SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

While our pick of this weekend is Saturday's Empty Nest premiere marathon on The Hallmark Channel, there are other options for marathon viewing as well. This weekend will close out February, which is of course Black History Month, and Centric and GMC will showcase marathons of The Cosby Show and 227! Both series air regularly on the networks, but it is still good to have a marathon. The Cosby Show has its marathon on Saturday, Feb. 26 from 11am-10pm followed by the Centric premiere of the two-hour retrospective The Cosby Show: A Look Back from 10pm-12am. The marathon episodes are going in order with episodes 33-54 airing. Those are classic episodes! View the episode titles and times.
GMC will have a 227 marathon on Sunday, February 27 from 10am-1am on Oscar Sunday! And it's also 2-27, get it? The episodes won't go in order, but will indeed start with the premiere episode "Honesty" and will feature many guest stars again as well such as LaWanda Page, Benard Ighner, John Houseman, Mary Wilson, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Florence Griffith Joyner, Willie Amakye, Ray Combs, Gene Wood, Cuba Gooding Jr., Johnny Gilbert, Joan Rivers and Gary Coleman. Select episodes from all five seasons will air. View the episode titles and times. The day before on Saturday, Feb. 26, GMC premieres the World Premiere Original Gospel Stage Play Movie The Ideal Husband at 7pm that stars 227's Jackee Harry, Clifton Powell, Darrin Henson, Shanti Lowry, Shirley Murdock and Ginuwine. A couple is joyously expecting their first child, but a secret from the husband's past threatens to destroy their happiness. Tracey, soon to be a new mother, is overjoyed at finally being able to have a child and prepares for a visit from her family for a big celebration. Her husband Devin, sidelined from the NFL due to a football injury, is also elated while physically working to build up his strength to return to the game. Their world, despite their financial hardships, is a happy one until Tracey receives a visitor at her beauty shop that reveals a past indiscretion that makes her question, if her world is as happy and stable as she believes. Leading into the movie will be regularly scheduled airings of Jackee's TV series: Sister, Sister from 10am-2pm and 227 from 2pm-7pm.

ivi TV, the online cable system, was forced to shutdown. Don't know what ivi is? Read our story from December. On Tuesday, February 22, 2011 the Southern District Court of New York granted a preliminary injunction in the case 1:10-cv-07415-NRB. ivi TV will be appealing the decision in the second circuit but in the interim they must shut-down most of their broadcast channel offerings.
They believe the court made an error in the ruling and will be appealing the decision supported by many public interest groups. But they cannot do it alone. In return, they ask that you support them. If you can, visit Public Knowledge and/or EFF to leave a donation.
In the interim they are suspending invoicing for ivi Air and ivi Pro, so it is not necessary to cancel subscriptions. As soon as they can restore the channels they will resume the subscriptions from that point forward.
They will continue to carry a number of channels and will be adding channels from broadcasters and content providers as they grow. Stay tuned for further updates.