This and that

Sorry for the delay: been slammed at work today, and, frankly, haven't had much enthusiasm for the last few night's worth of series TV. The Gonzaga choke was much more dramatic than anything that happened on "Lost or "Veronica Mars." Quick hits, in no particular order:

"Scrubs": Ehh. This has been a brilliant season overall, but other than the peek inside Turk's sex dreams ("One time, you were skinless!") and Dr. Cox reading lines from "Streetcar," not a lot there. And would it have killed Zach Braff to shave his head? His "Garden State" girlfriend could do it, why not him? Even if they needed J.D. to be back to the bushy cut in the next episode, they already have a wig from the episode where Elliott turned into J.D. to smooch with Mandy Moore.

"Veronica Mars": Two duds in a row since they came back from hiatus, though I hear the next two are supposed to be really good. (Speaking of shaved heads, it took me forever to figure out who the girl in the preview was until I IMDb'ed it and realized it's Maebe Funke.) The episodes where Veronica tackles adult cases almost never work, and the bus crash clues are pointing so furiously at Woody Goodman that I'll be bored if he did it and annoyed if he didn't. Two bits I liked: Kendall vamping it up for Beaver, Aaron and Logan with varying degrees of success; and Logan realizing that even he has levels he shouldn't stoop to.

"Lost": Why has it taken me three episodes to realize that Balloon Guy was one of the evil genius serial killers from "The Practice"? Maybe because every scene in the hatch tends to put me to sleep these days? (Plus, didn't they eat all the food already in the "Everybody Hates Hurley" episode? Where did those Dharma-O's come from?) Other than some good performances from the underused Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim, plus Ana-Lucia meta-ing that nobody (including the audience) likes her, not a lot here.

"My Name Is Earl": I want to love this show, really I do. I watch episodes like last night's Y2K flashback, I see scenes and jokes that I know I should be laughing at, and yet the most it usually coaxes out of me is a smile. Early in the season, I complained that they didn't think the jokes through far enough, but last night felt pretty thorough to me, and yet I didn't laugh more than once or twice. I appreciate what the show's doing enough to keep watching, but I can't put my finger on what's holding me at a distance from it. Is it just me?