follow Mandela as South Africa's second freely elected president.

“There's a real roller-coaster” of
emotions, said Chiwetel Ejiofor. He plays Mbeki, ranging from rage to
fear to sheer joy at the result. “It showed how people can change,”
he said.

All of that centered on Young, who
could easily escape notice. At 63, he's white-haired and handsome, in
a quietly corporate way.

His own views have been liberal, but he
exists easily in other settings. He was an advisor in Britain's
Conservative Party government of Edward Heath, then worked for
Consolidated Goldfields. “It was a very right-wing company
….Goldfields was a British mining house and Cecil Rhodes' old
company …. They were very much part of the establishment.”

Young says he was “the licensed
liberal … I personally found apartheid morally repugnant.”

Still, the guiding impulse at
Goldfields may have been sheer pragmatism. “Planning for a gold
mine requires at least a 25-year horizon,” Young said, “and you
upload your money in the front.”

He was supposed to find out if South
Africa would implode in the next 25 years. At first, he “ducked my
handlers” and talked to villagers; he was vulnerable to either
side. “It would have been quite easy to take me away to the bush.
And the animals would have disposed of any evidence.”

It was back in London that Young met
Oliver Tambo, the head of the African National Congress. “He held
my hand firmly and said, 'I want you to build a bridge.'”

These would be unofficial talks,
facilitated by Consolidated Goldfields. In a British manor, over a
five-year stretch, both sides nudged toward the South African
government's 1990 decision to free Mandela and end apartheid; that's
a story tackled by talented British actors.

Miller, 36, grew up around theater and
television, with a father who was an actor and stage manager at the
BBC. He was a teen-aged store worker in 1990, when Mandela was freed;
five years later, “Hackers” would bring him popularity and Jolie.

The opening “Endgame” scene was
filmed in South Africa, in depressing conditions, Miller said. “This
was a shantytown, full of people …. Some of the shacks had
electricity; many didn't.” Then the negotiations scenes were filmed
in a British mansion, the setting for “Gosford Park” and other
films.

Ejiofor, 35, the son of a Nigerian-born
doctor, grew up in London, hearing about South Africa. “People were
talking as if … apartheid was going to be a part of everybody's
life and always would be.”

He was in the National Youth Theater
when a young South African told him apartheid would end soon.
“Everybody was skeptical about that. (Then) everything seemed to
happen incredibly quickly.”

In the years that followed, he would do
some large films – from “Amistad” to the upcoming “2012” –
and many praised independents. Few, however, can match “Endgame”
for quiet power.

“It was a very, very rich acting
experience,” Ejiofor said, depicting “a seismic change in a
nation.”

And that change was partly achieved in
a cloak of invisibility.

OK, the first half of the weekend worked fine. The University of Michigan offered Delaware State $550,000 to play them Saturday in football; Delaware State -- not accustomed to seeing a big stadium filled with people -- accepted.

Most people (including some football fans) knew there's a Delaware, some knew it's a state, almost nobody knew specifically that there's a Delaware State. No one took the match-up too seriously, but lots of people got to play and everyone had fun.

Now comes my proposal, after the second half of the weekend: Couldn't the Green Bay Packers strike a similar deal, paying the Detroit Lions to visit a couple extra times each season?

You don't expect to run across Northwestern University football fans.

Even in the most logical of situations -- say, at a Northwestern University home football game -- you don't see many of them. I was once in the NU library on a game day; the place was almost disturbingly busy.

So I was surprised at today's Michigan State University Homecoming game, to be sitting near a big batch of Northwestern fans. They were exceptionally high-spirited, at least in the first half.

Often, they loudly chanted "NU." Some of the younger fans near me chose to reply with the initials to Florida University. Apparently, this didn't conflict with the announcer's suggestion that football fans behave with dignity.

Indifference to Wildcat football has always been one of the charms of Northwestern students. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the school's many alumni at the top of show business (others have ranged from Charlton Heston to Garry Marshall to David Schwimmer); she recalls going to exactly one game there and thinks the team lost that day. It's a fair guess.

What Northwestern has, instead, are academic standards. It has smart students, even smart players.

For the first half of today's game, in fact, Northwestern seemed to be continually outsmarting MSU. It often seemed to have the element of surprise; it also led 7-0 at halftime.

Then, in the second half, came the biggest surprise. With a crucial, fourth-and-10 situation, Northwestern attempted and successfully completed an eight-yard pass. No one saw that strategy coming; the play helped send NU tumbling toward its 24-14 loss.

Interestingly, two MSU players -- Larry Caper and Blair White -- hobbled off the field with injuries, then came back to score touchdowns.

There's a trend there: Caper is a brainy guy (with a 3.85 grade point average in high school); White is, too. MSU's smart guys beat Northwestern's smart guys. No one would have predicted that.