[Cue choppy, energetic spyaction theme song, heavy on the kettle drums and low-register brass] In 1998, Donna Pinciotti's little sister Tina on Fox's That 70s Show mysteriously disappeared from the series, never to return but for a few embarrassed half-mentions in later episodes.

In 2003 a similar fate befell Kaitlin, little sister of The OC's Marissa Cooper. Though she was to return briefly three years later, the circumstances and a growth spurt of highly-questionable credibility have left numerous quietly-gurgling questions skulking unanswered out in the Wasteland among people who really want to know.

In Fall 2007 Fox execs premiered a series featuring all of the little sister characters who have ever disappeared from any of the network's shows, as well as from any other fondly-remembered property that they could acquire on the very, very cheap. It started with Tina and Kaitlin; others were soon added. Plot was unimportant. Later, execs said, we'll have little sister characters mysteriously disappear from other shows (say, either of the girls from Bernie Mac, though I guess technically there's only one little sister there they mused) and show up on the new show after some suspenseful delay, focus-grouped for maximum tension to within a .005 degree tolerance of the tensile strength and capacity of the leading (at the time) brand adult diaper. Save the disappearances for sweeps; fans of the show and vaguely-interested bystanders will be forced to watch every Fox series featuring little sister characters (which, of course, they soon all will) to see who disappears, thus driving the network's ratings through the roof. We don't even need to stick to one genre--why not cross-over with reality shows (too bad My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee is no longer on the air one said. There was a little sister on that show who could've been forced onto the new one; after all, how many contestants on those things really read every clause in their contracts anyway?)

And then the breakthrough--the show could be will be and was about a mysterious convent in the desert where all of the missing girls go to escape some horrible once-cliffhangered fate, perhaps a stalker who is killing little sisters at random. "They all dressed as pint-sized nuns and went on A-Team-like adventures every week." It will, they beamed, be called The Little Sisters.

Ommmmmmmmmm..........mmmmmmmmmmm.........mmmwawawawawawawawaaaahhhh......and lo with a sweeping of many winds, I punched through the fourth veil and flashed that the mysterious Archon-like voice of Charlie's Angels was none other than Richie Cunningham's older brother Chuck, who was also unpersoned without a trace after how many episodes, never to return. Some theorize a marriage-gone-bad to Valerie, Donna Pinciotti's equally-shadowy older sister, coupled with a Solomon-sized mid-life crisis. Sic transit gloria Chachi, baby.

.........mmmahahahahahahhhhhhkkhaaandscene.