TVSquad

(S05E02) Before we start tonight's review, I'd like to take a moment to worship at the Sling Media altar. Yet again, the makers of the Slingbox have made it possible for me to review The Office in a timely fashion despite the fact that I'm currently doing a week of shows in Las Vegas (where The Office airs three hours later than I'm used to and, for marketing purposes, has magician Lance Burton digitally inserted into every scene). If you're a traveler and a TV watcher and you haven't bought a Slingbox yet, you're missing out.

Part of me worried about the ethics of opening with what amounts to be a commercial for Slingbox (and also for my fabulous Las Vegas comedy show at the Tropicana: tickets still available for the weekend!) Then I realized that by doing so, I actually provided a pretty good segue into the theme of tonight's episode. So let's get to it...

The Office star Steve Carell has inked a first-look deal with the WB. My guess is this was done to sweeten the pot for Carell to appear in a sequel for Get Smart.

Talk about being the "it" man for comedy nowadays. He's in one of television's most successful comedies and is one of the top-tier comedy movie stars. He's even slated to co-star with another television icon, Tina Fey, in an upcoming movie called Date Night.

Carell is so humble about his celebrity, he's even willing to take a ribbing from the creator of The Office, Ricky Gervais at the Emmy Awards. The look on his face while Gervais mocks him is priceless.

I can only be envious of Steve Carell since he's had ties to both Second City and The Daily Show, two of my favorite comedy organizations (what do you call it when one is a comedy troupe and the other is a television show?).

The genius that was Amy Ryan's Holly beatboxing on The Office last week got me thinking about other cast additions that have made shows better.

The first that came to mind was actually another Amy Ryan role -- Beadie on season two of The Wire. It took awhile for me to get into the whole dockworkers storyline, but it was Beadie that helped me through.

If a show plans to stay on air for awhile, it needs fresh blood -- but the process of introducing new characters isn't easy (witness how reviled Maya was on Heroes). The best new additions combine great actors with well-written characters.

Here are seven other (fairly recent) new characters that succeeded.

(S05E01) Is there a word that describes the feeling of "missing fictional characters?" If not, there ought to be one. Flurj, maybe, to take a word from last week's wonderful SNL cold open. As in, "I don't know about you guys, but I flurjed the hell out of Jim and Pam and Michael and Dwight all summer long."

What about you guys? Did you flurj your friends at The Office? Well, everything is a-okay now. Your fictional friends from Dunder-Mifflin are back, and your good buddy Jay (quite possibly fictional, we're working it out in therapy) is back reviewing every episode mere seconds after it's aired! So, sit back, relax, and sharpen your commenting fingers! On to the review!

On The Office, you know him as Dunder Mifflin's Assistant Regional Manager (ahem, Assistant TO the Regional Manager) Dwight Schrute, who never met a client he couldn't woo, a Star Wars scene he couldn't quote or a beet he couldn't farm.

But in real life, Rainn Wilson's a pretty normal guy ... or is he? We caught up with him at this year's Comic-Con in San Diego, and though we decided to take pity on him by not grilling him about the upcoming season of The Office, we did glean some interesting, dare we say Dwight-esque (Dwight-onian?) tidbits from the Man Who Would Be Schrute.

Any DVD set that has The Office on it is going to be good. That's just a fact. So obviously, The Office: Season 4 DVD set already has a lot going for it. So what I was mainly interested in when I received it was how they dealt with their shortcomings: namely the fact that due to the writer's strike, this set only has 14 episodes.

While The Office fared much better than other shows with its truncated season, I still expect a DVD set without a full season's worth of episodes to have enough bonus features to help make up for it. While the features on this set are pretty standard (deletes scenes, blooper reels, commentaries, etc.) for the most part, the quality makes you forget that the set is light about ten episodes.

If you were wondering just what that extra dollar buys you when you upgrade to HD in the iTunes store, you can get a free look. Our pals over at TUAW made note of a number of shows that have free episodes available, in HD. The files are large, with the HD versions clocking in at right around 1.5GB, so it will take a bit to download. Something that isn't helped by the fact that iTunes downloads the SD version as well.

I've been taking a look at them and I grabbed screenshots from Heroes, Life, and Battlestar Galactica to give you an idea of the difference in the picture. It's fairly dramatic. Those captures, and the full list of free episodes, with the iTunes links, are after the jump.

The Unusuals looks like one of those funny little shows that could either be a complete bust or a major mid-season breakout -- especially given the cast and crew. The ABC ensemble dramedy stars:

1. Amber Tamblyn. I've loved her since she played Emily on General Hospital, and she has that something-different quality that will surely rocket her to super-stardom ... in an indie-film sort of way. She broke into the mainstream consciousness with Joan of Arcadia, the talk-to-God series that ran from 2003 to 2005. I was so disappointed when Tamblyn's I-see-dead-people series Babylon Fields wasn't picked up last year, but The Unusuals sounds even better.

2. Harold Perrineau. We know him as Michael on Lost, and the actor was disappointed that his character wouldn't have a happy ending with son Walt. But he's on to bigger and better things with his role in The Unusuals. It was also announced today that he's joining the cast of (and exec producing) the feature film The Killing Jar, an indie thriller also starring Michael Madsen and Danny Trejo. It was time for Perrineau to leave the island.

Hello again, everyone! This time we've got five copies of The Office - Season Four on DVD for five lucky, random commenters. The DVD is available in stores starting today.

To enter, leave a comment below before 5:00PM Eastern, Friday, September 5 simply telling us your favorite moment from The Office. As always, we'll randomly choose five winners amongst the eligible entries. Some other details:
Click here for complete Official Rules.

You read it correctly. The Office is headed to the big screen. Except that it's not the American version. Nor is it the original British version. The German version, called Stromberg, is getting the movie treatment.

It will be an interesting experiment. If it is successful, I wonder if we'll see other franchises of The Office hit the big screen? Gervais and Merchant wrapped up the storylines of the British version quite nicely in the final special, so I don't see that version hitting the theaters (but since no story ever truly ends, I could be proven wrong).

The stars of the NBC version, however, are currently movie stars in their own right (Yes, I am counting The Rocker) and could possibly carry a movie version. However, at this stage a movie version would just interfere with the television version (much like Steven Moffat said about Doctor Who) so I don't see a movie of the U.S. version anytime soon.

In an effort to promote his new movie The Rocker, Rainn Wilson has "kidnapped" his co-star of The Office Jenna Fischer. On a post on Jenna's MySpace page, Wilson promises that she will be released if his movie grosses 18.7 million dollars (presumably the cost of making it).

There's even a website up detailing the progress of the kidnapping: FreeJennaNow.com. The first question I have is: what happens to Jenna if the movie doesn't reach the $18.7 million goal? That answer is left intentionally vague. My guess is he'll let her go anyway.

I'm glad Jenna is being a good sport about all this (watch the videos to see how Jenna is playing along), otherwise I would find any sort of image involving tying up a woman and leaving her in a vehicle somewhat disturbing. I guess he needed to "kidnap" someone America cares about in order for this Dwight-like scheme to work (and a co-worker who would go along with this silly promotion in the first place). Of course, for better publicity,he could have kidnapped Michael Scott. I think more people would have noticed if Steve Carell was missing.

So much for being a role model for children. Craig Phillip Robinson, who plays warehouse foreman Daryl Philbin on The Office was busted for possession of drugs. Actually, he was arrested in June and the felony charges for possessing MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and methamphetamine were just filed.

Ah, drugs and Hollywood. The perfect pair. I don't know how this will affect his standing with NBC, but his character is low-key enough to easily be replaced on the show. On the other hand, celebrities (including minor ones) are caught so much with drugs nowadays it should practically be expected. Perhaps NBC should have had better drug testing.

If you look at his IMDB profile, you'll see that Robinson has been in quite a few movies (most recently Pineapple Express). Given that, I think the only thing this arrest is going to do to his career is strengthen it. He'll do the usual shtick of apologizing and getting community service and then take on larger roles.

(S03E05) Methuselah Honeysuckle and Old Scratch Johnson -- The names Henry Spencer gave Gus and himself while Shawn was introducing them at the DA's office.

Ready for this? We are nearly three-quarters of way through the first half of the third season of Psych. After this week's episode there are only two more left until the season takes a break. Other than the annual holiday special that will air in December the next time we will see Shawn and Gus after the first week of September will be the middle of January. So, enjoy while you can.

Well, I kept wishing for an episode where Henry and Shawn would truly work together on a case. And, I got my wish this week. Not only did they work on a case together, but it was Henry's biggest case while he was still on the police force. So, there was really pressure on both the younger and older Spencer men to solve the case. Of course, this led to some tension between the two.

You know, I've always wondered about Creed's background. We know he was with the 1960's band The Grass Roots, he runs a fake I.D. business with a laminating machine stolen from the police department, he faked his own death so he could get benefits, he keeps bean sprouts in his desk, and he's been homeless.

Now maybe we'll get to learn even more about his background. In a major time-slot coup, it looks like a one-hour episode of The Office will air directly following the Super Bowl on Feb. 1, 2009. Exec producer Paul Lieberstein said these longer eps offer a great opportunity to delve into the characters:

It's coming. The table is set, the players are on the field, the sails are raised, and the pretty maids are all in a row. Of course, I speak of the 2008-09 television schedule. In just a few short weeks viewers will be able to dine on a number of favorite and new dishes that are being served by the networks as well as the increasing number of cable channels who are delving into original programming.

While other fall seasons have come and gone with nary a whimper, this season may be different. Due to the prolonged Writers Strike many shows ended their seasons quite early. Programs like Life, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes haven't aired original episodes since the end of 2007. Heck, there hasn't been a new episode of The Shield since June of last year! So, the beginning of the 2008-09 season will be a second chance for some of these shows, particularly the ones that premiered last season, to show their worth to fans and the networks.