*4/10/00*

*Anyone seen the ad campaign on TEN for repeats of Charmed? Anyone else notice that they are ALL ABOUT ALYSSA?! Yes thats right, channel ten appears to be screening episodes that are centered around Phoebe... This week was "She's a man baby, a man!" (advert for it - Alyssa being hot - yes we can see how that relates to the episode!!!) next week is "Heartbreak City" (where Phoebe finds Cupid). Did we miss an episode... a little PIPER AND LEO EPISODE! Gee, these episodes only get the highest ratings... Take note that the still for when Charmed on is ONLY Alyssa... did I miss something? Is it now the Power of One? Much more of this and channel ten will be hearing from one disgruntled fan... since when did it become Alyssa's show? How about throwing some light on HOLLY or SHANNON? *

*Holly has a small cameo in "Oceans Eleven", Hollywoods next *let's put as many A-list stars as we can in the one film* such as Julia, Brad, George, etc. Holly plays herself along with Joshua Jackson (hmm) and Barry Watson (2 reasons to see it now :-) from other WB shows. See, we always knew Holly would make it up there with Julia, Brad, George (well maybe not George - he should have never left ER)*

*New promos ... there are some REALLY beautiful ones of Holly this season... and Alyssa got center in one of the group shots but, hey Holly got center in the BETTER one! Check them out here!*

*Keep letting Big Hit magazine know we love them and we love Charmed! They have been really nice to us over the last couple of months giving us tons of Charmed stuff (which is amazing cause for once there was very little dickson creek). Also Big Hit had always been a angel and given us the very few single shots of Holly that are in magazines. Also for the last 2 years she has been in the top 10 of female stars (and believe me A LOT of "well known" stars didn't make the cut.) So lets keep supporting them as they support Holly!!*

*In the US there is the Tv Guide interview thing with Alyssa and Holly. Here are some of the thing Holly said regarding Shannon's departure (All I can say is YOU GO GIRL! lol!)

"We were very close for the first couple of years, It's not like we just worked together and went home." 

"There were no angels, We all had our bad days. We all [got] stressed out." 

Adding to the friction, says Combs, was the stars' growing frustrations with the show's direction. "We were in [a] rut, where we felt like we were doing the same episodes over and over again," she says. Doherty, in particular, "wanted to make the show bigger and better and stretch her boundaries," says Combs, who has been friends with the actress for eight years, and still speaks frequently with her. "I'd see her in the morning and she'd be like, 'OK, how are we going to fix this scene?' She was really dedicated and she didn't have a lot of patience for anyone [she felt] wasn't." 

In an attempt to defuse the situation, Paramount, the studio that produces Charmed, eventually sent a mediator to the set, something Combs says made things worse. "First of all, it was none of his business. And we certainly didn't want him reporting our girlie problems back to Paramount.  The problems we had weren't things some big company mediator could fix, They needed to be fixed between us [by] going into [each other's] trailers and saying, 'All right, I don't like it when you do this.' Or 'I didn't like it when you said this.' " 

Instead, according to several sources, it was Doherty who approached Paramount executives last December and asked to be released from her contract. "[She] was like, 'This is getting too problematic. Just me go, She didn't want all the bad press again. She wanted to exit gracefully." But the studio wouldn't have it. Continues Combs: "They stamped their feet and said 'No, you cannot leave. We will sue you.' " (Both Paramount and Spelling declined to comment.) 

Doherty's eventual dismissal, then, came as a surprise. And the form Combs says it took - a phone call to Doherty's lawyer after the embattled actress had flown to Winnipeg, Canada, to start shooting Another Day, USA's upcoming Francis Ford Coppola TV-movie - still clearly angers her. "How do you go from directing the season finale to being [given] a pink slip over the phone, when [you're] in another country, at eight at night? It was really a tacky way to go about it.  I'm sure I'm going to get many phone calls about this, but you know what? I don't care. [The producers] know I was not happy with how it was handled. You just don't do that to a person, [especially] a person who has basically created two hit shows for you." 

But closure hasn't come as easily to Combs. While she says she still has a good relationship with Milano, she felt "a definite sense of loss" when she returned to the set in July. "In a way, I have to treat this as a brand-new job, a totally different show I'm doing, but if I [don't], it's going to be a really hard year." 

PS: This has been edited... you want to read the whole thing then check out Cackle.Net :-)*