The episode titled "Red Socks" is set to air Feb. 14 at 8 PM (ET.) Check your local listings.
"7th Heaven" follows the ordeals of the fictional family headed by a minister and his wife — and their seven children. Show stars Stephen Collins, Catherine Hicks, Mackenzie Rosman, Nikolas & Lorenzo Brino and guest star Thomas Dekker. Series regulars Beverley Mitchell, David Gallagher and Tyler Hoechlin will also star. Michael Preece directs.
Songs included In the special episode will include George and Ira Gershwin's "Love Is Sweeping The Country" (from Of Thee I Sing) and "Nice Work If You Can Get It" (from "An American in Paris"); Herb Nacio Brown and Arthur Freed's "You Were Meant For Me" and "You Are My Lucky Star" (from "Singin' in the Rain"); Dorinda Morgan, Harold Stanley and Gerry Manners' "The Man Upstairs"; and Harold Arlen and John H. Mercer's "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive."
Musical episodes have become prevalent. Characters have burst into song on "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," HBO's "Oz"( which featured "West Side Story" star Rita Moreno, Cats' Betty Buckley and recent Pacific Overtures B.D. Wong) and the medical drama "Chicago Hope" (featuring Evita's Mandy Patinkin and current Brooklyn Boy star Adam Arkin). NBC's half-hour comedy "Scrubs" also featured an homage to West Side Story.
Plimpton, who appeared on the series in October 2004, returns to write the episode. As an actress, she made her Broadway debut last season in Sixteen Wounded after amassing a number of stage credits at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company (Playboy of the Western World, The Glass Menagerie and as the title character in Hedda Gabler) and Off-Broadway in subUrbia (Lincoln Center), Hobson's Choice (Atlantic Theater Company), Boston Marriage (The Public Theater) and Flesh and Blood (New York Theater Workshop). She is perhaps best known for her work in such films as "The Goonies," "Running on Empty," "Another Woman," "Stanley and Iris," "Pecker," "Parenthood," "I Shot Andy Warhol." She will lend her voice to the upcoming animated film "Hair High" — which she also co-produced. Plimpton also showed off her own musical chops in July 2004 singing with co-star Julian Fleisher in Together Again for the Third Time!
Collins — who plays the patriarch Eric Camden — is a seasoned stage veteran having appeared in New York stagings of Terrence McNally's The Ritz, Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy, Stephen Sondheim's Putting It Together and Michael Weller's Moonchildren.
His TV wife, Hicks, has also played on Broadway in Bernard Slade's Tribute opposite Jack Lemmon.
"7th Heaven" was recently picked up for its upcoming 10th season and will become the longest-running family drama in television history, surpassing "The Waltons" and "Little House on the Prairie" (which both ran for nine seasons).
