Sparks will fly

The most important piece of business this morning: the first appearance of Matt Seitz's byline in weeks, with his review of the "Rescue Me" season premiere. "Rescue Me" is one of the summer shows I'll be doing morning after write-ups here at the blog, so look for something either late tonight or first thing tomorrow. In other linkage, a mailbag column (link now fixed) that's mostly about the divergent opinions about my "Idol" finale story (I like the woman who declared that I am "absolutely nothing"), but which has a pointer on the second page towards a possible explanation for the Homer Simpson statue on "Lost."

Meanwhile, with the bulk of the TV season over, I could finally get back to "Everwood" -- just in time to see the farewell episodes. Sigh. When the WB stopped showing it on its Sunday afternoon Easy Pass window, I lost track of Andy, Ephram and company, popping back only when the other shows I watched in its timeslot were in rerun. I would always feel bad that I was missing so much of an obviously well-written, well-acted, heartfelt show like this, and yet I never felt the addictive pull that so many other dramas give me. I understand why so many people were passionate about the show -- a few of the reporters at the CW's first press conference looked like they wanted to hop over a rail and throttle Dawn Ostroff for keeping "One Tree Hill" instead -- but I think once the focus shifted from the father-son battles to the town in general, it never felt unmissable to me.

But I would have to have been made out of stone to not get a little choked up at that last scene where Edna broke down after seeing Irv's ghost. The writers never quite knew what to do with Irv, especially after they dropped his voiceovers, but that marriage was always sweet (even when they were separated), and Debra Mooney was just about perfect as Edna begged Irv not to leave. (Like Veronica Mars' occasional freak-outs, it was especially effective because Edna is a rock 99% of the time.)

The rest of the episode occasionally felt labored, as if the writers were trying to make it up to John Beasley by devoting an entire hour to showing just how important Irv was to the community, but Bright with the military recruiter was hilarious, and I liked the broken mug motif.

Since I don't think I've blogged about the show before, not sure how many of you are fans. If any of you are, what do you want to see happen in the finale next week?