Ellen Gray: 'Lost' Terry O'Quinn finds himself in Lifetime movie

SO MUCH TELEVISION, so little time:

-- What do you do after you've played one of the most enigmatic characters on television?

Well, in the case of Terry O'Quinn, who spent six seasons as John Locke (and occasionally as "not Locke") on ABC's "Lost," you book a Lifetime movie role in which no one's in any doubt that you're one of the good guys.

"Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story" (9 tonight, Lifetime) stars Taraji P. Henson ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") in a retelling of the case of a New York schoolteacher whose young son was abducted by his father during what was supposed to be a routine visit and taken to live in South Korea.

O'Quinn plays an investigator whose nonprofit specializes in tracking missing children, and both he and Henson do about as much as can be done with what's essentially a paint-by-numbers treatment meant to keep mothers everywhere on edge till the very last moment.

Still, we're talking about O'Quinn, who long before "Lost" had established himself as one scary guy in "The Stepfather," and I'll admit I was watching "Taken From Me" more closely than I might ordinarily have, if only to make sure he didn't pull anything funny.

-- Deadline.com reported recently that "Odd Jobs," a J.J. Abrams pilot that would star O'Quinn and his "Lost" foil Michael Emerson, has been delayed until at least next season.

-- For those who've asked: Yes, I'm mostly fine with the judging so far on Season 10 of "American Idol," where Steven Tyler, in particular, is proving to be more entertaining than I'd expected.

Maybe a little creepier, too.

Lowering the minimum age of the contestants - they only have to be 15 now - in the year when you introduce a flirtatious 62-year-old rocker to the panel is, however, a great way to make people forget how inappropriately Paula Abdul often behaved with male contestants.

It's early yet, and I'm wondering if someone along the way didn't have a talk with Tyler. Because when he and fellow newbie Jennifer Lopez were asked during a news conference earlier this month - at which point the production was already up to the Hollywood segments - how they "would guide the winner through fame," his immediate response was, "We're not allowed to fraternize. Is that what you're talking about?"

As it happens, it wasn't. But, hey, good to know that he knows.

_ You may not have seen Marilu Henner acting much lately - she'll turn up on the Hallmark Channel Feb. 12 playing Jennie Garth's mother in "Accidentally in Love" - but if you watch CBS' "60 Minutes," you already know that the former "Taxi" star knows everywhere she's been.

Featured in a Dec. 19 report on the handful of people in the world believed to possess "highly superior autobiographical memory," Henner was still fielding questions from reporters earlier this month about her ability to recall the details of ordinary days decades in her past during a Hallmark Channel party at the Tournament of Roses Parade House in Pasadena, Calif.

(Full disclosure: A few of us approached her in hopes that years from now, when we'd forgotten who we were, she might be able to tell us.)

Turns out Henner, who's written extensively about diet and exercise, even remembers what she hasn't eaten.

"My first day on 'Taxi,' which was July 5, Wednesday, 1978, I remember the next day, it was actually July 6, I was like cruising the craft service table" (where people who work on a production are fed). Someone pulled her aside and said, " 'You know what? This is for the crew. See the guys on the crew? Is that the body you want? This is crew food,' " she said.

"I've always known that I had an unusual memory. But [until] '60 Minutes,' I had no idea how many people were interested in this and so they want to know, 'How does this work, how can I get it?' . . . and I've been writing a book for a few months now - it's going to come out in May - about this and how to help other people," Henner said.

_ When I first heard the title of the Hallmark Channel's newest Martha Stewart show, "Martha Bakes," my first thought was, "Of course she does."

But the first episode of the show, which airs at 11 a.m. today, appears to be hosted by a slightly more casual Martha than I expected, one so eager to share the recipe for her late father's yellow birthday cake she wants to make baking seem, well, easy.

Which it probably is if you have the stand mixer she expects you to - does no one cream butter and sugar by hand anymore? - and maybe not so easy if you have to be reminded, as she does in today's episode, that eggs should be removed from their shells before being added to the batter.

Fortunately, in a later installment of the 13-episode series, Stewart's a little more herself, zipping through recipes for brownies, devil's food cake and "high-hat" cupcakes without pausing to pander.

Good thing. Otherwise, they'd eventually have had to rename it "Martha Explodes." *

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