Next Year "The View" Might Not Be So Rosie

I've really gotten a kick out of Rosie O'Donnell's effective dictatorship over at the The View. Its on my TIVO season pass and, at the least, I try to catch the opening "hot topics" segment.

I gotta say, it may still be Barbara Walter's show in principle, but Rosie's September debut amounted to a talk show coup d'état.

Barbara Walters presides now only as a figurehead -- a puppet monarch. Elizabeth Hasselbeck is Rosie's corgi lapdog, happy for whatever table scraps she gets thrown. And Joy Behar is, well, a poorly armed resistance leader.

(Okay, this whole coup d'état metaphor is getting tiresome, isn't it?)

Seriously though, whatever gripes Joy Behar may have had with Star Jones, at least the Payless pitchwoman never invaded her turf. Behar used to be the funny one on The View. Now that damn Rosie is running comedic circles around her. Shitzacockapoopoo indeed!

The good (and bad) news for the other somewhat irrelevant ladies on The View -- Rosie will likely cut and run at the end of this season. Turns out she only signed on for one year.

Coming back to daytime television was a brilliant career move for her. She re-established her "Queen of Nice" creds and showed that, even as an out and vocal lesbian, she could pull in audiences and sponsors. (Ratings are up 21% since her arrival.) But clearly this was never meant to be a long term gig for her -- if she wanted a permanent daytime slot she'd just start her own show up again-- thus saving herself the Hassel(beck) and lining her own pockets instead of handing over all the syndication loot to Barbara Walters.

I'll miss her when, inevitably, she leaves The View, but I'm really excited about the prospect of her joining the cast of Nip/Tuck next year.

This season she guest-starred on two great episodes playing "Dawn Budge", a poor white trash lottery winner bent on bettering herself by any means. Her story arc was very well-written and Rosie made the character simultaneously hilarious and empathetic.

For a short while there was even talk of a spinoff series for the Dawn Budge character, but that didn't seem to get off the ground. Now, word is Rosie's in talks to join Nip/Tuck itself. There's room in the cast next season too since, either by coincidence or design, lead actress Joely Richardson recently left the show.