Are you ready for some football?
By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service
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In theory, Super Bowl Sunday is important to approximately ... well, everyone.
For more than 12 hours on Sunday, it will try it all. There will be Tom Petty, Terry Bradshaw, Alicia Keys, Howie Long, Jordin Sparks, Troy Aikman and Ryan Seacrest, plus commercials, celebrities, a new "House" episode and a Paula Abdul video.
And there will be the football game, between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. Everyone must care about that, right?
Well, almost. "I totally am not very sports savvy," says Mira Sorvino, who stars in the "House" episode.
Sorvino — who graduated from Harvard, not one of your big football schools — has non-football interests. "I'm like a crazy 'House' fan," she says.
And that's how she ended up being part of the "Super Sunday" marathon.
This starts at 7 a.m. in Hawai'i with "Road to the Super Bowl" and gets fierce at about 1:25 p.m. with the kickoff. Later that evening, the "House" episode screens.
Here's a glimpse at the Fox day, all subject to change:
THE EARLY SHIFT
PRE-GAME SHOW
That's 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with:
ALMOST GAME TIME
At 1 p.m., there will be ceremonies and on-field music. Alicia Keys will sing; Jordin Sparks (the current "Idol" champ) will do the national anthem.
THE GAME
Kickoff is about 1:25 p.m., with Joe Buck and Aikman in the booth and Chris Myers and Oliver on the sidelines.
Some people call this a mismatch. The Giants and Eli Manning have lost six games; the Patriots and Tom Brady have lost zero. Brady has thrown twice as many touchdown passes.
Still, the Giants have won three straight upsets and 10 straight road games. Now both teams are on the road.
HALFTIME
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perform. Those guys should take this in stride; they've been around for 32 years.
AFTERWARD
There will be a trophy, happy men wearing towels (one hopes) and interviews. Then — at 7 p.m., in Hawai'i — comes "House."
Things started, Sorvino says, when she met "House" star Hugh Laurie at a Golden Globes ceremony. She proclaimed her love for the show.
Much later, she got a surprise call from the producers. They wanted her to play a psychiatrist who turned ill in Antarctica; Dr. House must diagnose her by webcam.
"She's a match for him," Sorvino says. "She's kind of sardonic, kind of a loner."
House has his own odd humor, she says. "When she has to have a medical exam in the nude with a webcam, he's sitting in his living room by a roaring fire and puts on 'Let's Get It On.' "
For Sorvino, the good news was that she was visiting her favorite show. "I'm thinking, 'Oh, I'm in House's office!' "
The bad news: She couldn't film in that office. Her character is never in the same room — or continent — as House.
"There's actually a bit of chemistry," she says. "If they weren't separated by thousands of miles and glaciers, maybe something would happen."
