Up against Game 7 of the World Series, Friday's second episode of Kelsey Grammer starrer "Boss" on Starz drew 665,000 same-night viewers (over two airings) before ending up at 1.1 million in total weekend viewership.

By comparison, "Boss" recorded over a million same-night viewers for its Oct. 21 premiere and 1.7 million combined over the weekend. Then, over the course of the remainder of the week, the viewing tally improved to 3 million.

The of-this-earth-but-not-quite look of ABC's "Once Upon a Time" doesn't go quite as extreme as "Pushing Daisies," but it still calls back the Alphabet net's modern-day fairy tale that ran for 1 1/2 ratings-challenged seasons. Both feature seemingly handcrafted worlds that look like they came out of storybooks.

However, by virtually matching in week two its strong debut performance, ABC's "Once Upon a Time" looks like it will write many more chapters for ABC than "Daisies" did, and though I'm among those who was sorry to see "Daisies" go, "Once" is starting to feel less and less like than a consolation prize.

The special effects in "Once" weren't exactly seamless — more often than not, I was all too aware of them — but that didn't really take away from what was an entertaining second episode Sunday that actually better illustrated the show's character and story potential than the pilot did.

It's interesting that "Once" is performing so much better in the Nielsens than "Daisies" did, even though the programs have not a little in common, but the difference might be that "Once" is able to wear its dark side much more explicitly, while at the same time staying in the wheelhouse of a broader age range of viewers. Audience from the 12-17 demo for "Once" actually grew in its second week.

"Once" also is kind of stealth crossover programming for ABC. The subject matter isn't uniquely female — among its core subjects is a boy's desire for happiness, while the revenge that the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) seeks could easily be adapted into an episode of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." And yet, the three primary thesps in "Once" are all women: Parilla (who dominated the first half of Sunday's episode), Jennifer Morrison (a force in the second half) and Gennifer Goodwin, who we know will have a huge role but has barely gotten to stretch her wings yet.

(The appearance of Giancarlo Esposito, fresh off his "Breaking Bad" tour de force, also has to be noted. In his initial outing, Esposito looked like he might be in line to suffer from a limited role the way Margo Martindale of "Justified" was at risk of doing in CBS' "A Gifted Man," but "Once" does offer more room for Esposito to strut his stuff.)

With all the characters and timelines it is juggling, it's fine to have concerns about how "Once" will play out long-term, but it won't hurt that showrunners Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis trained under Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse at "Lost." Perhaps, despite however much ABC is seduced by the long-term ratings potential of "Once," the network and the producers will find a specific end date to be useful with that series as well.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Right now, the "Once" fairy tale is just beginning.

The return of "Beavis and Butt-Head" to MTV for its first original episodes since 1997 drew 3.3 million viewers overall at 10 p.m. Thursday and ratings of 2.6 rating among adults 12-34 and 3.4 among males 12-34. The latter rating doubled MTV's primetime average.

Following "Beavis" at 10:30 p.m. was the series premiere of "Good Vibes," which drew 1.6 million viewers and a 1.4 rating in the 12-34 demo.

By comparison, "Jersey Shore" drew 6.6 million viewers to MTV for its finale last week. The "Beavis" audience was almost but not quite the same number of overall viewers as watched NBC's "Community" in a tougher timeslot at 8 p.m. Thursday.

You could say the TV landscape has changed since the last time the World Series played a deciding game on a Friday.

Tonight's first World Series Game 7 in nine years is also the first on a Friday since 1924, 15 years before the first baseball game was ever televised. While Fox will get a huge boost in the ratings, a number of factors could work for and against how big that boost is.

Primary to Fox's advantage, of course, is that people pay attention to Game 7s.

In addition, tonight offers little competition in the way of regularly scheduled programming. CBS, which typically has the most overall viewers, announced this morning it was removing firstrun programming from its schedule this evening, instead airing repeats of "A Gifted Man," "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: NY." As of this writing, As of this writing, ABC and the CW are sticking with their firstrun programming, the highest-rated of which was ABC's "20/20," which airs at 10 p.m., five hours (on the East Coast) after the first pitch of Game 7.

NBC will have the season premiere of "Chuck" followed by the series premiere of "Grimm" and then "Dateline" — a combo that's expected to be a non-factor.

As you can see in the chart above, Fox has a right to expect an increase of 50%, if not more, from its Game 6 audience, which was roughly 20 million viewers (pending afternoon updates). That would put Game 7 in position to draw about 30 million viewers, topping the 28.7 million that watched the first Ashton Kutcher episode of "Two and a Half Men" as the most-seen program of the year since the Academy Awards.

Working against Fox is that overall viewership declines on Fridays, fueled by high school football and other weekend plans.

All in all, given the fact that last week's episodes of "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Fringe" combined to average 2.6 million viewers for Fox in primetime, the network brass are happy as clams that St. Louis and Texas have managed to go the distance.

Update: The official viewership for Game 6 was 21.1 million, the most for a World Series game that didn't involve the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox since Game 7 in 2002.

National viewership peaked at 25.2 million after midnight Eastern. In St. Louis and Dallas, Game 6 broke an 80 share at its peak.

With a four-hour, 33-minute Game 6 that required St. Louis to rally from behind five separate times from the first inning to the 11th before winning 10-9, Major League Baseball not only delivered a mesmerizing World Series Game 6 but also sent Fox the first Game 7 since 2002.

Go broad or go home?

The pressure to hook TV viewers with quick remote-control trigger fingers is huge, and clearly leads to the outsized characters — many times, annoyingly outsized — we see in many sitcoms.

With the potential for dozens if not hundreds of episodes, the smallscreen is a terrific medium for delivering nuanced stories, but you have to earn that opportunity first. And much of America, like it or not, wants to know what they're getting right away — even as some of us recoil at the extremes while yearning for rooted, believable folks. 

ABC's "Suburgatory" to me remains an interesting if sometimes vexing show in this regard, because the Emily Kapnek-created series has so clearly tried to straddle the fence, going back to episode one. Jane Levy and Jeremy Sisto play everyday people, while everyone else around them initially hits you like a cartoon. Something for everyone, right?

The problem with "Suburgatory" has been that the cartoons have threatened to overwhelm the credible. Yes, the whole premise of the show is how the normal people navigate this bizarro world. But the bizarro world is not another planet, but rather a place that many of us call home — only on this show, it's unrecognizable. Not even "Green Acres" made the city folk so normal and the non-city folk so ridiculous.

And so it began with Wednesday's episode of "Suburgatory," in which George (Sisto) and Tessa (Levy) joyfully decorate their house for Halloween, only to be warned that no one in the neighborhood is allowed to do so (pending approval from the neighborhood association, though we're led to believe that approval will never come). And I start to groan again. I understand neighborhood associations, but this idea that the city folk "get" ghosts and goblins and the suburban folk don't want any part of it — did the premise have to be so phony in order to generate comedy?

But the thing with "Suburgatory" is that just when I'm close to throwing myself overboard, it throws me a lifeline. And it did so by taking one of the cartoon characters, Dallas (Cheryl Hines) — and showing us, humorously and lovingly, the process of educating her in the joys of being scared, before ending with a poignant scene of discomfort between herself and her husband Steven (Jay Mohr). Hines really was wonderful throughout this episode.

In other words, underneath the broadest of strokes in "Suburgatory" is a bit of pointillistic delight.

I still wish I didn't have to put up with the phoniness — I don't like the fact that the next episode of "Suburgatory" will no doubt create a new absurdity just so they can knock it down. (The show could just as easily be titled "Straw Man.") But I can acknowledge that in a cutthroat TV world, the phoniness probably helped sell the show and draw in viewers who find it enjoyable in its own right. And though it's a fine line, I can even enjoy it myself if the end result is an episode as nifty as this one was.

Eddie Murphy told Rolling Stone that instead of a "Beverly Hills Cop IV," he is interested in producing a pilot of a TV show that would place his Axel Foley character as the Detroit Chief of Police and feature Axel's son in the lead role.

"I'd do the pilot, show up here and there," Murphy said. "None of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn't be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong." Murphy also talked about a now-dormant grudge he once held against "Saturday Night Live" for the show making fun of him.

* * *

NBC midseason drama "Awake," from "Lone Star" showrunner Kyle Killen, is one of the best new projects of the 2011-12 season — and also figures to be one of the toughest to draw an audience. To that end, Joe Adalian of Vulture reports, exec producer Howard Gordon ("Homeland") and Killen asked NBC to suspend production on the show so they could have more time to map out the show's story arc.

"We've got (six) scripts and episodes we're very proud of, but we felt the show would benefit from having more time to plot out where we're going," Gordon said. "It's a very complex show, and since we weren't under any gun in terms of delivering episodes by a deadline, we asked for (the hiatus)."

On Twitter, Shawn Ryan ("The Shield") offered reassurance: " 'Shield' and 'Grey's Anatomy' are examples of shows that took in-season hiatuses during Season 1 to catch up. Just more press about it now."

Mo Ryan of AOL TV has more.

* * *

Two tidbits on "Grey's." First, Shonda Rhimes twitlongered her policy on sex scenes for thesps, and let's just say it was great news for aspiring but never-nude actors like Tobias Funke (right):

"In Shondaland, I have a rule: no actress has to take off any articles of clothing if they don't want to. If someone wants to do a love scene in a turtleneck and parka, that is fine with me. If they want to do a love scene in pasties and a thong, that is fine with me. A lady has the right to do what is comfortable. And that comfort level is different on different days. So if you see a love scene and someone is wearing a t-shirt instead of being topless, that's not me. That's an actress doing what feels right for her on that day."

-- "Grey's" tidbit No. 2. The logline for this week's episode includes the following (spoiler): "Owen stresses teamwork and moves his leadership role over to the baseball field when he signs the doctors up for a baseball league, pitting them against their biggest competition, Seattle Presbyterian." While this sounds vaguely like a Gary's Old Towne Tavern episode of "Cheers," the real standard for this kind of thing is the classic "WKRP in Cincinnati" softball episode against arch-rival WPIG.

* * *

By leaving out the quotes from the title of its 10 p.m. Wednesday drama, this press-release headline from ABC public relations became a lot more fun:

ABC ENTERTAINMENT AND LEXUS WAGE CAMPAIGN OF SOCIAL MEDIA REVENGE

Fox was geared up for a nice Wednesday-and-hopefully-Thursday conclusion to the World Series, but those plans have been overturned.

Major League Baseball announced today, five hours before the scheduled start of tonight's scheduled Game 6, that the contest would be postponed because of bad weather in St. Louis, where the Cardinals trail the Texas Rangers, three games to two.

Fox has already had unpleasant experiences with weather and postponements in this postseason: Game 2 of the American League Championship Series was postponed on the afternoon of Oct. 9 because of reports of impending bad weather, only to see it turn out that the game would have been playable on time that night had MLB held out to see what would really happen.

Tonight, Fox will air back-to-back episodes of "Glee" in place of the World Series, while gearing up for Friday's scheduled new episodes of "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Fringe" to be postponed if the Fall Classic reaches a seventh game.

A Friday Game 7 would obviously boost Fox's ratings for that night, but probably wouldn't achieve the viewer heights that a Thursday Game 7 would.

ABC will perhaps benefit most from tonight's postponement. The Alphabet net has new episodes of every one of its Wednesday shows except "Modern Family" skedded for tonight. NBC, on the other hand, could see its premieres for "Chuck" and "Grimm" damaged.

From a baseball standpoint, the extra day off could improve pitching for both teams, particularly if there's a Game 7, and keep offense down.

What would Peggy Olson say about this?

This Excedrin ad with Elisabeth Moss was reportedly filmed in 2005, two years before "Mad Men" came on the air and about a year before her final appearance on "The West Wing." And it remains in pretty steady rotation on the air, which I can't help thinking is peculiar every time I see it.

Moss is certainly a fine person to have sell your product and her brief performance is convincing, but the ad is so clearly dated that it now exudes for Excedrin a kind of cheapness. Plus, it's not exactly "Elisabeth Moss for Excedrin" — it's Moss playing the kind of commercial part you take when you're a young adult actress not exactly sure when your next big role is coming.

I suppose I should be surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen more often, given how many actors of all statures have ancient ads in the footnotes of their resumes. But this one still seems a rarity. Anyway, Elisabeth, I hope that migraine finally went away.

It's a fine line between creating a dynamically flawed character and a pointlessly distasteful one, and "Enlightened" discouragingly crossed it with Monday's episode.

Laura Dern's Amy was flighty, to say the least, from the get-go of the HBO series that premiered Oct. 10. That mental disarray is wrapped up in a heartsick soul yearning to heal, and that's the means for the audience to invest in her. Fair enough.

But for this formula to work, for us to buy into this journey of self-improvement, you can't have Amy be as galactically lacking in both self-awareness and the most basic level of common sense as she was Monday, in the third episode of the series written by Dern's co-creator and co-star, Mike White. Not without coming up with an ending that rewards us for the tragedy of errors.

It was bad enough when Amy carried on a conversation with Krista (Sarah Burns), her former assistant who now has the well-rounded life Amy lacks, far past the point of obvious discomfort, because you might at least believe that Amy can't help herself from half-wallowing in the unpleasantness.

It got worse when Amy cluelessly prattled on about her own desire for a new job in front of Tyler (White) without any regard to how she was sounding, and worse still when she initiated her job search right in open view of everyone in her new department at work. 

By the time Amy was coming up to Krista and her former boss and lover Damon (Charles Esten) while they eat and making up grandiose stories about her new department that the others would clearly know were bull, "Enlightened" had seemingly become nothing more than a "Can you top this?" challenge of how pathetic Amy could be made to look. It's not that I didn't get the joke — Amy was the joke, a tragically unfunny one that can't be explained away by calling the show a black comedy.

And yet, I could forgive every single one of these scenes if it weren't for what was to come. Amy, whom we have learned owes about $25,000 to the rehabiliation program she attended in the pilot, goes on a job interview at a homeless center. She's offered a job. And then, she's shocked that an understaffed center working with homeless people can't hand her an annual salary that allows her to pay off her debt and live comfortably on her own.

Come. On.

The first 20 minutes of "Enlightened" removed pretty much every shred of competence, dignity and likability that Amy might have had. Then, in the final five minutes, the show tries to salvage it in an afterschool-special moment in which she realizes that hey, some people around her have it bad too. She invites Tyler to lunch, signifying, her latest step toward enlightenment.

It's a very small step. And while big journeys start with small steps, not all those steps are worth putting on TV.

People with mental issues will do strange, silly and self-defeating things — sometimes one right after another. I know that, all too well. If you want to explore this on TV in a serious fashion, in a comic fashion, in a serio-comic fashion, great.  But to absolutely pummel Amy (and in turn, the audience) for 20 minutes just for the insight that other people also have it rough — that's not enough. It might be enough for Amy, but it's not enough for this viewer. (My colleague, Andrew Wallenstein, will metaphorically if not literally hammer me with an "Englightened" screener in disagreement upon reading this.)

Going forward, I'm hoping we see Amy develop at least some amount of people skills — and not simply in the final minute of the show. I'm hoping Amy retains the simple lesson of this week's episode, rather than falling into the sitcom trap of forgetting, just so that the writers can have fun with the same beats. That Amy doesn't realize how she comes across to people is admittedly well-established since the beginning of the series as one of her handicaps, but it has already become grating beyond the point of having comic value. 

Amy, I'm realizing as I write this, is a character very much like Michael Scott was on "The Office," except that for me, "Enlightened" demands that we take Amy's journey more seriously.  The difference in the titles says it all: "The Office" was about the craziness that arose from Michael's wayward behavior, rather than about actively trying to cure him. Yes, we reveled when Michael became more enlightened, when he found true love, but when he was loony or dim, when he went too far over the line of common sense or human decency, "The Office" typically found a resolution that was clever, not simplistic. That made the journey through each of those episode worthwhile.

There are a billion people who are searching for happiness, for meaning in life, for simple peace of mind in a difficult world. "Enlightened" needs to deliver some reassurance that Amy's story is one worth focusing on, as opposed to the 999,999,999 others. Given the great track records of the people involved, I'm still hoping it will.

1) The ratings success of "Once Upon a Time" instantly makes it one of the most intriguing stories of the fall season. The show could be another godsend for ABC, which has already been blessed with ratings success Tuesdays with "Last Man Standing" and Wednesdays with "Suburgatory" and "Revenge." The questions: As Brian Lowry of Variety wonders, can the show continue to make a go of it creatively? And, will it matter, or are viewers on board for the ride no matter what?

2) Fox World Series announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver did an interesting thing last night: They made fun of Fox stars Zooey Deschanel (who earlier sang the national anthem, right), Matthew Morrison and other cast members from"New Girl" and "Glee" for leaving Sunday's Game 4 before the seventh inning. Not sure why they picked this moment to mock Fox's ongoing practice of flying in stars for promotional appearances, but for all the integrity it might have showed, it seemed pretty low class. Meanwhile, Deschanel and friends had to fly from Texas to Los Angeles to, you know, work.

3) Any scene with Richard (Jack Huston) is truly mesmerizing and makes the episode worth watching, but "Boardwalk Empire" went over the top with its violence Sunday. Scalping, I'm sure, seems like a good idea on paper, but onscreen it's just horrific. And that wasn't even the most brutal scene of the night. What's next — drawing and quartering?

4) Showtime's "Homeland" was strong in its fourth episode, with a key scene involving Brody (Damien Lewis) and Carrie (Claire Danes) joyfully electric and at the same time surprising.

5) As the co-author of a screenplay a decade ago that was a modern-day adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing," former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" showrunner Joss Whedon has at once thrilled me and broken my heart with the reveal of his own "Much Ado" project, starring Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof. Combined with Disney Channel's Cyrano adaptation, the upcoming "Let It Shine," it's a great time for some of my favorite classics.

6) "Parks and Meth" - yeah, that works. (Thanks to Diane Gordon of the Surf Report for the link.)

7) The strange little bird that is "How To Make It in America" (left) continues to act more and more like the blue-collar "Entourage," except that the show is as entertaining as "Entourage" aspired to be while usually falling short. There's probably little HBO can do at this point to build the show's same-night audience, but I wouldn't be surprised if "HTMIiA" gets a second-life appreciation, the way Starz' "Party Down" has.

8) Sunday's episode had Joey Pants wrestling in full mat regalia. Like I said, the show's a strange little bird.

9) Saturday night was a channel-flipping paradise between Albert Pujols' three-homer World Series game and a great night of college football. To think "Rules of Engagement" would have been fighting that frenzy if "How To Be a Gentleman" had been even half-decent.

Game 2 of the World Series delivered a 5% increase in overall audience over the corrresponding game a year ago for Fox, but more important for the network might be the final score.

By rallying in the ninth inning to defeat St. Louis, Texas guaranteed the World Series would go at least five games and raised hopes that Fox might get the seven-game affair it has been waiting a decade for.

The total audience for Thursday's Game 2 was 14.3 million viewers, marking the first time in four years that Game 2 outdrew Game 1. Thanks in part to the second straight one-run game of the series, audience figures increased to a peak of 19.4 million viewers after 11 p.m. Eastern for the ninth inning.

Catherine Tate, who had been among those considered as Steve Carell's September replacement on "The Office," is in fact coming onto the NBC series for the second half of the 2011-12 season.

The British comedienne made a brief appearance in the spring among the coterie of post-Carell cameos as Nellie Bertram, a role she will reprise. James Spader, who officially joined the cast at the start of the current season, isn't going anywhere, however.

"Catherine is hysterical," said "Office" exec producer Paul Lieberstein. "We introduced her briefly in last season's finale and knew she had to be a part of the show somehow."

In addition to award-winning BBC series, “The Catherine Tate Show,” Tate has appeared in projects fro "Doctor Who" to "Starter for Ten."

John Schulian is a print journalist turned TV writer who got his start on "L.A. Law" and went onto such series as "Miami Vice," "Wiseguy," "JAG" and "Xena: Warrior Princess." For the past several months, the website Bronx Banter has been sharing Schulian's first-person account of his long career in a highly addictive series called "From Ali to Xena." Here's an excerpt from the most recent installment, describing the origins of "Xena" and Lucy Lawless' casting on the show.

A Los Angeles-based offshoot of the Occupy movement has planned a Friday demonstration at Fox Studios targeting Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.

The Occupy Fox Studios protest has been planned for 9 a.m. at the lot on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, the same day as a News Corp. shareholder meeting.

“Tell the board of News Corp. and Fox News that they need to be accountable for company actions,” says the announcement on the Occupy Los Angeles website. “Fox and News Corp. need to be held accountable for its one-sided reporting, job cuts, phone-hacking, and bad governance. A broad set of organizations demand that the entire News Corp. Board of Directors step down.”

According to Moveon.org, several organizations plan to join in the protest, including Good Jobs LA and NABET-CWA.

A Fox spokesperson said the company had no comment.

Here we are again. If you'd told me in 2008 that President Obama's legacy would be the systematic destruction of terrorism throughout the Middle East and South Asia I'd have laughed in your face. About 2:05 when Obama actually comes out to address the press.

"This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya, who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny," he says. A lot of really delicate phrasework that is both congratulatory and gently reproving about the necessity of a democracy going forward and the glory of a revolution won. Obama has taken his licks in the last year but this is something he can really do well.

Gaddafi was in charge for four decades, jeez. "The limitless potential of the Libyan people was held back, and terrorism was used as a politlcal weapon," sayz prez.

Now he's pointing out that "a coalition that included the United States, NATO and Arab regimes perservered this summer in protecting the Libyan people," or, in layman's terms, "we didn't actually fight this war, we just hung back to make sure people didn't get hurt," which isn't quite true, but is useful to have said. The rebellion is Libya's achievement, he emphasizes, and it "stands as the ultimate rebuke to Gaddafi's dictatorship." Asks "our Libyan friends" in the new government to hold elections and "continue to work with the international community to secure dangerous materials," which is worrying.

"You have won your revolution, and now we will be a partner as you provide a future that affords liberty, freedom, and opportunity." Again, words of warning wrapped in words of exhortation.

It will be interesting to see what tack Obama takes when he has to run for reelection, but this might be a clue: "WIthout putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives, and our NATO mission will soon come to an end. We're winding down the war in Iraq and have begun a transition in Afghanistan." Hey, you already had the guy who starts wars, I'm the guy who wins wars, amirite?

Some idiot asks Obama if he was leading from behind as he walks back into the White House.

The entertainment industry isn't sure what exactly to do with Facebook, so they're going to try everything. That will inevitably mean there's going to be misses among the hits, and the new Warner Bros. short-form video series "Aim High", which premiered Tuesday on Facebook and AOL teen hub Cambio, is certainly wide of the mark.

The studio has been admirably aggressive about experimenting on the massively popular social network, going beyond the usual marketing moves to treat Facebook like a distribution platform where blockbusters like "The Dark Knight" are made available. The jury is still very much out on whether Facebook can be as much a place for video consumption as it is connecting with friends but Hollywood isn't going to figure that out without experimentation.

Because of its social mechanisms, Facebook probably can be more than just a static depository for movies and TV shows. And on that level, there's a nifty gimmick behind "Aim" that seemingly takes advantage of the platform: photos and information from a viewer's Facebook acount are integrated into the show itself. For instance, You can find yourself staring at your own profile picture plastered to a wall in a scene from "Aim."

But if Warner Bros. thinks this is the best way to take advantage of Facebook, it sorely misunderstands the kind of value-add the platform can bring to programming. Of all the different ways the social experience could be leveraged to set apart Facebook from the glut of websites vying to be the ultimate video destination, the "Aim" gimmick seems the least compelling option.

Were the movie producer behind "Aim," McG, to have added about 25 minutes to each episode and stripped out the on-screen personalization, the series would have probably made a nice addition to the ABC Family lineup. It's a teen-skewing actioner with "Twilight" pinup Jackson Rathbone (pictured) playing a high-school student who happens to lead a double life as a spy. The production is at a far higher level than the average Web series, with some other recognizable TV faces in the cast including "Lost's" Rebecca Mader and "Friday Night Lights''" Aimee Teegarden.

Even the integration gimmick is done with impressive seamlessness; when you suddenly spot your last name printed across a storage box in the first episode's opening fight scene, it looks like it was printed there in the first place.

But why is my last name on a storage box in a villain's warehouse!?

"Aim's" visual sleight of hand just doesn't make any sense in the context of this particular story. There's no narrative reason for, say, my profile picture to appear in a high-school cafeteria chow line with a printed warning "Do Not Serve This Person." Maybe the sheer sight of my name is supposed to bring me frissons of delight, but it would at least give me a good giggle if it was somehow integrated in the story in a clever or ironic manner.

To see a more interesting execution of this personalization technology, check out this 2007 marketing campaign in support of the British launch of Showtime's "Dexter."

But even if "Aim" pulled off the most brilliant customized on-screen references to the viewer in history, would that make it a "social" series? Yes, those references don't just call back to the viewer but to his or her Facebook friends. But social shouldn't amount to a passive appropriation of data; social is when there's a dynamic engagement between two or more people, often brought together because of content.

With all that's going on on in the social-TV craze these days, surely there's a more interesting application that melds content and communication. And when Warner Bros. or Facebook makes that happen, they'll really be onto something.

Thursday marks the 60th anniversary of the logo that inspired the Variety nickname for CBS: the Eye.

According to the network, CBS introduced the Eye to the public during station breaks on Saturday, Oct. 20, 1951. CBS will commemorate the anniversary by using its original Eye logo on its website and onscreen during primetime.

“From the network to the corporation, the CBS Eye is an enduring asset of our company and a major source of pride for all of us,” CBS prexy and CEO Leslie Moonves said. “It is a corporate logo that is known and respected all around the world, and continues to be a fitting symbol of CBS’s proud history and ongoing leadership.”

CBS had quite the fall in 1951, launching both "I Love Lucy" (on Oct. 15) and "See It Now" with Edward R. Murrow (Nov. 18). It was leading up to that time, according to the network, that CBS prexy Frank Stanton asked creative director Bill Golden to give CBS Television a distinctive identity.

"Golden’s inspiration came while driving through Pennsylvania Dutch country," CBS said in a press release. "He became intrigued by the hex symbols resembling the human eye that are drawn on Shaker barns to ward off evil spirits.   He also came across a drawing he admired, that had the look of an eye, in a publication featuring Shaker art.  With the help of graphic artist Kurt Weihs, the Eye logo was created."

The following year, when Golden was contemplating a successor to the eye, Stanton reportedly told him that "just when you’re beginning to be bored with what you’ve done is when it’s beginning to be noticed by your audience.” In 1998, New York Times Magazine included the Eye in a roundup of the "greatest design hits" of the 1900s. 

Showing its ability to be an equal-opportunity mock-raker, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" did two segments on the Occupy Wall Street movement that in turn support and satirize it.

The first, anchored by Stewart, takes Republican officeholders and party leaders to task for hypocrisy in demonizing the protesters for using the very methods and approach that they advocated Americans use — when it suited the Republican interests.

The second, a field piece by John Oliver, puts forth the exasperation that the protestors' rabid eccentricities are undermining their own cause.

There's hardly ever a weekday when there isn't a worthwhile "Daily Show" clip to post, but the combination of these two was nattily done.

I like to think I'm a sponge when it comes to TV, especially from the era of my childhood, but I have to admit, I had forgotten about time-traveling "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang."

And hey, look – there's Mork, Mindy, Laverne and Shirley too!

It's common sense that a World Series with a Game 7 will perform better in the ratings than a World Series without one, but it's kind of amazing how much better.

As I wrote today for Variety, there has been no Game 7 in the World Series since 2002, and there have been only four Game 7s in the past 20 years. Here's what the networks have been missing (audience in millions):

As you can understand, the handwringing over which teams play in the Fall Classic is nothing like the handwringing over how long they play. On this, industry analysts and baseball fans can agree.

Josh Duhamel ("New Year's Eve") will narrate G4's 10-episode documentary, "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan," premiering Oct. 25.

The series follows an eight-man unit from the U.S. Navy's Explosive Ordinance Disposal force in Afghanistan from its most dangerous missions to its more light-hearted, brothers-in-arms moments. Helmet and body-mounted cameras are among the 15 used in filming the series, exec produced by Doug DePriest and Dan Cesareo for Big Fish Entertainment.

"It is truly an honor to be able to partner with G4 to give viewers a look inside the world of the courageous men and women who put their lives on the line to keep soldiers and civilians safe," Duhamel said, adding that "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan" "is a one-of-a-kind series that shows these real-life heroes using the most advanced technology our military has to disarm explosives, gather evidence and fight terrorists."

HBO's "Hung" probably doesn't get too many people watching solely for its economic commentary (if it gets many people watching at all), but when the series premiered in 2009, the financial struggles of Ray (Thomas Jane) and Tanya (Jane Adams) grounded it in a way that made it seem about something more than just boy meets girl, girl pimps boy.

File this under mostly inconsequential but still mostly inexplicable.

AMC has been re-running episodes of its bellwether series "Mad Men" on Sunday mornings since the summer, starting with the pilot and reaching the seventh episode of season three on Oct. 9.

The cabler then paused the reruns to make room for its AMC Fearfest event, linked in part to Sunday's season premiere of "The Walking Dead." Fair enough.

But when AMC resumes the "Mad Men" reruns on Nov. 6, the network confirmed this morning that it is going to pick up sometime in season four, leaving out at least the final six episodes of season three, every single one of them pivotal to the show's overall story development.

To reiterate, this is as minor an issue as they come — the episodes have already aired on the network in the past and, when the cycle resumes from the start at the end of November, will eventually do so again, truly from start to finish, the network promises, in order to time out perfectly with the premiere of season five in March.

But when the presumed goal of re-airing the episodes, above being baseline scheduling filler, is to ingratiate and grow the "Mad Men" fan base, it's hard to understand why AMC wouldn't just pick up where it left off, rather than force viewers to scramble to see the ones they're missing. Then, in order to time out with the season-five premiere, AMC could leave off the episodes it has already shown this summer.

As the "Mad Men" network, AMC should always want to be treating the show like a jewel, in every incarnation.

It's been tough to work at a TV network these past few decades without suffering from an inferiority complex. No matter how hard you've tried, it's as if your mother is standing over you wagging a finger in your face, declaiming, "Why can't you be more like your brother HBO?"

Which brings us to the topsy-turvy cultural moment that is the newly dawned fall TV season. Now broadcasters find themselves the fair-haired golden boys, each with a bright new comedy to call their own, including Fox's "New Girl," ABC's "Suburgatory," CBS's "Two Broke Girls," and if we're being charitable, NBC's "Up All Night." That's on top of defining hits like ABC's "Modern Family" and CBS's "Big Bang Theory."

At the very same time, HBO finds itself in a troubling lull on the comedy front. It's not for lack of trying; the network put four different half-hours into rotation in October, including returning series "Hung," "Bored to Death," "How To Make It In America" and a new one, "Enlightened."

Each has garnered acclaim in some quarters, but let's get real: These shows have little in the way of audience, buzz, social-media traction or award nominations.

This isn't the place to pick apart their individual merits or the lack thereof. But the overall creative approach HBO seems to take to scripted comedy series these days needs to be questioned. The track record is all the more puzzling given the network's ever-awesome drama series and long-form fare is evidence enough that the HBO programming mold isn't broken, just selectively applied. 

The problem is HBO thinks small in half-hour form. None of these comedies earn the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with colossi like "True Blood" or "Boardwalk Empire" and be thought of as the network's "signature" shows.

On the drama side, HBO takes big swings. On the comedy side, it's all bunts.

Either the talent isn't up to snuff or the concept just feels slight. "Bored" has the talent but lacks the concept; "Hung" is the other way around.

And the problem extends beyond what's currently on air, too. Its most promising comedy property, "Eastbound & Down," shriveled in its second season because its first was always intended to be a film. The animated stuff, "The Life and Times of Tim," and "The Ricky Gervais Show," doesn't hold a candle to the genre's entries on other channels.

By the way, there's nothing like repurposing overseas series to confer second-class status on a show, even when it has Gervais, who will produce another upcoming series, "Life's Too Short," that will get a BBC run first. And on that note, was "Summer Heights High" really good enough for its Aussie star, Chris Lilley, to get another shot on HBO, "Angry Boys"? 

It's not like HBO hasn't succeeded in comedy before. Its first original-programming successes were "Dream On" and "The Larry Sanders Show." HBO even managed to top them with the absolutely iconic "Sex and the City." Even "Entourage" was very good its first few years before deciding to just phone it in for the final four seasons or so. The recently concluded season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" proved yet again it's still got the goods, but there's no guarantee there will be a ninth season.

The problem is those shows are so different from each other that they don't really point the way forward for how HBO can recover its comedy mojo. Imagine what "Curb" first seemed like on paper. So the guy who created "Seinfeld" who isn't Jerry Seinfeld is going to do a show based on his own then-anonymous life with improvised riffing rather than scripts? Really?

If anything, rival Showtime has shown the way forward. Before he moved to NBC last year, programming chief Robert Greenblatt successfully applied a very simple formula again and again: Plug an interesting star into an outre concept that embraces premium cable's loose content restrictions. Marijuana + Mary Louise Parker = "Weeds." Toni Collette + multiple-personality disorder = "The United States of Tara." And don't forget "Californication," "Nurse Jackie," "The Big C" and "Shameless."

With Laura Dern headlining "Enlightened," it feels like HBO may have been trying to give the Showtime formula a whirl. But the series is more nuanced and muted than a Showtime show. This tale of a lost soul who tries to put her new-age philosophies into practice at a soulless corporation is too complicated to be marketing-friendly.

If "Enlightened" were developed on Showtime, it would star Elizabeth Banks as a lovable psychopath who escapes from a mental institution only to wind up running it. And she'd be a nymphomaniac.

Don't get me wrong; I actually love "Enlightened." So much so that I'm fighting my attachment to it in fear it's not going to stick around beyond a single season. Because here's the problem with this dark, thoughtful show: it's not so much a comedy as it is a 30-minute drama that happens to have comedic elements.

To a lesser degree, so is "Hung", though at least "Hung" has a nice, loud concept--suburban dad becomes a gigolo--that gets attention. But there's a pretty bitter pill that gets mashed into all the fun talk about pimps and hos: reflections on America's economic plight and the perils of capitalism that's too serious by half.

It's as if the network's "It's not TV. It's HBO" motto has it so petrified to have any of their comedies confused with anything on other networks that they've bent too far over backwards to be different. Either you get overly challenging genre-defiers like "Enlightened" or brittle wisps like "Bored" and "America," which look as if they were shot on the same Manhattan block.

Maybe 2012 brings some hope in the form of another "Seinfeld" alum, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who stars in "Veep" as a senator who gets in over her head when she's elected vice president. On paper, this feels like a step in the right direction, a marriage of top talent and provocative subject matter.

Perhaps it's telling that HBO is turning to a broadcast-sitcom veteran for a revival. Which isn't to say a show on a pay-TV net needs someone with broad appeal. HBO's business model is more geared toward getting just a subsection of the audience to fork over a monthly subscription fee.

But somewhere along the way in its effort to stand apart from the rest of the TV universe, HBO fell over the edge in search of edgy. If the channel's comedy choices are defined only by doing what broadcasters wouldn't dare put on the air, it's high time for a rethink.

Tonight's "Boardwalk Empire," scripted by Steve Kornacki, had two absolute knockout scenes. (If you haven't watched yet, beware of reading on.)

Late Friday, "Community" showrunner Dan Harmon published a blog post that explains how the editing challenges of the show's most recent episode, "Remedial Chaos Theory," caused it to be aired out of order, after an episode it had been filmed before. That switch had led the hardcore "Community" fan base (including myself) to draw some conclusions about the show's direction that Harmon says were off target.

... At a certain point, with 303’s delivery deadline looming, I panicked.  I felt that the episode was nowhere near complete.  Chris McKenna had invested so much into the episode, and we were about to lock picture on something that was not delivering on this script that had nearly given him a stroke.  And an early director’s cut of Competitive Ecology came in, and I looked at it, and it was working great.  It was six hours from being broadcastable, and Chaos Theory needed an amount of TLC in the edit bay that I couldn’t even estimate.  I just knew we had to sit there and work on it.  A lot.

So I ordered the swap.  Not NBC.  I talked them into it. ...

... One thing I did not consider was that fans starving for our weirdness were going to get back-to-back “normal episodes” with Chang-as-cop B stories, and that, in a season in which backlash is basically unavoidable, we were going to leap headlong into it, because everyone was going to start making decisions, as of the third episode, about how the season was going, etc. ...

Harmon also makes some passing comments about AMC's "The Killing" in emphasizing how he didn't want to cause any misdirection for viewers.

... As much fun as we want to have, we never want to confuse you or lie to you.  We just don’t consider that a right that we have.  I hated that stupid “The Killing” show on AMC after the first five minutes; don’t show me someone discovering a body but then reveal that the camera was somewhere else and it was a pig.  That’s dumb.  That’s not storytelling, that’s a parlor trick and an abuse of power.  That kind of shit was cool in the third act of Silence of the Lambs, when she was ringing the doorbell and the SWAT team was ringing a doorbell and you suddenly realized that the SWAT team was at the wrong house and Starling wasn’t.  The “deception” in that moment was the POINT of that moment in Silence of the Lambs.  Starling had wandered from her flock, straight into the wolf’s den, and WE were the only ones that knew it.  That was a [very brief] lie the camera engaged in to EMPOWER the audience and make the story more riveting.  Wow.  What a tangent.  Anyway.

... Your praise of Remedial Chaos Theory has got me feeling really good.  I have some pretty interesting stuff I could show you when I get a chance.  There’s photos of the whiteboard in the room where McKenna was breaking this story.  And there’s a text message conversation from last season between me and Megan “Marie Claire” Ganz in which you can see the seed for Remedial Chaos Theory get planted and then sprout.  Well, it fascinates me, anyway.  What else do I have to be fascinated by. ...

In contrast to its very serious "Homeland," Showtime's upcoming series "House of Lies" looks like it intends to be quite the romp — with no shortage of arrogance among its characters, led by Don Cheadle's Marty. A new trailer for "House of Lies" appears above.

1) Looks like a great time was had by all Thursday at the TV Academy's celebration of Carl Reiner. We hope to have video from the event later today.

2) "Community" delivered its most rewarding episode of the season, and was rewarded with a ratings bump all the way to ... 1.7 in the 18-49 demo.  Someone, please get this show away from "The Big Bang Theory."

3) Not to be ignored, "Big Bang" on Thursday was funny once again from start to finish, once again thriving thanks to its inclusion of female performers like Melissa Rauch.

4) I finally finished "Prohibition," which managed to somehow be engaging while at the same time seeming even longer than its six hours. The Ken Burns/Lynn Novick/Geoffrey C. Ward project definitely strove for modern-day relevance, arguing that inflexibility is poison to any movement aiming to legislate morality in a restrictive sense. (If the "Drys" had been more flexible, America's laws suppressing alcoholic beverage sales might have survived.) 

5) NBC bets on "Whitney" for a full season, then sees it become its only Thursday sitcom to drop in the ratings this week. And then "Prime Suspect" comes on at 10 p.m. and gets a rating that recalls "The Jay Leno Show."

For a while there, Rob Lowe had me convinced he could reinvent himself again and again without a false move. First, he was a cinematic heartthrob from "The Outsiders" to "St. Elmo's Fire." Then a comedic savant from "Wayne's World" to "Parks & Recreation." Then a writer with his excellent memoir "Stories I Only Tell My Friends."

But will you stick with him in his latest and unlikeliest incarnation: director of short horror film sponsored by a candy bar?

Check out "Butterfinger: The 13th," his directorial debut (see above) premiering today. Plus there's footage of him doing his thing behind the scenes. What Butterfinger is accomplishes by distributing a short film is debatable. What Lowe gets by lending his good name to this brand-integrated endeavor is not, although perhaps an easy paycheck to supplement his TV and book had something to do with it.

C'mon, Rob, you're better than this. Don't give up your day job.

In the wake of "The Simpsons" negotiations being completed to pave the way for the show's 24th and 25th seasons, I got to wondering how much of the legendary comedy's entire existence hinged on, of all things, a pop song by Tracey Ullman.

Ullman was making a name for herself as a singer and comic actress in the U.K. in the 1980s, to the extent (as I understand it) that American producer James L. Brooks had become interested in finding a vehicle for her Stateside. However, Ullman's profile in the U.S. would have been almost non-existent if not for "They Don't Know," a cover of a Kristy MacColl song that reached the top 10 in America. I can distinctly recall when the song was popular, not a mention my eventual surprise at learning that Ullman wasn't just a singer.

The rest, of course, you do know. The fledgling Fox network gave birth to Ullman's sketch comedy show, which in turn hosted the original cartoon shorts featuring Matt Groening's yellow-skinned characters.

Maybe Fox takes a chance on an Ullman sketch comedy show even if no one here had heard of her; maybe Groening finds his way to television even if that show never came to being. Or maybe, this unexpected hit is the reason that we have "The Simpsons" to talk about, decades later. At a mimimum, it seems like a piece of the puzzle. I like to think so, anyway.

(Or maybe, as with so many things, we should just thank Johnny ...)

"Yes, 'The Office' is still worth watching."

I was surprised to find that I had to say this out loud twice in the last week to folks who had taken stock of the NBC comedy's first three episodes this season and decided they had seen all they need to see.

Before its first full season without Steve Carell began, I was prepared for people to be disappointed in "The Office." But to me, all three episodes have been solid, with enough of the priceless moments that are ultimately the keys to keeping a show indispensable.

Though there has been no shortage of out-loud laughs, some of the real highlights have been more serious than satirical, in a fashion that has always been part of the show's reason for being.

The season premiere featured a clever, resonating monologue from James Spader as newcomer Robert California about controlling your own destiny. Episode two showcased new office manager Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) wrestling with his own insecurities about the job, while last week's offering had a similar crisis of confidence for Darryl (Craig Robinson).  

That kind of depth, of interest in character, will always keep me involved.

So while the best episodes might be in the past and while might be more false notes in the present, such as last week's B-plot in the warehouse, the Paul Lieberstein-led writing team has more than proven to me that they can still guide "The Office" toward something worthwhile. At this moment, I'm eager, not ambivalent, to see what comes next.

The NBA has canceled its first two weeks of play, and probably isn't done scrapping games. How will its broadcast partners cope? Here's a sample, showing how ESPN is filling its NBA gap.

Basically, you can see a domino effect of programming moving from ESPN's sister channels ...

The updated ESPN lineup:

*begins at 6 p.m. ET

^moves from ESPN2; replaced by a variety of events (^^College Football: Central Michigan vs. Kent State at 8 p.m. on Nov. 4; **College Basketball: Lehigh vs. St. John’s at 7 p.m. and ^^Duquesne vs. Arizona at 9 p.m. on Nov. 9) and taped programming

^^moves from ESPNU; replaced with taped programming

**added from ESPN3

Two years ago, ABC recruited one of the most successful stars in TV sitcom history for an 8 p.m. multicam comedy.

But Kelsey Grammer, "Hank" and Wednesdays proved to be a terrible fit. At a time that ABC launched three successful sitcoms — "The Middle," "Cougar Town" and the mega-hit "Modern Family" — Hank was off the air after only five episodes aired. And, based on the quality of the show, deservedly so. (Let's just say that Grammer is much better off in Starz' upcoming drama, "Boss.")

So we come to the present, with ABC recruiting one of the most successful stars in TV sitcom history for an 8 p.m. multicam comedy. But this time, it was Tim Allen, whose history and comfort zone with the network was well-established in the 1990s with "Home Improvement."

Man, do ABC viewers love themselves from Allen.

Allen's "Last Man Standing," which I'm not going to shy away from saying made me cringe from start to finish in its pilot, debuted superbly Tuesday. The premiere drew a 3.3 rating and 10 share among adults 18-49 and 12.7 million viewers overall, the best 18-49 performance for any 8 p.m. comedy debut in the TV world since CBS' "The Class" in 2006 and the best in overall viewership since NBC's "Joey" in 2004.  "Joey!"

And on top of that, "Last Man" actually improved in its second episode at 8:30 p.m.: 3.7/10, 13.2 million. So get comfortable, because Allen is going to be around for quite a while.

The questions are: 1) Could this only have worked on ABC? (Maybe, though CBS probably would have been better off with this on Thursdays than "How To Be a Gentleman.") 2) If you're going to bring back a sitcom star from the past, should you stick with one from your network? (Maybe, though it didn't exactly help NBC with Paul Reiser last season.) 3) Was "Hank" a victim of ABC trying to launch too many shows at once in 2009? (Maybe, though why "Hank" and not the others?)

Why did Tim Allen work for ABC and not Kelsey Grammer? We can come up with all kinds of explanations, but perhaps the big takeaway is this: For better or worse, "Last Man Standing" is only going to rekindle interest in bringing back sitcom stars from the past. Roseanne, there's hope for you yet — just hope you didn't pick the wrong network.

Heaven help me, I'm a 43-year-old man who is still watching the CW's Tuesday drama "Ringer," a show wanting for joy, believable situations, relevance to society today or human catharsis.

I'm watching because despite all of the above, I find the show strangely entertaining. Not as a guilty pleasure, because like I said, there isn't a whole lot of pleasure in it, aside from watching Ioan Gruffudd and Nestor Carbonell (another 43-year-old man, I'm relieved to see) interact with Sarah Michelle Gellar. I think, to the credit of exec producers Pam Veasey, Jon Liebman and JoAnne Colonna, they have spun a mystery that I'm half-curious about.

Most of all, though, I'm watching out of the hope, perhaps in vain, that they will let Gellar be funny.

"Ringer" is almost absurdly glum for a broadcast show, let alone one on the CW. And yet, the angst that comes with the characters' plights is not the kind that anyone could really identify with — anyone, at least, who isn't a gazillionaire, or a gazillionaire's wife who faked her own death, or a gazillionaire's wife's sister who is faking being a gazillionaire's wife. "Ringer" is the show that did "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fans the favor of bringing Gellar back to television — in dual roles, no less — and yet, the show seems determined not to let us enjoy her.

Watching Gellar, week after week, in characters that don't permit her to have any fun, is the most tragic element of "Ringer." Every once in a while, there's a flashback to what's supposed to be a lighter moment, except those moments are fraught with ominousness (it's a word — I looked it up). Every once in a while, Gellar is allowed to smile, but only out of embarrassment rather than joy. In last week's episode, Gellar was given one laugh line. It wasn't funny, and the actress seemed to know it as she delivered it. 

"Ringer" might be too far down its path to shift gears in tone, but while I'm not suggesting turning it into "The Wacky Adventures of Siobhan and Bridget," I'd say it's worth the effort for the producing team (including co-exec producer Gellar) to cut loose a little more with the star. Find some actual humor in her situation — I'm sure it's there to be discovered. Take the pedal off the Grim-mobile and let her savor life for a moment. 

On "Buffy," Gellar was vibrant, but on "Ringer," she just seems trapped. From a plot standpoint, that's part of the pull, but you don't have to throw out the whole plan for the show to let her breathe a little.

Even in tragedy, there can be comedy ...

There's more to the world than the season finale of "Breaking Bad," but you'd be excused for thinking otherwise.

(By the way, still on the fence as to how I want to label these random thoughts, so thanks for bearing with me.)

1) The sheer force of reaction online to the finale of "Bad" — almost all of it gasping for praise — only reaffirms the growth of Vince Gilligan's master creation into one of the top shows of the century. In 2009, Variety asked Television Critics Assn. members to pick the Emmys of the '00s. "Breaking Bad" was not nominated then, but I can bet it sure would be now.

2) Common occurrence in offices today: "Did you watch 'Breaking Bad' last night?" "NO NO NO NO NO I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET SHUT UP!!!"

3) For fans of the show that go back to season one, here's the moment when I first realized how great the show might become: the broken plate. Relive it in the clip above.

4) A year ago, when critically beloved "Lone Star" was canceled after two weeks, there was some crowing in among network execs that it exemplified the irrelevance of the TV reviewer ranks, because their praise couldn't even bring any sampling to the Fox drama. Well, you can reverse that this fall.

The first three broadcast series to get their plugs pulled — "The Playboy Club," "Free Agents" and "How To Be a Gentleman" (with "Charlie's Angels" next in line) — all received middling praise at best, and in many cases downright bile. Perhaps these shows were rejected completely on their concepts, but it certainly didn't help that few from the review crew were telling people to watch them.

5) Sunday, I saw "A Dolphin's Tale" in the theaters with my family in the afternoon, then a screener of "Five," the Lifetime anthology film about breast cancer, with my wife in the evening. They have much more in common than I'd have expected (to be sure, I hadn't expected going into the day that they'd have anything in common), in that they both make what I'd consider an unorthodox but still compelling argument: A person suffering from a devastating setback doesn't own that suffering completely.

No matter how awful your condition is, the films argue, you must make room for others to try to help, even when you're determined to go it alone. Obviously, there is a limit and some boundaries need to be respected, but of all the usual lessons that come in this thematic territory, I thought this was the most interesting.

6) "Five" was moving for the most part, though perhaps not the definitive film about breast cancer that I was expecting. One of its problems comes in the first segment. It's hard to discuss without spoiling, but just in general terms, I think the central conflict of that particular segment mostly turns out to be a false one. But in all five segments, there are shining moments for the actresses (not to mention actor Jeffrey Tambor), and each piece is sincerely moving in its own way.  

7) New HBO series "Enlightened" with Laura Dern is worth taking a chance on — there were elements I liked in the pilot and others I didn't — but one thing I have no doubt about is that you need to watch "Bored to Death," which has its season-three premiere tonight. I inhaled all six epsiodes of the coming season on screener this summer — I simply can't get enough of the camaraderie of Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis.

As a fan of "Rushmore" and "Shopgirl," among others, this is not my point of view, but more than once I've heard the following in passing: "I normally don't like Jason Schwartzman, but I love him in this."

8) On Saturday, I saw "Jane Eyre" with Mia Wasikowska in the title role, two weeks after seeing her in a key supporting role in Glenn Close starrer "Albert Nobbs." Those of us who watched Wasikowska shine in the first season of "In Treatment" quickly pegged her as a talent, but I'm not sure I would have predicted how fast the film world would grasp it. But after "The Kids Are All Right" and now this year's films, it's clearly happening. 

9) I've used HBO Go a few times, but not until now had I watched an episode of anything with the extras turned on. But as I finished Sunday's "Boardwalk Empire" online, I was able to access background information, such as Michael Shannon and Paz De La Huerta talking about the unusual arrangement of their characters this season. And who wouldn't want to see an interview with Paz De La Huerta?

10) Role reversals I would still love to see: Paz De La Huerta goes to "Ready Set Learn," Paz the Penguin comes to "Boardwalk Empire."

Giancarlo Esposito is a bit more talkative that Gustavo Fring. Well, actually a lot more. He spent part of last week chatting with On the Air in anticipation of the season four finale of AMC's stellar drama "Breaking Bad."

The actor talked about the preparation it takes in being Gus, the character's evolution, the genius of Vince Gilligan and where the actor goes from here.

(Note: This Q&A includes spoilers, so don't read until you've seen the final episode.)

Q: Does it feel like Gus had been a career-changing character for you?
GE: You know it actually does. I love the integrity and passion with which this show has been put together. I had not anticipated that I would do more than a guest spot or two. I was inspired by the material from the very beginning and showed them something they probably didn’t quite bank on, thus inspiring them in return to write more, investigate more, and prove who Gustavo Fring really is. This is a very different energy that I’ve developed for Gus and I think that Vince said that he didn’t realize I was this kind of actor.

Q: Have you and Vince worked together before?
GE: No. I had never worked with him and I don’t know if Vince was really convinced that I had this kind of danger inside of me, but, after all, I am an actor. With “Breaking Bad” and Gustavo Fring, it has come together in a different way, which is why people are talking about it and enjoying it. I’m ecstatic. It seems like a game changer.

Q: Was there a lot of discussion with the way you saw Gus and the way Vince saw him?
GE: No, there wasn’t. It was a guest spot, so you get in there and you’re catching up, trying to get up to speed on a show that has the some of the best writing and the actors of any TV show in history. I gave myself a homework assignment: What is my intention of playing the character and what would be one thing that I can enhance and add to my tool kit by playing the character? All I had in the beginning was that he owns a restaurant. I wanted him to be very cordial, polite and almost aristocratic and hold himself with a certain demeanor. I found it fascinating that you could just mistake him for somebody that worked there. He owned not only this place but 17 other restaurants, and he chooses to work. That to me is a statement on who Gus is as a human being and I liked it. The other part that works is the chemistry that started to happen between myself and Bryan Cranston, who I think is a master actor and has great ease in which he falls into his characters. I felt in step with him and some fireworks started to happen between us.

Q: Aaron’s character, Jesse, was supposed to be killed off in season one but Vince didn’t want to do it. Sometimes characters can develop that nobody can anticipate.
GE: No, you really can’t. That’s why I never asked what was going to happen to Gus. I knew as much as the audience knew and that’s really great because it allows me to be completely present. I didn’t know if Gus was going to last from one episode to the next and didn’t really care as long as long as I got the opportunity to cultivate the character.

Q: Gus is such a stealth character. Is that something you think about before camera rolls?
GE: That was part of my exercise, to become calm and relaxed. Certainly the menacing part is somewhere inside of me. I wanted people to be almost afraid to approach him. I wanted them to formulate their words before they walked up to Gustavo. I wanted them to be thoughtful. That’s something I wanted, something I worked on. Does it come easy to me? No. I play larger characters from time to time and like to have a little bit more fun, but this is the most fun I’ve ever had in this quiet way. That was all attributed to the fact that I thought the guy should be very calm. I draw on my yoga practice to do that and I just breathe deeply. There’s a certain pacing of time that I allow myself and it allows me to not be nervous. I never come in on somebody else’s line, or on the heel of their line. I’m always listening to that beat or two after they have spoken and sizing them up. The one thing I love about what Gustavo does is have the ability to take everything in about a human being. Every move they make. Not only listening to their words, but when their eyes don’t meet mine, when their hand goes in their pocket, when they scratch the back of their head. You know Gus is looking. He sees all of that.

Q: Yes, he’s always very aware of his surroundings.
GE: A great example is when Gus goes to the parking lot to his car. He just has a sense that something is not right. That teaches you to listen to the voice inside of you, which I think many of us in our real lives have forgotten to do.

Q: Did it seem odd to you that some viewers were rooting for you more than Walt?
GE: Absolutely, and I liked that. Gus becomes someone you understand more, especially after the episode when you see the relationship between him and his chemist and the pain that Gus went through over that at the hands of Salamanca. You understand him more and you’re more on his side.

Q: What was your reaction when you read the final script of the season?
GE: I was really flabbergasted. I had known since episode three when Vince asked me. I just wanted to die a good death. I wanted it for Gus. I certainly embraced his death and really loved the way Vince did it. I never asked but I could have never imagined Gus getting shot through the head or the Mafia-style stuff. I could not have imagined a more beautiful way to go out.

Q: Was adjusting the tie something you suggested, or was that Vince?
GE: I must give credit to where credit is due. I’m always adjusting my tie, but it’s a Vince thing. He knows that Gus adjust his clothes. I love that you’re working with the masters and they’re very observant. Yeah, Vince came up with that and it’s a brilliant moment.

Q: And is there a chance you might be back?
GE: I certainly was a little more surprised when I told Vince, “It has been great” and he said, “There is no has been.” He started laughing and said, “There’s always flashbacks.”

Q: So you’re doing “Once Upon a Time” now?
GE: Yeah, up in Vancouver. I’m doing a series of guest spots but it could be recurring. I’m playing the man in the magic mirror who is put there by the evil queen in a fairy tale world. It’s fun to jump into that show with some very creative human beings.

Q: Yeah, Adam (Horowitz) and Eddie (Kitsis) from “Lost.”
GE: Adam and Eddie are really great people. They’re so enthusiastic, and very bright. I’m hoping to be joining another wonderful TV family but I’m most excited about doing a show that my kids can see.

Nearly 10 million viewers overall watched Detroit's tense 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees in the fifth and final game of their American League Division Series on TBS, the biggest audience for a Division Series game in cable television history.

The viewership for the game, 9.72 million, was also the most for a Division Series game on any network since a 2005 Game 5 between the Yankees and Angels.

The numbers made TBS the highest-rated cabler Thursday and No. 3 even if you include broadcast. On the down side for the TV biz, the defeat eliminated the Big Apple from the postseason.

Two more Division Series Game 5s are on tap for today: Arizona at Milwaukee (2 p.m. Pacific) and St. Louis at Philadelphia (5:30 p.m.).

While today's cancellation speculation will fall mainly on ABC's "Charlie's Angels," which is knocking on heaven's door following its slide Thursday to 1.2 rating and 4 share among adults 18-49, I'm looking at "Community" and wondering seriously about its long-term future.

Right away, let me say that I don't think "Community" is in danger of a midseason expusion. It's more a question of whether this year's third season might be its last.

Thursday, the ensemble comedy drew a 1.5/5 — good enough for a bronze medal in its 8 p.m. timeslot, ahead of the first half of dramas "Vampire Diaries" (1.2/4) and "Angels" (1.1/3). Given all the usual caveats — competition from "The Big Bang Theory" (4.4/13) and "The X Factor" (3.1/10 in its first 30 minutes), as well as a tense American League Division Series elimination game between the Yankees and Tigers that drew nearly 10 million overall viewers, what's the worry?

Speaking as a fan of the show, my fear is that hovering below 2.0 among adults 18-49, while tolerable for a cult favorite in this triage-tinged period for NBC, could become cause for double secret probation or worse when it comes time to form the 2012-13 schedule.

With the genre cycling back into popularity, comedy development is heated this year, and NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt should have plenty of alternatives to "Community" next spring. The fact that newcomers "Up All Night" and "Whitney" have premiered to ratings that "Community" wishes it had doesn't help. In particular, "Up All Night" shows that an 8 p.m. laffer battling two heavyweights, "Survivor" and "X Factor," doesn't condemn you to a sub-2 demo number.

I also don't think it's helping that "Community" seems to be straining creatively so far this season. Though I'd still take it over almost any other comedy on the air, Thursday's episode suffered in two ways: 1) a rerun of a formula where the study group is on the verge of a breakup, only to reunite, and 2) for the second week in a row, a dead-on-arrival, over-the-top storyline involving Chang (Ken Jeong, as seen in the clip above). To be fair, other fans of the show would disagree with me.

Ultimately, I'm much less worried about showrunner Dan Harmon's creative juices (guest Michael K. Williams' monologue about Legos was brilliant, for example) than his audience's viewing habits. What I'd like now, actually, is for NBC flip "Whitney" and "Community," to see what happens. "Whitney" currently has the larger fanbase and content more in contrast to CBS' "Big Bang," meaning it could be healthier at 8 p.m. than "Community" has been. Meanwhile, "Community" has almost never gotten the benefit of having NBC's most popular Thursday comedy, "The Office," as a lead-in. With that kind of shelter, what kind of grade inflation might "Community" receive?

Some NBC shows have survived the ratings shooting gallery for year after year. But that's not exactly the only lifeline you want to have, especially given the possibility that the more forgiving climate could change by next spring. If "Community" is to endure beyond this season, it might not be too soon to get to work on the fixes.

The following is a statement Harry Shearer put out this morning regarding the recent contract dispute between Fox and the cast of "The Simpsons":

For many years now, the cast of “The Simpsons” has been trying to get Fox to agree that, like so many other people who’ve contributed significantly to the show’s success, we be allowed a tiny share of the billions of dollars in profits the show has earned. Fox has consistently refused to even consider the matter. Instead, it’s paid us salaries that, while ridiculous by any normal standard, pale in comparison to what the show’s profit participants have been taking home.

Now, as the show enters its twenty-third season, we are engaged in what will probably be our last contract negotiation with Fox. As you may have heard, the network has taken the position that “The Simpsons” no longer makes enough money and that unless we in the cast accept a 45% pay cut, they are not going to bring the show back for a twenty-fourth season.

Obviously, there are a lot more important things going on in the world right now, in the streets of New York and elsewhere. But given how many people seem to care about what happens to our show – and how much misinformation has been flying around – I thought it might make sense for at least one member of the cast to speak out directly. I should note that I am speaking only for myself, and not for any of the other actors on the show.

Fox wants to cut our salaries in half because it says it can’t afford to continue making the show under what it calls the existing business model. Fox hasn’t explained what kind of new business model it has formulated to keep the show on the air, but clearly the less money they have to pay us in salary, the more they’re able to afford to continue broadcasting the show. And to this I say, fine – if pay cuts are what it will take to keep the show on the air, then cut my pay. In fact, to make it as easy as possible for Fox to keep new episodes of “The Simpsons” coming, I’m willing to let them cut my salary not just 45% but more than 70% – down to half of what they said they would be willing to pay us. All I would ask in return is that I be allowed a small share of the eventual profits.

My representatives broached this idea to Fox yesterday, asking the network how low a salary number I would have to accept to make a profit participation feasible. My representatives were told there was no such number. There were, the Fox people said, simply no circumstances under which the network would consider allowing me or any of the actors to share in the show’s success.

As a member of the “Simpsons” cast for 23 years, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve had a great run and no one should feel sorry for any of us. But given how much joy the show has given so many people over the years – and given how many billions of dollars in profits News Corp. has earned and will earn from it – I find it hard to believe that this is Fox’s final word on the subject. At least I certainly hope it isn’t, because the alternative is to cancel the show or fire me for having the gall to try to save the show by helping Fox with its new business model. Neither would be a fair result – either to those of us who have committed so many years to the show or to its loyal fans who make our effort worthwhile.

Summer TV just ended and fall TV has barely begun, but already we can see new Emmy acting contenders for 2012 emerging from recently premiered series. Actress possibilities in particular seem to be overflowing.

This isn't an all-encompassing list, but here are some to keep an eye on, in alphabetical order:

Christina Applegate: Twice nominated for "Samantha Who?" on ABC, Applegate has helped make "Up All Night" one series that NBC doesn't have to worry about. 

Maria Bello: First and foremost, "Prime Suspect" needs to stay alive, but with NBC hurting for dramas following the cancellation of "The Playboy Club," Bello's star vehicle will get every opportunity to do so.

Claire Danes: Only a year removed from her "Temple Grandin" awards parade, Danes tops the new Showtime series "Homeland" that has won near-universal critical praise.

Kat Dennings: Following Melissa McCarthy's Emmy win last month as a co-star on a CBS Monday comedy rookie, the door is open for "2 Broke Girls" co-star Dennings to at least join in whatever skit Amy Poehler concocts for the nominees at next year's ceremony.

Zooey Deschanel: No, she's not everybody's cup of tea, but plenty of "New Girl" fans like themselves a steaming cup of Jess.   

Jason Gann/Elijah Wood: FX's "Wilfred" co-stars don't get a lot of publicity and have already entered hibernation for the winter, but the show should return for its second season next summer just as voters are beginning to mark their ballots. In general, though, FX has had better luck earning drama noms compared with comedy.

Romola Garai: The question isn't whether she's deserving — she absolutely is — but whether a) voters will remember her next summer and b) will she, like Idris Elba of "Luther," end up in the miniseries acting category instead of regular drama, where she rightfully belongs. Co-star Ben Whishaw also deserves consideration, though he'll be competing with Dominic West for attention on the guys' side.

Jane Levy: As discussed this morning, an obvious breakout talent.

Damian Lewis: Danes' "Homeland" co-star should get a serious look — especially if he ends up competing as a supporting actor, a category that of late has seen much year-to-year turnover. "Homeland" castmates Mandy Patinkin and Morena Baccarin are hardly far-fetched choices, either.

Maya Rudolph: With her broadening, post-"Bridesmaids," post-"Saturday Night Live" appeal, Rudolph is about as likely as any new-series thesp to try to steal the comedy supporting actress kudo from Julie Bowen of "Modern Family." 

Coming soon: Among those headed to this list in the next couple of weeks once their shows premiere: Laura Dern ("Enlightened"), Kelsey Grammer ("Boss").

1) I'm still uncomfortable with the mix on "Suburgatory" of real characters like the ones played by Jeremy Sisto and Jane Levy with cartoons like the ones played by Ana Gasteyer and Chris Parnell, but the show works. If anything, Wednesday's second episode was even more enjoyable than the pilot.

2) There are times I'm watching Levy and she seems too mature for the part (even though I realize the girl is supposed to be pretty mature, so what am I worried about?), but in any case, the revelation from Wednesday's episode was how well she plays vulnerability.  She really is a find.

3) "Modern Family" still reigns on Wednesdays, with Ty Burrell just so amazingly reliable. Today's quibble: Knowing from the first scene in the Cameron-Mitchell plot exactly how that storyline was going to end. However, as my colleague Stuart Levine points out, the "Stella!" moments were all worth it.

4) The Shelby Foote of PBS' "Prohibition" — the breakout talking head that, at least from the first two hours I've seen, most compares with the star of Ken Burns' "The Civil War" doc — is Catherine Gilbert Murdock. She's nothing like Foote in appearance, but completely like him in her enthusiasm for the subject and her ability to convey it.

5) Speaking of PBS, let me be the first to tell you that Cyndi Lauper will host the Nov. 18 segment of the pubcaster's Arts Fall Festival, "Women Who Rock."

6) With a 1.0 rating among adults 18-49 amid a growing audience for its "Up All Night" lead-in, "Free Agents" was destined to become a free agent — and that's what's happened.

7) ABC's "Body of Proof" has been giving CBS rookie "Unforgettable" a run for its money in the ratings, both in the demo and overall viewers, which I have to admit has surprised me.

8) If "Monday Night Football" did nothing else but go back to this theme song and only this theme song, it will have all been worth it.

Sarah Palin announced her non-candidacy for the 2012 presidential election today, once again citing, according to the New York Times, her desire to "be able to say what I want to say" and have a greater impact from the sidelines than Mission Control. 

Better late than never, here's Jon Stewart from a week ago expressing wonder at this rationale ...

“Breaking Bad” fans, despondent that the sensational fourth season is about to end Sunday, don’t have to go cold turkey.

Two of the actresses from AMC’s sublime drama will be appearing in upcoming productions at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood over the next few weeks.

Anna Gunn, who plays Walt’s wife, Skyler, is set to topline in “Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie.” The play runs Nov. 9 through Dec. 11 at the intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen, and was written by Alan Alda. This production marks its world premiere.

The play, which also stars Annabeth Gish and another "Breaking Bad" thesp, John de Lancie (he played the air traffic controller in season two), delves into the life of Curie, one of the most important scientists of the 20th century.

Alda is known best, of course, for his role as Hawkeye Pierce on “M*A*S*H,” but he has long been interested in science. He previously worked with PBS on “Scientific American Frontiers” and “The Human Spark.”

Also from “Breaking Bad,” Betsy Brandt is set to hit the mainstage at the Geffen. Playing Hank’s wife, Marie, on the show, Brandt will co-star in “Next Fall,” the new play from Geoffrey Nauffts.

The play stars Nauffts, also an actor, and “Lone Star” lead James Wolk as a gay couple. When one of them is involved in a terrible car accident, truths are exposed that may not have come to the surface.

“Next Fall” is set to begin previews Oct. 25, with Nov. 2 targeted as the official premiere.

The third episode of "New Girl" was an improvement over the shakier second episode, helping the show remain my favorite new broadcast comedy of fall 2011, but it still seems right on the edge of its comfort zone.

The least of my worries, I think, is the preseason fear of whether Zooey Deschanel's Jess might become too precious. She was just fine compared to Tuesday's D plot that put Winston (Lamorne Morris) in a battle of the ushers with an overly precocious 8-year-old that was as painful as they come — neither believable nor funny. Further, I like Morris, but I'm not convinced at all by Winston as an ex-pro basketball player, foreign or not. His identity needs to evolve, the faster the better.

Also, just once I'd like to see a wedding on TV where guests didn't automatically hook up, and instead sat around the table wondering why it was that on TV, guests at weddings automatically hook up.

But the storylines involving the rest of the cast mostly worked, with Natasha Lyonne a particularly game pants-suited enemy-with-benefits for Max Greenfield's Schmidt (though I wish the writers would dial back Schmidty's prodigious sexual history, which seems phony). Deschanel was charming and funny, Jake Johnson solid as a guy trying to get over a longtime love, and the climactic scene was sweet and well-played.

"New Girl" isn't the immediate creative success that something like "Modern Family" was, but it's ahead of the game in comparison to most other halfhours at the same stage. And certainly, it has time to figure things out — it remained the No. 1 show among adults 18-49 on Tuesdays, regardless of timeslot.

To the surprise of nobody, NBC canceled new drama "The Playboy Club" Tuesday after just three weeks on the air. But here's the rub on the TV season's first cancellation: The series was hopelessly misunderstood before it even aired.

How's this for heresy: "Playboy" actually wasn't as bad as its critics made it out to be. The problem was that the series' baldfaced appropriation of "Mad Men's" retro stylings gave too many viewers the impression it was aiming to be a similar show when it was anything but.

"Playboy" was never intended to be the psychologically complex, novelistic work "Mad" was. A more apt comparison might have been a past NBC series: "Las Vegas," another sexy, bubbly soap set in a nightclub setting without a substantive thought rattling around in its empty pretty head. The plot was nothing more than a pretense for giving its gorgeous cast something to do while the cameras were rolling. That "Playboy" just happened to be set in the 1960s was besides the point, an element borrowed from "Mad" but that's where the comparison should have ended.

Of course, it's not like "Playboy" wasn't inviting that comparison. Series star Eddie Cibrian not only looked like Don Draper, there were scenes with his velvety voiceover that sounded exactly like Jon Hamm's speech patterns. But "Playboy" sought to repackage the bygone era so exquisitely depicted in "Mad" for broader consumption, but critics confused the wrapping paper with the gift inside.

Compounding "Playboy's" problems was the absurd witch hunt that watchdog groups like Parents Television Council mounted before the series aired based on completely unfounded assumptions about the series' content, which was no racier than anything else on primetime TV. Because these kind of manufactured controversies end as serving nothing more than free marketing, this became another, unintended way of distorting public perception so that it disconnected from the reality of the show.

The audience was probably somewhat comprised of prurient eyes ready to see some free over-the-air skin who came away sorely disappointed. Aggravated as NBC was by the witch hunt, it probably drove more eyes to the series than anything else. Without PTC, "Playboy" might have performed even more pitifully--we're talking "Free Agents" level.

But NBC and "Playboy" producers aren't entirely victims of circumstances beyond their control when it came to setting expectations for what the series was. They made the bizarre move of trying to position the series at its Television Critics Association press tour appearance in August as some kind of ode to female empowerment, which came across as a desperate reach for a series grasping to find some kind of redeeming quality that wasn't there. "Playboy" never really knew what to do with itself; at least "Vegas" knew it was a truffle, nothing more. 

Lastly, let's not forget the more practical consideration that is time slot. Even if "Playboy" was a great show, it was going up against two stalwart dramas in CBS's "Hawaii 5-0" and ABC's "Castle," not to mention "Monday Night Football" on ESPN; upside was severly limited. Perhaps that should come as some small comfort to the "Playboy" cast and crew; even if it didn't suffer so many perception problems, it was doomed from the start.

0.2

That was the grade-point average of Kent Dorfman in "Animal House."

It's also the overnight rating among boys ages 12-17 for Monday's episode of "The Playboy Club," and the surest confirmation that this NBC drama, canceled today, was an ill-fated venture.

"The Playboy Club" had to be one of two things to succeed (and by succeed, I don't mean merely limp from week to week because NBC is so starved for compelling content). It had to 1) be a quality program that would put to rest the issue of whether it was a "Mad Men" knockoff, or 2) titillate sufficiently that people would tune in whether it was Chayefsky or chaff.

Enough critics weighed in to terminate option 1. As for option 2: 0.2 says it all. It says that in this day and age, pretty women in skimpy outfits are not enough.

I'm confident this isn't because boys 12-17, let alone Americans in general, have gotten less horny. It's because the options to address that horniness, if you will, have become so much more ... diverse. (You can decide for yourself whether this signifies the age of enlightenment or the age of decay.)

Had "The Playboy Club" aired during the era of the original "Charlie's Angels," which ran from September 1976 through June 1981, the kids I knew — and not a few adults — would have debated Amber Heard vs. Jenna Dewan as enthusiastically as we did Farrah Fawcett-Majors and then Cheryl Ladd vs. Jaclyn Smith. We'd have watched the show, whether engrossed by the stories (for some reason the football episode still sticks in my mind) or not. Heck, when it came to "Charlie's Angels," you made damn sure not to miss the opening credits.

It was an era in which a show that was safe, like the original "Angels," could also be the most exciting, arousing program on TV.

But that era is gone, and I'm not sure how anyone could not realize it. And that includes the team behind ABC's current "Charlie's Angels," which, while scoring a 1.1 rating in boys 12-17 last week that "Playboy Club" looks up to, suffers from the same "Who is this show for?" dilemma.

Young boys can fall in lust with an endless supply of media options. They don't need "The Playboy Club" or "Charlie's Angels." And if they don't need those shows, then who does?

I suppose it circles back to option 1 — the idea that the show creators thought they were going to create worthwhile drama that stood on its own two feet, regardless of the outfits. But in the end, "Playboy Club" and the new "Charlie's Angels" were the scripted equivalent of stuffing your bras.

Emmy and fall TV fever so overwhelmed me that my participation here at On the Air was more like a hibernation. In an attempt to relight the ignition, here's a series of musings about TV today. 

1) I can be as cynical as the next guy, but I think the steam is finally building to make the "Arrested Development" comeback a reality. I think there's something to be said for the out-and-out desire of all the principals to make it happen, and when you consider what a boon the show would be to some cable outlet (as opposed to meeting broadcast rating demands), there's incentive there as well. Obviously there are financial hurdles, but count me as a believer. Someone's going to want the cachet of bringing this project back to life.

For those who want to see the event that generated the latest "Development" developments, go to the New Yorker's Facebook Exclusives page.

2) Not since the peak of "Lost" can I recall a show that delivered such consistent edge-of-your-seat excitement over a period of weeks as AMC's "Breaking Bad" has in its second half of 2011. Every episode has my jaw dropping. And like my colleague Stu Levine, I've seen the Oct. 9 season finale of "Breaking Bad," and it does not disappoint.

3) Nice to see I'm not alone in enjoying the first episode of "Homeland," which I'd say might be my favorite pilot from Showtime ever.

4) On the flip side, I've begun cutting out the fall TV that, while not bad, didn't exert enough of a pull to keep me watching. For example, ABC's "Revenge," CBS' "A Gifted Man" and Fox's "Terra Nova" all have their strong points, but I couldn't find myself caring enough about the characters and situations to stick with them beyond their second hours.

5) Part of the reason these shows were dropped: I've been rewatching all of "Mad Men" via AMC, which has been showing three reruns a week. There's only so much time ...

6) Strangely, one show I was sure I'd have dropped by now but continue to stick with is the CW's "Ringer." After what I thought was a very shaky pilot, I feel that show has found its groove — such as it is — pretty quickly. There are still some preposterous elements to it, but in the past two episodes, I've never felt the urge to turn it off.

7) Had my first DVR mishap of the year: If the second hour of "Pan Am" was good or bad, I couldn't tell you.

8) Fox's "New Girl" was my favorite broadcast comedy in the round of pilots, but the second episode was uneven. I'm still optimistic about the show, but while Zooey Deschanel is still appealing in all her quirkiness and all the roomates are likable, they have to be careful not to have the characters just be plain too stupid at times.

9) Saw the pilot of FX's "American Horror Story," reviewed here by our Brian Lowry. Unlike some series that have everything but the kitchen sink, "Horror" has everything and the kitchen sink, plus the bathroom sink and the sink from, well, that bloody basement that you shouldn't even be going into. I'm not a horror guy in general, so I'm not going to stick with it, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the show find an audience for FX. And Connie Britton rocks, of course.

10) Two weeks into "Boardwalk Empire" season two, I'm not sure the whole is as good as its individual parts. I realize this doesn't quite make sense, but while I care about Nucky, Chalky, Jimmy and Margarety (what, she doesn't get a "y?"), at the end of each episode, I'm not sure how rewarding the entire experience has been. I imagine that will rev up as the season progresses, however.

11) The first two episodes of upcoming Starz series "Boss," starring Kelsey Grammer, are promising — though I don't find it completely unfair to sum up the show as "Boardwalk Empire 2011," with its focus on the byzantine behind-the-scenes workings in a major city, only set in the present. In any case, the only thing stopping Grammer from a 2012 Emmy nomination will be getting voters to see the show. 

12) "The Office" is off to a pretty good start in the post-Steve Carell era, with the ascension of Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) to Michael Scott's position providing some good story fodder. There have been plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, as well as great endings to each of the first two episodes. It hasn't been perfect, but for a comedy in its eighth season, I'll take it.

13) That being said, NBC's "Parks and Recreation" is the best scripted comedy on the air right now, just ahead of ABC's "Modern Family."

14) That being said, there isn't much that's funnier than Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) channeling the mother of Howard (Simon Helberg) on "The Big Bang Theory."

15) I'm one of the few who has liked NBC's "Free Agents" more than its lead-in "Up All Night," but given the ratings of the former, I don't imagine that choice will be around for much longer. 

16) CBS needs to take Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs from "2 Broke Girls" and Rhys Darby, Dave Foley and Mary Lynn Rajskub from "How to Be a Gentleman" and give them entirely different shows.

17) Best show you probably didn't see is BBC America's six-episode presentation of "The Hour," featuring knockout performances by Romola Garai and Ben Whishaw alongside the always reliable Dominic West. If you missed that, at least try to catch the quick second season of "Luther."

18) "How To Make It in America" had its second-season premiere on HBO on Sunday, and the show continues to fascinate me. The first year, I couldn't believe I was watching a show that centered around whether two guys could sell a pair of pants. The exciting year-two twist? They've moved on to hoodies!  And yet, the show is crisp and well-executed, and I'm still on board.  

19) You think you're just about caught up on your TV watching, and then ... oh yeah, "Prohibition." It never ends ...

Ten days after Fox's "New Girl," with Zooey Deschanel playing a lead character named Jess, bowed to impressive ratings, Disney Channel launched Debby Ryan starrer "Jessie" on Friday to great rates as well.

The upbeat theme songs even seem cut from similar cloth, and not just because the one in "Jessie" mentions the title character being the "new girl" in town.

The premiere of “Jessie” was the Disney Channel’s most-watched series launch since “The Suite Life on Deck,” which co-starred Ryan, in September 2008.

“Jessie” drew 4.6 million viewers overall, half of them in the 6-11 demo and 887,000 in adults 18-49.

With “Jessie” as a lead-in, Disney Channel mainstay “Phineas & Ferb” had its best performance in the 9-14 demo ever.

Disney Channel also plans to air its first talent special for kids, “Make Your Mark: Ultimate Dance Off – ‘Shake It Up’ Edition,” on Oct. 14. Selena Gomez, Sean Kingston and “Shake It Up” choreographer Rosero McCoy will judge the six finalists that emerged from 30,000 dance-video submissions, with the winner announced two nights later on a results show.

Ryan and “Shake It Up” co-stars Roshon Fegan and R. Brandon Johnson will host.

As NBC executives long before current chairman Robert Greenblatt have found out, just because you're the head of the network won't keep you from getting the occasional poke on "Saturday Night Live." With his first-year anniversary in the top job at the Peacock approaching, whatever grace period was in place has apparently elapsed given the light jab "Weekend Update" anchor Seth Meyers threw Greenblatt's way. It came at the end of a hilarious segment Meyers had mocking of, all people, Moammar Gaddafi, which somehow segued into mention of Greenblatt. Behold in the clip above or this link.