Angel

An Extra special exit

’Becker’ bows out to in-jokes

Neither rain nor lots of snow slows the hail of Extras - what I call TV’s hidden in-jokes - identified and forwarded by eagle-eyed Daily News readers.

 Several viewers noted one obvious Extra in Wednesday’s final episode of the CBS sitcom "Becker," in which star Ted Danson walks away from a particular ditsy patient, played by guest star Mary Steenburgen of "Joan of Arcadia." "I pity the poor [guy] that’s married to her," says Danson’s Becker. In real life, of course, Danson and Steenburgen are husband and wife.

Only Mike Donovan of Pitman, N.J., though, caught the hidden meaning of the scene in which the show alluded to its own impending demise.

"Even though ’Becker’ hadn’t been officially canceled," Donovan writes, "they treated the episode as their last. In one scene, Becker looks at the chart for a patient named Mr. Nielsen and says, ’I don’t see what the problem is. These numbers aren’t so bad.’"

 In a recent episode of CBS "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," when team members split up to investigate a large suite of hotel rooms, Jorja Fox’s Sara Sidle announced, "I’ll take the west wing." "A few seasons back, Jorja Fox played a Secret Service agent guarding the President’s youngest daughter on ’The West Wing,’" wrote Ray Carroll of Queens, who along with Richard Lejman of Staten Island and Linda Rodriguez of Manhattan caught the joke.

 More "West Wing" sneakiness: In the Jan. 14 episode, noted Charles Morgan of Manchester Township, N.J., Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet referred twice to President D’Astier of France. "In the movie ’The American President,’ starring Michael Douglas as President Shepherd," Morgan wrote, "a State dinner was held for ’President D’Astier’ of France." It’s hardly coincidental that the movie was written, and the TV series created, by Aaron Sorkin.

-Howard Turoff of Hoboken pulled off an impressive hat trick, catching three separate Extras in the same subtle sequence on a recent episode of WB’s "Angel." The jokes were buried in an ersatz informercial about the demonic law firm of Wolfram & Hart. The valued - aka evil - W&H corporate clients noted in the fake ad, Turoff notes and explains, "included Yoyodyne (Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems was in ’The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension’), Weyland-Yutani (from the ’Alien’ movies) and NewsCorp (the parent company of Fox, which canceled producer Joss Whedon’s ’Firefly’)."

Remember the final "Boomtown" episodes shown by NBC over the holidays? Ron Casalotti of Wayne, N.J., caught a musical Extra in a scene from one of them, in which a yellow Hummer H2 left the scene of a traffic stop. "The officer that flagged it down," Casalotti noted, "gave its location as heading southbound on ’Emerson St., between Lake and Palmer.’"