'The Simpsons' hits 450 episodes - Sepinwall on TV

Over at NJ.com, I have a column marveling that "The Simpsons" is going to celebrate its 450th episode and 20th anniversary on Sunday night. "Wire" fans, look for an early cameo (in the column, not the episode) from Randy Wagstaff. Click here to read the full post

The Simpsons in hi-def: Sharper image

In case you missed it, "The Simpsons" went hi-def tonight, and the producers used the shift as an opportunity to rejigger the opening credits for the first time in the show's history years. You can watch, ironically, a low-quality version of it right now on YouTube, and the higher-quality version should be up on Hulu by morning.

As the episode itself wasn't anything worth writing about (except for me to lament the decision that "That '90s Show," like Armin Tanzerian, is something they'll pretend didn't happen, and that Homer and Marge still went to high school in the '70s), I'll just say that, like any good "Simpsons" nerd, I went frame-by-frame through the whip-pan across the center of town and was pleased with most of the choices of characters with one exception: what's the Roy Scheider circa "All That Jazz" lookalike character doing there? Click here to read the full post

Sepinwall on TV: Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

With so many shows debuting on Sunday -- including the entire Sunday lineups of ABC, CBS, Fox and Showtime, plus a couple of new HBO comedies -- I took the grab-bag approach to today's column, with quick-hit reviews of "Dexter," "The Simpsons," "Little Britain," "The Life and Times of Tim," "Californication," "The Unit" and "The Amazing Race."

As this is an absurdly busy time for me, the only one of those I'm going to do a separate post on for Sunday night is "Dexter." Feel free to use this post to comment on any or all of the other Sunday product (plus other shows I didn't write up, if you want). Click here to read the full post

My meme is my meme!

Coolest link of the day: comic book artist Steve Lieber drawing characters from "The Wire" in the style of "The Simpsons."

Hat tip to The Onion A.V. Club, who also came up with the perfect "All in the game, D'oh" headline that I was really tempted to steal. Click here to read the full post

Simpsons: I love the '90s!

Just wanted to say that tonight's "The Simpsons" was easily the best of this season, and one of the best I can remember from the last few years. A single story from beginning to end, lots of funny '90s period gags, lots of funny pop culture gags (the "This is your cousin, Marvin Cobain!" joke was brilliant), song parodies within song parodies (when you get Weird Al to make fun of you making fun of Nirvana, you've accomplished something), and they finally acknowledged the continuity/chronology problem of Homer being 40 and Bart being 10, even though Homer got Marge pregnant not long after high school. It may be a lot rarer these days, but when "The Simpsons" has got it, it's still got it. Click here to read the full post

All TV: Late-night hosts return, even if writers don't

Today's column is a twofer (or, if you're Tina Fey, a toofer), starting with some talk about Leno and Conan agreeing to cross the WGA picket next month (and Letterman trying to find a way around the strike):

Just how badly do late-night talk show hosts need their writers? With Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien returning to duty next month without their writing staffs, and with David Letterman reportedly in talks to come back with a full staff, we may get some empirical evidence.

The second half looks at "The Simpsons Movie" on DVD, where I was especially struck by one feature:

The commentary track does contain a cool element I've never encountered before: Whenever the writers realize they're about to go off on a long discussion on a single point, they actually pause the movie so they won't miss the chance to talk about whatever happens next.

To read the full thing, click here. Click here to read the full post

Missing girls, extraordinary freelancers and old crushes

I haven't done too many multi-show entries this season, since some people complain about them and they generally draw fewer comments than the posts for single shows. But every now and then, I just don't have enough time or energy to devote multiple paragraphs to a show, or I come to it so late after it airs that it feels like the conversation's already come and gone. It's why I haven't blogged about "Grey's Anatomy" in weeks, for instance; I don't get to them until Saturday or Sunday, and by then, nobody cares.

Still, every now and then I want to touch quickly on some shows I've missed, or make room for a show I wouldn't have time to write about otherwise. So before I get back to writing my post-Thanksgiving columns, some brief thoughts on, in order, "Journeyman," "The Simpsons," "Grey's Anatomy" and, of all things, "ER," after the jump...

Things continue to get interesting on "Journeyman," as Dan decides to defy the "rules" by going after the pedophile kidnapper -- and, for whatever reason, the time travel gods decide, after a while, to let him do it instead of zapping him back to the present whenever he starts to go off-mission -- we get our first major instance of Dan rewriting the timeline in a way that directly affects him (by erasing all the progress he'd made with Jack), and Father Phil of the FBI gets the very bright idea to study the search history on Dan's iPhone. And after being a willing, almost enthusiastic accomplice the last few episodes, Katie is (rightly) back to thinking Dan's new side job is a tremendous imposition on their family. Looking forward to seeing where all this goes -- and, given the time travel milieu, a scenario where Dan gets to hit the cosmic reset button so the FBI stops looking for him wouldn't be such an annoying thing.

For the first act of this week's "Simpsons," I was in comic book geek heaven. A "Death of Aquaman" joke? A "Watchmen Babies" joke? Alan Moore, Daniel Clowes and Art Spiegelman (in Maus mask!) showing off super physiques and powers? Jack Black as an awesomely stereotypical hipster geek (complete with CD of ironic Korean Tom Jones covers)? All of it splendid... and then the episode made a sharp right turn and forgot about the comic book story altogether.

The "Simpsons" writers have been using the first act as a kind of self-contained red herring story for almost a decade, but this felt like one of the most abrupt shifts they've done. Usually Lisa or someone makes a meta comment late in the episode about how weird it was that they started out buying a funeral plot for Grandpa and instead wound up playing tennis against the Williams sisters, but here the fate of Comic Book Guy was left up in the air -- as was, for the matter, the status of Marge's super-successful chain of women's gyms.

And yet, despite being a strange, completely disjointed episode without even the usual token nods to continuity (say, a throwaway line at the end about how the gym chain went bust), this was a really funny episode even when the nerds went away. It's the second or third time now that Marge has gone on a fitness kick (I loved the steroid episode), but I got a big kick out of her shame at working in a gym for cool people -- complete with O.K. Go treadmill parody -- and especially at the Oprah spoof. ("When are you and Straightman getting married?" "You get a German cuckoo clock! And you get a German cuckoo clock! Everybody's getting a German cuckoo clock!") By the time they got to all of Homer's weird plastic surgeries, the episode went off a cliff, but even there there was a nice recovery with a fairly heartfelt discussion of why Marge is still with Homer. We've had the same conversation a few dozen times over the years, but when you're on this long, what are you gonna do?

"Grey's Anatomy" has been finding its groove again of late. The Lexie/Meredith relationship has added an interesting color to the show without stacking the deck in either character's favor. The Callie/Bailey chief resident switch should hopefully restore the dignity of both. Justin Chambers has convincingly begun to assert himself as a leading man type now that the writers are giving Karev more to do. Brooke Smith is welcomely bitchy in a way that evokes early Addison without directly copying her. Best of all, the current developments in the George and Izzie romance, while not redeeming either character, suggests that the writers have finally recognized what a dumb idea this was. (And if this was the plan all along, boy did they need a third-party character -- Cristina -- to point out early and often how they didn't seem like they'd work as a couple.)

This latest episode hit on Shonda's pet theme of how her characters (and/or their creator) have never really escaped high school. On the one hand, I'm tired of this worldview and wish that at least one of the regulars could let go of their adolescence. On the other, it's what "Grey's Anatomy" has really always been about, and Shonda's a lot better at, say, showing Bailey fawn over her high school crush than she is at writing big disaster episodes. (Of course, that's what it looks like the next two episodes will be. Sigh...) I really like what they've done with Thatcher Grey and how Lexie's situation mirrors Meredith's own, not that Meredith can see it, and I enjoyed that girl from "The Nanny" much better here as a teen outcast than I did when she was shoving her boobs in David Duchovny's face on "Californication."

Finally, "ER." Hey, remember "ER"? Every now and then, I get a compulsion to check back in on the gang at County General before giving up a few weeks later because I've seen all these stories a million times before with characters I had greater attachments to. With the show approaching 300 episodes (which will probably merit a column of some kind), it's been once more unto the breach the last few episodes, and... I haven't hated it. Really like parts of it, in fact.

The focus has been on Abby, who's the longest-running character and someone who, back when I was watching more steadily, vascillated between my favorite character and someone whose scenes I reflexively fast-forwarded through. (Oddly appropriate, given her family's history of bi-polar disorder, though I don't think the writers intend for me to have that reaction to her.) Maura Tierney has been acting the hell out of this story arc, in which Abby fell off the wagon and -- in a moment that felt exra-shocking because of how casually it was presented -- into the bed of the new ER chief. (Played by Stanley Tucci as if no one ever told him "3 lbs." had been canceled.) Alcoholic characters hitting bottom is a TV cliche, but it's being handled here in a matter-of-fact, quietly devastating manner.

A lot of the newer characters go by in a blur for me (though I'm glad Linda Cardellini went back to being a brunette; a much better look for her), but that may be part of the point. There was a funny meta joke a couple of episodes ago where Chuny, one of the few characters who've been with the show since the beginning, notes how much the ER has changed since the days Mark Greene and Doug Ross ran the place, and one of the newer nurses asked, "Who?" The show's been on so long that I'm sure a good chunk of the audience had the same reaction to that line. As with "The Simpsons," it's hard not to keep repeating old stories, but because there's been so much turnover in both the cast and the audience, they're still getting away with it. Whether this is the last season or not (John Wells was negotiating for one more before the strike began), I may have been sucked back in unti the end -- or at least through the upcoming Jeannie Boulet guest arc.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Flowers in the dustbin

Spoilers for, in order, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "The Simpsons," "Family Guy" and Ken Burns' "The War" part one coming up just as soon as I pick up some deep-dish pizza...

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" remains in a groove after last week's brilliant episode. The show is always at its best when Larry's idea of how the world should work is at odds with how the world actually works, and here he gets into trouble over excessive ice cream sampling, inequitable perfume store lines and whether or not the flowers a a roadside memorial are available for picking. (I've written often in the past that I can usually find a way to see Larry's POV on this stuff; not so much with the flowers.) And as he gets into trouble with Cheryl, and Loretta, and the private school dean of admissions, and even Funkhouser (who is or isn't Larry's best friend, depending on which one you ask), he has to apologize a lot. But that's okay; as Larry puts it, "You don't need to tell me how to apologize to people. I've been apologizing to people on a daily basis since I'm six years old."

Bob Einstein as Funkhouser is probably my favorite "Curb" supporting character. There's just something about his stoic suffering in the face of Larry's standard behavior that always kills me. (He also, even at this age, has this intimidating physical presence that suggests he very well could pop Larry's head off if he wanted to.) Here, Funkhouser was involved in the episode's best running gag, about the foul-smelling 50 dollar bill. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for humor about stuff that reeks ("The Smelly Car" is always a "Seinfeld" I treasure), and you have to ignore certain questions like why Larry doesn't just buy the flowers with a credit card, but Larry throwing the 50 like a grenade into the center of the wake was another perfect subplot-connecting "Curb" conclusion, like last week's "I know who Anonymous is!" from Cheryl.

I wrote about the "Simpsons" and "Family Guy" premieres in Friday's column, but I want to add a few points. First, I loved that the "Simpsons" opening credits acknowledged the events of the movie, both with Bart skateboarding through the rebuilding Springfield and with Spider-Pig's cameo. (Though was I the only one who wanted more, more, more Spider-Pig?) It also looked like a lot of the footage of Homer's beloved private plane taking off and landing was done in the same richer, more three-dimensional animated style that the movie employed (or, at least, like "Futurama" employed); I'm going to be curious to see whether there's more of that moving forward. Like I said in the column, most of the big laughs were in the first act ("Hey you, beer me"), but I like that, even within the far wackier universe the series now takes place in, there was an attempt to take Homer's desire for success -- and Marge's desire to give it to him -- semi-seriously. (Question: why do I know the music they play over Homer's trip to Krusty Burger? I know it's a famous piece -- or film score -- but I can't for the life of me identify it.)

Like I said in the column, this was my favorite "Family Guy" episode in quite some time: all pop culture humor and no straining for plot or character, which the writers don't care about. I was, however, amused that even within an all-spoof episode, MacFarlane and company still had to go on tangents about other bits of pop culture, whether it was John Williams' orchestra performing the "People's Court" theme (good) or Obi-Wan recreating the "Dirty Dancing" finale (much longer than it needed to be). I would say that the "Robot Chicken" episode -- subject of the very funny meta-argument between Peter (voice by the "Family Guy" creator) and Chris (voic by the "Robot Chicken" co-creator) -- had some more laugh-out-loud moments (their version of the Tatooine cantina -- particularly the biography of the guy whose hands get cut off -- was better than the equivalent "Family Guy" scenes), but "Family Guy" got in a lot of good, affectionate digs at the original movie.

Finally, I'm not sure how much interest there's going to be in "The War," especially with PBS debuting it on the eve of the new TV season. Admittedly, "The Civil War" and "Baseball" did just fine going up against the network launches ("Civil War" was the biggest hit PBS has ever had), but those aired 17 and 13 years ago, respectively -- back when you could also successfully program original scripted shows on Saturday night -- and they covered territory that wasn't nearly as well-trod as WWII has been the last few years.

So I don't know whether I'll be blogging about additional episodes, but I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the debut. First, as usual, Burns is a little too in love with the small details. I understand that he's trying to make us feel like the people of Waterbury, Mobile, etc. are our current friends and neighbors, but I don't need to know everyone's street address, for instance. I really love Tom Hanks reading the columns of Al McIntosh from Minnesota (Burns' interest in them led to last week's publication of a McIntosh book collection; if they ever do an audiobook with Hanks, I'm there), but for the most part, I admired the work of Burns and his researchers more than I was really engaged by it. There's more interesting stuff coming as early as the second episode (which features a great sequence about life on a Flying Fortress), but if I didn't have to watch the whole thing for work, I doubt I would have stuck it out that far.

Also, to expand on a thought in the column, Burns chooses to deal with the added Latino material in the most obnoxious, defiant way possible. The episode proper ends, with Norah Jones singing "American Anthem" and all that, then we get the passive-agressive "each had a story to tell" title card -- basically, "Sure, I can add this stuff, and stories about Native Americans and Greek immigrants and every other group you want, and I still wouldn't be able to tell everybody's story" -- and then a completely segregated segment on these two guys from L.A. And this is actually the best of the three tacked-on segments, as at least it lasts a little while, whereas the next two run about five minutes each. I'm not saying Burns should or shouldn't have acquiesced to the protesters, but either he should have stood firm or done a better job of integrating the material into the story proper. This is a solution guaranteed to annoy everybody.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Heart vs. groin

A grab-bag blog entry last night, and a grab-bag column today, with four items of roughly equal length, about the "Simpsons" season premiere, the "Family Guy" spoof of "Star Wars," the "Burn Notice" season finale and the big "24" development that Fox decided to spoil several months early:

"Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig, does whatever a spider-pig... does..."

If those words fill your heart with joy, chances are you were one of the millions who bought tickets to "The Simpsons Movie" this summer (or, at least, that you saw the trailer on YouTube). I was one of those millions, and suffered multiple bouts of the hiccups from too much laughter (highlight, other than Spider-Pig: the "Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?" ticker ad), even though I’ve watched recent seasons of "The Simpsons" TV show more out of loyalty than merit.

So when I watched a review screener of the 19th (yes, 19th) season premiere of the show, I expected it to pale in comparison to the movie, even though I knew it would feature a Spider-Pig cameo. Instead, it felt oddly, comfortingly similar to the movie. The structure is similar, with the best jokes in the first act (Homer saves Mr. Burns’ life and is rewarded with a private jet flight to Chicago for some deep dish pizza), a bit of a lull to get the plot moving in the second (Marge hires Homer a life coach, voiced by guest star Stephen Colbert) and a third act with some genuine pathos and misadventures with a vehicle Homer shouldn’t be able to operate.

To read the full column, click here. Click here to read the full post

The Simpsons Movie: Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig...

Brief spoilers for "The Simpsons Movie" coming up just as soon as I find a really kind-hearted carnie to give me one more chance...

Expanding a little on my initial thoughts from a few hours after the screening, I'm really happy with the movie, even though I know it's not an instant classic the way the "South Park" movie was.

The first 20-30 minutes feature most of the best gags and memorable sequences, with Bart's naked skateboard ride and, especially, the Fox crawl joke as highlights. (The theater I saw it in was packed with industry people -- including Fox chairman Peter Liguori -- and the place exploded when the crawl began. I know it's wishful thinking, but maybe that gag can shame Fox into changing its bug-happy ways -- for "The Simpsons," if not for all of primetime.)

Of course, that early stretch of the film is the part lightest on plot. While there's set-up for all the shenanigans with the EPA and President Ahnuld, the first half-hour is essentially a series of thinly-connected sketches -- very funny sketches, but still a format that would describe the TV series from around the point it hit double digit seasons. But it was still a pleasure to get to experience vintage "Simpsons"-style humor ("I'll teach you to laugh at something that's funny!" or Nelson losing his voice from laughing too long at Bart's doodle) with a huge, boisterous crowd. (I wonder how this movie's going to play for people who just wait on the DVD.)

Once the EPA storyline really kicks in, the laughs slow down, but I like that Groening and company didn't try to force gags. I know some critics and fans have complained that the movie doesn't feature nearly enough of the supporting cast, especially with Homer packing up the clan to Alaska. I'm okay with the focus on the family, though; they're the reason most of us fell in love with the show, and I've missed the genuine emotions at the heart of the series' earliest episodes like "Lisa's Substitute." Bart's growing affection for Flanders and, especially, Marge's videotaped message for Homer were really affecting. (Julie Kavner was really amazing in the video scene; too bad voice actors have no real shot at major film awards.) Would I have liked more of Mr. Burns or Apu or Barney? Sure, but not at the expense of the family dynamic.

For all the talk about how the writers didn't want to do the movie if they'd just be repeating bits from the series, there were several sequences that were exactly that. Homer's vision quest in the frozen wilds reminded me of his post-chili cook-off hallucinations, and Comic Book Guy evaluating his life in the face of impending death was nearly identical to the bit from the Halloween episode where he gets hit by a French missile. (The only difference: instead of feeling he's wasted his life, he now has no regrets. If the Halloween shows weren't out of continuity, I'd make some kind of Worst. Mischaracterization. Ever. joke. I guess I just did.)

I also loved how David Silverman and the animators opened up the visuals for the big screen, in a way that made all the characters look like themselves, but better.

So that's me. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Best. Simpsons movie. Ever.

To quote the Bizarro Jerry, me so happy. Me want to cry. At the last minute this afternoon, a friend of mine with a ticket to see "The Simpsons Movie" realized that it came with a plus-one, and he asked me to be his plus-one. (Thanks, Joe!)

I'm not going to spoil anything right now -- I'll do a proper WAW-style review sometime this weekend, after I'm back from tour and fully awake -- but I will say that I was really, really happy with it. The first half hour is as funny a sustained stretch as any of the best episodes, but there's also room for some heart (Julie Kavner is GREAT), appearances by virtually every character ever (even if some of them are on-screen for half a second) and Albert Brooks doing another brilliant guest voice turn. Really, the only thing it was lacking was an epic musical number, but I'm okay with that. I don't know if it's as perfect as the "South Park" movie, but if you love the show, you will not be disappointed. Click here to read the full post

Best. Couch gag. Ever?

Haven't watched the rest of tonight's "Simpsons" yet, but the couch gag -- in which Homer evolved from single-cell organism to 21st century man, with stops through prehistory and the Renaissance -- was definitely the longest I've ever seen and maybe the funniest. (Lenny and Moe's cameos alone were brilliant.)

Tell me I'm wrong. Name a better one.

UPDATE: So it's on YouTube, for now. Watch it while you can, and hopefully if NewsCorp has it pulled, an official version will go up on Fox.com somewhere. Click here to read the full post

Flash(back)! Ahhh-ahhhh!! Boring every one of us!

(This morning's topics, in order: "Prison Break," "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Simpsons.")

So now we see what "Lost" has wrought; when a show with a complicated ongoing storyline needs to stall, it busts out a flashback episode. Last night's "Prison Break" actually one-upped "Lost" by devoting the entire hour to flashbacks, which meant the writers didn't even have to pretend they were advancing the plot.

Just like some of the "Lost" flashbacks were really valuable in season one at filling in blanks about these characters, a couple of the "Prison Break" threads last night were useful: we knew C-Note's family thought he was in Iraq, but didn't have details beyond that, and images of Dr. Tancredi as a heroin junkie might actually make me want to rewatch some of her older scenes to see if I can spot any clues to that. (Probably not; I'm guessing not all of this is planned out elaborately.) And T-Bag helping his girlfriend's kids with their homework was a whole coffee pot full of creepy.

And just like most of the "Lost" flashbacks this season keep repeating information we already know, the rest of this episode was largely a waste of time, showing us things we'd been told about months ago, and not being interesting enough as a character study to compensate for the wheel-spinning.

I was worried about watching "Grey's Anatomy" after spotting this comment in the "Sopranos" thread:

For the first time in a while (maybe not the first but...) Grey's Anatomy is starting to really bug. It's so cutesy, so wacky, and then so manipulatively melodramatic -- can you say Ally McBeal? The characters are starting to become like smug little children. Much more of Meredith Grey breaking plaster because her dad abandoned her, and I will abandon her too. Is this show just a little too in love with itself now???

Now, that's been my big issue with "Grey's" this season. (Woulda been last season, too, but nine episodes isn't enough to get frustrated by a show's tics.) The cutesy score (I don't know why they don't just use songs all the time, since they almost universally rock), the inappropriate boyfriend discussions during surgery, the sledgehammer narration by Meredith -- the show always seems like it's one bad pun from turning into "Sex and the City: The Pathetic Later Years." Plus, when I listen to the podcasts where Shonda Rhimes and a rotating group of producers laugh off all criticism and spend a lot of time talking about how they just like to go to the set to stare at Patrick Dempsey and whatever hunks are around that day, I worry.

But just when the show is threatening to, like San Francisco on "South Park," disappear up its own asshole, it gives me moments like Laurie Metcalf's speech to her daughter (which felt earned instead of cheap sentimentalism because Laurie Metcalf is awesome), or that horrible three-way confrontation between George, Meredith and Meredith's dad, where George discovered that his sexual nightmare with Mere was actually worse than he had thought, since she slept with him right after seeing her dad (who does, in fact, look like an older George, just as we'd been told in the past).

That's some nail on the head writing right there, and it makes me willing to forgive weird excesses like Sara Ramirez having a secret apartment inside the hospital, which was way too much like The Biscuit's hidden room on "Ally McBeal." In fact, "Grey's" at both its good and bad moments reminds me of David E. Kelley, but so far, the good Kelley is winning out over the irritatingly wacky Kelley. So far. I expect things are going to end badly between me and this show, but for now, I'm with it.

The perils of the TiVo 30-second skip cheat: sometime's, you miss a commercial you wanted to see. I had figured the big "Simpsons" announcement was going to be about the movie, but I got to the end of the episode without seeing it. Then I came to work the next day, watched the trailer on YouTube and discovered later that the trailer had aired around the 20-minute mark of the show, but I was hitting the skip button so fast that I missed it. Anyway, the trailer and the constant teases brought back fond memories of the Russell Crowe Fightin' 'Round the World episode of "South Park," where the kids sitting through Russell and Tugger's global ass-kicking so they could see the Terence & Phillip trailer, which featured about two seconds of actual footage. ("They were wearing cowboy hats!") Not sure how to feel about the prospect of a movie: on the one hand, Matt, James L. Brooks and the rest are insisting that they were never going to do it until they had a script that merited it, but the show has been in a massive slump for about three years now. Couldn't they have done this before, you know, they ran out of ideas?

The episode itself was decent. Loved the mushroom cloud logo for the Springfield Meltdowns and Grampa's dying wish to see footage of cops beating hippies scored to the music of Glen Miller, but Lisa's appeal to Grampa's better instincts came out of nowhere, not just for this episode, but the series itself -- Lisa's always been just as annoyed by Abe as the rest of the family.

Oh, and I've been lax with non-"Sopranos" linkage lately, so here's the last two All TV columns: from Monday, a review of "City of Men" (a Brazillian TV spin-off of "City of God"; if you liked the movie, you'll like this), and from Tuesday, Matt being nicer to "Pepper Dennis" than I would have been, plus me inviting all kinds of angry e-mails from both sides of the political spectrum by calling HBO's "All Aboard!: Rosie's Family Cruise" a 90-minute infomercial. (UPDATE: After I left the office yesterday, the column got reshuffled to allow for a Katie Couric to CBS item, which means the Rosie thing is getting bumped a day or two.)

Off to watch "24" and then write tomorrow's column. What will it be about? Who knows at this point in the live on the razor's edge, laugh in the face of death world of TV criticism? Click here to read the full post

Ahhh, Brent-ie

I was super-geeked at the prospect of Ricky Gervais both writing and appearing in an episode of "The Simpsons," until I read an article in the newest Entertainment Weekly where he listed his five favorite "Simpsons" episodes ever, none of which would be close to my top five, one of which -- "Homer's Enemy" -- represented everything I came to dislike about the later years. Thankfully, that article helped me, to quote Tony Soprano's doctor, recalibrate my expectations. I came in expecting another Frank Grimes-esque celebration of Tony at his oafish worst, so the actual episode was a nice surprise. Not top 10, or even top 150, but by the standards of the last few seasons, pretty good. The best part, by far, was Gervais writing and playing himself as David Brent: the career choice, the awkward flirtation, the inappropriate jokes that require five minutes to explain, etc. Plus, the visit to the Fox lot was pretty funny. (By the way, when Paulie Walnuts took one in the walnuts on last night's "Sopranos," was I the only one who instantly thought of "Barney's movie had heart... but 'Football in the Groin' had a football in the groin"? Not just me? Good.) The only other Sunday TV I finished was "West Wing," which was mostly campaign filler, other than the Toby scenes. My daughter's not a lot younger than Molly, and while I've never violated national security (not that I can think of), the notion of having to be away from my daughter for a long period of time hit home for me. Plus, I much prefer Toby's ex-wife when she's not singing in front of burning cars. My prediction for next week, influenced by the least subtle preview reel of all time: Santos wins, but the victory celebration is ruined by the death of Leo. Click here to read the full post

His name is Leo and he dances on the sand

So let's see... HBO has the lights off until March, "Grey's Anatomy" was a clip show, continuing to avoid "Desperate Housewives" was on my list of New Year's Resolutions, so in terms of things I actually watched...

"The West Wing": Sadly fitting that the first episode to air after John Spencer's death was all about Leo. Even sadder is that it wasn't very good. Even by post-Sorkin standards, this was a predictable one -- anyone who didn't see Leo doing fine in the debate, not to mention that he was the source of the leak, needs an eye exam. I liked the interplay between Leo and Annabelle, Josh and Toby on the phone was good, and I appreciated a glimpse inside the Vinick camp that didn't make them look like the Evil Empire (maybe because Vinick was nowhere to be found), but overall: meh. I'm incredibly sick and tired of Josh being a complete moron, solely as a means to make Santos look smarter for always disagreeing with him (in this case, by telling Leo to skip the debate prep). Couldn't care less about Will and whatsername having the least romantic TV dinner of all time. Here's hoping Sorkin and Schlamme are coming back for multiple episodes.

"Cold Case": I wrote about this both in Friday's column and in a Friday blog entry, but just coming back to it for one reason: in this New York Times interview, "Cold Case" creator Meredith Stiehm says she was on the nose with all the songs on purpose, and that she originally wanted the episode to have no dialogue whatsoever, to let the songs tell the story. I'm sure she got talked out of that by someone at CBS or Bruckheimer Inc. who thinks deviating from the formula too much is bad for the bottom line, but I think the show would have been much stronger had she been able to go with the original plan.

"The Simpsons": This is the Be Careful What You Wish For season. I wanted more narrative coherence, I wanted more focus on the family and their emotions. I'm getting both, and yet the couch gags are almost always funnier than the rest of the episode combined. (Lenny and Carl as the new parents was the best family photo.) Now, Homer having an epiphany about Abe while lost in a multi-million dollar mini-sub isn't quite on par with Lisa developing a crush on her substitute teacher or Homer buying Marge a bowling ball, but if this season keeps going the way it has, I'm going to start asking for more wackiness for the sake of wackiness, sort of like...

"Family Guy": One of the better ones, and I loved the random cameo by Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank from "American Movie" as Quagmire's production crew for the lesbian video. Question: are we approaching a point where getting to do a guest voice on "Family Guy" is considered a bigger deal than "The Simpsons"? Probably not; if "The Simpsons" is good enough for Ricky Gervais and Michael Chabon, it's good enough for me.
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Wha happen?

I know, I know, I know... the four of you who actually read this blog have all been complaining about the tardiness of the latest entry, so I'll try to tackle Wednesday through the weekend (or what I've seen of it) as quick as I can.

"Lost": The whole Zen "no answers" thing works out really well for an episode like this, which was basically a one-hour expansion of a few lines of Ana-Lucia dialogue from the week before. If you're willing to accept that there's going to be wheel-spinning and hedging and no new information except when the writers have absolutely no choice, then you can enjoy the character and thriller aspects. I liked the extended look at the tailaways, and the sort of parallel structure to the main characters, with Ana-Lucia as Kate, Mr. Eko (my favorite character on the show by far these days) as Locke and Goodwin seeming to be Jack. Brett Cullen, who played Goodwin, is one of my favorite Hey, It's That Guys (TV division), and once again he got the job done. Hopefully, either this or "West Wing" is going to lead him to another regular job. (He has a supporting role on a WB midseason show with Rebecca Romijn, but it's so lousy that he'll probably be looking for a new gig inside a month.) The scene on top of the mountain where Ana-Lucia and Goodwin pleasantly chatted while each was sizing the other up for the kill was the kind of character-based suspense this show does so damn well that I'm willing to ignore the non-info thing.

The one problem the producers have is that they introduced Ana-Lucia in a way designed to make viewers just despise her -- sneering in every scene, bullying three of the main characters, yelling loudly whenever anyone tries to get answers and, last week, killing Shannon -- and now they're backtracking and trying to show why you should like her. It doesn't work that way, which J.J. Abrams (who I know isn't very hands-on these days) should remember from the "Alias" season with Melissa George. She was also intro'd in a manner where fans had no choice but to hate her (disrupting their long-awaited Sydney/Vaughn romance), and when the effort to make her sympathetic didn't work, J.J. admitted defeat and turned her evil full-time. Ana-Lucia has built up so much bad karma with the viewers over only a few weeks that she may never enter their good graces. Maybe she'll have to go and join The Others at some point.

"Veronica Mars": An odd episode, tonally darker than even this show usually gets. Sheriff Lamb is one of the show's better recurring characters, so I like giving him some depth, so long as he doesn't suddenly turn into a nice guy. (His jerkiness is his most likable trait.) Little movement on the bus crash and only slightly more on Logan's case, though the idea of having Logan and Duncan live together is genius, since it forces Veronica and Duncan to trade insults on a regular basis.

"South Park": I'm the only person I know who saw this one and was underwhelmed. I just feel like Tom Cruise and Scientology are like a turkey shoot these days, and this could have been a lot savager and funnier than it was. The two best jokes: the "THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE" caption over the history video, and Stan (and, by proxy, Matt and Trey) daring the Scientologists to sue, followed by a closing credits full of John and Jane Smiths.

"Survivor": Hogeboom lives to landscape another day! Woo-hoo! What I liked about this episode the most was the irony Jamie becomes so paranoid that his allies are going to turn on him that his paranoia drives them to turn on him. Ever since Alanis Morissette ruined everyone's definition of irony, you rarely see the concept in its 100% pure form like this. Oh, and this blog entry has been brought to you by Folger's. Damn, that's good coffee! And hot!

"The O.C.": Well, I give them points for not letting Summer be dumb enough to fall into Taylor's jealousy trap -- yet -- and for letting Julie plausibly outsmart 7 of 9, but the show's overall IQ has dropped so many points since the first season that I feel uncomfortable watching it. Season three "O.C." is the kind of show that season one "O.C." would have mocked.

"ER": I'll give 'em this: as stupid as I thought the plane crash in Chicago idea was, it got me watching the show for the first time this season. Incredibly stupid, but entertaining in a C-level disaster movie way. No "ER" disaster episode is ever going to top season one's blizzard episode (where the producers didn't have to blow the budget on snow and crash effects, since everything took place inside the hospital), but this wasn't any cheesier than the helicopter crash, or the train crash, or the toxic waste spill, or the spree shooting, or... (As Matt put it, "Did they build this hospital on top of a Hellmouth?")

"SNL": I'm starting to feel like one of those monks from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" who wander around constantly smashing boards into their faces as mortification. Why else am I watching this show week after week? The problem isn't just the lousy writing and flimsy premises (a house music parody? a sketch designed to let the cast showcase their impressions of late '50s celebrities?), but the fact that it's a cast full of second and third-tier "SNL" types. The writing has been uneven practically since the show began, but the good casts always have at least one or two people who are funny even with lousy material: Gilda, Belushi and Murray in the original cast, Lovitz and Hartman in the late '80s, Will Ferrell in the late '90s. This group has some talented impressionists (Heder's Pacino is the best I've ever seen) and people who can be funny on the rare occasion when the sketch is working, but the closest thing they have to people who can rise above the material are Will Forte and Amy Poehler, but even they only occasionally can make something out of nothing.

"The Simpsons": Not the funniest episode of the season by a long stretch, but I give them points for a relatively coherent Homer-Lisa story, though the California recall election parody felt like filler between emotional beats of the story. This is two weeks in a row where they've tried to return to smaller stories about the family, and it's clear that most of the current writers have either let those muscles atrophy or never had them in the first place (the younger ones who grew up on the years of the show where Homer flew in the space shuttle and toured with Hullabalooza). Still, I appreciate the effort now and then; the first couple of seasons weren't always that hilarious, but there was a heart to those stories that kept me around, long after our hero turned into Jerkass Homer.

More on "Grey's Anatomy," "Curb" and other Sunday shows either later Monday or on Tuesday morning. I'll get a relatively fixed schedule on this thing sooner or later. Really. Click here to read the full post

"Watch her like a movie"

Real estate is an obsession in the New York/New Jersey area. At every party I attended during my single days, if there were four conversations going on at once, two or three of them would be about square footage, rent hikes, crazy landlords and, as we got older, mortgage rates. A lot of people want to live around here, and there's not enough elbow room for all, so everyone's constantly hustling for a bigger space, a better rent, a parking space, whatever.

Shortly after Marian and I resumed dating after a short and stupid break, she got a tip from a friend about a ginormous two-bedroom in a prime location in Hoboken. She brought me with her to check it out, and it was as great as advertised. Her only problem was that she would need to find a roommate to cover the rent. I offered to move in with her, only half-joking, and it was as much about my love of the place as my interest in taking things to the next level with Marian. She rolled her eyes and said, "Umm... no," and found herself a roommate who we'll call Georgia for legal reasons. When she was interviewing possible roommates, she told all of them that it would be a one-year deal, and at the end of that year, if Marian wanted the place to herself, she'd get it.

By the time that year was coming to a close, we were engaged and we wanted that place. One problem: Georgia claimed to have never had the one-year conversation with Marian, and told us in no uncertain terms that she wasn't leaving. Marian had put both their names on the lease so she'd have legal recourse in case Georgia turned out to be a flake who wouldn't pay rent, but that backfired.

So the plan became for me to move in -- along with all my furniture, books, comic books, electronic equipment, etc. -- and make my presence as big and loud as possible (as any of my friends will tell you, that wasn't much of a challenge) until Georgia decided she'd rather live in a smaller place than deal with me and my stuff. Georgia responded to Operation: Sasquatch with a strategic retreat into her bedroom, gradually removing all of her stuff -- including the TV, the lamp and one of the couches -- from the living room. My friend Jennifer advised us to get a bucket of popcorn and "watch her like a movie" to make sure she didn't start messing with our stuff.

After a few weeks, Georgia surrendered and found another place. But as one final salvo in our little war, she locked her bedroom door (a keyless lock that can only be opened easily from the inside) as she left, so that we were only a few minutes into our celebration of having the place to ourselves before we had to call a locksmith.

Why am I telling you all this? It's a (very) roundabout way of saying that I've lived something close to what happened on "How I Met Your Mother" last night -- minus the dueling part -- and I could relate to the anguish over shared real estate. (This, of course, is TV New York, where a kindergarten teacher can afford to carry the rent on an apartment big enough to be converted into a Chinese restaurant, even though she doesn't live there.) Not as good as the club episode, but pretty funny nonetheless. Barney's Lemon Law subplot was also nice, and featured yet another "Freaks and Geeks" guest appearance, by Martin "Bill Haverchuck" Starr as Robin's nerdy date. (Samm Levine was one of the losers stuck outside the nightclub, and, of course, disco-dancing Jason Segel is in the regular cast.)

I'm still catching up on other things from Sunday and Monday nights (I wasted most of last night watching the ugliest NBA game I have ever seen), but I did see the latest "Simpsons," which opened with what I think is the longest couch gag in the show's history. (My friend Dan suggested the parody of "Contact" as the only other one that came close.) That couch gag was also funnier than the rest of the episode combined. After all my complaining over the years about the writers moving away from the emotional dynamics of the family, I can't get too worked up over a half-hour about Marge and Bart bonding, but it felt like a rough outline of an episode; there was sort of a story, and sort of a few jokes, but they weren't close to finished. And the Homer's dumbbell subplot? I know the show's been around for 8,000 years, but this is at least the third different episode where Homer or Marge gets randomly bulked up (the last time, Homer accomplished it by unleashing the power of apples); if you're going to repeat that joke again, at least make it funny.

I also suffered through another episode of what's shaping up to be the worst "Saturday Night Live" season since Anthony Michael Hall and Randy Quaid roamed the halls. Watching it this year is like that Tom Hanks sketch where everyone in the family has to take a whiff of the rotten milk carton so they know for themselves just how disgusting it is. I love Jason Lee, but even he can't do much when the writing's not there. The closest thing to a good sketch was the HGTV parody, and even that was a rip-off of two older sketches: Schweddy Balls and a Prince Charles/butler sketch that featured the same caulk-in-the-crack joke.

I'd write more, but someone sitting on my lap needs a new diaper. More later after I've watched "Prison Break." In the meantime, links to the two most recent All TV columns: Monday's, featuring Matt on PBS' Las Vegas documentary and me bemoaning the fate of "Arrested Development," and Tuesday's, a mailbag dealing even more with "Arrested Development." (It's my goal to mention the show every day this week if I can get away with it.) Click here to read the full post