Catching up

Hey, did you know I've been watching a lot of "Sopranos" lately? Wasn't sure if I'd mentioned it enough or not.

Anyway, last night's viewing was 100% moozadell-free. First, I zipped through the two "American Idol" performance shows as fast as was humanly possible (i.e. songs, some judges' comments, fast-forward, repeat). Still not much of a wow factor. Chris Daughtry (aka Bo Bice 2.0) was great on that Fuel song, Paris (aka Diana DeGarmo 2.0) is technically perfect but a little creepy, and I like a few of the other obvious favorites like Taylor and Mandisa. But for me, the highlight of the two shows was Will Makar's incredibly sincere rendition of Kenny Rogers' "Lady," which had me cackling for the full 90 seconds, even as Marian was trying to shush me so I wouldn't wake our daughter. Plain and simple, the formula of Bobby Brady+Kenny Rogers-irony=accidental comic genius.

Next up: "Survivor: Dysfunction Island," in which the assclown tribe finally lost a challenge. On the one hand, Casaya is much more entertaining than the nice guys at La Mina, who only have one semi-interesting member: Terry (aka Tom 2.0). On the other hand, I hate the people on Casaya. I hate them, so very, very much. You've got Crazy Ritalin Guy forcing people to swear on a kid they've never met, Sensitive Yoga Man giving constant lectures on work ethic, Egomaniacal Karate Sensei grumbling that someone was daring to do yoga in his zen garden (doesn't Adenoidal Hippie Girl know that you do yoga in more tranquil settings like bottling plants and tractor pulls?), etc., etc., etc. And Cirie, who I mocked for her leaf-phobia in episode one, has now become my favorite contestant for her running commentary on the idiots she's surrounded by. So I guess the formula I want is for Casaya to lose just enough so that the good guys don't get Pagonged post-merge, but not so much that we end the season with a bunch of nice but boring people debating moral relativity.

With "The Office," it's always about the little things: the constant thermostat adjustments, the look of disgust on Pam's face when Angela wished Dwight luck, Ryan's "I know what I said," etc. And Rainn Wilson knocked the Mussolini speech out of the park with his spastic fist-banging and halting call-and-response delivery.

Sacked out midway through "Earl" (the wonder of TiVo is I can watch in whatever order I want), but what little I saw looked promising.