Ripley--believe it or not

I'm between episodes of A Fistful of Soundtracks right now. I recorded the most recent one, "I'll Kill You and Recommend to God That He Put His Foot in Your Ass," in mid-June. The next scheduled show, "Cover-Blinded," an episode that will consist of cover versions of film and TV themes from all over the world, will be recorded on, uh… I don't know when. I don't move on to recording the next ep until someone sends me a response or comment about the program or the station. I find it pointless to be doing a new show if no one responds because then it looks to me like no one's listening. So if you want me to record a new ep, you have to say something, even if it's just along the lines of "Hey, I'm listening."

The other night, I caught USA's new P.I. show Burn Notice, a diverting mashup of The Equalizer, MacGyver and Grosse Pointe Blank. (The hero, an ex-spy-turned-P.I., is played by Jeffrey Donovan, who should have been a star after his bravura and funny turn as the unhinged Creegan on USA's unfairly neglected remake of Touching Evil.) However, the coolest thing about the latest airing of Burn Notice actually wasn't part of the episode. It was a new DirecTV commercial I had never seen before, in which Sigourney Weaver reprises the awesome Aliens battle between Ripley-in-the-Constructicon-esque-exosuit and the Alien Queen. My jaw dropped right when Weaver addressed the camera. I couldn't believe DirecTV got Sigourney fuckin' Weaver to reprise her role as Ripley.

In past DirecTV ads in which a movie or TV character suddenly breaks the fourth wall to persuade cable subscribers to convert to DirecTV, we've seen:

• Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown.
• Charlie Sheen as his Major League pitcher character "Wild Thing."
• Ben Stein reprising his "Bueller? Bueller?" scene.
• Bill Paxton as his Twister character.
• Pamela Anderson as C.J. from Baywatch.
• Verne Troyer as Mini-Me.
• William Shatner as Star Trek VI-era Kirk in an ad that was particularly painful to watch because the digital airbrushing of the Shat's face made him look creepier than a Wrath of Khan eel.
  

Unlike the disturbing Shatner ad, DirecTV didn't digitally Botox Weaver's face. They didn't need to. One of the few middle-aged actresses who has wisely stayed away from plastic surgery, Weaver has barely aged since the 1986 release of Aliens. She must have a portrait of herself hanging in the attic.