Oprah Winfrey: The Next 19 Months Of Goodbye

January 4th, 2011: To celebrate the OWNs official launch, Oprah purchases 24 hours of now dirt-cheap NBC broadcasting time to sample the channel's offerings. (NBC throws in five hours of Leno-hosted promo as part of the deal.) There's no specific mention of a new talk show, but many subtle mentions of a "big, big surprise" arriving on the channel sometime in May, all illustrated by a graphic of a suspiciously Oprah-shaped silhouette with a golden question mark inside it.

March 7, 2011: Perhaps now starting to become overwhelmed by the constant reflection about her television legacy and crucial place in her viewers' lives, Oprah sends each audience member home wearing an OWN-shaped locket containing a lock of her hair, fingernail clippings, or skin shavings she's personally pumiced off her forearms. "Remember me always!" she weeps. "I'll always be with you!"

April 18, 2011: Oprah spends an entire hour doing nothing but reading off the channel numbers where OWN can be found in each of her markets, cable service by cable service. "Not that this show is going there," she giggles.

April 21 , 2011: Oprah declares Dr. Phil "dead to her" because a contractual complication will not allow him to move his syndicated show to OWN immediately. "You know, he's not even a real doctor," she explains to her viewers. "It was news to me! He's very, very dangerous. Don't take his advice, or you'll wind up in the nuthouse! Or dead by your own hand!"

May 2-6, 2011: Oprah embarks on a week-long tour of goodbye parades in her five largest markets, riding 100-foot OWN-inspired floats through the barricaded streets of her Favorite Cities. The parades culminate in a tear-soaked farewell to Chicago as she prepares to relocate to L.A., which ends with a surprising exhortation to "Burn down the whole damn place! There's nothing here for you now, follow me to Los Angeles!" The rioting lasts for days, and will serve as the subject for her first three installments of O, her just-announced show on OWN.

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