I have much to be thankful for this season.

The third year of "Mad Men" was a fabulous ride. The fourth season of "Friday Night Lights" (pictured above) has been awe-inspiring. The transition the show made this year in introducing a host of new characters proves that the show's simple genius at portraying the life of regular folks in Small-ish Town, USA was no fluke. It's an amalgamation of the skill of a group of immensely talented, obviously dedicated people, led by showrunner Jason Katims.

Could Kyle Chandler possibly get any better in the role of Coach Eric Taylor? Every week, I think not and then he goes and blows me away the following episode. I'm glad "FNL" only just barely overlapped with "Mad Men" this year, it's a nice way to ease out of the craving for weekly "Mad Men" fix. Now the night I most wait for during the week is Wednesday (when "FNL" airs on DirecTV's 101 Network).

Wednesday is also "Modern Family" night, a show that I'm loving being able still love as the season progresses. The pilot was so good -- but I thought, 'How can they keep this up?' Talented writers, extremely talented, engaging cast (including the great Julie Bowen, pictured left) -- you do the math. Same goes for "The Big Bang Theory." I'm loving seeing it go to No. 1 (among primetime comedies) with a bullet. So well-deserved.

Between "Big Bang" (pictured below) and "Modern Family," I feel spoiled to have two young and growing comedies to look forward to each week. The shows make me laugh (out loud -- they are not infected with the cleverness virus) in very different ways. With "Modern Family," it's usually because I can give a knowing nod to one thread of the storyline as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister or a friend. And with "Big Bang" I laugh because they are very funny fellows (including Kaley Cuoco) doing silly things that, more often than not, make me laugh. You can't ask for more on a Monday night.

This is a good sign. "The Big Bang Theory" star Jim Parsons has been tapped to do the Emmy announcement honors on July 16 along with "Grey's Anatomy" star Chandra Wilson.

Emmy officials usually get past winners to do the honors at the crack of dawn. It's clearly a hint that the Emmy folks see Parsons as a cinch for a comedy actor nom.

He'd better get one, or there's gonna be trouble...

Thursday update: "The Big Bang Theory" and Jim Parsons get some love rom the Television Critics Assn., with noms for comedy series and comedy performer.

The predictions were true! CBS' hot-shot drama "The Mentalist" is bound for the post-"CSI" berth on Thursday. That should make things interesting on the night. ("Mentalist" star Simon Baker and CBS boss Leslie Moonves pictured above.)

Another big move that I surely didn't see coming was the shift of my fave comedy "The Big Bang Theory" to Monday 9:30 p.m. behind "Two and a Half Men." Just call it Chuck Lorre's hour of power.

I didn't think CBS would move "Big Bang" because it's been such a stronger starter for the night at 8 p.m. But rock on with your bad selves, Chuck, Bill Prady, Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, et al. Not only is the "Big Bang" mob the best cast and creatives in sitcomville, they're also the nicest bunch of folks you'd ever want to meet (or conduct a panel sesh with).

Here's the sked. New series descriptions and links to clips after the jump.

(N means new show; NT means new time period)

MONDAY

8:00-8:30 PM              HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (NT)

8:30-9:00 PM              ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE (N)

9:00-9:30 PM              TWO AND A HALF MEN

9:30-10:00 PM            THE BIG BANG THEORY (NT)

10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: MIAMI

TUESDAY

8:00-9:00 PM              NCIS

9:00-10:00 PM            NCIS: LOS ANGELES (N)

10:00-11:00 PM          THE GOOD WIFE (N)

WEDNESDAY

8:00-8:30 PM              THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE

8:30-9:00 PM              GARY UNMARRIED

9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMINAL MINDS

10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: NY

THURSDAY

8:00-9:00 PM              SURVIVOR

9:00-10:00 PM            CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

10:00-11:00 PM          THE MENTALIST (NT)

FRIDAY

8:00-9:00 PM              GHOST WHISPERER

9:00-10:00 PM            MEDIUM

10:00-11:00 PM          NUMB3RS

SATURDAY

8:00-9:00 PM              CRIMETIME SATURDAY

9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMETIME SATURDAY

10:00-11:00 PM          48 HOURS MYSTERY

SUNDAY

7:00-8:00 PM              60 MINUTES

8:00-9:00 PM              THE AMAZING RACE

9:00-10:00 PM            THREE RIVERS (N)

10:00-11:00 PM          COLD CASE (NT)

Emerging from my December blog hibernation, I'm much more inclined to look forward to what the small screen has in store for '09 than reassessing '08. Fortunately, my Variety colleague Stuart Levine was motivated to muse on his highs and lows for '08 (posted after the jump).

There's not a whole lot that I've penciled into my must-see sked for the first quarter. Of course, the Big Event is the Jan. 21 return of "Lost" for its high-five season (more on that later). The final two "Friday Night Lights" segs of the season (maybe forever) on DirecTV Jan. 7-14, will be three-hanky affairs, for sure, according to sources who have already screened them. And there'll be more multicamera hijinks to enjoy from "The Big Bang Theory" ensemble, my fave comedy troupe on the tube these days, hands down.

As for new material, I was very impressed by what I saw on the four-episode screener of Showtime's "The United States of Tara." Toni Collette is amazing as a suburban mother and artist who grapples with three distinct personalities who also inhabit Tara's corporeal being. The supporting cast is also strong, with John Corbett playing Tara's husband in an understated way, and the always-engaging Rosemarie DeWitt as Tara's sister. Brie Larson impresses as the older of Tara's two teenage kids.

"Tara," which as everyone knows was conceived by Steven Spielberg and birthed by Diablo Cody, bows Jan. 18.

Here's more evidence that there's just not enough time in the day to watch everything that you should.

Readers of this blog know I'm a mega-fan of Craig Ferguson and of "The Big Bang Theory," and so I'm sorry to say that I'm just now catching up with the appearance by "Big Bang" co-star Jim Parsons (pictured right) on the Oct. 1 edition of CBS' "The Late Late Show."

It's Parsons' first-ever latenight TV appearance, as he notes right off the bat, getting the audience on his side (as if they could resist him anyway).

Parsons seems to go in and out of playing himself and his "Big Bang" geekster character Sheldon in this 10-minute seg, but no matter. It makes for engaging live (to tape) TV because you can see some genuine nervousness on Parsons' part, but his natural wit and charm carries him through just fine.

Ferguson isn't easy on him -- it's nothing like a typical plug-the-show/where-you-from chatshow interview (for one thing, a few coffee cups go flying) -- but the tangents he takes give Parsons more opportunities to score.

TV's Craig Ferguson has reason to be feeling a little feisty these days. He's enjoying a slight ratings bounce so far this season. "Late Late Show" won the week ended Oct. 10 and is essentially tied with NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" for season-to-date bragging rights in the 12:35-1:35 a.m. time slot.

Ferguson's uptick is fueled in part by CBS' solid momentum in primetime, and NBC's lack thereof. But I like to think that talent, as evidenced by the Parsons clip, has something to do with it too.

Am I the only one who's noticed that CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" is nowhere to be found on the Web, at least in full-episode mode.

It's not available via web streaming, nor are episodes from this season available on iTunes. I discovered this the hard way the other day when I missed its regular Monday 8 p.m. airing. I went to CBS.com thinking I could easily catch up online. There were plenty of clips but no full episodes. Last season, full-length "Big Bang" adventures were readily available via CBS.com; I spent plenty of time watching them late at night when I should've been working on stories.

"Big Bang" studio Warner Bros. TV confirms the online rights are being held back to sweeten future syndication deals with local stations. Warner Bros. did the same thing with "Two and a Half Men" -- local stations that paid big bucks for the off-net rights to the show also got the rights to stream segs on their station websites.

I understand the business logic of this approach, but in this era where viewers are accustomed to having on-demand access to top shows, it's pennywise and pound foolish to not allow at least limited streaming or paid download access to a few recent segs -- especially when so many other programs are so widely disbursed on the web.

When fans get the urge to hang with Sheldon and Leonard and the gang, you don't want to make them hard to find.

I'm very glad to welcome "The Big Bang Theory" back to my Monday night routine.

CBS laffer's sophomore season opener, "The Bad Fish Paradigm," took a few minutes to get going with the yucks, but when Jim Parsons' Sheldon started folding, and re-folding his laundry in the scene with Kaley Cuoco's Penny, all was right with the show.

The seg really took off for me in the scene with Sheldon as he tries to bunk for the night with Simon Helberg's Wolowitz. (Helberg was very funny in his brief role in "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." Hopefully we'll see more of Moist in the sequel.)

The rapid-fire riffing on Sheldon's favorite Catwomen (No. 1: Julie Newmar; No. 2: Michelle Pfeiffer; No. 3: Eartha Kitt: No. 4: Lee Meriwether; No. 5: Halle Berry) and his "X-Men" character preferences reflected the oddball side of the show that grew on me like a fungus last season.

All in all, a fun, if not uproarious, opener penned by scribes Dave Goetsch and Steve Molaro (from story by co-creator/exec producer Bill Prady), and helmer Mark Cendrowski.

Welcome back, boys. And I say that as a Pasadena City College alum -- no kidding.

Emmy's picks for writing and directing nominees in the series categories are kinda like a state of the craft report card every year. They're often the category where new and innovative programs are recognized long before they crack the more prominent races.

But in a year when Emmy voters seemed to embrace new and different, the choices in the writing and directing heats seem more pedestrian, though some of this year's contenders were so obvious (Bryan Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld for "Pushing Daisies" Pie-lette, Matthew Weiner and Alan Taylor for the "Mad Men" pilot) as to take some of the suspense out of the race this year. Sonnenfeld (pictured left) and Taylor (pictured right) have already bagged DGA Awards for their work on these pilots.

Sonnenfeld, IMHO, can safely begin rehearsing his acceptance speech for comedy helmer. (Coming from him, it oughta be a doozy.) The competish is strong -- a six-nominee category meaning that there was one tie in the nom ballotting -- but nothing was quite so inventive and visually distinct as that first slice of ABC's "Pushing Daisies."

From my viewfinder, the dark horse in the race could be James Bobin of HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." Bobin, co-creator of the series with Kiwi comedy-rockers Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, is up for the "Sally Returns" episode of "Conchord's" 12-episode frosh season.

Dan Attias nabbed a nom for the "No Cannes Do" installment of "Entourage." Paul Lieberstein has shown that there's no end to his talents by performing, writing and directing segs of NBC's "The Office," and now he's up for helming the seg "Money" Parts 1 and 2 (sounds like a James Brown hit from the early '70s). Also nommed from "Office" is Paul Feig, for handling the season finale, "Goodbye, Toby," which happened to mark the farewell of Lieberstein's character. Michael Engler of NBC's "30 Rock" is up for the "Rosemary's Baby" installment.

Hot off the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nomination vote-tallying machine, here are the top 10 finalists for Emmy noms in the comedy and drama series heats. The final noms will be announced on Thursday, July 17.

(My 2 cents on the list follows after the jump)

COMEDY

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

DRAMA

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

It wasn't a total loss. This is a contrarian view on the season that will go down in the Nielsen annals as the lowest rated on record for the Big Four nets, but there was some good news to be found here and there, amid the wreckage.

For sure, the season-long stats on the 2007-08 campaign are pretty darn ugly, as Variety ratings guru Rick Kissell smartly and soberly details in this season wrap. But in actuality we didn't have a season, we had two abbreviated seasons -- pre- and post-strike. Writers Guild of America leaders were as strategic as Eisenhower and Marshall carving up the European theater in triggering the work stoppage to begin on Nov. 5, to ensure maximum impact on current production and pilot development.

Of course, most everything the WGA was fighting for in its 100 Days War has been at work in force  -- on steroids -- in this topsy-turvy season: the increasing popularity of web streaming of programming and DVR time-shifted viewing, the increasing use of digital extensions of traditional programs to drive traffic to network-affiliated websites and to generate new revenue streams for our half-dozen favorite media congloms.

Beyond the fairness issue and the wonky oh-my-god-younger-generations-will-never-watch-TV-the-same-way-again considerations, let's look at what the nets have to show for themselves program-wise out of the fall and spring mini seasons of '07-'08.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE AND JON WEISMAN

Like a parent with kids on different teams squaring off against each other, Warner Bros. TV prexy Peter Roth will watch with both glee and terror as the 2008-09 TV season kicks off.

Of the four new WB dramas picked up by the broadcast nets during last week’s upfronts, three have been thrown against each other in the same 9 p.m. Tuesday timeslot: “The Mentalist” (CBS, photo on right), “Fringe” (Fox) and “Surviving the Filthy Rich” (CW).

For better or worse, this kind of fraternal battle is becoming familiar for Warners. Mondays at 8 p.m. feature a head-to-head-to-head-to-head slugfest among four WB shows, as hourlongs “Chuck” (NBC), “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (Fox),  “Gossip Girl” (CW) face CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

“It’s a very high-class problem to have,” Roth said. “While it wouldn’t necessarily be our preference to have programs competing against one another, we have been in this situation before.  We suggest since they are all great shows, viewers should watch one of them live, TiVo the others and, preferably, watch them within the advertiser-desired three-day window.”   

At 10 p.m. Thursday, WB rookie “Eleventh Hour” goes up against veteran “ER,” which will begin its 15th and final season. And on the comedy side, it’s no laughing matter for WB as Pushing Daisies” (ABC) and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (CBS) both vie for the same eyeballs at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Maybe you had to be a "Star Trek" geek as a kid, and it probably helps to have grown up with Caltech and JPL being places you visited on school field trips... but even if you didn't mark time by the "star date" calendar or spend your formative years in Pasadena, you've gotta be able to get a giggle out of "The Big Bang Theory."

CBS/Warner Bros. TV comedy, created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, is the frosh MVP of the tortured 2007-08 season, IMHO. Episode by episode, the ensemble is getting tighter and more playful, making the characters richer and, most important, funny. This is not one of those half-hours that is stingy with big, broad laughs, or more concerned with advancing soapy storylines than the pound-for-pound silliness of each episode.

Perhaps the buddy comedy's biggest accomplishment has been making Kaley Cuoco's Penny, the ditsy hot chick who moves in next door to the egghead Caltech-ers (played with aplomb by Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons), more than a one-note punch line.

Producers are promising some extra-special hijinks for "Big Bang's" May 19 season finale.

For a representative sample, spin this recent "Big Bang" seg, "The Bat Jar Conjecture," as pictured here. Hint: As always, keep your eye on the red shirts.

There's welcome news in the CBS press bundle today -- a fresh logline for "The Big Bang Theory."

Frosh sitcom that showed so much promise, creatively and ratings-wise, prior to the strike interruption, returns March 17 with a seg dubbed "The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization." Story's by co-creator Bill Prady and Stephen Engel, with the teleplay from the capable hands of co-creator Chuck Lorre, Lee Aronsohn and Dave Goetsch.

"When Sheldon and Leonard are invited to present their joint findings at a physics conference, Sheldon refuses, and Penny steps in to mediate … only deepening the rift between the two best friends."

Sounds like fun. The guest cast list for this seg indicates that our nerdy heroes Sheldon and Leonard may meet their Asian doppelgangers (if not in looks then in spirit, perhaps). Thesp Talbott Chin is on board to play "Chinese Leonard"; Howard Chan will play "Chinese Sheldon."

(Unfortunately, there's no fresh art yet for the show on CBS' press site, so here's a pic featuring "Big Bang's" fab four from an earlier seg. Left to right: Simon Helberg, Jim Parsons, Kunal Nayyar and Johnny Galecki. )

A writers strike could ruin your whole day. Or night.

My hard-working Variety colleagues spent all day Tuesday turning over rocks and looking into every aspect of what a scribe work stoppage would mean for this town, and none of it is good. TV editors Joe Adalian and Michael Schneider did a fine job of explaining how quickly a strike would KO our favorite latenight companions -- read their reportage by clicking here, and check out the rest of Variety's team coverage by clicking here.

Speaking of our fave latenight companions, here's a look at what David Letterman looked like the last time the WGA went out. While some part of Letterman might want to turn back the clock to those lazy-hazy days of July 1988 when this pic was snapped (actually, he seems so happy these days as little Harry's proud papa I'll be he wouldn't go back for nothin'), fans of quality television do not want to be deprived of our daily and weekly fixes of our fave primetime raves. (No more visits to "The Office," a dimming of "Friday Night Lights," a busted "Big Bang Theory," losing "Lost" in midstream, uprooted "Pushing Daisies," etc.)

So here's to hoping the federal mediator or somebody can bring about a meeting of the minds in the ultimate writers' room this week.

(Letterman pic by Ron Galella/WireImage)

NBC's tack in promoting the return of "Scrubs" on Thursday seems kind of unusual for the show.

Peacock's on-air tubthumping has emphasized that show is in its final season and playing up the will-they-or-won't-they? angle regarding Zach Braff's J.D. and Sarah Chalke's Elliot. The on-again, off-again sparks between those two have been a running thread of the laffer, fer sure, but not as much as you'd think from watching the promos.

Opening seg of season seven, "My Own Worst Enemy" -- penned by exec producers Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman and helmed by creator/exec producer Bill Lawrence -- and is zany-funny in typical "Scrubs" fashion but not one of the series' highest notes, perhaps because of its emphasis on laying plot track.

The highlight is a quick detour into the "Who Caresies" awards ("take that, Tony Shalhoub!," J.D. declares  in his acceptance speech), which comes on the heels of John C. McGinley's Dr. Cox calling J.D. an "annoying whiny manchild" more than once.

Those who have stuck with "Scrubs" through its ups and downs the past seven years won't be disappointed but here's hoping they return to laugh-out-loud form in the coming weeks.

POSTED BY JON WEISMAN

Chuck Lorre didn't even own a TV in the 1970s, so any similarities between his new CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" and the swinging late '70s icon "Three's Company" are completely coincidental. Really, Lorre insists.

Lorre, co-executive producer Bill Prady and the cast of "Big Bang" seemed a little taken aback to find themselves in the unexpected position of being asked to compare and contrast their program to that of Jack, Janet and Chrissy during the "Big Bang" TCA sesh on Wednesday.

Tops on the list: Three decades after Suzanne Somers redefined the role of the dumb blonde on "Three's," is it possible that Kaley Cuoco's Penny (pretty small-town gal befriended by two neighbors who are Caltech physicists) is ... dumberer? (Pictured from left, "Big Bang" stars Jim Parsons, Cuoco, Johnny Galecki)

No way, said Lorre.