But then there began speculation about Leno moving to another network after his gig on The Tonight Show ended. There were serious rumors that he might head to ABC and take over the 11:30 p.m. slot there (moving Jimmy Kimmel back to 12:30 a.m. and displacing Nightline altogether). Meanwhile, The Tonight Show, under Leno, was still doing well in the ratings, still topping Letterman every night. People in the industry started to question the wisdom of the Tonight Show move (it didn’t help matters that the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson — which in most places airs directly after Letterman; just not in CT — had caught up with Conan in the ratings). NBC’s ratings also continued to fall into the toilet. Simply put, if Leno were to hop to another network, it would not have been a shining moment for the Peacock Network.

So, it seems, based on stories in The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets, NBC has managed to retain Leno. They’re not letting him keep The Tonight Show. Instead, they’re giving him a new, five-nights-a-week talk show, airing…..weeknights at 10 p.m.

This is a big deal. A five-nights-a-week talk show has never been done in prime time before. This is basically NBC throwing in the towel, at least on the 10 p.m. hour. Now they’ll only really have to focus on 8-10 p.m. Monday-Friday (as they schedule repeats on Saturday nights and air football from 7-11 p.m. on Sundays). You have to wonder what’s going to happen to some of their shows. The highly-rated SVU still airs at 10 p.m., as does the still-decently-rated original Law & Order. (ER airs at 10 too, but this is its final season.) If they return next season, it’ll have to be at an earlier time. So what gets the axe? Knight Rider? Chuck? ….. Heroes? Or does NBC actually decide to cut back on some of its reality shows, like Deal or No Deal and The Biggest Loser? (Don’t hold your breath.) Also, if Leno’s new show does well, do ABC and CBS follow suit? After all, a talk show is significantly cheaper to produce than a scripted, original drama.

Leno’s apparently going to take all his Tonight Show trademarks — like “Headlines,” “Jaywalking,” etc. — with him to the 10 p.m. show. So basically, it’ll be The Tonight Show, just at 10 p.m. And Conan, who was poised to be the star of NBC Late Night, now finds himself in the odd position of hosting The Tonight Show but still playing second fiddle to Leno. Also, you gotta wonder what this means for Jimmy Fallon and his new show. After two hours of late-night talk, who’s gonna stick around for a third? And you know this means those tiny little ratings for Last Call with Carson Daly will get even….tinier.

As pretty much a lifelong student of television and its history, I found tonight’s news fascinating. And I don’t really like it too much either. Like I said, this is basically NBC throwing out an hour of prime time every single night, and that’s really kind of a shame. There’ll be less original, scripted programming on the network now (because like I said, don’t hold your breath that a reality show will meet the chopping block), and as a fan of scripted TV, this disappoints me a little. It’s the network cutting costs, and the viewer that suffers in the end. Well, I suppose if you’re a Tonight Show with Jay Leno fan, you’re not suffering. But I’m not a fan; he seems like a nice guy, but his humor just seems to aim a little too much at the lowest common denominator. I prefer Letterman, but actually like Conan better than both of them, so I was really kinda looking forward to the fall of ’09. Now, a little less so.

In January 2007, just about a month and a half after I started watching 30 Rock, I wrote in this very blog that the show could sometimes “be a little uneven, but it hits a lot more often than it misses, and the potential is there for it to be even better.” And currently, the show is realizing that potential. It’s actually been realizing it for a while now. So far this has been a very good season for the show, and tonight’s episode was one of the best they’ve had. I won’t spoil specific details for those who haven’t seen it yet (and get thee to hulu.com or nbc.com if you haven’t yet watched), so I’ll just give some general praise: The characters on this show are all crazy, in their own way. But it never becomes an outright cartoon. They’re still people you care about and are interested in following, even if, for the most part, they’re not exactly people you’re likely to meet in real life.

And the writing on this show is so sharp. Each week, the writers build to this fabulous, often hilarious crescendo, one that is so well-crafted you rarely see it coming. It’s also reminiscent of Arrested Development in a way, particularly in that the show is chock full of hilarious little throwaway moments that zip by fast if you’re not paying attention (like tonight with Tracy’s “angry chair”).

30 Rock is just such a brilliant show. Which is not to say that The Office isn’t. It too had a very good episode tonight, which is key, because this season has been just a *smidge* on the uneven side. (While I love having Toby back, I do miss Holly. She added a new element to the show that we hadn’t seen before, and she and Michael really did make for a pretty cute and funny couple.) The episode a couple weeks ago, for example, where Michael, Oscar and Andy all went to Canada, was perhaps one of the only Office episodes since its uneven first season where I really didn’t laugh a whole lot. A fair number of things fell flat that week.

Watching The Office these days, you sometimes get the sense that maybe, just maybe, the show has already hit its peak, and is starting to slowly come back down to earth a bit. (It’s difficult to believe the show’s already in its fifth season.) With 30 Rock, you don’t really get that feeling. The show’s still riding high, and I’m vastly enjoying watching it do so.

And there’s no revisionist history here either. The blog entries and Circle columns are as they first appeared. For example, in an early 2000 column about Freaks and Geeks I misidentified the characters as Lindsay and Sam Beir. In fact, it is Weir. And any bad writing of mine from my college days is left alone, as well as any baffling opinions I might have had back then. (It’s hard to believe I ever thought The King of Queens was a good show.) Anyway, enjoy my previous TV thoughts, and rest assured new ones are around the corner.

Aside from Tuesday nights (which featured Frasier in the 9 p.m. anchor slot), NBC’s idea to spread the Must-See wealth didn’t really work out. Some minor hits (like the aforementioned NewsRadio, as well as 3rd Rock from the Sun and Just Shoot Me) resulted, but for the most part the strategy kinda fizzled out in the ratings. The original Thursday-night lineup continued to do well through the start of the ’00s. But first Friends and then Will & Grace departed, and by the time W&G exited, CBS, with its one-two punch of Survivor and CSI, had really taken control of Thursdays from 8-10 (at least NBC still had ER). So, that was it for Must-See TV. Until this past November, anyway, when NBC put together a two-hour block consisting of My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs and 30 Rock. Finally, after years, and years, NBC had a comedy lineup worthy of the name “Must-See TV.” This was the best Thursday night sitcom lineup on NBC since the mid-80s, when NBC aired The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and Night Court all back-to-back for a few seasons. And while NBC may not call it “Must-See TV” (and while it may still get beaten by both CBS and ABC in the ratings each week), that doesn’t change the fact it is still two hours of great comedy.

The night kicks off with My Name is Earl, which is in its second season. I very much enjoyed the show’s season, but I have to admit that as the season wore on I wondered if this were the type of show that could last for several years. The concept, in case you don’t know by now, had Earl winning the lottery, putting together a list of all the people he’d done wrong in his life, and each week go to those people and try to make things right. As funny as the episodes could be, you sensed things getting a little formulaic and maybe even a tad predictable. But I’m happy to say that, in the show’s second season, the producers haven’t been afraid to stray from their formula here and there. Two weeks ago, for example, the episode featured the cast sitting around and watching a COPS rerun from 2004. Apparently (at least in the world of the show), COPS came to Camden County (the fictional place where Earl is set) for an episode. The installment featured the memorable cast of supporting characters that have come to populate the show, and, since it was set in 2004, before Earl won the lottery, you got a chance to see him not be such a do-gooder, and instead be up to his small-time (and frankly, rather stupid) crime capers. And last week’s show featured Earl and his brother Randy trying to dig up a box of silverware they had stolen several years before. The episode was hilarious, and featured Earl, Randy, Earl’s ex-wife Joy and Joy’s current husband Crabman each offering their own version of what happened when the silverware was initially stolen. It was quite well done.

So, My Name is Earl is still a lot of fun to watch. Not every show is excellent; I didn’t much care for the hour-long installment a few weeks ago, but then hour-long episodes of traditional half-hour comedies don’t always work (even on Cheers and Seinfeld And while Jason Lee continues to be great in the title role, Jamie Pressly as Joy steals just about every scene she’s in. Aside from being very easy on the eyes, she’s also quite adept at comedy. She’s also got that Southern accent down pat.

After Earl comes the crown jewel of NBC’s lineup, The Office. The Office is now actually in its third season. It debuted as a mid-season replacement in early 2005. It was enjoyable from the start, but it wasn’t until the show’s second season that it really became something special. The writing just continued to get sharper until before long The Office became the best sitcom on TV. And that still holds true today, halfway through the show’s third season. There have perhaps been a couple of sub-par episodes this season (the “Prison Mike” episode from a couple of months back just wasn’t that good; it felt a little like a rehash of the season premiere), but it almost feels wrong to label them as “sub-par,” because even a below-average Office is still better than any other comedy on TV.

What makes the show so great? Well, the characters, for starters. They’re so well-drawn, so realistic, that they’re easy to relate to, easy to care about. (It also helps that the occupants of the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin look the way you’d expect the occupants of an office to look. They don’t look like TV stars; they look like real people.) And the situations the writers put these well-drawn characters in are also so realistic. What made the Pam and Jim saga of season two so engrossing, and so difficult to watch at times, was that it played out so realistically. It didn’t play out the way you’d expect it to on a sitcom. Each week the two would maybe take a tiny step forward, and then maybe one or two steps back, or maybe some weeks there’d be no advancement of their relationship at all. And that’s how life is sometimes. The whole thing just made Pam-and-Jim fascinating to watch, and it’s a fascination that’s continued into this season.

Also, The Office never takes the easy way out, or moves in ways you’d expect sitcoms to move. Last week, Dwight quit Dunder-Mifflin rather than reveal the true reason as to why he went to New York (which was to get Angela’s paperwork dropped off by deadline), which would’ve not only exposed Angela messing up but also would have exposed their secret affair, which Angela is very reluctant to do. A lesser show might have had Angela speak up at the last moment, just as Dwight was about to walk out the door. But on The Office, it wouldn’t have been true to the Angela character to have her do that, so she let him leave. Tough to watch? Perhaps. But character wasn’t sacrificed for the sake of a tidy wrap-up to the episode. And in the episode of two weeks ago, after Pam helped Karen in her relationship with Jim (even though it was evident Pam really, really didn’t want to help at all), there was a scene where Pam broke down in tears on a bench at the office. Dwight comforted her, put her arm around her. While a stupid sitcom might have used this as a stepping stone to a wholly implausible relationship between Pam and Dwight, Dwight instead killed the moment in hilarious Dwight fashion: “Gee, you must be PMS-ing really bad this month, huh?”

And that brings me to the third thing that makes The Office so great. It is just so funny. I laugh so hard, and so long, at this show. It is just marvelously done. I know not everybody reading this has given it a shot. But I encourage you to. You’re really missing out on a sublime piece of comedy.

And now, on to Scrubs. Aside from its season opener that last Thursday in November, I’ve been fairly disappointed with Scrubs this season, and while it pains me to write this, it is the weakest of the four comedies on Thursday night. I loved Scrubs for its first four seasons. I own one of those seasons on DVD, and watch the show in repeats on a near-nightly basis. The show dipped a bit last season, and has just continued to fall this year. Why? Well, I think that perhaps the show has run out of ideas. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to sitcoms that have been around a long time. Most sitcoms aren’t as good in their sixth year as they were in their first or second seasons. Some are a little bit worse (even classics like I Love Lucy, Cheers and MASH fall in this category), while others (like That ’70s Show) are markedly worse. The writers’ well running dry started to be apparent last season (see the episode that featured an insipid subplot where Ted the lawyer, Janitor, some Janitor’s helper, and Turk form an air band), and it’s become even more obvious this season (last week’s show featured Dr. Cox and Janitor arguing over a hospital suite that had been designed much nicer than the other hospital rooms). True, both the examples I mentioned are subplots, but even the subplots used to be more creative than what they are now. Plus, the producers of Scrubs have evidently just decided babies are the solution to everything. Not only did Turk and Carla just have a baby, Dr. Cox and Jordan are expecting their second, and even J.D.’s girlfriend is about to have his kid. It’s like Scrubs is going for the jump-the-shark hat trick. Let’s just say I don’t see this as being rife with comedy gold.

So, Scrubs is petering out. It happens, I guess.  But I read today that Broadcasting & Cable magazine is reporting Scrubs will be back next season for a seventh year. Even if NBC cancels it, ABC is expected to pick it up. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Maybe if they go into the season with their mind made up that it’ll be their last season, and decide to pull out all the stops to make it a great year, season seven could wind up being pretty good. But I highly doubt the producers of the show are purposely making below-average episodes now. Maybe they feel they’re doing a good job; so how much better would things get in season seven? Well, in any event, I’ll continue to watch the show. It’s still one of my all-time favs; this season can’t erase that. Plus, who knows, maybe the show will find its footing again. This week’s episode is a special all-musical installment, and I’m intrigued to see how it turns out.

The final show on NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup is 30 Rock. I admit, I never watched this show until they moved it to Thursdays (it debuted on Wednesdays in October). After Scrubs made its season premiere on Nov. 30, I figured I’d stick around and give 30 Rock a try. For those who don’t know, it’s a sitcom about behind-the-scenes antics at a fictional Saturday Night Live-type show, and it’s really quite funny. It stars Tina Fey as Liz Lemon, the kind of unlucky-in-life head writer of the show. She’s a very fun, and also sympathetic, character. Alec Baldwin is the exec producer of the show, and he just does a fantastic job with what he does. His delivery of the lines often is hysterical. Having seen him before on SNL, I knew he could do comedy, but I’m surprised at how good he is. Of course, his character is a little over-the-top (in one episode he was wearing a tuxedo, just to wear it; his reasoning for the tux, as he said to Liz: “What are we? Farmers?”), but he’s meant to be that way. It’s nice that you also get the feeling he cares for Liz, in a weird sort-of older brother type of way, although he has strange ways of expressing it sometimes. (“I like you,” he tells Liz in one episode. “You have the boldness of a much younger woman.”) 

The supporting cast in 30 Rock, most notably Jane Krakowski and the off-the-wall (and sometimes, climbing-the-wall) crazy Tracy Morgan, is also great. Sometimes the show can be a little uneven, but it hits a lot more often than it misses, and the potential is there for it to be even better. 30 Rock is the lowest-rated of the four Thursday night comedies, but I hope NBC shows faith in it and renews it for next season. It’s earned that shot.

And there really wasn’t. The show was about an Episcopal priest, Daniel Webster, and his family. And his family was somewhat dysfunctional, at least when you compare it to what society teaches us is a “functional” family. Daniel had two sons–one was an adopted Asian and the other was gay–and a teenage daughter. They all lived at home with him and his wife. His sister-in-law was having an affair with his bookkeeper’s (female) secretary. His bookkeeper, by the way, absconded in the pilot episode with around $3 million that had been targeted to build a new church school. Daniel wasn’t perfect, as evidenced by the fact he was a little overdependent on prescription painkillers, but he was a devoted husband and very loving father who honestly believed in his calling. He regularly talked to Jesus for advice. This show didn’t poke fun at Christians, despite the claims of the conservative groups out there. It was irreverent at times; The Simpsons  can be irreverent at times too. But the show also had a good moral message, preaching, among other things, tolerance and acceptance. The family, dysfunctional though it may have been, was generally loving and very supportive. The three kids sniped at each other, but all were there for each other. Heck, the family even made a point of getting together each week for Sunday dinner. So there was actually a good moral center to the show, without it being all preachy like 7th Heaven.

Was the show perfect? No. Some of the writing could be a little predictable in spots. But the episodes were all very enjoyable, and the cast was top-notch. The show deserved a better chance at success. And it could’ve had that chance had it aired somewhere other than Friday nights at 10 p.m. That’s not the time period to launch edgy fare like The Book of Daniel (and that’s not a knock on the show; it was edgy. Not edgy bad. Just edgy). Its ratings started low and remained low. Had there at least been some sponsors for the show, NBC probably would’ve stuck with it until it ended its run (there were four episodes left to go). But NBC was probably losing money each week, so they pulled it. Airing in its place this week will be a repeat of Law & Order. I’m sure NBC will have no trouble finding advertisers for that one.

Some news today that damn well surprised me was the announcement that, starting this fall, UPN and WB will cease to exist as we know them. Instead, the two networks will merge into one. The new network will be called UPWNB. Well, not really. It will be called CW (which is a pretty dumb name for a network; it sounds like it should be a brokerage firm or something). The “new” network will offer up 30 hours worth of programming weekly: two hours a night Monday through Friday, three hours on Sunday nights, and five hours of programming Saturday mornings. The network will also offer shows weekday afternoons and early Sunday evenings, similar to what WB does now.

The news just about stunned me. I knew both networks had been struggling, basically ever since their inception. I always figured, though, UPN (particularly since it was owned by CBS anyway) would be the one to fade off into the night. You could fold Veronica Mars onto CBS, dump America’s Next Top Model on VH-1 (also owned by CBS), and I’m sure you could find someone who’d pick up wrestling. I didn’t really see WB needing to fold at all. Yes, its ratings were low, but its shows had loyal fans and possessed a lot of buzz: Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Charmed, 7th Heaven, even slightly lesser-known fare like Everwood and One Tree Hill. Even Reba has become something of a hit. I didn’t see WB as needing to partner up with UPN to ensure its survival. They partnered up anyway, though.

What does all this ultimately mean? Well, last time I checked, both UPN and WB scheduled a full week of shows. The week isn’t getting twice as long (as that would suck), so that means that several shows that might previously have seen the 2006-07 season are probably headed for the chopping block. Rest assured, I don’t think Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls (in fact, the head of CBS is reportedly already crowing about what a great pair these two shows would be), Smallville or Reba are going anywhere. WWE Smackdown and America’s Next Top Model, which stupefyingly are UPN’s highest-rated shows, are also staying put. But Charmed has been around awhile, and Everwood‘s and One Tree Hill‘s ratings are dipping somewhat this season, so all three of those might be in trouble. Just about all of UPN’s comedies may head south, with the exception of hits like Eve and Everybody Hates Chris (the latter of which is also a critical fave). Even if some shows don’t make the new CW schedule, they may not be gone completely. Like I said, UPN is owned by CBS, which, in addition to owning, duh, CBS, also owns cable channels like Spike TV and Showtime. WB, meanwhile, owns stuff like TNT and TBS. So these shows may find a home yet.

Oh, and in case any Connecticut residents are wondering: The Tribune Company is also involved in the deal, agreeing to air CW on some of the stations it owns. This means the new network will air locally on Channel 20, which is now the WB affiliate. What does this mean for WCTX, “UPN 9″? Who knows. I just hope they keep on with their repeats of Taxi and Cheers.

Which would be a shame, but, really, it’s tough to hate Fox in this situation. For the first two seasons of the show, Fox aired it on Sunday nights, which has traditionally been their most-watched night of the week. Last season, it even aired AD immediately following Simpsons, their most-watched show that wasn’t named American Idol. But AD usually lost a huge chunk of the Simpsons‘ audience for it. People just didn’t stick around for it. Despite finishing its first two seasons with very poor ratings, Fox renewed the show, because the critics loved it. It also didn’t hurt that the show kept on collecting Emmys. This season, Fox finally moved it away from cushy Sunday, and put it on Monday. I wasn’t surprised at all when ratings for the show wound up in the toilet. After airing a few episodes in September, the show–like most on Fox’s lineup–wasn’t seen in October, due to postseason baseball coverage. Its return in November met with a resounding ratings thud, and Fox pulled it for the rest of sweeps, didn’t order any new episodes beyond the initial 13 it had bought at the start of the season, and it looked to all the world that the show was dead in the water. Still does, in fact. There have been recent reports that both ABC and Showtime are interested in picking up the show. I’d prefer to see it go to ABC, for reasons other than the simple fact that I don’t have Showtime and can’t afford to subscribe to it. To me, part of what makes AD so great is that its constantly pushing the envelope as far as what it is allowed to get away with on network TV. Certain subjects are tiptoed around delicately but hilariously, and creative use is made of blue dots and fuzzy visual effects to cover up, say, shots of bare breasts. And the bleeping of swear words is also great. Sometimes you can guess what the word is that is being bleeped, but with a show like AD, you’re never quite sure. I love hearing a word bleeped and then watching Michael’s priceless reaction to the word that was said. What was the word that was said? You have to use your imagination. And sometimes (as it was when you had to imagine for yourself what Bill Murray might have said to Scarlet Johannsen at the end of Lost in Translation), the best line is the one you come up with in your own mind.

If AD landed on Showtime, a premium cable channel, there’d be no restraints. None. Sometimes it’s best to have restraints placed on you; it forces you to have to work creatively around a situation, and that’s not always a bad thing. Of course, it’s on Showtime that AD probably has its best chance for survival. Since that channel is funded by people who subscribe to it, it doesn’t have to worry that much about ratings. ABC, being a broadcast network whose shows are funded primarily by advertising, would be just as concerned about ratings as Fox has been, and would probably can AD after one season. I’m sure it would be a very good season, but it’d be one season all the same. I don’t have a whole lot of faith viewers would suddenly flock to AD if it landed on ABC. As I said earlier, Fox has given the show plenty of chances, but viewers just don’t tune in. There might be a few reasons. I have read complaints that people just don’t find the characters on AD very relatable, or even all that likable. Also, AD on the surface gives the appearance of being a show that you have to watch each week in order to follow the plot. While that’s not exactly the case (the show is very much like a serial, but Ron Howard provides ample amounts of narration each week to fill you in on anything you might not be clear about; count the number of times, for example, he’s informed us that Maybey is moonlighting as a studio executive), I can see how some people might come away with that impression. Finally, there’s not really a show that it’s compatible with. The first season, for example, Fox paired the show with Malcolm in the Middle, and while on the surface the shows were somewhat similar (both one-camera shows that dealt with dysfunctional families), AD‘s humor is very verbal, whereas Malcolm‘s is more visual. Also, Malcolm is more of a family show, whereas AD most definitely is not.

So I don’t expect AD to become a sudden ratings hit if it went to ABC, and yet, that’s the network I want it to go to. Hopefully the show would last longer than one season on the Alphabet network. But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. There was an interesting column about the show on slate.com a few weeks back, in which that website’s resident TV critic said that while she’d be sad to see AD go, at least it’d be going with two and a half seasons of excellent television behind it. And she had a point. There’s something to be said for a show that doesn’t stick around for years and years past its prime, but rather is content to go out on a creative high note. Look at two other shows on Fox’s lineup, That 70s Show and the aforementioned Malcolm. Malcolm is past its prime, and That 70s Show should’ve ended at least two years ago. It’s now borderline-unwatchable. And I would hate to see that happen to AD. I’m confident, though, that the show’s got at least one more season of inspired hilarity inside of it, so I’m hoping ABC throws it a bone.

As the title implies, That’s My Bush! is set in the White House and revolves around President George W. Bush (Timothy Bottoms) and his wife Laura (Carrie Quinn Dolan). Also included are Bush’s aide Karl Rove (Kurt Fuller), his secretary Princess Stevenson (Kristen Miller), and his maid Maggie Hawley (Marcia Wallace). The wacky next-door neighbor Larry O’Shea (John D’Aquino) frequently stops by for unannounced visits.

All of the characters fit that classic clichéd sitcom mold. George is a dunderheaded oaf who can never get anything right, while Laura is the intelligent wife who is always a step or two ahead of her husband. Karl is the sensible aide who always tries to keep George’s wacky situations grounded (and he usually fails). The Princess is a sexy blonde bimbo, who George will probably wind up flirting with in future episodes. Maggie, who has been with the White House “since the Secret Service wore bell bottoms,” is the wisecracking maid who has been a familiar sitcom character for years. And then there’s Larry, who stops by and offers advice to help George out of various jams. He enters to cheers from the “studio audience,” much as Fonzie would on Happy Days.

The cardboard cutout-type characters aren’t the only way That’s My Bush! parodies the traditional sitcom. From corny jokes to highly predictable situations to even a dorky theme song, no convention is spared in this show. Even the fake studio audience complies the way a real studio audience would. In addition to the reception Larry gets, George and Laura get loud ovations the first time they are seen in each episode. Every time the Princess wiggles her hips, walks, or even says a line, the audience hoots and hollers. George has a catchphrase, “One of these days, Laura, I’m gonna punch you in the face!” that he says in each episode. When he does, the audience says it right along with him. Parker and Stone clearly have fun with these conventions, and sometimes the results are pretty amusing. For example, in one episode, George plays Laura “their song,” something which has been done in sitcoms for generations. However, “their song” turns out to be the theme song from Sanford and Son. Parker and Stone also seem to enjoy the fact that the role of the dopey husband is being played by the President of the United States, and they get in some shots at Bush, such as in one episode when Laura tells George, “You may be a bad President, but you’re an OK husband.”

Even though the situations on That’s My Bush! are intentionally predictable, there are often some edgy qualities to them when they are executed. For example, in one episode, George tries to go on a date with Laura while overseeing a dinner between the heads of the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life groups. While trying to juggle two commitments at once is hardly a new concept in sitcoms (just flip on Nick at Nite and you’ll know what I mean), the way it was handled in this episode certainly wasn’t routine. The head of the Pro-Choice group, Joyce, is a man-hating, short-haired, butch overweight woman, while the head of the Pro-Life group, Felix, is actually an aborted fetus who has managed to survive the past 30 years by eating ants. Felix, who really does look like a talking fetus, is bitter and angry, and this sets up some very funny moments, some of which certainly offended both Pro-Choicers and Pro-Lifers. At one point, for example, Felix accuses Joyce of being pro-abortion. “I am not pro-abortion!” Joyce retorts. “Are you against abortion?” Felix asks. “No,” Joyce replies. “Then you’re pro-abortion!” Felix snaps. “Take a Latin class, you stupid hooker!” Later, when Felix criticizes Joyce, Joyce says “Why I never!” “Sure you did,” was Felix’s angry reply, “and then you aborted it!”

In another episode, the situation was less edgy, but still amusing. George’s frat buddies stop by to visit, and decide to move in. Laura takes the initiative and kicks the frat buddies out, but George, wanting to prove that he’s still a cool guy, take his friends out for a last night of fun, to prove that he hasn’t lost his touch. Again, this is a pretty standard sitcom situation. But the way it was executed was not. For their one last night of fun, George takes his frat buddies to witness an actual execution. However, as Karl fears the frat buddies will make a mockery of the execution, he hires a group of actors to stage a fake execution, leaving the real one for after the frat buddies leave. There is a very predictable miscommunication, and the frat buddies wind up witnessing the real execution. Still, the scene allows for some pretty funny moments. For example, at one point, the priest starts reading the convict his last rites. George interrupts him, grabs the Bible, and says to the con, “You have the right to be a little bitch and have your soul sent to Hell!”

However, though both those situations were pretty funny, they were also inherently predictable, and that is what’s wrong with That’s My Bush! Parker and Stone parody a bad sitcom a little too well. The interesting sequences such as the ones I described aren’t enough to offset the predictability of the whole thing. There are enough bad sitcoms out there that the last thing we need is one that’s purposely bad. That’s why, though I’m enjoying the show at the moment, That’s My Bush! may work best as a limited-run series of 10 episodes or so. Anything more, and we might wind up getting bored. The show airs Wednesday nights at 10:30 on Comedy Central.

The Job is probably the best show to premiere in 2001. Unfortunately, since its debut last month, it has not done very well in the ratings. This is understandable, given that it’s up against NBC’s powerhouse The West Wing, but it would be a shame if the show got cancelled. It’s very well done. Leary stars as New York City detective Mike McNeil. Mike has problems in his life. He is married, yet seeing somebody on the side, and is addicted to prescription pills. In short, he is a flawed hero. This is evident in a recent episode. Mike’s girlfriend calls him at work and tells him someone grabbed her on the subway. She became very distraught and went home. Mike’s immediate reaction: “So this means you didn’t go to the dentist and pick up the Tylenol with codeine?” When the conversation ends, his girlfriend tells Mike she loves him. His reply to her: “Yeah, yeah.” Still, you can’t help but root for Mike, because, through it all, he is ultimately a good guy. Mike’s partner, Pip (Bill Nunn), knows this, and sticks by Mike through all of the messes he creates for himself. For example, in that same episode, Mike finds out his co-worker Jan (Diane Farr) is seeing a man named Jeff Larsen. Mike has been attracted to Jan, a single mom, since the start of the series, so he becomes jealous. Mike meets Jeff, grows even more jealous, and starts doing some snooping on him. Just after his girlfriend calls him to tell him what happened on the subway, Mike finds out that Jeff is a lawyer, was in rehab, and is married with three kids. He tells Pip all of this, saying, “Can you believe this guy?” Pip immediately comes back with a sarcastic reply: “Gee, my married partner just got off the phone with his girlfriend, and now he’s upset because she couldn’t score the Tylenol with the codeine. No, I just can’t believe it.”

Of course, Pip still helps Mike spy on Jan and Jeff outside of her apartment later that evening. Of course, Mike won’t admit that that’s what he’s doing. “I’m not spying,” he says to Pip. “I’m taking an interest.” Just before Mike goes in to confront Jan in front of her boyfriend, Pip tells him that what he’s doing is wrong. “Maybe you’re right,” Mike says. “I am,” Pip replies. There is then a pause, and the camera zooms in on Mike. You’re tempted to think Mike is going to reconsider. “No,” Mike says, as he gets out of the car and goes up to his apartment.

Of course, The Job isn’t just about Mike’s mixed-up life. Mike is a detective, and there are police stories in the show. For example, someone started leaving human feet in a bag outside the apartment of a podiatrist. The trouble is that no one knows who is doing it, so Mike and Pip investigate. During the course of their investigation, they talk to a local thug who they think might know something about the feet. The conversation with the thug is genuinely funny, as he doesn’t want to relay any information that he may know. “I don’t have any information,” the guy says. “About that thing in Queens? I don’t know nothing.” “What thing in Queens?” Pip asks. “I don’t know,” the thug replies. “It might not have happened yet.”

It’s not all comedy on The Job, and that’s part of what makes it so good. There are some real nice dramatic moments to the show. For example, after Mike confronts Jan about Jeff, she grows very angry with him and speaks to him about it the next day at work. At the office, she tells Mike that she knew Jeff was married when she started going out with them, but she wasn’t looking for marriage, or even a long-term relationship. “I was just looking for romance,” she says, tears streaming down her face. “Jeff held me, and he touched me, and I need that right now.” Mike apologizes for what he did, saying, “I just wanted to stop you from going down the same idiotic path I’m on. You’re better than that.”

There are some interesting production values in The Job. Filmed with one camera, and entirely on location in New York and New Jersey, the show has the same visual grittiness as NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street. While the almost incessant use of a handheld camera can be a little off-putting at times, the filming techniques generally add to the appeal of The Job.

Overall, The Job is an excellent show. It features some great writing and acting. The characters on the show have real personality. In short, this is the best comedy-drama since the short-lived Sports Night. Hopefully this show will enjoy a greater level of commercial success. The Job deserves to become a hit. The show airs Wednesday nights at 9:30 on ABC, which is located at Channel 7 here at Marist. Tune in; you’ll be glad you did.

You freshmen may not know this, but up until this year, Marist’s offerings in terms of cable channels were pretty low. In addition to the broadcast networks, we had a couple of news channels, a couple of music channels, A&E, and ESPN. That’s it. So you can imagine my joy when I came back to school last fall to find all these new cable channels: Cartoon Network, TV Land, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central; the list goes on and on. These channels are great, and show some great old shows. So, as network TV offerings become increasingly worse (what with all the Temptation Islands, Boot Camps, even the return of Big Brother this summer), I thought I’d let you all know that you can fashion a great weekday evening of TV viewing at Marist without ever once having to venture into the 21^st century. And, believe me, you’ll be better off this way.

Kick off your evening with an episode of The Golden Girls at 6 on Lifetime, which is Channel 42. While it’s not the most intelligent show ever, Golden Girls is always good for laughs, and their stories often have meaning to them. So, sit back and enjoy a half hour with Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia. Then, at 6:30, flip up two channels, to Channel 44, and catch NewsRadio on A&E. Sure, this TV show’s fairly recent (it ran from 1995-99), but it’s still among the best shows in the history of television. It’s an incredibly intelligent show, and quite often laugh-out-loud funny.

After NewsRadio, turn over to TBS, located at Channel 15, for an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the exploits of Will Smith, who was born and raised in West Philadelphia. But he got in one little fight, and his mother got scared, and sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in Bel-Air. While not great, Fresh Prince provides good, clean entertainment. At 7:30, you can flip to Channel 5 and check out a classic episode of The Simpsons. While this show is still in production, its best days are behind it, and Channel 5 frequently shows some downright brilliant mid-90s episodes of the show. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one.

At 8, turn to Comedy Central (Channel 49) to check out Whose Line is it Anyway? The current Americanized version of this has become a big hit on ABC, this original British version features much of the same cast and is sometimes funnier. While the improv comedy gets old after a while, a half hour of it every so often is often very enjoyable. Then, at 8:30, you can scroll down to Nick at Nite, located at Channel 46, to check out The Brady Bunch. While this show is undeniably cheesy, it also is something that all of us grew up with, and provides a nice nostalgia trip.

After Brady Bunch, go up a couple notches on the remote to TV Land, located at Channel 48. Here you can stay for an hour, and watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show. These are two of the best sitcoms in television history. They both feature great writing and an excellent ensemble cast. At 10, go down to Cartoon Network (Channel 47), and check out The Flintstones. While there’s no denying the fact that this show wore itself out towards the end of its run, the first few seasons of this modern stone-age family are still great for some laughs. After Flintstones, though, move back to TV Land and prepare yourself for the best show in the history of television.

I’m talking about Get Smart. TV Land recently added this show to its lineup, and it is just great. The show is a frequently hilarious spoof of all the James Bond spy movies that were big in the mid-1960s (which was when Get Smart originally aired). The show stars Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, who works for an intelligence organization known as CONTROL. Along with his partner, the sultry Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), Max battles the dastardly criminal organization KAOS. The writing in this show is often brilliant, and Adams does a great job playing the bumbling hero Smart. It is a half-hour of excellence.

After Get Smart, go back to Nick at Nite to catch back-to-back episodes of All in the Family. The show’s not quite as good as Get Smart, but it’s still very funny, and some of what Archie Bunker says surprises me to this day. At Midnight, turn to Comedy Central and check out an old episode of Saturday Night Live. Comedy Central frequently shows episodes from what the late-‘80s and early-90s, and, let’s face it, those were great seasons for SNL.

At 1 a.m., go back to Nick at Nite to catch back-to-back episodes of I Love Lucy. Yes, the show’s celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year, but you know what? It’s still a great show. Then, at 2 a.m., return to TV Land and catch another episode of Get Smart. Don’t worry; it’s a different episode than the one you watched at 10:30. And then, kiddies, you should go to bed. It’s 2:30 in the morning. But you can go to bed confident that you never once had to watch a current show on the broadcast networks. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.