All TV: CBS comedies return

Today's column looks at the beginning of the end of the strike drought:

The package arrived on my desk Friday morning like manna in the desert: new episodes of "Two and a Half Men," "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Big Bang Theory," the first scripted series to get back on the air since the end of the writers strike.

(The CBS comedies are several weeks ahead of the curve; most other network series' won't be back until sometime next month, so don't get too excited yet if you're dying for new "30 Rock" or "House.")

I'm a big fan of "Mother" and agnostic about the other two - sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes they make me cringe, sometimes both simultaneously - but by the time I finished all three, I had a huge smile on my face.

Sometimes, you just don't know what you've got till it's gone, do you?

To read the full thing, click here. Obviously, there will be a proper "HIMYM" review tonight at 9 (as mentioned in the column, it swaps timeslots with "Big Bang Theory" starting tonight).