Roush Dispatch

The facts are these, dear readers: Pushing Daisies, ABC’s dazzling storybook fable of colorfully romantic comedy and mystery, is finally back this week to kick off a reprise of last fall’s Wednesday line-up, all of which was cut short by the writers’ strike last winter. (The other shows are Grey’s Anatomy’s inferior spin-off Private Practice, which is almost as annoying as it was a year ago, and the decadently opulent Dirty Sexy Money, which arrives as something of a gaudy anachronism during this week of financial meltdown. One plot twist is so reprehensibly immoral I wonder how the show’s fans will react.)

As for Daisies: It returns with none of its Technicolor whimsy or magical charm diminished by time. It’s a literal honey of an episode, with a surreal murder plot involving bees, whose hive mentality serves as a metaphor for how everyone longs for a place they can call home. That includes the star-crossed couple of pie-maker Ned (Lee Pace) and his adoring childhood sweetheart/soulmate Chuck (Anna Friel). They’re still engaged in a daily “ballet of avoidance,” because if Ned ever touches Chuck again—he raised her from the dead with his special gift of touch, which of course comes with a price—she’ll die for good.

Pace and Friel are simply delightful, heading a sparkling cast including Chi McBride as gruffly lovable private eye Emerson Card, the bizarre duo of Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene as Chuck’s neurotic aunts—Swoosie’s Lily having recently revealed herself to be Chuck’s mom—and Kristin Chenoweth as spunky waitress Olive. In a hilarious subplot, Olive retreats from Ned’s Pie Hole to a nunnery (yes, there’s a Sound of Music gag) because, as Jim Dale’s narrator puts it, “the weight of kept secrets had become unbearable.” Olive’s scenes with Mother Superior Diana Scarwid, who has more secrets up her habit’s sleeve, are a scream. Pushing Daisies is that rare creature: a true TV original. Miss it, and you’ll have missed something awfully special.

Wednesday’s other major TV headline, at least where critically worshipped underdogs are concerned, involves Friday Night Lights, rescued from cancellation by DirecTV, which will air 13 expanded episodes exclusively on the satellite’s 101 Network (Wednesdays, 9/8c). NBC will carry the episodes starting in early 2009.

The good news for those who don’t get DirecTV or don’t have friends with DirecTV is that, judging from the emotionally stirring first episode, the wait will be worth it. (Just pretend it’s one of those cable shows that make you wait a year between seasons.)

[Mild spoilers follow.] I can’t tell you how my heart leaped at words I once feared I’d never get to hear: “Here are your 2008 Dillon Panthers!” Yes, a year has passed since we last spent time in this small Texas town, and lots has changed, but not the essential decency and humanity of these characters—especially Coach Eric Taylor and his wife, new Dillon High principal Tami (the brilliantly understated Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton). We catch up quickly with how the last football season turned out—not so well for the graduated Smash (Gaius Charles), whom the coach is continuing to mentor off the clock—and we’re introduced to a new set of relationships, including a secret-for-now fling between good-girl Lila and bad-boy Riggins, who’s told, “You’re a rebound from Jesus.”

No other TV drama captures the realistic rhythms and everyday pressures of American life with such authenticity, and it’s hard to imagine any other show grappling with the harsh cold budgetary facts of financially strapped public schools, where teachers are seen as more expendable than perks for the football program. And yet it’s all incredibly entertaining and moving, culminating in a post-game party in which a film of great moments in Panthers history is shown. (You’ll see a glimpse of the young Buddy Garrity along with other more recent players we’ve come to know and care deeply about.)

The first episode ends with Coach Eric declaring, “I need something good to happen.” For those of us who love Friday Night Lights, something good has already happened. Even if it will take months for many fans to be able to experience the new season, having even a little more of Friday Night Lights to savor at any time is a cause for celebration.

For some of us, this is the week when the TV season truly begins, with the welcome return of a handful of shows that were abruptly cut short in their freshman season by the writers’ strike, but were (to the surprise of many) given a reprieve by their networks, which still sees potential in them.

First up is one of the best: NBC’s delightful spy spoof Chuck, which got a further vote of confidence when NBC gave the show a full-season renewal before the first episode even aired. Having breezed through the first three episodes, I’m with NBC on this decision. No one’s expecting ratings miracles in one of the week’s toughest time periods—with competition including ABC juggernaut Dancing With the Stars, two of CBS’s best comedies, Fox’s Terminator, the CW’s Gossip Girl (ironically, also from Chuck executive producer Josh Schwartz) and the estimable Monday Night Football franchise on ESPN, which presumably shares much of this show’s target audience. But NBC is clearly going to give this one time to catch on. And given the problems the network is having on other nights (especially on Wednesdays, where the execrable Knight Rider sputtered like a jalopy on its opening night), Chuck could and should find a safer or more prominent perch before long.

It certainly deserves to. From the opening moments, when our charmingly geeky hero is being dangled from a building as he spills out a season’s worth of exposition (a nod to the show being out of sight if not out of mind for months), Chuck re-establishes itself as classic TV escapism—with classically enjoyable animated credits to boot. It’s a funny, smart, stylish, silly action comedy, a hoot with heart, pure entertainment that mixes danger, humor and romance in a satisfying package.

In the title role, Zachary Levi proves it really is hip to be square (the name of the Huey Lewis standard he wakes up to). Chuck is a TV-adorable mensch, leader of the Buy More “nerd herd” who, after a college setback—it’s a long story—was content to coast through life, fixing computers and playing computer games with his clingy pal Morgan (the hilarious Joshua Gomez), until a twist of fate caused an actual computer database of top-secret government information to be downloaded into his brain. Now he’s “the most important intelligent asset in the world,” and he’s constantly on the run from secret agents and assassins and other refugees from 24-land. To protect him, he has two secret-agent babysitters: one gruff and scary (Adam Baldwin’s amusingly tightly-wound Casey from the NSA), one lithe and lovely (Yvonne Strahovski as the alluring Sarah of the CIA).

The situation is comically dire as the new season begins. With a new computer “intersect” about to go online, Chuck’s unique status as a living computer is about to be phased out. He seems happy at the thought of getting his normal life back, but it’s pretty evident he’s kind of digging the spy life. (Levi especially shines whenever he adopts the suave James Bond-ian persona of “Charles Carmichael,” his wannabe alter ego.) Chuck and Sarah, pretending to be a couple, naturally have fallen for each other, which complicates the end game as well. Sarah bucks Chuck up, telling him he can do anything, urging him to use his spy adventures as a catalyst to raise his sights beyond the Buy More (where the antics often get so goofy it threatens to become a drag on the show).

The downside to Chuck’s new lease on life is that it also carries a death sentence, with Casey under orders to eliminate Chuck when the new model boots up. Most weeks, Casey looks like he’d be happy to throttle Chuck, but even this grumpy straight arrow has to acknowledge Chuck has stepped up as a hero. What’s a patriot to do?

Tonight’s season opener is full of twists and reversals of fortune as it veers between adventure and comedy—Michael Clarke Duncan is a riot as the imposing villain-of-the-week “Mr. Colt”—ending with a shocker that resets the entire season. (Next week’s episode, with terrific guest turns by John Larroquette as a soused agent and Melinda Clarke as a “black widow” Russian temptress, concludes with another jaw-dropper.)

Chuck is a terrific way to start Monday night, and the offbeat crime drama Life is a great way to finish at 10/9c. (Life is airing original episodes on Mondays and Fridays for two weeks to give it some extra exposure before settling in to its tough regular time period of Friday at 10/9c.) Life and its star Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers) grew on me slowly last season, and now I find the quirkiness of the cop and his methods more intriguing than off-putting. (They seem to be downplaying some of his more annoying and precious traits, but not at the expense of his character.)

With intensity leavened by bursts of unpredictable wit, Lewis plays Charlie Crews, a cop who was unjustly convicted of murder and sent to prison, where he spent years in solitary (for his own protection) developing a Zen philosophy and a yen for fruit. Now released with a sizable payoff from the city, he’s a little fruity himself in his odd habits—like walking out of new boss Donal Logue’s office in the middle of a thought, or flashing a sudden tight grin at a suspect that hints at some devilish intent. He’s a source of irritation but also a grudging pride in his partner Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi), whose own policeman father appears to have had some role in Charlie’s frame-up.

Life operates on two tracks: following Charlie’s dogged attempts to solve the case that changed his life while he readjusts to life and the job. (Watch him struggle to figure out a public washroom with automated fixtures in tonight’s episode. He’s almost like an alien.) I’d like to see the writers wrap up Charlie’s big-picture mystery before long, because Life works just fine as a sunny but sinister L.A. procedural and character study. It doesn’t need a continuing storyline to sell itself (and possibly limit its audience).

The season opener, which involves the creepy discovery of a series of bodies stuffed inside trunks scattered around the city, is a terrific puzzle that takes advantage of L.A.’s sprawling topography. (One trunk is found in the riverbed, which contains no water.) It also becomes a meditation on the nature of happiness, which plays into Charlie’s Zen outlook and his partner Reese’s disgruntlement.

Life is not helped by its generic title, by being part of an overall glut of crime drama (most aren’t this distinctive) and by being scheduled opposite CBS’s equally diverting Friday hit Numb3rs. Surviving the sophomore jinx won’t be easy, but if you’re in the market tonight for a crime drama that won’t insult your intelligence, consider giving CSI: Miami a week off. As I said earlier, I’m not expecting miracles. That’s life.

For the last few seasons, Thursday was unquestionably the busiest night of the TV week, but it now has serious competition. Monday, especially the first hour of prime-time, is a logjam nightmare of strong choices. And this Sunday is one hot mess, with ABC launching its re-energized leap-into-the-future Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters while Showtime kick-starts dazzling new seasons of Dexter and Californication while HBO continues with its kicky True Blood-Entourage combo, adding the raucous sketch-com Little Britain USA this week while CBS revs up a new season of Emmy champ The Amazing Race leading into Cold Case and a transplanted The Unit while Fox brings back its durable animated lineup. Whew.

And yet Thursdays still count as the TV weeknight that it feels the entire week is building up to. It will take a few weeks for the night to take complete form; CSI and newbie remakes Life on Mars, Eleventh Hour and Kath & Kim (the latter quite possibly the worst new sitcom since, well, the last dud) won’t arrive until Oct. 9, choosing not to have their momentum stalled by next Thursday’s vice-presidential debate pre-emption. Emmy darling 30 Rock won’t show up until Oct. 30, its slot filled for several weeks by Saturday Night Live Weekend Update specials. (A prospect that’s a bit scary, considering how NOT ready for prime time the regular show has mostly been so far this season.)

It’s not as if the night isn’t already plenty busy this week. On CBS, the still-powerful Survivor returns with a two-hour opener, for the first time displaying its exotic wares in high definition, the premiere overlapping with a two-hour Grey’s Anatomy opener on ABC. Survivor wasn’t available for preview, but Grey’s has plenty of moments—though not the ones trumpeted in misleading promos.

I’m glad Mer and Der (that would be Meredith and Derek “McDreamy” to the uninitiated) are in a happier place these days, but Meredith (whose neuroses I usually try to excuse) is a walking migraine this week, fretting so constantly in a stream of neurotic babbling that she’s “afraid of having a happy ending” to the point that Cristina (the invaluable Sandra Oh) finally acts as the audience surrogate by exploding into a major will-you-shut-up rant. (This moment is punctuated by the sort of over-the-edge melodramatic plot twist that only Grey’s Anatomy can get away with, and in this case, I’m not sure it succeeds.)

The main reasons to watch tonight’s opener go beyond the suds, which feel like they’ve gone through one too many spin cycles: Lexi sniffing around an oblivious George, Izzy and Alex dancing around their feelings, Callie and Erica wondering how to give voice to an attraction that dare not yet speak its name. All of the regulars are upstaged by this week’s stellar guest list: Bernadette Peters, Kathy Baker and Mariette Hartley as three best friends in ball gowns who suffer a variety of personal calamities in the wake of an ice-storm car crash. Peters is especially fine as she confronts a life spinning out of control. I’d make her an early contender for a guest-actor Emmy nomination. (A Bernadette aside: She also gives a wrenching performance in next month’s Lifetime movie Living Proof, as a patient in a test study for a new breast-cancer drug. Wednesday night, she performed with the movie’s star, Harry Connick Jr., at a post-screening party at New York’s Plaza Hotel. Happy to say she’s still in great voice.)

Also making a strong impression in tonight’s Grey’s: Kevin McKidd (of Rome and last season’s Journeyman) as a take-charge Army doctor who arrives at Seattle Grace mid-crisis, having performed triage in the field. Cristina is instantly impressed: “Hot,” she mutters. The Chief is also an instant fan, looking for some new blood in the wake of the teaching hospital falling to #12 in the national rankings.

When the Chief lectures the staff, “Overnight we got old, entrenched and sloppy. We’ve been resting on our laurels,” you can’t help wonder if this isn’t an inside joke, commenting on the mixed reception to last year’s storylines and the up-and-down ratings. Whatever the case, it’s an entertaining if at times aggravating start to a new season.

Speaking of comebacks, some good news on the My Name Is Earl front. After last year’s misbegotten efforts to move beyond the show’s winning formula—Earl in jail (excruciating), then Earl in a coma (unbearable), then Earl married to Alyssa Milano, by which time I had long since bailed—Earl is now happily announcing the fact that it’s “back to the list,” where a good time can be had by all. The fourth season opens with back-to-back episodes (why?) that are a welcome return to form, especially the first of the two, featuring Seth Green in an “AWE-some” (as his character would say) guest role as a former Make-a-Wish kid who younger-Earl had deprived of his dream. When Earl goes to make amends to the boy’s parents, he discovers little Buddy didn’t die after all. And Buddy’s new wish, to make an awesome spy movie, brings about antics that are both silly and sweet (while revealing some unexpected talents in Earl’s brother Randy).

The second episode hits closer to home as Earl tries to right wrongs perpetrated on a childhood neighbor (the very funny David Paymer) and unearths some unpleasant family secrets involving his mom and dad (Beau Bridges, a riot, and Nancy Lenehan, who’s also the prospective mother-in-law on CBS’s new Worst Week).

It’s a pleasure to see Earl once again back on its game, though after last year’s unfortunate detour, the novelty is undeniably gone, and it’s hard to recommend this over the more colorful charms of ABC’s Ugly Betty, which returns for a third season now being filmed in New York, as it should have been all along. “Welcome to our new home,” boss Daniel tells Betty as she returns from a rejuvenating vacation. (The in-joke reference is to real, not faux, Manhattan, but the line also refers to Daniel’s new gig at a Maxim-like rag for brain-dead stoner horndogs.) Meanwhile, Wilhelmina is still an evil ice queen (the Mode offices are freezing), plotting against all of the Meades, and Betty’s idealistic plan to start a life independent of her family hits some immediate humiliating snags. Lindsay Lohan turns up in a fun recurring guest role as Betty’s high-school nemesis, currently making life miserable for papa Ignacio at the fast-food joint (Flushing Burgers!) she manages. The much-ballyhooed food fight doesn’t really live up to expectations, but most of the rest of Ugly Betty is pretty darn enjoyable.

Factor in The Office (supersized, so what else is new) and the beginning of the end of ER (neither available for preview), and Smallville and Supernatural still holding down their cult/fantasy niche on the CW, and you’ve got a pretty full menu. Many of us are likely to be playing back Thursday shows until it’s time to dig in to Sunday. Welcome to the new season.

Here we are at “hump night” of the first week of the official TV season. Or, given that NBC is giving us a line-up of the atrocious Knight Rider, the dishonestly monikered America’s Got Talent and the turgid Lipstick Jungle, maybe we should rechristen Wednesdays “lump night.”

With the exception of Bones (which tonight brings back the ill-fated Zack for an episode) and the return of CBS’s hilarious The New Adventures of Old Christine on a new night, as well as Bravo’s Project Runway for those still watching, there’s not a lot to recommend on Wednesday. At least not until next week, when ABC (wasting tonight on another tiresome David Blaine stunt) brings back Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money.

Well, there is one shocker tonight. The Criminal Minds season opener isn’t half bad. (In part because it isn’t about gratuitous mutilation or torture for a change.) Following on last season’s explosive cliffhanger in which terrorists targeting New York rigged a bomb in one of the team’s SUVs, the episode has a fair amount of suspense as the BAU deals with the fallout and tries to predict the terrorists’ next move. It builds to a predictably preposterous finale, with one character chiding a hero who’s risking his life, “Why does it always have to be you?” (Because it’s CBS TV, that’s why.) Still, generic escapism is more than I usually get from this show. And for a change, there’s a reason the monotonal Thomas Gibson is walking around like a stiff. He’s shell-shocked from the bomb blast. What’s his excuse the rest of the year?

But unless you’re a devotee of terrible acting, worse writing, cynically pandering nostalgia and spectacular bad taste, let me steer you away from the worst show I’ve seen in ages: NBC’s inept reupholstering of the cheesy Knight Rider franchise. It’s laughably awful except in those rare moments when it’s trying to be funny, at which point it’s just lame. To call the lead performances wooden is to risk being sued by the wood lobby. I kept expecting KITT to yawn. How bad is this show? It’s even worse than I remember last winter’s movie being. It’s Sci Fi Flash Gordon bad.

I know this show is meant for the kiddies, and it’s essentially a brainless bit of car-fetish nonsense, but the show also wants to deliver some T&A titillation and casual violence along the way, so I’m not really sure who this hunk of junk is designed for. It’s just sad to see the new hero named Mike (bland, blank Justin Bruening) passing himself off as a spy in the beyond-cliched opening scene. Even worse is when he and sidekick Sarah (the tone-deaf Deanna Russo) are trapped in KITT after it’s hit by a missile and catches on fire, requiring our heroes to strip down to their undies in the front seat. These dolts can’t even sweat convincingly, and being pretty isn’t justification enough.

Bionic Woman, all is almost forgiven.

But I will give the new Knight Rider credit for adding one of the all-time great bad-lines-in-TV-history to my notebook: “You have to get his thumb back at all costs.”

Here’s my thumb. Thumbs down.

A few other observations on what I’ve been able to keep up with on this very busy week:

Dancing With the Stars is a hoot again this season. (Although really, ABC, five hours the first week?) Tons of fun, as the judges are saying about the monstrously entertaining Warren Sapp. Cloris Leachman isn’t a dancer, to put it kindly, but she’s an 82-year-old riot. (“I’m older than the mambo. That’s a strike to the heart.”) Still, her confronting the judges was funnier the first night when it seemed spontaneous. That shtick could grow old fast (pun not intended). Early front runners: Brooke Burke (a stunner) and Derek Hough (a perfect partner). Next to go, I hope: reality-TV nobody Kim Kardashian and the wildly overcompensating Mark Ballas.

Kudos to NCIS for its season-opener fakeout. I’m not a big fan of season cliffhangers that get fans all freaked out by threatening to “change the show forever,” when it’s clear that won’t be the case. But in this instance, I was fooled into thinking new boss Rocky Carroll was at least going to stay a bad-guy adversary. He’s not. Reassigning and scattering the team was just a ploy to give Gibbs a chance to smoke out a mole in his new team. As the episode ended, the team was being reassembled, not aware that the actual double agent was still on the loose. (You could see that coming, but it was still rather satisfying. Lots more satisfying than Monday’s ludicrous CSI: Miami opener.) I’m still more likely to watch House than NCIS most weeks, but as I watched last night, I kept thinking: The fans are going to love this episode. Unlike all those who are still disgruntled by the unnecessary tide shift over on House.

Very disappointed in this week’s Fringe. Another creepy opening, as a villain sets off a gas attack on a crowded bus, freezing those trapped within in a suffocating cocoon “like mosquitoes trapped in amber.” But I was never spellbound by anything that followed, including the motivation of this crime, or the introduction of a psychic pawn (a former test subject of Dr. Bishop back in the day) who taps into a “ghost network” of “pattern” attacks and disasters, including the ill-fated Hamburg flight. Maybe it’s residual post-Emmy and premiere-week exhaustion setting in early, but I felt much of the episode fell flat. And while I was an early champion of Anna Torv, she seemed more washed-out than usual this episode. Isn’t she supposed to be our eyes and ears in this world of science experiments gone wrong, fueling the narrative? Instead, she’s still moping over Mark Valley (glimpsed again at the end of the episode), causing even the stern Lance Reddick to chide her for being too dour. (“Do you ever smile?”) She needs to lighten up, or have a fire lit under her. I’m willing to grant ambitious shows like this an off episode here and there, especially in its formative first season, but I didn’t expect it to stumble this soon.

Here’s another plug for The New Adventures of Old Christine. CBS is treating the show badly as usual, asking it to launch a new hour comedy block with no protection or lead-in. Thankfully, the season opener is a winner, relying on one of the show’s best assets: the buddy-comedy chemistry of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Wanda Sykes, who plan a “friendship marriage” to keep the divorced Barb from being deported back to the Bahamas (which Christine naturally thinks is part of the USA). Best moment: Christine whining at the thought of Barb leaving, “What would happen to Lucy if they shipped Ethel back to the Bahamas?” To which Barb retorts: “Why am I Ethel?” (Setting up a running gag: “Don’t make me say it.”) Great work as well from Clark Gregg as Christine’s ex, haplessly trying to woo New Christine (the understated Emily Rutherfurd) into accepting his own wedding proposal, and Hamish Linklater as Christine’s brother Matthew, who observes her crazy ways with wry, caustic asides.

One last note about CBS comedies: How great was Monday’s How I Met Your Mother opener? Barney’s crush on Robin makes for terrific character comedy. Neil Patrick Harris cracked me up when he choked trying to leave Robin a voice-mail message. (“You left a voice, but it wasn’t male.”) The oblivious Robin, meanwhile, is acting more dude than damsel, serving as his wingman. In other relationship news, Sarah Chalke is fitting in beautifully as Ted’s intended, Stella. Loved the subplot of Ted testing her reaction to Star Wars as a gauge of their compatibility. (I could relate. I’ve had at least one experience where a date’s bad reaction to something I loved became a deal-breaker. Wasn’t as funny then.) How sweet that she would vow to pretend to love Star Wars for as long as they both shall live.

But this 8 pm/ET Monday logjam is only going to get worse. I’ve seen the first few episodes of NBC’s delightful Chuck, and they’re a blast (sometimes literally). I’m thrilled that NBC has already given Chuck a full-season renewal, but how long will the network squander its potential in this overcrowded, too-early time period? My solution, putting on my amateur programmer hat: Move it to Wednesdays. Should Knight Rider bomb, if there’s any justice, put Deal Or No Deal at 8/7c, followed by Chuck, followed by the return of Law & Order, which should never have been kicked out by something as feeble as Lipstick Jungle. That would be one solid night of programming instead of the current train wreck. Chuck at 9/8c would put it against a much weaker array of choices: Private Practice, Criminal Minds, Fox’s so-called comedies and the CW’s upcoming Stylista. Anything to give Chuck a better shot at the wider audience this charming spy spoof deserves.

The 60th annual Emmy Awards set out to honor TV history and ended up making a little of its own. As expected, AMC’s stylishly adult 60s-era drama Mad Men took home the best drama prize, the first ever for a basic cable series. The upstart channel delivered a much more shocking triumph in Bryan Cranston’s surprise (but well-earned) win for Breaking Bad. “She’s bald, too,” marveled the actor, who shaved his head to play Walter White, a cancer-ravaged teacher-turned-meth dealer. Best known for outrageous comedy roles like the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, Cranston is a well-liked star who was considered an underdog in a strong field that included fellow AMC leading man Jon Hamm of Mad Men, House’s Hugh Laurie (amazingly, still empty-handed), Dexter’s brilliant Michael C. Hall, In Treatment’s brooding Gabriel Byrne and Boston Legal’s showboating James Spader.

Another relatively low-rated basic-cable freshman, FX’s dark legal drama Damages, snared two major acting prizes with Glenn Close’s expected lead-actress win and, in something of an upset, Zeljko Ivanek winning supporting actor as her doomed adversary over the higher-profile Ted Danson. (That was another tough category, and I found myself expecting to hear Lost’s Michael Emerson’s name called. Maybe next year.)

HBO’s epic historical miniseries John Adams entered the record books as the most honored miniseries, with 13 total wins (including eight from the creative-arts awards a week earlier). No surprise there, although the lead-actress contest was a doozy, including Cranford’s Judi Dench and my favorite, A Raisin in the Sun’s Phylicia Rashad, reprising her Tony-winning performance. But Laura Linney, an Emmy darling with three wins on her resume, took it for her nuanced work as Abigail Adams. It was a John Adams sweep, and HBO also did well with its political movie Recount, which recounted the tense aftermath in Florida of the contested 2000 Bush-Gore presidential tally.

Politics reared its head several times during the Emmy telecast, not surprisingly given the nature of this election year—and the political content of shows such as Recount and John Adams. (Even Laura Linney, accepting her award, couldn’t help but throw in a shout-out to “community organizers that help form our country,” an obvious Obama reference.) As part of the night’s salute to TV’s past, The West Wing’s Martin Sheen appeared on a replication of the Oval Office set to entreat viewers to vote. And in the most notable melding of TV and political history, a special Emmy was presented by Steve Martin to Tom Smothers, whose fabled Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was infamously canceled by CBS in the late 60s for its barbed political Vietnam-era commentary. Smothers used the occasion to speak out against war and in favor of freedom of expression, dedicating the award to “all those who feel compelled to speak out, to speak to power and won’t shut up and refuse to be silenced.”

Smothers also noted: “There’s nothing more scary that watching ignorance in action.” Somehow, I don’t think he was talking about the night’s Emmy hosts, but he might as well have been.

I didn’t mind the producers turning the 60th annual Emmy show into a smorgasbord of nostalgia, with cast reunions, classic-set recreations, a theme-song medley, a collage of catchphrases and tons of clips. Most of it worked, and at times it was almost as if our TV past was flashing before our eyes. But even more often, it seemed like time was standing still—whenever the misbegotten hosts, the five nominees for the new reality-host category, crowded the stage.

The first acceptance speech, for Jeremy Piven’s third Entourage win, dissed the rambling, clumsy opening. Some presenters griped that their bits had been cut because of Howie Mandel’s incessant babbling. (No big loss maybe, but still.) Lousy time management resulted in major categories being rushed, while Jimmy Kimmel shamelessly milked the reality-host award presentation, not revealing the winner until “after the break,” and even then not right away. As if anyone still cared.

No wonder the actual “talent” in the cavernous Nokia Theater seemed less than thrilled at these interlopers hijacking their show.

The most memorable moments came from seasoned comedians. Don Rickles brought the house down, bantering with Kathy Griffin (mocking “these funny lines they wrote for us”) and later accepting an award for an autobiographical HBO special. British Office star Ricky Gervais was a hoot, mercilessly needling his U.S. counterpart Steve Carell in his seat, imploring him to “give me the Emmy” Gervais had won last year for Extras, which Carell had accepted in his place.

All of this was more funny and spontaneous than anything the hapless hosts did all the long night. The producers would have been better off just letting Oprah Winfrey regally set up the evening and then let TV’s glorious history speak for itself.

Some final thoughts on the awards, a less egregious list of winners than usual:

I’m not much of a fan of shows winning over and over again, but somehow I can’t get too worked up over The Daily Show and The Amazing Race continuing to dominate their respective fields. None of the competition comes close.

In drama, I’m thrilled for Mad Men, for writer/creator Matthew Weiner, for Bryan Cranston (perhaps the year’s most inspired Emmy pick, though I’m still a fan of Jon Hamm’s subtle multi-layered portrayal of Don Draper), for the directing award that went to House’s devastating finale. For me, it was no contest where Glenn Close was concerned, and Zeljko Ivanek is a classic example of a great and often overlooked character, so no beef there. Biggest sigh of relief: the Boston Legal shut-out. Biggest gripe: Chandra Wilson, the heart and soul of Grey’s Anatomy (and a SAG Award winner last year), losing to In Treatment’s Dianne Wiest, a prestige choice. Though I can’t really argue with that, because the acting was that show’s strong suit, and her episodes as Gabriel Byrne’s therapist were generally my favorite. But Bailey is one of my favorite characters anywhere on TV, and she’s way overdue an Emmy.

In comedy, no real argument with the expected 30 Rock sweep or with Jean Smart’s win for the underrated Samantha Who?, although with Amy Poehler leaving Saturday Night Live soon, I would have loved to see her rewarded for her versatility. She carries that poor show most weeks. And while his character is electrifying even in an off year for the show, Entourage’s Jeremy Piven winning a third consecutive time seems excessive, especially when you consider the character development for Neil Patrick Harris’s Barney on How I Met Your Mother last season. Big applause, though, to Barry Sonnenfeld’s win for directing Pushing Daisies’ dazzling pilot episode. If that show had made the best-comedy cut (it certainly deserved to over Entourage), I would have been rooting for it. But nothing was going to stop 30 Rock this year. Can anything top it this season?

Some good news/bad news about AMC’s Mad Men, which has been firing on all cylinders lately. The good news: The show has already won four creative arts Emmys (including cinematography, main title credits, art direction and, yes, hairstyling), and let’s hope for even more good fortune come Sunday. More good news: Fans of Mad Men no longer have to choose between watching a new episode this Sunday or the Emmy telecast to see how the show fares. AMC has wisely decided to bench the show this weekend (replacing the scheduled new episode with a replay of the excellent “Three Sundays” episode from earlier this season).

The bad news, such as it is, entails asking the dear viewer to wait a week to see what happens next, which won’t be easy considering the pivotal events of last Sunday’s remarkable episode (go here for Adam’s expert recap)—which answered the question many have been asking: Is there anyone who would kick Jon Hamm out of their bed?

The answer is yes. Betty finally lowered the boom on her cheating husband Don, sending him away in a bitter confrontation while sending herself spiraling into what appears to be a serious depression. January Jones really came into her own in this episode with an Emmy-worthy performance. Her subtle work as Betty has sometimes seemed a bit robotically mannered to me, although I get the point that like so many others on this show (including the statuesque Joan), Betty is trapped in the role that 60s society, and to a certain degree advertising, has conditioned her for. But when Betty exploded: Wow.

Her controlled rage, first manifesting itself in a bizarre scene in which she calmly destroys a wobbly dining room chair while her kids gape, erupts after she feels Don has humiliated her at a dinner party they’ve just thrown. “You never mean it,” she snaps at his weak apology. (He has no idea how long she’s been itching to say these things, clearly.) “You just do what you want, and I put up with it because nobody knows.” She calls him out about the Bobbie Barrett affair (“How could you? She’s so OLD.”) and tells him, eyes blazing with contempt, “You think you know me? Well, I know what kind of a man you are.” (I’m not quite sure she does, but she has every right at this point to think so.)

The frost that ensues is chilling to behold, as she sends him to the couch (how many times have we seen that on TV, but never depicted with such bleakness) while telling him, “I don’t want it to be like this. I don’t know what to do.” Don lies to her face about the affair, so when he looks her in the eye to insist he loves her, she isn’t buying. In fact, her plaintive “Do you hate me?” says it all. And it’s heartbreaking. This is going to take some time to repair, to heal, if it ever can. “I don’t want to lose all this,” Don pleads desperately. (How ironic that later, when Betty has a further epiphany while watching Jimmy Barrett’s clownish Utz commercial, the classic Make Room for Daddy is playing on the TV.) Her response: calling Don to tell him not to bother coming home. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you.” Where does it go from here? No fair telling.

As painful as it will be to wait a week for the next episode, let me assure you that it’s worth the wait. There is a terrific funny-sad workplace story built around an unexpectedly tragic character, and it unfolds in the wake of a big news story that resonates among the office staff (and continues to haunt us today). The final scene is a jaw-dropper, punctuated brilliantly by the typically well-chosen song (and singer) that plays under the end credits. What a show.

In other TV news, I wanted to weigh in briefly on the first regular episode of Fringe, airing tonight after the season opener of House (which ought to deliver Fringe a mighty lead-in audience). Last week’s deluxe extended pilot had plenty of thrilling moments, but was so stuffed with exposition and set-up (the old building-the-team scenario) that it left me curious how a “normal” hour episode would play. I’m happy to say I had a great time watching it.

Much of the episode, from its freaky opening to the grisly twists—there are times Fringe could be retitled “Cringe”—to the mumbo-jumbo science, reminded me of classic The X-Files. Derivative, maybe, but also quite entertaining, with John Noble once again stealing the episode as Walter Bishop, the eccentric, mentally fragile genius who helps put the pieces together. Olivia, still reeling from the betrayal and presumed death (we know better) of her partner/lover, hasn’t emerged for me yet as a fully developed lead character, but Anna Torv is fascinating to watch in the role and there’s plenty of time for us and her to figure her out.

What I’ll remember most from tonight’s hour are the insights we get into the mad Dr. Bishop, as he muses over the pitfalls of being a scientist: “Trying to maintain that distinction between God’s domain and our own.” And in one terrific scene, advising his frantic son Peter (Joshua Jackson) over the phone as Peter is trying to revive a victim. “Do you have any cocaine?” poppa Bishop asks while munching popcorn. That’s what Fringe needs: someone who doesn’t take it all so seriously and sees the show for what it is. A weekly popcorn movie.

Feel that change of seasons? Hard not to notice on this Monday night, as two of cable’s best summer series—TNT’s popular signature drama The Closer and Showtime’s quirky classic Weeds—sign off with life-or-death cliffhangers, a week before the official network season gets underway. (The Closer’s story will pick up again in the new year, with five episodes remaining in this split season.)

You really can’t do better tonight than the shattering Closer finale, which pulls off an uncanny shift in tone from early scenes of gallows humor to a building sense of unease and desperation, culminating in a breathlessly harrowing climactic event involving all of the major players in the newly named Major Crimes Division. (Last week, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson’s Priority Homicide unit was shut down after a public-relations scandal, though the team itself was kept intact thanks to some fancy footwork on Brenda’s part. Like you thought they’d dissolve this group.)

Emmy nominee Kyra Sedgwick keeps the tone light in the opening scenes when a grisly crime scene suddenly becomes a potential bomb site, and her stubbornness about leaving the scene turns into a bit of slapstick theater, as she’s hauled out “like a sack of potatoes” (she gripes) while a slow-moving robotized UGV (unmanned ground vehicle, according to a fetishistic Tao) named “Babs” takes over. Brenda Leigh is not amused at being upstaged, but her colleagues are and so will you be.

The laughs don’t last long, as the trail leads to a pack of chillingly insolent teens, reminiscent of the disaffected Columbine shooters, who have much more than petty mischief in mind. As one boasts, “My parents aren’t smart enough to understand what I’m doing.” As the reality of the situation dawns on Brenda and her team, racing the clock to figure out where the next calamity might strike, the stage is set for a suspenseful and explosive showdown. How it ends will likely leave you gasping and desperate for the next batch of episodes.

The Closer has enjoyed one of its better seasons this summer, with strong episodes for many of the supporting players—especially G.W. Bailey’s gravelly Provenza and Anthony Denison as his wry sidekick Flynn, and in one of the more wrenching subplots, Raymond Cruz’s Sanchez. Sedgwick is always a delight, closing her cases each week, sometimes by taking extreme measures (including last week’s shocker), while muddling through her relationship with FBI guy Fritz (Jon Tenney). It will be a nice treat not to have to wait until next summer to see more of them all, quite possibly the best current ensemble in the cluttered world of the TV crime drama.

Meanwhile, over on Weeds, Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) just continues to fall deeper into the abyss, more conflicted than ever over her passionate relationship with the deadly but amorous Tijuana mayor who now apparently has her life in his hands. (Last week’s cliffhanger showed him supervising the grisly torture/demise of DEA Agent Till’s partner—in several respects—Agent Schlatter, who before he died pointed the finger at Nancy.) It’s a very eventful half-hour, full of mordant twists that are almost too appalling to qualify as comedy. And yet the darkest of humors has always informed nearly everything that happens on Weeds, which successfully reinvented itself this season as it put suburban satire behind it (with the torching of Agrestic) to focus on life on the border. The California-Mexico border, to be sure, but also the borderlands of morality and responsibility, of love and duty, of adolescence and sexuality, of fractured family, and as always of right and wrong, a line that has become so blurry on this show as to require corrective lenses.

Parker continues to amaze as she conveys Nancy’s vulnerability and recklessness, her shame over where she’s led her family and her tremulous fear over where her actions will take her next. The season’s final moment delivers a bombshell that promises to make next season even more unpredictable. Weeds these days is as troubling as it is entertaining, and that’s probably as it ought to be.

For the first five minutes, Saturday Night Live was brilliant on opening night, living up to our wildest expectations by bringing back Tina Fey (how could they not) to skewer political-media darling Sarah Palin. She nailed the look (those glasses, the blinding red dress), the pinched Fargo voice, the poses (including a hilarious moment in which she toted an invisible shotgun). But where was hunky hubby Todd, preggers daughter Bristol and her boyfriend Levi, and the rest of the clan? They can wait for later satire. The genius of SNL’s opening sketch was in giving us Sarah alongside Hillary Clinton, as always played to devastating effect by Amy Poehler (noticeably expecting but game as ever).

It was billed as a “nonpartisan” message to address the issue of sexism as it affects the campaign—to which Hillary noted, “an issue that I am frankly surprised to hear people suddenly care about.” Touché. While Fey’s Sarah preened, Poehler’s Hillary cringed and popped her eyes and exploded into fits of hysterical laughter as she considered the absurdity of standing alongside this political newbie who’s vaulted past her in the presidential race. As faux Sarah declared that her ascension proves that “anybody can be president” (Hillary muttering “anybody” in disbelief) if only they want it enough, faux Hillary exploded that yeah, that was her problem all along: “I probably should have wanted it more!” And screams with laughter. As did the audience.

Their mini-debate was priceless. Hillary on foreign policy, while Sarah chirps: “I can see Russia from my house.” Hillary on global warming, and Sarah coos that it’s a matter of “God just huggin’ us closer.” The jokes built and built, culminating in Hillary’s salvo to the fawning press corps to get over their infatuation and treat this new arrival as roughly as they did her: “I invite the media to grow a pair. And if you can’t, I will lend you mine.” End scene, triumphantly.

And guess what, folks? Those were the last genuine laughs for the entire night. From there, the show went downhill fast and stayed there. Clearly the night should have been a Palin-fest, not a Phelps-fest. I have nothing but admiration for Michael Phelps’ Olympic triumph, but if SNL wanted to honor him, they should have let him do a gracious cameo (even a surprise cameo), but by asking him to be the guest host, they did him and the viewers no favors. Maybe they should have built him a pool at 30 Rock. They sure didn’t write him anything funny.

It’s ironic, I suppose, that someone who can calibrate his swimming within fractions of sections to win his medals is so utterly devoid of comic timing, swallowing his words and landing on feeble punch lines with the grace of an elephant. I don’t blame him, though. I blame the writers, the director, all of whom had no idea what would become this legend most. I’m glad he had his mom in the audience to cheer him on. By the end of the night, I began to dread his reappearance the same way I shuddered every time a new song would start in this summer’s Mamma Mia movie (which would have been a better subject for parody than half the lousy random sketches this week).

Still, by this time next week few will remember the tragedy of Michael Phelps. We’ll all be lining up again to watch what they’ll be doing live from New York, to see if they can coax Tina Fey back on a weekly basis to do her Sarah bit (although I’d like to see Kristen Wiig’s take on her if Tina gets too busy), to see if the show can top this week’s opening sketch, to watch as this incredible political season is taken on and its players taken down by masters of satire. It’s when SNL strays from politics, however, that the show is less live than DOA, and that’s a pity.

As glittery and shiny as the spanking new 1962 Coupe de Ville that Don Draper buys (and whose new-car smell Betty ruins in the stunningly appropriate final scene of Sunday’s episode), as rich and textured and ambiguous as the modernist Mark Rothko painting Cooper displays in his office, AMC's Mad Men is firing on all cylinders midway through its second season. Sunday’s brilliantly structured episode, another home run in a recent string of winners, had me looking anew at the show as a work of art, something transcending mere TV. I could devote an entire column to quoting great, meaningful, loaded dialogue from this episode. Surely they’ll publish collected scripts of Mad Men some day. It will make great reading, possibly even as satisfying as watching it.

But let me start with the metaphor of Cooper’s painting, an object of fascination and derision among the young staffers at Sterling Cooper. When insecure Harry is called into a meeting, he’s worried he’ll be asked his opinion of the painting and isn’t sure if he should act impressed or scoff. A real “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation—not unlike the inevitable backlash mail I’ve fielded this summer in the wake of the show’s impressive Emmy nomination total (16, more than any other drama) and continued critical acclaim, with unimpressed onlookers charging the show is a glossy bore that’s hollow at the core. A view I obviously take issue with.

I find myself siding with Ken Cosgrove, who comes along with Sal and Harry on the verboten field trip to the boss’s inner sanctum (which almost costs instigator Jane her secretary job while earning her Joan’s eternal enmity). Ken takes one look at the abstract Rothko and says, “Maybe you’re just supposed to experience it,” suggesting, “It’s like looking into something very deep. You could fall in.”

Which pretty much describes my own obsession with this show. When I get my weekly dose, everything else on TV pales by comparison.

But Cooper (the wonderful Robert Morse) delivers the coup de grace on the art subplot when he tells Harry that what he thinks of his own acquisition is none of Harry’s business: “Don’t concern yourself with aesthetics. You’ll get a headache.” He brought Harry in to talk about numbers, not art, and lays out his philosophy: “People buy things to realize their aspirations. It’s the foundation of our business.” And he reveals that for him the Rothko is an investment, one that should pay off handsomely in a few years.

If there’s a true artist in this firm’s halls, it could be young Cosgrove, the horniest of the office horndogs. I love that he’s the one with the creative gift, not the boorishly pretentious and envious Paul Kinsey. Ken’s so casual about it as well (almost reminds me of the Salieri-Mozart rivalry in Amadeus, on a much more banal scale.) Ken’s already had a short story published and is nervously excited to share his latest work—which bears the episode title “The Gold Violin”—with an admiring Salvatore Romano, of whom Ken says: “You’ve not like everyone else around here.” (Too true, unless there are other closeted married gays in the office we haven’t yet met.) Ken’s story was inspired by an instrument he once saw that was “perfect in every way except it couldn’t make music.” Which sounds like so many of the characters on this show, who appear so polished and golden until you scratch their surface and see what lies dissonantly underneath.

God knows there was surface tension to spare at the home of Sal and Kitty, where Ken came cluelessly to Sunday dinner, unfazed by Sal’s fawning attentions at the expense of poor ignored Kitty, who later wailed, “Do you even see me here?” (Sal was too busy fondling Ken’s left-behind lighter.) Kitty, you should meet Betty Draper sometime. We make a lot of fuss, with good reason, over the lead actors on this show, but everyone in these scenes—Aaron Staton (Ken), Bryan Batt (Sal) and Sarah Drew (Kitty)—nailed it. (It wasn’t until scanning the credits that I realized Kitty was played by the same actress who played the adorably mousy Hannah on Everwood.)

This week’s episode was enthralling from the very first note, when a haughty Cadillac salesman accosts Don in the showroom with the pitch: “Afraid you’ll fall in love?” (Subtext: Pretty much, yeah.) And later: “You’d be as comfortable in one of these as you would in your own skin.” (Subtext: Given Don’s life of reinvention and deeply rooted self-disgust, that’s hardly a recommendation.) Which leads to a 50s flashback in which we learn Don was once a used-car salesman (with higher hair and louder ties), with his own sales pitch interrupted by a woman who sees through him: “You’re a hard man to find. You’re not Don Draper.” Whaat? Add this to the long list of Don Draper mysteries for now.

Don, who's something of a work of art himself (as the salesman admiringly acknowledges and as Jon Hamm proves every week in his performance), is a study in personal highs and lows this week. After impressing his coffee clients with a youth-oriented sales pitch and jingle (“It stays with you,” said Peggy), he’s invited to join a museum board, prompting both Sterling and Cooper to tell him he’s being groomed for greatness. “You have been invited to be part of a group of people who get to decide what will happen in our world.” Don immediately heads off to buy the Cadillac, enjoying a nooner with his impressed wife and later taking the family on a Sunday picnic (where they conspicuously leave litter, this being before Lady Bird Johnson’s Keep America Beautiful campaign). But this idyllic happiness is, as usual, short-lived.

In the episode’s climax, Don and Betty attend a swank Stork Club party celebrating Jimmy Barrett’s 39-episode TV deal. There, the hammer falls on Don, as Jimmy calls him out on his affair with Bobbie, spilling the beans to an appalled Betty as well. “You’re garbage and you know it,” Jimmy spews. Yeah, Don knows it. And Betty’s none too happy to be reminded of it again, vomiting all over the front seat as they silently drive home. Off Don’s appalled look, taking us back with delicious dark irony to the opening in the pristine showroom, the episode ends.

How will they top this next Sunday? I can’t wait to find out. I'm already jonesing for my next fix of TV art.

For Adam's full recap, go here.

Feels like old times, having a Sunday HBO lineup to get excited about again. But excited I am, having seen the first five episodes of the wildly entertaining new vampire mystery/romance/comedy/thriller hybrid True Blood, and the first four episodes of Entourage’s much-improved fifth season.

I posted my initial thoughts on True Blood in a Dispatch filed shortly after HBO’s presentation during TCA press tour this summer, at which time I had screened the first two episodes. Since then, I’ve watched more and have also devoured the first two books in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, which are also great fun. (Season one of True Blood roughly tracks the plot of Harris’s first volume, Dead Until Dark.) All I can say is: I’m hooked.

Alan Ball’s colorful adaptation goes way over the top as only pay cable can do, both in terms of sexuality (especially where Sookie’s horndog brother is concerned) and in terms of broadly played Southern caricatures, but I appreciate the show going to extremes with the simple goal to entertain. There’s nothing self-important about True Blood, and for me, that’s quite a relief. After watching HBO flatline for much of the last year with its series, from the pretentious John From Cincinnati to the dreary obsession with dramas about therapy, it’s a pleasure to watch a show that swings big and goes straight for the jugular.

“What are you?” says Bill, the courtly Civil War-era vampire (nicely underplayed by Stephen Moyer), who walks into a redneck bar one night where he meets and is immediately fascinated by spunky young telepathic waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin, whose guileless performance is an utter delight). Sookie isn’t just unnaturally drawn to Bill, breathless with wonder, she’s delighted that his thoughts are closed off to her. (Her life is an aural nightmare of sensory overload.) They hit it off instantly, despite objections from friends and family—with the exception of Sookie’s eccentric granny, played to the hilt by the great Lois Smith. “Who cares what they think?” says Sookie, who knows all too well what they think.

What do I think? That HBO may have its next cult hit on its hands. Just in time for Entourage to pull itself out of its Medellin funk in a new season that finds Vince finally waking up to the mess he’s made of his movie-star career. (The season opens with critic Richard Roeper rehashing the “Hindenberg of a screening” at Cannes of Vince’s indie flop Medellin—and am I the only one that thinks the trailers for Benecio Del Toro’s upcoming Che Guevera epic looks almost as bad?) I had lost all sympathy for the casually arrogant Vince and his self-absorbed hedonism last season, and for the first part of Sunday’s season opener, as he hides from the real world on a Mexican beach, I harbored similar thoughts. But some inspired twists await as Vince dips his toes back into the Hollywood waters only to be nipped by sharks that reveal to him just how far his star has fallen.

In three weeks (Sept. 28), HBO’s Sunday lineup will expand with the limited-run sketch-comedy Little Britain USA, based on the hilarious BBC series, and the oddball animated comedy The Life and Times of Tim. This happens to be the same night Showtime is launching new seasons of its breakout hits Dexter and Californication. Factor in the strong network competition this night (especially ABC’s Desperate Housewives-Brothers & Sisters combo, NBC’s Sunday Night Football and the occasional overrun of CBS’s The Amazing Race into the 9 pm/ET hour) and that’s reason enough to invest in these pay giants’ On Demand services if you haven’t already done so. Discerning viewers won't want to fall behind on any of these shows.

TV has really put the “labor” in Labor Day week. It’s only the third day of September, and what is many years a sleepy week has already seen the premiere of six major series (network and cable), with roughly four more (if you count Bravo’s Top Design) on tap for tonight. I dealt with several of these shows already in my Roush Review column—FX’s The Shield and Sons of Anarchy, Fox’s Prison Break, TNT’s Raising the Bar and HBO’s True Blood—but here are some more thoughts on a week so busy it’s hard to fathom that the official network premiere week is nearly three weeks away.

Gossip Girl Rocks. Some of the most fun I’ve had in front of the TV in the last week or so (when I’m not absorbed in U.S. Open tennis play) was zipping through the first three episodes of Gossip Girl’s hilariously sizzling second season. On Monday night, we learned that mopey Serena was getting through her summer-without-Dan by watching The Closer. (Me too! Great, isn’t it?) Blair’s advice: “A hot lifeguard is like Kleenex. Use once and throw away. You couldn’t ask for a better rebound.” Even if he’s driving a Camaro? And who’s dressing Chuck Bass, some Patricia Field wannabe on crank? From his lime green suit to his high-argyle croquetwear, he’s a constant fashion risk. Loving Madchen Amick as Nate’s cougar, BTW. And next Monday, perhaps my fave line of dialogue yet, as Nate observes Chuck scheming against Blair’s new British lord: “You know it’s love when you start talking like an assassin.” That and Serena’s observation of Blair potentially rubbing shoulders with world leaders at lord Marcus’s side: “If you can’t find common ground with a dictator, I don’t know who can.” Such comically twisted fun.

90210 Rolls. By comparison with the overheated Gossip Girl, the new 90210 is hopelessly square (opening sex act in the parking lot aside). But somehow that feels right, that having a principal/dad in the house lives up (or down) to the Aaron Spelling tradition of serving up corny moralizing amidst the swoony junk-food teen romance. The two-hour pilot (too much of a mediocre, though harmless, thing) moved at breakneck speed, introducing a new generation of skeletal sirens and overhyped hunks who should be fun to follow, at least for a while. Maybe it says something about the average age in my office, but most of the early buzz around the TV Guide watercooler was over Mr. Matthews (Ryan Eggold), the cool teach who dissed the Zuckerman offspring with a casual “What is that girl, like 30?” And what is Naomi, come to think of it? 45? I know it says something about my own personal demographic when I found myself looking most forward to the next appearance by Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter as the bawdy scene-stealing Auntie/Granny Mame, the ingenues’ boozy granny Tabitha, who in between swilling Long Island ice teas is busy spilling Hollywood stories about Ricardo Montalban cracking eggs off her backside back in the day. (Fun nod to soap lore by having Linda Gray, of the legendary Dallas and infamous Models Inc., drop by as her best friend—and misunderstood stud Ethan’s grandma). All in all, not a bad start.

Top Model Breaks New Ground. Keeping with the CW theme for now, tonight’s two-hour opener of America’s Next Top Model forces the fan to sit through some tiresomely campy sci-fi mugging by the two Jays and a TyraBot (“Beam us up, fiercely”) before getting down to the nitty-gritty. And it doesn’t get much more gritty than the introduction of Isis (glimpsed in a photo shoot last season), the show’s first transgender contestant. “Born in the wrong body,” she says. “This is how I’ve always been.” Since this contest is all about illusion anyway, why not go there? Naturally, some of the other model-ettes look askance at having a pre-op transsexual in their midst, partly out of prejudice and/or ignorance but also (if they’ve ever seen the show) out of a realization that the more exotic you are, the more likely you are to make it far in this game. Whatever the cause, Isis makes this season instantly compelling.

Bones in Britain. Early September is a busy time for Fox as well. The Fringe premiere is less than a week away, Prison Break is already well into its next caper, and tonight it’s Bones’ turn to launch a new season with a two-hour opener, this one set in London. It’s a jolly good romp, as Bones and Booth meet a mirror-image British duo with switched genders: the tough cop is a woman, while the droll scientist is a man—who at one point, observing his U.S. counterparts, quips, “I love the mix of the personal and the professional you people seem to manage.” The separate mysteries in both hours are enjoyable, and it’s fun watching cowboy Booth work in a more genteel society (“Without a gun, I’m practically naked”) while comically struggling with a new way of battling city traffic (“I’m glad we had a revolution”). Back at the Jeffersonian, Angela and Hodgins have more relationship issues, and with Zach gone—the less said about that storyline, the better—it looks like we’re in for a long-running joke of new lab assistants who have trouble fitting in with this eccentric ensemble.

Monk Turns 100. This week ends with a charming milestone: the 100th episode of USA Network’s brand-defining comedy-mystery Monk, which plays out like a career/life retrospective of the famously withdrawn and phobic sleuth, a role that has already earned Tony Shalhoub three Emmys. When a tabloid TV show (hosted by a wonderfully smarmy Eric McCormack) turns the spotlight on a reluctant Monk in a show re-enacting his 100th case, we’re treated to cameos from notable former guest stars: John Turturro as his brother, Sarah Silverman as his stalker fan, Brooke Adams (Shalhoub’s wife) as a former flight attendant, and Andy Richter, Howie Mandel, The Office’s Angela Kinsey and a few other recognizable faces as criminals who’ve crossed Monk’s path. The fun begins when Monk begins to second-guess his work on his landmark case as the show-within-a-show unfolds. I’ve been watching this show for a long time (although not faithfully for a while), and I’m glad to say the character can still crack me up—in this episode, when he’s frantically giving his assistant Natalie directions on using the DVR remote: “Picture freezer! Picture go back! Picture go fast!” Now that’s obsessive behavior I can relate to.

Anyone else going through Olympics withdrawal? Mine started around the time the Olympic flame was extinguished during Sunday night’s broadcast of the closing ceremonies. I felt a sense of deflation as I watched replays of many of the games’ most thrilling moments. Also a sense of loss, even as I was being dazzled one more time by the pyrotechnics (presumably real) of the final spectacular, with a return of the drummers and gravity-defying performers amid a reprise, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale, of the human light show from the opening ceremonies, with shimmering movement and color holding us spellbound. (At least until the British showed up, with their tacky-by-comparison half-time-lite show. It’s going to be hard for anyone to measure up to China’s showmanship.)

How am I going to fill my days and especially my nights now that I no longer have Bob Costas as my professional escort? What a great job he did as host and interviewer, always keeping his cool, even when accompanied by explosive personalities like gymnastics cheerleader Bela Karolyi. Funny how quickly you can become accustomed to a new viewing pattern, devoting night after night—and the occasional afternoon and late night—to watching the stories of the games unfold in all of their suspenseful drama. We can nitpick about the time devoted to a single sport like beach volleyball, which had the advantage of being played live in prime time (as was swimming and the first week of gymnastics), but all in all, I was more than satisfied. I was hooked.

But now we return to the business of TV, which a week from now will be in full pre-fall overdrive. Forget Labor Day being a vacation. Fox and the CW and various cable networks will keep us plenty busy until the official premiere week later in September. Next Monday, at least four major series are premiering: on the CW, new seasons of Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill; on Fox, a two-hour Prison Break opener (still ludicrous, but already a marked improvement on last season in the Panamanian sweatbox); and on TNT, the premiere of Steven Bochco’s Raising the Bar, a generic legal drama which I only wish lived up to its title.

Next Tuesday, while the CW’s 90210 (which isn’t being pre-screened) opens with a two-hour splash, FX begins the final season of its landmark crime drama The Shield, and it is riveting—especially when the Strike Team is the focus of the often convoluted plotting. Wednesday is just as busy, with a delightful two-hour Bones season opener set in London (with plenty of broad humor as David Boreanaz’s Booth struggles with city traffic while flaunting his cowboy attitude), and a two-hour America’s Next Top Model opener introducing one of its more controversial contestants ever. On cable, FX launches Sons of Anarchy, a grim and violent saga about a motorcycle gang that the network hopes will attract the hefty male viewership that is attached to The Shield. I’m not convinced. There is some good acting (especially by Katey Sagal as the ferocious matriarch of the gang’s founding family), but this one reminds me of my initial ambivalence to The Riches (still not officially canceled yet) in that it introduces me to a world and characters I don’t particularly care to return to each week, with not enough dramatic spark in the narrative to keep me glued.

More odds and ends as I shift my focus from Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” to the nearby U.S. Open (on USA Network weekdays and CBS on the weekends):

The first official new network show of the fall season arrives tonight, with the early premiere of NBC’s America’s Toughest Jobs (airing on Mondays for several weeks before moving to Fridays), from the producer of such cable hits as The Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers. Yes, it’s another reality competition, but before you sigh too heavily, this one at least brings some new energy to the genre by infusing it with adventure, supplying the sorts of thrills and spills of that cable genre that takes armchair voyeurs inside dangerous occupations. Each week (I’ve seen the first two), contestants learn the ropes on the job of grueling professions like crab fishing in the frigid Bering Sea and driving an 18-wheeler on rural roads above the Arctic Circle, trying to control “80,000 pounds of rolling steel” under treacherous conditions. I’d like to see the insurance premium on this show. While I could debate the appropriateness of letting rank amateurs risk injury and property by playing this game, there is some undeniable entertainment value here. It’s no Amazing Race, but I’d watch this over Deal or No Deal any night of the week.

A few thoughts on the new Dancing With the Stars cast. (Looks like another fun season.) Kudos to reaching across the network aisle to pluck So You Think You Can Dance veteran Lacey Schwimmer as one of the new “professional” dancers. She’ll be teamed with Lance Bass, who has been rumored for quite a while to be one of the contestants this season. Poor Edyta Sliwinska, though. The only pro to appear in all seven seasons, she has been teamed with insult comic Jeffrey Ross, who unless he has had a major charisma makeover since last time I saw him on Comedy Central, is almost certainly going to be one of the first ones out. But who am I rooting against from the start? Kim Kardashian, one of those celebreality “stars” who’s only famous for having a famous step-parent. Maybe she’ll surprise me. Maybe I’ll even know who she is when she dances. Most offbeat contestant? Cloris Leachman to be sure. In her 80s, if my research is correct, and still funny as all get-out. (Check out her recent show-stopping shtick on the Comedy Central roast of Bob Saget if you doubt me. Favorite line: “For the love of God, will someone please punch me in the face so I can see some stars?”) I’m betting she’ll put on a show each time she goes on. Her partner: defending champ Mark Ballas’s father, Corky.

And finally, a nod to Sunday night’s shocking and pivotal episode of Mad Men. (So much for those who think nothing’s happening this season.) Don is in a car accident with Bobbi, and who does he call to rescue him and look after his bruised extramarital bedmate? Peggy, of all people, who takes the brash woman into her apartment, prompting the question: “Why are you doing this?” The answer plays out in a stunning flashback to when Peggy is in the mental hospital after her surprise childbirth and Don visits her, giving her a lecture about moving forward and reinventing oneself, subjects on which he’s an expert. “Do whatever they say. Get out of here and move forward,” he says, insisting, “This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.” So Peggy owed him one, and now both knows each other’s secrets. Peggy isn’t using this knowledge as leverage for promotion, but she does take Bobbi’s advice about insisting she be treated as an equal. (Quoting Bobbi: “You can’t be a man. Don’t even try. Be a woman. It’s powerful business when done correctly.”) When Peggy called Don by his first name, I literally gasped. More to come next week on the education of Peggy Olson, as she continues to butt heads against the agency’s institutional sexism. What an incredible show this is.

And by Gay Olympics, I’m obviously talking about Project Runway, which aired quite possibly its gayest episode ever in this week’s drag-queen challenge, an attempt to urge the designers to go theatrical and over-the-top without risk of penalty. I was only disappointed that they didn’t let guest judge RuPaul do an homage to Tim Gunn’s “Make it work” by reprising her signature theme of “You better work … Work it, girl!”

For the most part, the designers did work it. Although the annoying Blayne, who should have been bounced a week earlier for his hideous shorts outfit for Brooke Shields, worked my last nerve (and those of everyone around him) with his endless wannabe-cutesy efforts to coin that “-licious” catchphrase. It made Leanne want to “barf-licious,” and caused another of the designers to bark, “Shut the hell up.” My sentiments exactly. Sadly, his gay pterodactyl drag outfit, despite its droopy wings, landed in the middle of the pack, so he’ll be around at least another week to send me reaching for the mute each time he’s on screen.

The opening parade of drag models was an eye-popping hoot, introduced by former Runway standout Chris March wearing his own Wagnerian opera-diva creation including disco-ball breastplates. He shared the stage with icons of the drag biz like Hedda Lettuce and Varla Jean Merman and such provocatively named glamazons as Farrah Moans, Miss Understood and Annida Greenkard. To paraphrase the Broadway La Cage Aux Folles: They are what they are, and what they are is a fabulously entertaining challenge, and one thankfully having nothing to do with NBC's current lineup. (Although a weekly drag extravaganza might be an improvement on some of the fall series being shoved down our throats during the Olympics promos.)

My fave moment: Tim Gunn counseling Suede (who hasn’t been nearly as obnoxious lately) to stand up to Hedda Lettuce, who had dissed him during an early fitting, and make her wear, and work, those kooky gloves. “You can tell her that you’ve been to a different rodeo, and don’t you-know-what with me, sister,” Tim growled, sotto voce. It was hilarious.

What a riot that the winner was the person most outside of his comfort zone: Joe, the season’s token straight guy, who used his daughters as inspiration for the glittery sailor suit he put together for the obviously delighted Merman. (I personally thought that Terri’s kabuki costume was the night’s biggest “wow.”)

The judging, however, continues to be as arbitrary as if they were computing gymnastics scores at the Olympics. Keith—or should we say, shredded Keith—obviously tanked the worst with his too-familiar design of random fabric swatches. Nothing fabulous or drag about that at all. But Daniel, who clearly didn’t know how to play this game, was sent packing for having stubbornly ignored the goals of both the Olympics challenge (when he designed a cocktail dress instead of sportswear) and now the drag night (when he went for pastel beauty over tacky gaudiness). Hasn’t Daniel ever watched this show? Some weeks it doesn’t pay to have good taste.

The other night, NBC ran a cute piece toward the end of its prime-time broadcast—which means it probably aired somewhere around midnight—about how people are battling sleep deprivation thanks to how late we’re all staying up to watch the Olympics each night. Somehow I was awake to watch it—although someone in the office told me they saw the piece repurposed at another time, so who knows when I saw it; it’s all a blur.

The point being that when big Olympics events are live, as they were the first week of the games with Michael Phelps’ awesome miniseries-like laps of swimming history and the team gymnastics competitions, there’s an undeniable thrill watching them unfold in real time, no matter how late it goes. (I groaned one night last week upon realizing the women’s gymnastics weren’t starting until 11:10 pm/ET, but I stayed glued until well past 1 in the morning. No regrets.)

But this week it’s a different story, and it boils down to a single, simple word: Greed. I don’t remember as a kid being forced to stay up until midnight to watch Olga Korbut become an international sensation at 1972’s Munich games, or Nadia Comaneci four years later in Montreal. But any youngsters hoping to be inspired by the grace and sportsmanship of Shawn Johnson (who finally earned her Gold on the balance beam) and all-around Gold medalist Nastia Liukin had to stay up well past their natural bedtime Tuesday night to watch these memorable final rounds of individual competition, which had transpired many hours earlier (unlike the gymnastics events of the first week).

You’d have to be an idiot not to understand why NBC does this—which still doesn’t excuse it. The Olympics is first and foremost show business, with an emphasis on business, and NBC will do whatever’s in its best interests to maximize its $894 million investment in securing the rights to these games. That means extending its prime-time coverage until at least midnight (and usually running over a bit) each weeknight, and in classic show-biz fashion that means saving the best for last.

Not that there wasn’t plenty of drama in the hours leading up to Tuesday night’s balance beam showdown—and the men’s high bar competition that came even later, with Jonathan Horton’s jubilant silver-medal performance. As always at the Olympics, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat (to borrow ABC’s old Wide World of Sports slogan) are separated by a razor-thin margin, and that was rarely more evident than in Tuesday’s more memorable track-and-field highlights, replayed during regular prime-time hours. Sanya Richards looked like a winner in the opening leg of the 400-meter run, but seized up (with an apparent cramp) at the end and barely managed a bronze. A heartbreaker. Even more shocking was the 100-meter hurdles that followed, with favorite Lolo Jones nicking the next-to-last hurdle and falling out of medal contention, opening the door for novice teammate Dawn Harper to win. Jones was devastated, but held it together long enough to give a graceful interview. Harper’s reaction, disbelief blossoming into jubilation, was pure Olympics gold. As Bob Costas said, summing up the night in track, “The rallying cry ‘Wait till next year’ doesn’t apply to the Olympics.”

Costas remains the smoothest of Olympics hosts, but maybe if he’d indulge one less cutesy travel piece from Mary Carillo, or spare us Cris Collinsworth’s cloying banter, we could get to a marquee event like the women’s balance beam before 11 pm/ET.

It was the worth the wait, though, even for those of us who hadn’t managed to keep the results a secret. (Hours earlier, I’d inadvertently called up a story online about Shawn Johnson’s win, but I was still plenty eager to see it.) To watch this spitfire chipmunk finally score the gold, with the elegant superstar Nastia Liukin as her #2, was sweet payback from the night before, when Liukin (in my eyes) was robbed of a gold when a tie vote went against her, favoring her curiously petite Chinese competitor. (The gymnastics rules and scoring are clearly for the birds.)

As we go into these final nights of the Olympics, which I know I’m going to miss terribly, it’s worth reminding ourselves that being a fan is not unlike running a marathon. You have to pace yourself (which is why I got some early shuteye Tuesday during a few of the quarterfinal track heats). But really, NBC, would it have killed you to give us a break and show some of these marquee events before the witching hour?

For more of TV Guide's Olympics coverage, go here.

Advertisers do not like controversy. Advertisers have thin skin. Just a few of the valuable observations to be taken from Sunday’s rich episode of Mad Men, written by Matthew Weiner and Rick Cleveland, which provided a fascinating window into how the TV and ad business worked circa 1962 (and in some ways it hasn’t changed that much since then).

One major subplot, with surprising personal and professional repercussions, hinged on a controversial episode of CBS’s groundbreaking legal drama The Defenders, with a shockingly blunt abortion storyline that was causing sponsors to flee. Schlubby Harry Crane, disgruntled after inadvertently learning how much less he was being paid than colleague Ken Cosgrove ($200 a week to Ken’s $300), brought the episode to his bosses’ attention at Sterling Cooper—prompting a screening for lipstick client Belle Jolie, the idea being that women would likely seek this episode out, despite the controversy. (Peggy was on hand to help make this argument, a nicely symbolic touch given her own secret baby scandal. The fact that Harry’s own wife is pregnant, and he wouldn’t tell her what the episode is about, also rang very true.)

The lipstick ad client, the same guy who hit on Sal over dinner last season, was unsurprisingly horrified. “This show is troubling,” he said. “This is not wholesome.” (Imagine how he might have acted if the episode had discussed homosexuality.) “I don’t want Belle Jolie to be part of this debate.”

And such is the paradox of commercial television: much more so then, but hardly unheard of now. Bold storylines guaranteed to get people talking often pack too much heat for advertisers’ comfort. They’re afraid to stir the waters in fear of a backlash, preferring ennui instead.

I’m old enough to remember the firestorm over Maude’s abortion storyline, and I covered the controversy surrounding thirtysomething when it dared to show two men in bed, casually chatting after a tryst, and later the infamous launch of NYPD Blue, when many stations refused to air this cable-styled crime drama until it was clear it was a hit. I also remember when a wealthy activist targeted Married With Children, using her connections to hound CEOs with her gripes about its randy content, causing sponsors to bow out—but ironically boosting the show’s ratings when her tactics made news.

Sterling Cooper’s pitch for the Defenders episode didn’t fly, but Harry came out of it OK, maneuvering this situation into a promotion as a one-man “head of television” for the agency, with a smaller-than-wanted raise (to $225).

The other major storyline shedding light on how the business works introduced us to insult comic Jimmy Barrett, who’s filming a goofy commercial for Utz potato chips when the head of the company shows up on set with his noticeably overweight wife. Buffalo and Hindenberg jokes ensue, the head of Utz is not amused, and Sterling Cooper is put on damage control to save the account and arrogant Jimmy’s contract. As usual, Don Draper—who was playing hooky at a French film when things blew up—has to fix things, which puts him in uncomfortably erotic proximity to Jimmy’s lusty manager/wife Bobbie (nicely played by the husky-voiced Melinda McGraw, most recently seen as Commissioner Gordon’s endangered wife in The Dark Knight).

It all leads to a fancy dinner at Lutece, with Betty on Don’s arm as a charming ornament: “I need you to be shiny and bright. I need a better half,” he assures her, when she asks if this is one of those occasions she’ll actually be allowed to talk. I laughed out loud as Jimmy first laid eyes on the gorgeous Drapers: “My God, are you two sold separately?” And then to Don: “By the way, I loved you in Gentleman’s Agreement.” (Guess we’re not the only ones to make that Gregory Peck comparison.) I gasped in shock as Don took Bobbie by force, threatening to ruin Jimmy if he didn’t apologize to fat Mts. Utz, which he later did. Laughter again as Mrs. Utz declared, “I guess I just don’t have the stomach” for Jimmy’s brand of humor, causing Jimmy to clownishly bite his hand to keep from making a retort. All beautifully played.

Other favorite moments:

Betty’s cynical side emerging when her married riding friend compares young riding student Arthur to Montgomery Clift, trying to better himself socially a la A Place in the Sun: “Somewhere there’s a pregnant girl floating in a lake,” Betty cracks. (More subtext for that abortion episode!)

Later, when an admiring Arthur describes Betty as “so profoundly sad,” she counters, “No. It’s just my people are Nordic.” But she IS profoundly sad, even when she tearfully thanks Don after the Lutece dinner for letting her be a part of his life. “We make a great team.” If only that were true.

Don firing his hopeless secretary Lois for once again dropping the ball. “I try to cover for you all the time,” she whines. To which Don barks: “You do not cover for me. You manage people’s expectations,” before sending her back to the switchboard.

Sal sighing upon learning that poor Harry blurted his unhappy salary news to his wife. “You don’t tell your wife,” says Sal (who’s keeping at least one big secret from his own), who also wisely notes: “Are you upset about getting caught [sneaking a peek at Ken’s paycheck], or are you upset about what you saw?”

Bobbie’s come-on to Don: “I like being bad, and then going home and being good.” There’s a lot of that going around in Mad Men.

For Adam’s full recap, go here.