Oz ‘loser’ will gain $1 million

Dr. Mehmet Oz is pictured during the production of The Dr. Oz Show in New York. ASSOCIATED PRESS Enlarge

Television already has The Biggest Loser. Dr. Mehmet Oz is looking for the biggest number of losers.

The Dr. Oz Show said Monday that it had netted its 1 millionth participant in its "transformation nation" health effort, and the number is climbing. One of those people will win a $1 million prize in May.

Since September, Oz has urged viewers to participate in his health challenge, done together with Weight Watchers. Oz's program has seven steps, starting with telling a friend to get some moral support. Participants are asked to register with Weight Watchers and go to a center to have their body mass index calculated. Other steps include connecting with a doctor, learning your family's health history, getting more sleep, managing stress better, and starting new fitness habits.

The show will select 10 finalists that it believes best embody the effort — not necessarily those who lose the most weight — and viewers will choose a favorite this spring for the $1 million prize. People need to register by Feb. 26 to be eligible.

TV milestone

The CBS drama NCIS will join a select group of prime-time TV shows Tuesday when it airs its 200th episode.

And NCIS shows no sign of slowing down. It's consistently the highest-rated drama in the weekly ratings and has 13.7 million Facebook fans. It airs in more than 200 international markets and is heard in 20 languages.

So how does a series about the weekly exploits of a team of Navy investigators become such a hit?

Series star Mark Harmon says it started with mediocrity. "I think, from the very beginning, we were a show that wasn't good enough to get all that noticed and wasn't bad enough to get canceled," Harmon says.

Because NCIS started out in the middle of the viewing numbers, the series had time to build a solid foundation of story lines and characters. NCIS is loaded with characters, from the gruff boss played by Harmon to a quirky lab rat (Pauley Perrette). Toss in a nerd (Sean Murray), a swaggering hero (Michael Weatherly), a suave British doctor (David McCallum), and a hot foreign agent (Cote de Pablo), and the show has a host of interesting places to go.

Facelift

Workers have begun stripping away history at Ryman Auditorium.

A crew began gently removing the Nashville landmark's 61-year-old oak floorboards with pry bars Saturday morning. That's the first step in a two-week renovation that will leave the storied "Mother Church" of country music with a new Brazilian teak stage.

The stage at the National Historic Landmark needs replacing because of age. It's just the second stage in the Ryman's 120-year history and it won't stand up to another refinishing. An 18-inch strip of the blonde oak will be left at the front of the stage to commemorate the auditorium's rich history.

Heading to ‘Vegas'

Tony Danza is Broadway-bound, starring in a musical based on the movie Honeymoon in Vegas.

Producers said Monday that the former Taxi star will play a Vegas wiseguy in the show, which makes its debut in November in Toronto. It is then headed to Broadway in the spring of 2013.

The musical features music and lyrics by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown and a book by Andrew Bergman, who also directed and wrote the film. The 1992 movie starred James Caan, Nicolas Cage, and Sarah Jessica Parker. It tells the story of a reluctant groom whose bride-to-be is courted by Danza's character.