The morning before the day after

Good "House" last night, though I had a couple of problems. One is specific to me, but I've never been able to look at Joel Grey as a normal human being ever since he played Chun in "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins," one of the quintessential "on HBO every other day" bad movies of the '80s. The other is that I don't feel like Cameron really did make her own decision, but rather made the decision House maneuvered her into. Best part of the hour may have been the preview for next week, with House protesting to the medical board about Thong Girl.

Two columns this morning. A review of "Jericho" is the first:

If the microscope jockeys of CBS' three dozen Jerry Bruckheimer police procedurals have taught us anything, it's that no matter how thoroughly you try to clean up a crime scene, you always leave trace evidence behind. And if we didn't understand that already, we'd know it after watching "Jericho," a new drama that CBS execs clearly lifted from Fox or ABC without completely wiping their own fingerprints off of it.

From the use of music by The Killers and Snow Patrol on the soundtrack to the serialized format, most of "Jericho" doesn't feel like anything CBS has aired since... um... ever. But every now and then, there's a moment to reassure you that, yes, you are watching the birthplace of "Simon & Simon" and "Nash Bridges."

To read the rest, click here.

The second starts off with my review of "Kidnapped":

The legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard used to say the best way to criticize a movie was to make another movie. The same theory applies to TV as well, and we have "Kidnapped" (10 p.m., Ch. 4) as a fine example.

Premiering a month after Fox's "Vanished" -- like "Kidnapped," a drama that will try to stretch one abduction story over the course of a season -- "Kidnapped" plays out like a point-by-point criticism of everything "Vanished" gets wrong.

After some more "Kidnapped" commentary, I write about the "My Name Is Earl" season premiere and how a special feature on the season one DVD set just reminded me how much I wish they would let Earl be less nice. To read the whole magillah, click here.

Lots more column writing to do today, so use this post as a catch-all section for comments on any non-"Smith" bit of primetime last night. Out of curiosity, does anybody here other than me watch "NCIS" or "The Unit"?