He’s everywhere, I tells ya: Burt Reynolds will appear as the fishing enthusiast dad of Leann Rimes in “Reel Love,” an original CMT movie, on Sunday at 7 p.m. Apparently, Rimes is a lawyer in New York with a city hottie boyfriend, who is called home to Alabama to see to her dad, who’s not in good health. Wouldn’t you know it that there’s a cute guy she left behind in the south who she just might reconnect with?

This, of course, sounds a heck of a lot like “Sweet Home Alabama,” where Reese Witherspoon was a Southern-born fashion designer with a hot Kennedy-esque beau up north and a scruffy guy down home that she still carries a torch (and legal marriage status) for. I kinda hated that movie, but it made a jillion dollars, so I’m not surprised someone got around to remaking it. The one thing that we know this TV version has over the remake is Burt!

OK, so this is a little more ambitious than I thought. I am committed to watching as many Westerns and writing about them, because I always promised my grandfather that I would watch more cowboys. And I miss him.

But this weekend got away from me – family obligations – and I couldn’t manage to watch anything. I started “Rio Bravo,” with Granddaddy’s favorite, John Wayne, but haven’t finished watching it yet. So I decided to watch the very first episode of “Cheyenne,” a show I had never heard of until a few years ago when I saw it at Granddaddy’s house with him and my mom. As with most things that he liked that I’d never heard of, he was appalled.

I did gain some points by looking up the show on my Blackberry and being able to discuss some of Granddaddy’s favorite details, like that big strapping star Clint Walker, who played the titular Cheyenne Bodie, walked out because of a salary dispute, and was replaced by the also strapping Bronco Lane, played by Ty Hardin. Eventually, Walker and the studio got themselves together, Bronco got his own gig, and all was well on the Western front.

But the first episode, called “Mountain Fortress,” was before all that drama. It quickly establishes the plot – Cheyenne is a white guy whose parents were killed by Native Americans, and who was raised by the Cheyenne. Now, post Civil War, Cheyenne and his sidekick Smitty Smith – for real – roam the West. I believe they’re map makers for the government. Or something. I’m not sure. I got distracted by the villain, a dude named Manson.

Of course, in 1955, nobody could know how loaded a name this would be, but the Mansons have some similarities. Both are the leaders of a cult of personality who prey on others for some agenda. The Western Manson’s motivations are not helter skelter but hella cash. (Sorry. All I got.) He and his men, including a Mexican sidekick whose accent wavers between Mexican, Chef Boyardee commercial offensive Italian, and Gumby, have taken advantage of the impending attacks by Native Americans to capture Cheyenne, Smitty, a former Confederate soldier with a cute dog, and a lady who survives an attack on her stagecoach.

This lady is on her way to a nearby fort to be reunited with her fiancee, an officer named Brad that she hadn’t seen in 2 years. She assumes he’s still there. This tells you how much technology has changed human behavior, because if I haven’t talked to you and confirmed our plans within two hours, I’m not driving to Starbucks, let alone hop in a stagecoach and bump through the desert looking for a guy I haven’t seen in two years.

And then I saw that Brad was being played by a young, square-jawed, barrel-chested and entirely fine James Garner, and I kinda got it. Sorta. There’s a funny line where the girl is freaking out over having seen everyone on the stagecoach slaughtered and Cheyenne says “After you and the Lieutenant get married, you’ll forget this ever happened.”

James Garner is fine. But not perhaps “forgetting mass murder” fine.

At the end of the show, a tribe is attacking and Brad wants to go get help from the rest of the soldiers at the fort, but Manson isn’t having it. Neither is Fake Mexican, who just shoots Manson to get him to shut the heck up. This frees everyone up to fight, but does not protect our friend the Confederate soldier, who has asked Brad’s girl to watch his dog if anything happens to him. This virtually ensures that something – like death – was going to happen to him.

I really liked this show, because of all of the strapping manliness, and because even in the cliche-ridden plot there were a few things I didn’t see coming, like the defection of Fake Mexican. Or James Garner living through the episode, because boyfriends never do.

Friday and Saturday’s Lester Westerns comes a little late – I had some Internet issues that precluded me getting them up sooner. And I regret having to go to the TV show well so soon, but it couldn’t be helped.

Today’s episode of “The Big Valley” is about nationalism, prejudice, the little guy striking a blow against the man, industrial strangleholds and dated ethnic stereotypes. It’s also further evidence that those Barkleys, those fabulously rich rancher do-gooders, just cannot stop meddling in other people’s business. Of course, it’s their show, and if they didn’t, there would be very little plot:

Downtrodden Persecuted Neighbor: I’m being persecuted by some oppressive overwhelming force! Won’t you let me hide out at your spacious home, where I’m sure none of the people after me aren’t gonna come looking for me?

Victoria Barkley: Child, please. I just got the chandeliers restrung after the last time we got shot up protecting some knuckleheads.  Stay strong. Be well. Chin up. Just get the heck out of here before we have to start dodging bullets, because I will bill you. Or your heirs. Believe that.

That, of course, never happens, so Nick finds himself, and eventually his brothers, caught up in the drama surrounding demonstrative Greek immigrant Bodos (Tige Andrews, whose birth name was Tiger!). Bodos and his silent younger brother Alexandros. Bodos wants to ship his crop of delicious peaches to the big city, but has a difference of opinion with Mr. Minter, the guy from the railroad.

And by “difference of opinion,” I mean “all-out furniture chucking brouhaha.” Minter offers a ridiculous price, and is also a wee disrespectful and starts eating one of the peaches just to be a jerk. So Bodos starts beating the peaches right out of him. He gets arrested, and cheerfully admits that he’d like to get out of the pokey so he can commence to beating on Minter. But instead, he decides to load his peaches and his oddly silent brother on a wagon to get to market himself, without the railroad.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t plan on the jerks from the railroad blocking the path, telling him that they owned the land he wanted to go through, and that it was the railway or no way. Bodos, not one for restraint, gets into a fight with them, and poor Alexandros winds up silently shot to death – the scene where they tell Bodos and he’s insisting that he’s fine is a triumph of overacting, the channeling of Ricky Schroeder from “The Champ” some 12 years later.

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“Top Chef” has turned over a new page in its tenure on Bravo, with a new judge, a new judging strategy and a staggered elmination process. We won’t know who all 16 chefs who get to go into the house and compete to get voted off some other time are. And we won’t get a chance to see Lindsay Autry of the Michelle Bernstein restaurant at the Omphoy until next week. I’m pulling for her, because with 29 people vying for those spots, it’s nuts. There are a lot of people you barely get to know, although in one case – snotty young chef Tyler, who screwed everyone on his team up by badly butchering their meat – I know all I wanna know.

It works like this – thee groups of chefs come in having to work with a specific meat – the first two were pig and rabbit – and then are either voted right into the house, left on the bubble, or dismissed immediately. It was brutal and kind of fun because I was watching it from my floor eating a bowl of granola and soy milk, and not having my dreams dashed. That’s probably less fun.

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Bold and I boasted so much about the fun we had pouring wine at the Lexus Taste at Downtown at the Gardens last year that Sweet and Dry have made sure to clear their calendars this year so they don’t miss out again.

We’re honored to have been invited to participate in this food and wine event that raises money for the Big Heart Brigade’s Thanksgiving Dinner Drive, which provides holiday meals for the less fortunate. On November 10, from 5:30 – 9:00 p.m., Downtown at the Gardens in Palm Beach Gardens will transform into a party venue with a plethora of culinary treats and libations, in addition to live music and a fireworks show.

However, the real thrill is, you get a discount on your advance ticket purchase because you’re a Swirl Girls reader. The “Taste Pass” is available to you for $35 (that’s 30 percent off the advance ticket price of $50!) Just head over to the Lexus Taste at Downtown web site at www.tasteatdowntown.com and use the promo code SWIRLGIRLS when you make your purchase.

If you need a little prodding to get out there and join us, we’ll be pouring a great selection of wines — something for every palate:

Wonderful whites:
Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut
Columbia Winery Cellarmaster’s Riesling
Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc

Ravishing reds:
Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Village
Oyster Bay Pinot Noir
Querceto Chianti Classico Reserva
Artesa Elements Cabernet Sauvignon
Brazin Old Vine Zinfandel

We’re looking forward to seeing you there and sharing a sip!

The entertainment gods giveth, and then taketh away: 2010 “American Idol” runner-up Crystal Bowersox got axed from her record label this week, but she made her acting debut last night on ABC’s “Body of Proof.” The dreadlocked blues lady played Zoe, an incarcerated single mother with a drug history caught up in the murder of a rich horseswoman whose equestrian program Zoe was involved in.

And – surprise – she’s great! Crystal has told reporters that she was mad nervous about the role – but star Dana Delany says she’s a natural, and I have to agree. There’s a scene where Zoe’s maternal instinct comes into play, and either Crystal’s natural mothering kicked in or she’s a genius, because she made me cry. And I am not a crier under normal network television circumstances unless there’s a military funeral or puppies involved.

So even if this big record company thing doesn’t work out for her – and I believe Crystal’s gracious comments about appreciating even the 200,000 records that her “Farmer’s Daughter” release sold – she’s got some acting chops. Also, B.B. King loves her. So, there’s that.

“I love our baby. She makes my life so much better,” an exhausted but happy Reagan (Christina Applegate) tells her husband Chris (Will Arnett), as they cuddle with said baby after an ill-advised bender on NBC’s new “Up All Night”. “But sometimes I miss the old days.”

I watched “Up All Night” – about first-time 40-something parents struggling to balance work, marriage and who they thought they were before the arrival of this tiny game changer – with a combination of laughter and something approximating creeping terror. Like Chris and Reagan pre-baby, my husband and I are busy people with happening personal and professional lives who managed to make it to this age without having to make our lives about anything other than us.

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When we first met “Entourage”‘s Vincent Chase back in 2004,  he was a pretty young Queens-bred fawn on the cusp of once-in-a-lifetime Hollywood fame, navigating the spoils of La-La-Land without losing his close friendships or his soul. As the seventh season of HBO’s hit dramedy ended, Vince (Adrien Grenier) appeared to be 0 for 2 in that fight, having become not only a raging coke addict jerk, but a raging coke addict jerk with coke found on his person.

 By the po-po.

 Uh-oh.

So you’d expect “Entourage”‘s eighth and final season, which starts Sunday, to burst with important of dramatic stakes as we wrap up the journey of the now sober but not necessarily wiser Vince and his posse  - lovesick manager and emotional rock Eric (Kevin McCarthy), hangdog big brother Drama (Kevin Dillon) and pothead/entrepreneur Turtle (Jerry Ferrera).

If the first three episodes are any indication, those stakes are more like mild speedbumps that you can drive right on over without any tire damage or fuss at all. Actually, you could miss ‘em all together, because besides some career advancements, there hasn’t been a whole lot of growth in this group of  merry lads who’ve much Forrest Gump’ed their way through so many improbable ups and seemingly insurmountable downs that you need a Dramamine to stomach it all.

Actually, besides the voyeuristic fantasy of all the excess Hollywood has to offer – huge cars, expensive watches, an exhaustive collection of homes and hotel suites that I could fit the entire Features section of this newspaper in and an equally exhaustive collection of interchangeable hussies who’ll sleep with anyone remotely famous – there’s never been a whole lot of there, there on “Entourage.” And besides their loyalty to each other, they kind of suck as people.

One of “Entourage”‘s biggest issues has always been that Vince, the show’s star, is the least substantial character. At first, it sort of seemed by design, a lesson in how Hollywood can turn the prettiest empty vessel into a megastar, chewing up and spitting out at will. But season after season it’s the same thing over and over – Vince gets a big opportunity, loses it, gets another bigger opportunity, loses that even more largely, and then – SURPRISE! – stages an improbable comeback. And through it all, he’s still an empty vessel.

Last season, when he was a raging cokehead dating a porn star (Sascha Grey, playing herself as awfully self-righteous for someone who introduces Vince to coke in the first place), he was at least sort of interesting. But shoo away the coke dust, and he’s no longer a sweetly horny puppy – he’s an angry cokehead puppy. That ain’t entertainment! Season Eight finds him wanting to make his newfound sobriety count personally and career-wise, but there’s absolutely nothing in the writing or Grenier’s performance that suggests that, if the right addict porn star came along, he wouldn’t be back in the club trying to smack Eminem like he did last season.

Honestly, I’ve always questioned why I watched this show in the first place, because it’s sometimes hard to like any of these people. I guess the idea of the journey was interesting at first, and after a while it was like checking in on your loser cousins to make sure they were still alive. As long as they weren’t at your house.

 Let’s start with Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) whose potty-mouthed tirades seemed like the novel, quirky truth of someone you’re glad you didn’t have to actually speak to, but who was amusing and colorful enough for a fictional character. Over the series, quirky has become downright abusive  – his homophobic and racist slams at his long-suffering assistant/now colleague Lloyd (Rex Lee) are so hideous they hurt to hear. They’re not funny anymore, just ugly. And as Ari tries to repair his broken marriage to Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves, who now just looks bored), he does so many stupid, obviously selfish things that you want to write him off. And then write off anyone else who deals with him.

The rest of the crew is involved in story-dictated drama that doesn’t seem to make much difference to character development. Turtle is dealing with changes in his relationship and his tequila business; Drama is trying to stop Andrew Dice Clay from ruining their new cartoon show, and Kevin is trying to move forward professionally while getting over ex-fiance Sloan (Emmanuelle Chirqui). Everyone’s trying to shield Vince from the fact that his idea for his new movie is awful. There are a new collection of boobs.

Out of everyone, Turtle’s done the most of what could be described as changing as a person – no longer content to be the chubby slacker sidekick/driver, he’s a businessman now. And Ferrara, an underrated, understated actor, has dropped the baby fat and channeled Turtle’s more serious side – he’s sort of growing up, but yet not a grown-up. Honestly, nobody really is. Maybe that what supposed to be the point – Hollywood and its pleasures are fleeting and transient, and you can’t rely on it to make you a better person.

Or maybe it was just about boobs.

A former Florida first lady is celebrating a momentous birthday today: Erika Kirk turns 77 – on the seventh day of the seventh month.

Is there any significance to this confluence of sevens? Erika’s husband of 44 years, former Gov. Claude Kirk Jr., seems to think so. He says he and his wife are "feeling pretty lucky" on her big day.

The German-born Erika Mattfeld met her future husband in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Kirk whisked the blond beauty back to the States. When Kirk became Florida’s first Republican governor in 100 years, in January 1967, the couple had not yet married.

At his Inaugural Ball, Kirk introduced her simply as "Madame X."

One month later, the two were married at The Breakers resort in Palm Beach. The Palm Beach Daily News called it "the social event of the year."

Always the fashionista, Erika now volunteers regularly at the Church Mouse, a Palm Beach thrift shop operated by the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea. The Church Mouse donates much of its proceeds to local charities. Says Kirk fondly : "She’s always been doing charity work."

The Kirks now live in Palm Beach and have two grown children.

–Rose Cohn

Is it just me, or does this thing seem to be going on FOREVER this season?

Seacrest says that we’re just two weeks away from the finale, which means that the four kids left all have an equal shot at decent careers, if not an equal shot at winning “American Idol.” It also means that we all get our Wednesday and Thursdays back. Well, maybe you don’t want yours back…

Wait…did Seacrest just say that Lady Gaga is helping interpret the music of Leiber and Stoller, which dates back to before most of their parents? Is Gaga gonna be dressed as a hound dog with a collar made of glitter and fireflies? What is going on here?

First, the kids are gonna sing songs that inspire them, and then do the songs of Leiber and Stoller, which are justified and ancient, just like the Vengeance of Mu-Mu. Look it up, kiddies. And tell the ghost of Tammy Wynette I said “Hey.”

James introduces “Don’t Stop Believing,” from a band that one of the judges used to be in, without the backstage chatter with Jimmy Iovine. I miss him, particularly he’s usually guaranteed to be the only professional on camera that’s gonna give any sort of critique other than “You’re so pretty!” (JLo) or “Dawg, for me, Dawg…You’re back!” (Randy) or “You’re the very definition of a loose goose avoiding the noose.” (Tyler)

James is, not surprisingly, great. He’s so confident, that one, so professional but still so far from phoning it in. He’s, for lack of a better word, exciting, even on this played-into-the-ground hit. He hits all the right highs, all the emotional tags. I still feel he’s gonna win. He certainly should.

Haley does Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song,” which I don’t know well, but which she infuses with a competent combination of growl and compassion. And Jlo “can feel her feeling” but thinks that, just like last week, she ought to start pandering to the public and sing stuff they know. I get that, but I don’t love the idea that Lopez says she should “do what everyone else is doing.” Is that really what we should be telling them? Conform for the money and the votes?

I do love Haley’s exchange with Randy, because he tries tell her that she shouldn’t strain, and that the audience might respond more to a song that is more familiar…and then…OH SNAP! Tyler tells her the other judges are full of it and not to listen to them! And the audience, who by now is on RoboBoo whenever they hear anything that seems to approach criticism and not blanket butt-kissing, is confused. So is Haley. Listen, America. If no one in their lives ever tells them they are less than perfect, or that they need to work on something, they never will. Haley’s not a fragile flower. She’s trying to enter the nastiest, most cut-throat business around, and if she can’t take criticism, she doesn’t need to be in it. Seriously. They didn’t attack her with Brillo Pads and motor oil. They told her her song could be better.

Scotty, who I will never call “The Body” because it’s sorta dumb, is doing Alan Jackson’s 911-related “Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning.” He does a pretty faithful job that’s almost too faithful. It’s almost karaoke. Sorry. Boo me. I can take it. Randy seems to be treading lightly because he just is sick of being booed. I can’t really tell if he liked it, or if he’s just sure that this was a good song for him. I have to tell you that I never liked the line that admitted not being sure about the difference between Iraq and Iran. There is a difference, you know. I stand by what I’ve been saying for weeks – Scotty is an incredibly talented kid who hasn’t yet found out who he is as a singer. Sorry. Ready for him and/or Lauren to go.

Speaking of Lauren, she’s singing Martina McBride’s “Do It Anyway.” Y’all, I admit when I’m wrong, and I may have spoken too soon. She’s pretty good this week, with notes that are meaty, not showy, an amazing amount of control and a connection to the song I don’t usually feel from her. Also, she got rid of the Barbarella weave. That’s always a plus.

Hey! Jimmy’s back with Carol Channing, who joins us after passing out on top of a pile of fake eyelashes at the MAC counter after a mimosa and cupcake binge with the cast of Cirque Du Soleil. No, wait…it’s Lady Gaga, who is, under all that flash and self-promotion, a wonderful singer. Really excited to see what she does with Scotty, because she’s all about the drama, and he’s easy like Sunday morning. Gaga also seems not to be wearing pants. Dunno why. Part of the drama.

Haley is doing “I Who Have Nothing” by Shirley Bassey, one of the most melodramatic guilt trips ever recorded. Oh, this is gonna be good. Gaga tells her to take a dramatic breath, and she does. I LOVE THIS. There is such a difference between a singer like Haley who throws everything she has into her songs, emotion, voice and all, and people who just kinda sing. The judges – and this is key – defend their harshness, such as it us, because they want her to regroup and then perform like that. Seacrest tells Randy he confuses her by ever giving criticism and then makes them hug.

Sometimes…you don’t get a hug. You don’t get a lot of marshmallow fluff to take the sting off the truth. You just get truthed.

Scotty is doing “Young Blood” by the Coasters, which Gaga thinks shows his humor. She also thinks he would connect better to the song if he imagined the microphone as his girlfriend, who has threatened to leave him if he doesn’t stick his tongue down her throat. This is a wee graphic, and Scotty’s a little freaked out (I think he’s mostly joking) and wants to kiss his cross and wait for deliverance from the scary lady, but it works. Whatever she said works! Gaga, for her part, apologizes for having underestimated his conservatism. She’s sorta in her own world, that one, but she’s sweet.

Lauren is not evil. She wants you to know that, even though she’s doing Elvis’ “Trouble” in which she claims she’s evil over and over. Gaga explains that she’s doing a character, but that she should embrace her impish side. The best part of this is not Lauren’s song, which is pretty good, but Iovine’s stone-faced assertion that Gaga is “the perfect person to discuss the world ‘Evil.’” Oh, Iovine. Bless your heart.

James is trying to do the Coasters via Paul Rodgers, and Gaga, as Jimmy says, “is not having it.” She makes him rev it back up. I wish he’d been encouraged to stay within the key. But it’s super fun and he’s got mad personality. “Love Potion Number 9″ is a goofy fun song, and he captures it perfectly. Gaga is the best mentor in a while. I wish she was available to be a judge.