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There's No Staying Away: Oprah Announces New TV Show
Farewell, Oprah! Hello, Oprah!
When Oprah Winfrey bid adieu to her studio and at-home audience of sobbing, enraptured fans back in the spring, she didn't say she was leaving television altogether. Could the American viewing public really let her? Of course not. Towards the wrap of her high-end Learning Annex-esque life lesson finale monologue, Winfrey said: "For everything there is a season, we know, and our time together on this platform is coming to a close. In a few moments when the final credits roll, I see it not as an ending, but as an extraordinary beginning. One chapter closed. The next chapter beginning for all of us."
With ratings lagging on her Los Angeles-based OWN (that's Oprah Winfrey Network, natch), Winfrey came out of her television repose to do a series of self-help workshops. Now she's going all the way: OWN announced today Oprah will be back in a show called "Oprah's Next Chapter." (You see where we were going there now, yeah?)
The big O seems poised to take the intimate interview reins from octogenarian Barbara Walters with this new show:
"After 25 years I got myself out of the studio chairs. I moved into the next chapter, and I am having more fun than ever - moving around the country and the world talking to people I'm really interested in getting to know and I think viewers will be, too," said Winfrey. "It is so energizing to be out and about in the world exploring new people, new places and new ideas."
The series starts with her getting to know Aerosmith's Steven Tyler. Here's more of what we're in store for as our guru gets back on the airwaves to make us better people:
During the first season, Oprah also journeys to Haiti with Sean Penn nearly two years after the devastating earthquake that took the lives of more than 300,000 people, tours Skywalker Ranch with George Lucas as her personal guide, has a slumber party at Southern chef Paula Deen's Georgia estate and travels to a small town in Iowa devoted to the practice of Transcendental Meditation.
So maybe now people will watch OWN. Err, maybe.Just to get you warmed up for the show's January debut, here's a montage of Oprah yelling during the 25 years of her "Oprah Winfrey Show."
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