Funny Dance Marathon, Day 4

"Sweet fancy Moses!"

Funny Dance Marathon, Day 3

Chicken dance fever from "Arrested Development"

The spoiler policy

Okay, for the second time in a couple of weeks, someone's posted a comment that's either a spoiler or is a rumored spoiler. Either way, it's time to make it very clear what the deal with spoilers is around here.

Simply put, I don't want 'em. We're here to talk about shows after they've aired, and if I include a review or even some brief comments ahead of time based on screeners I've watched, I go out of my way to not give away anything important.

If you've read a spoiler someplace else, or if you have some kind of inside connection that gives you a spoiler, or if you happened to be on your way to lunch when you saw "The Sopranos" filming a murder scene, do not post about it here. There are lots of places on the Web to both find and talk about spoilers, and this is not one of them. Okay?

Now, speaking of "The Sopranos," Isaac at Throwing Things pointed me towards this hilarious YouTube recap of the previous six seasons, all in seven minutes. My favorite part is his connecting Artie getting hit with a milkshake in "Christopher" to Artie attempting suicide in "Everybody Hurts."

The Weak Ender

At first glance, this seemed like some sort of rip-off of the tournament Zach LS is running over at TBP, but NBA.com is legitimate holding a contest to determine which NBA franchise has the best dance team.

Talk about a NBA playoff that actually is watchable. This is outstanding.

The ironic thing is that the Sacramento Kings actually have a pretty legitimate team. The Cow Town that Phil Jackson often refers to produces some fine farmer�s daughter kind of way. But it should be no surprise that the Miami Heat are the reigning champions in this.

What, did Kobe find a way to run off all of the hot Lakers girls to Miami so they could win the title?

The Heat now has the Lakers coach, center and the NBA�s top dance team.

The biggest disappointment is the Clipper Spirit. Not to say that these girls are skanky, but if they ever wanted to do a sequel to Showgirls, they won't have to look very far. This is the kind of team that makes the Avengers A-Team look like the Rockettes. If anybody else was around for the RHL, they are even lower than the Anaheim Bullfrog girls. (Seeing those girls in clothes instead of on stage at Fritz's Too was surreal.)

And what's the deal with the Celtics squad? Unusually good looking for a New England-based team. Rumor has it that these girls are shipped in from California. Maybe a trade can be worked out with the Clipper Spirit.

THE FINAL FOUR

Can't figure out which way to go with the UCLA game. On one hand, Florida just looks cool and unbeatable. They are unflappable. In the victory over Oregon, the Gators never were seriously threatened because they make the big shots when they counted. So how can you pick against them? At the same time, you can�t discount the Bruins because of that whole revenge factor. Kind of like Duke over UNLV in 1991.

And before Seitz chimes in, the Runnin' Rebels did not throw that game and it�s ridiculous to even think that. Those UNLV players were making sick cash during those days, with sham jobs as valets at the Las Vegas Hilton. There wasn't enough money for them to throw that game, plus somebody would have heard about it. Now, if you wanted to make real money, you could have had the Runnin' Rebels throw a game against Fullerton or Santa Barbara during the regular season. But this team went to every dingy gym in the Big West and won, so the whole "game fixing" thing doesn�t carry much weight because this team had too much pride. Sorry. Duke actually had a good game plan, played the best game of its life, received some favorable homerism from the refs and won by two points.

So for right now, THN is leaning towards the Bruins and the points. But there is something about Ben Howland that screams of Marty Schottenheimer. His Pittsburgh teams always lost in the Sweet 16. So maybe with better talent, he�s doomed for failure in the Final Four now. So for right now, lay the points and take Florida. Tight teams never seem to do well, and right now the Bruins seem tight.

• With John Thompson III, Patrick Ewing Jr. the only logical question is, "Where the hell is Michael Graham Jr.?" What, he could have been conceived during a conjugal visit, right? No, seriously, what happened to Graham? Jail, right?
  

• Lay the .5 in the first half, and 1 point overall on the Hoyas. No team has lived on more borrowed time than Ohio State. Oh, and practice your Dr. Hibbert impersonations before Saturday�s games, will you?

• Right now, THN is leaning towards UCLA on the money line. And the first half under.

• From the Desk of Lil' Hater: The NFL has made replay permanent and will install high def cameras in all but three stadiums�Texas Stadium, the Colts dome, and Giants Stadium. Why bother spending $300K to improve the technology at Giants Stadium when the officials are going to give them the calls anyway. At least they are honest about it. They would re-cable Dallas and Indy�s stadiums, too, but they are afraid T.O. or another Dungy family member would use the cable to try and hang themselves. Heyooo! I�ll be here performing at State Line this weekend.

• Right now, THN likes the Gators on the money line.

• You know its baseball season when the Angels are back snot-kicking the Dodgers in their own stadium. And congrats to Scot Shields for his huge contract. Be sure to buy us a round at The Catch next week.
  

THE LINKS

• While lusting over Halle Berry, remember this: she almost killed herself over David Justice.

• Tom Coughlin jokingly compares himself to Hitler. People are probably going to crucify Coughlin for this and yes, Hitler sucks. But that most NFL announcers draw in hyperbole and compare football to battle, is it really that much of a stretch?

• Who has the ugliest team in the Final Four?

• Check back in this section for updates as cool stuff is found.

AND FINALLY

Florida, lay the points.

Now if only he could do the Fish Out of Water...

Phil Rosenthal -- "Everybody Loves Raymond" Phil Rosenthal, not My Friend Phil -- is of the belief that in comedy, when all else fails, you put in some funny dancing. So in keeping with the spirit of yesterday's embedded YouTube clip, I present two fine examples of funny dancing in action, the first from Rosenthal himself (or his two on-screen surrogates), the second from a recent "My Name Is Earl."

I'm going to see if I can make it at least into next week with a daily silly TV dancing clip. Suggest away, because everything is on YouTube.

Notes on a death

So last night, as part of my immersion into all things "Sopranos," I attended a panel at the Museum of TV & Radio titled, bluntly, "Whacked Sopranos," with writers David Chase and Terry Winter and actors David Proval (Richie Aprile), Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy), Annabella Sciorra (Gloria Trillo), Drea de Matteo (Adriana) and Steve Buscemi (Tony Blundetto) talked about the ins and outs of getting whacked.

Now, I had already written a story on this, but only heard the perspectives of Chase and Winter, so it was illuminating to hear Proval talk about how he coped with his impending unemployment by acting like a jackass on set in the days leading up to Richie's death, or to hear de Matteo talk about how she had to encourage an uncomfortable Steve Van Zandt to pull her by the hair and call her the C-word during her death scene.

I also finally got an answer to a question that's been bothering me for a few years: at what point in that long car ride in "Long-Term Parking" did Adriana know that she was being taken to her own murder? Was it the entire time, only when Silvio stopped the car, or sometime in between?

Drea said that, at least in her mind, it was at the moment when Silvio turned onto the side road into the woods. So now I have to go watch that scene for the 57th time to do another frame-by-frame of one of the great moments in show history.

Where is Gasol's Fine?

Two days later and still waiting for that fine and suspension to come down on Pau Gasol for his flagrant elbow on Kobe Bryant. Lord knows Kobe already would be suspended if the roles were reversed here. Maybe the league is on a witch hunt for Kobe, as coach Phil Jackson has stated.

And what the hell kind of name is Pau, anyway? That names seems kind of gay. And not gay in a Tony-Dungy-doesn't-believe-you-should-have-equal-rights-of-all-Americans, but gay as in lame.

Judge Overrides Stupidity

You all remember the story of the dope who promised to change his name to Peyton Manning if the Colts beat the Bears in the Super Bowl? Well that man has been given a second chance because the judge denied the request, saying that the change was too confusing and would cause privacy problems with Peyton. Too bad, because he probably could have gotten some endorsement deals for it.

As a compromise, the dope in question is required to wear that toupee and mustache and legally change his name to Gomer.

Genius

You can hate the Yankees, but you have to admit that everybody kind of lived vicariously through Steve Swindal, heir to the Yankees empire.

Or at least he was. Swindal has recently been cited for drunk diving and now George's daughter is divorcing him. Way to blow that deal, Steve. When you stand to become the owner of the New York Yankees, you should pretty much do whatever your wife wants to remain in good standing. Shopping, diamonds, taking it from behind, anything she wants.

In related news, Swindal was seen courting Georgia Frontandrearie.

Lost: Who are these people?

Spoilers for "Lost" coming up just as soon as I kick my nicotine gum habit...

What the hell was that? It was like the "Lost" equivalent of "The Zeppo," only if Xander had only showed up three weeks earlier and sucked, crossed with a bad parlor mystery...

...and yet it was a kind of compelling trainwreck, so strange, so agressively meta -- and, in the flashbacks, so seamlessly edited to insert Nikki and Paulo into familiar scenes -- that, if nothing else, I'll take it over the Jack tattoo episode. And, hey, it ended with those two losers buried alive, so it couldn't be all bad, could it?

Back at press tour, someone asked Carlton and Damon what the point of Nikki and Paulo was, and Carlton replied, "The point will become very clear in episode 314," and Damon said that they had a really cool idea for a standalone episode about two castaways we hadn't met before, but they felt it would pay off better if they were introduced earlier in the season so viewers wouldn't spend the entire showcase episode saying, "Wait a minute. I have never seen
those guys before."

Having watched "Expose," I have a hard time buying that version of the story, because if this was their brilliant idea that necessitated all those earlier appearances, then there be far bigger problems here than I thought. As it is, I think the episode only works on the level of the creators apologizing for Nikki and Paulo's utter uselessness by turning them into even more selfish asses than we had already thought.

What did everybody else think?

American Idol: Top 10 results

My thoughts on the booted contestant at NJ.com, but you can discuss him/her here.

Friday Night Lights: We must protect this cow pasture!

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" just as soon as I put an incredible piece of art on the wall of my house...

Okay, so when I wrote my In Praise of "Friday Night Lights" column last week, it was with a little bit of reluctance, because while I liked much of last week's episode (particularly the Coach/Julie stuff), it didn't represent to me the series at its absolute best, and I usually like to write those kind of flattery-filled reviews to run on a night where newcomers can really see what I'm talking about. But I had an empty space in my schedule last week and knew I would be swamped in "Sopranos"-dom this week, so last week it ran.

This episode, though -- this was the one I was really writing about at the time, because this one was overflowing with so much of what makes "Friday Night Lights" great. I don't know that I'd go so far as is as Dan Fienberg in calling it the best episode since the pilot, if only because of a little thing I like to call The Talk from "I Think We Should Have Sex," but on the sports side of the ledger, this was as good as this show gets.

What did I love about it? I loved Coach's growing contempt for the commercialization of the playoff game, and for the Brant coach ("Does your brother run the clock up there? Is that part of the deal?"), and I loved how he took advantage of the chemical spill to take the team, the town and the game back to their roots. (I also love the irony, intentional or not, of him telling Buddy that this would be "football without all the crap" as he was in the process of moving things to a cow pasture that would no doubt be full of crap.)

I loved the use of "Read My Mind" (by far the best track from The Killers' sometimes overwrought "Sam's Town" album) on the soundtrack, and I loved the Woodstock-meets-state-fair-meets-Thunderdome atmosphere the show created around the Mud Bowl. I loved that Landry didn't get to run through the rain to declare his love for Tyra, RomCom-style, and I love that she had to save herself from the rapist. (Given last week's "Back to the Future" viewing by Riggins and company, I was half-expecting some kind of George McFly/Biff scene where Landry focused his chi into his fist until it become unto a thing of iron, or something like that.)

Mostly, though, I loved the football game. The producers can't do this sort of thing every week, both from a logistics point of view and because it would eventually be a turn-off to the fans who had to be talked into watching "that football show," but when they set their mind to it, boy howdy they give good Underdog Sports Movie. All the Mud Bowl was lacking was a scene where Riggins' father randomly showed up to lead the crowd in a chant of "LET THEM PLAY! LET THEM PLAY!" Just as Dan did when he saw it, I literally pointed my hands straight at the ceiling and called out "TOUCHDOWN!" when Saracen scored on that roll out play.

Before I open it up to comments, I leave you with this quote: "Blood, sweat and tears, it all stays right here on this field right now! This is our dirt, this is our mud, this is ours, baby!"

What did everybody else think?

I don't know what "it" is, but he's got it.

Because I'm once again bogged down in "Sopranos" minutiae, because I'm too tired and too busy to say much about last night's "House" beyond my desire for them to lay off the dream sequences for a while, and because I'm so darned pleased with myself for finally figuring out how to embed YouTube clips (because, yes, I'm just that slow), I present to you this blog's favorite YouTube clip of all time.

American Idol: Top 10 (aka Pop go the Idols)

Top 10 thoughts over at NJ.com, and then you can comment here.

Meeting of the Minds

NFL Commissioner Opie Goodell and PacMan Jones will meet in New York next week. The two should actually be peas in a pod, as Goodell has long been rumored to be kind of a Tomcat. The only difference being that Goodell is the son of a senator. The two should have a productive meeting. Opie can teach PacMan about the virtues of carousing with discretion and lying to people�s faces. And PacMan can show Opie how to make it rain in a strip club. Maybe the duo can swing into the local karaoke to reprise Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's "Say, Say, Say." (But in an ironic twist, Jones will sing the McCartney parts.)

Should be a great learning experience for both of them.

Lil' Hater's Tournament Take

Some might say that the North Carolina student who performed as a mascot for the school's basketball team died because of the injuries he suffered from being hit by a car.

I say he died of a broken heart, after coach Roy Williams and his team choked like dogs on Sunday. This is why Duke rarely uses a mascot for their hoops team. Those dudes would be flinging themselves in front of buses, 18-wheelers and steamrollers left and right.

What?

LA No Longer NFL Priority

The NFL is not coming back to Los Angeles. Not a surprise to those following along. But Opie Goodell left Los Angeles off the league's official agenda for seemingly the first time ever, and even though he claims that they "Haven't lost enthusiasm for Los Angeles," any notion of a team moving to the area prior to the Raiders return in 2011 if foolish. Almost as foolish as those editorials from the local newspapers claiming that Goodell was going to be the one candidate for commissioner who would deliver the NFL back to Los Angeles.

The city of Los Angeles should instead concern itself with rebuilding a state-of-the-art facility for USC. You know, the team that still plays here.

Good-looking corpse: yea or nay?

Something to keep people occupied while I'm off writing about mobsters in tacky track suits:

Between the "Lost" producers declaring their intention to end the show sooner rather than later, Ron Moore's comments that "Galactica" is entering its third act, and "The Sopranos" and "The Shield" in various stages of wrapping everything up, I'm wondering what people's thoughts are about when/if their favorite shows should call it quits.

It's hard to be more fixated on a show than I was with "NYPD Blue," but I was ready for that show to end long before it did. I feel like the last few seasons, while competent enough, dragged down my opinion of the series as a whole because they kept hitting the same notes that had been played so beautifully in the early seasons. At the same time, I kept getting e-mails through my website from people who were anguished that things were coming to a close; they couldn't get enough of their weekly Sipowicz fix, no matter how watered-down or repetitive it might have been. A few of them even asked me what they could do to change ABC's mind about the cancellation.

We all know that "X-Files" would have been better off ending on Chris Carter's original five-year plan, and I'm sure some of the weak spots in latter-day "Sopranos" have come from David Chase and company trying to stretch out their material past the point of usefulness. I loved the last season, but at the same time I could see how the episodes began losing their momentum halfway through -- right around the point when the writing staff realized they would be doing another batch of episodes after that one. And even "The Shield," which has been remarkably consistent throughout its run, bothers me from time to time with the fact that Vic keeps narrowly escaping justice, year after year.

So, a few questions for the peanut gallery:

1. On average, would you rather a show you like overstay its welcome just so you can spend more time with the characters, or do you subscribe to the old Branch Rickey "better to trade a player one year too early than one year too late" philosophy?
   
2. In the past, what shows do you like that have suffered the most from sticking around too long?
3. Have any shows that you love seemingly overstayed their welcome, only to have an unexpected creative resurgence towards the end? (I'd put "Cheers," "Frasier" and, to a certain extent, "NYPD Blue" on that list.)
   

Fire away. Rerun season's a good time for open threads.

This guy walks into a psychiatrist's office...

So thanks to that wacky "Battlestar Galactica" finale, yesterday was by far the most-visited day in What's Alan Watching? history (or, at least, since I installed a hit counter a few months ago). And what do I have as an encore for all these potential new readers? Um... uh... nothing right this second, sorry.

We're entering that annual period where my life gets taken over by "The Sopranos." The Star-Ledger is more than a little obsessed with the show, and between what Matt wrote in the first three seasons and what I've done from season four on, we've written enough to fill a book or two. (You can find some of the highlights over at NJ.com's "Sopranos" page.) I'm just glad the show is so great; I can't imagine how awful the last eight years would have been if, say, David E. Kelley had written a hit drama where the main character waddles down to pick up his Star-Ledger at the start of every season.

So between now and the April 8 premiere, I've been pulled off of virtually any non-"Sopranos" assignment, which means no new column links this week. (I managed to carve out time in my schedule to watch and write about "The Shield," which is possibly even more awesome than ever, and "Entourage," which has some problems, but also has Carla Gugino, so it ain't all bad.) Plus, a lot of my evenings are being devoted to "Sopranos" content. I passed over all of primetime last night to get ahead on some of my writing ("24" is my only Monday show that wasn't in reruns), and I'll be at "Sopranos" events in NYC tonight and tomorrow.

I'll be blogging as much as I can ("American Idol" posts will just get done later than usual, and I intend to say lots about this week's brilliant, goosebump-inducing "Friday Night Lights"), but between "Sopranos" overload and the fact that so many shows in the usual rotation are still in reruns, content may be more irregular than I would like. Sorry.

North Carolina Not Biggest Chokers

If you think that North Carolina folded, you haven't seen anything yet. This is from the DII championship game. Winona had previously won like 50 consecutive games.



Thanks to Jeff Samardzija for the clip. (Don't ask.)

The Post Mortem

UCLA returns to the Final Four and that means only one thing:

More gratuitous crowd shots of Bill Walton and his wife, Soon-Yi. Seriously, why are the CBS cameras so infatuated with Walton and his wife? Especially when the UCLA girls are running around in basketball jerseys and other assorted costumes that haven't been seen since the last viewing of Showgirls.

The UCLA v. Florida match-up should be a good one, even though logic states that if the Bruins couldn�t beat the Gators last year, why should this be any different? The Bruins look much more confident this year and the team seems to have more toughness trading in Jordan Farmar for Darren Collison. Plus, you have to look back to 1991 when UNLV romped Duke in the national title game the previous year, but were upset that year in the semi-finals. So don�t let last year�s result way too much on your mind. But if the Bruins don't win, look for the myopic Bruins fans to turn on Ben Howland.

Have you ever seen a bigger meltdown than North Carolina yesterday? They went from boat-racing Georgetown to barely scoring a point in overtime. It was as if somebody switched out the Tar Heels for a bunch of Blue Devils. The Hoyas scored 31 of the final 40 points in this one. Losers such as Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning and Roy Williams were able to shed their choking ways for a championship, but in the end, they are chokers for a reason. Williams really did nothing to stem the tide in that one. Whereas you know Howland would have called about 20 timeouts or Tim Floyd would have those a paper onto the court or something.

Thanks to Insomniac's Lounge for today's photo. He is the absolute best in the business for finding pictures like that.

• How are you expected to watch a Georgetown game and not do the Dr. Hibbert laugh from The Simpsons? Nearly impossible. (And yes, this is why nobody wants to watch games with your host.)

• How does Patrick Ewing Jr. not wear an undershirt?

• Amazing that the Ducks had its top four players in foul trouble. Or wait, that wasn�t amazing at all. Anybody could see that the Oregon was going to get homered out of the gym. A super-human effort was needed, but not delivered. Oh, and nice foul at the end of the game to allow Florida to cover the 7-point spread.

• Tajuan Porter, way to put up 33 points against UNLV and then just disappear into oblivion. Jerk.

AND FINALLY

Actually took some time to watch Kobe Bryant on Sunday night and he only scores 43 points? That will teach you to never watch the NBA ever again.

Battlestar Galactica: Let us not talk falsely now

Spoilers -- big, big, giant honking spoilers, the kind you should run screaming from if you're time-shifting or waiting to watch the season on DVD or whatever, or if you ignored my prior warning to pad your recording for the extra few minutes, because you are going to hate yourself if you read this stuff without having watched -- for the "Battlestar Galactica" season finale coming up just as soon as I ask this important question: Are you experienced?

Everybody who hasn't seen the episode is gone, right?

Right?

Are we clear?

Okay, that's enough. Insert whatever profane expression you want to here, because I uttered damn near all of them after that last 20 minutes. So which revelation was the biggest stunner?

Was it that Starbuck seems to be very much not dead, after all?

That Baltar got off?

That we know the identity of not just one of the Final Five, but four of them?

Or that Saul Mother Effing Tigh is apparently a Cylon?

Are you frakking kidding me? I've had nearly a month to process this and it's still making my brain hurt.

Let's start with the Final Four -- or, rather, if we believe that that's what they are. If it was just Anders, Tyrol and Tory, I would accept it almost unquestioningly, but Tigh complicates things. Saul Tigh fought in the first Cylon war -- back in the days when the Cylons were all allegedly of the toaster variety -- has known Adama for more than 40 years, has very clearly aged over that time. We know there can be elderly Cylon skinjobs -- see Brother Cavil -- but presumably Cavil has always looked like that. So unless there is a whole lot we don't know about Cylon history and physiology, like the fact that the skinjobs existed well ahead of when humanity thinks they did, and that they can change their appearance over time, then something's not right.

But what, exactly? It can't be a coincidence that these were four of the five leaders of the New Caprica insurgency (the fifth being Laura Roslin, and isn't that damned interesting?), but Tigh's the only one we know of who spent any time in Cylon custody. So if they're not Cylons, why are they all hearing the same Jimi Hendrix song? (Much more on that, by the way, below.) Why are they all drawn to the same room on Galactica, and why are they so convinced that they are, in fact, Cylons? It can't be just the song -- though, with the right drugs involved, Jimi's music can make you think you're a god -- so what? Did they somehow implant chips in all of them? (This could also be how the Cylon fleet is really tracking the fleet, and not via the fuel ship's energy signature.) If so, when?

And if they are Cylons, how does that work? We know that sleeper agents can have memory implants (see Boomer), so maybe Tyrol's ultra-religious parents don't exist, and maybe Anders is so great at Pyramid because he has robot parts. But what are the odds that four members of the Final Five would A)survive the initial genocide, B)survive months or years of battle with the Cylons (in Anders' case, stranded in an occupied radioactive wasteland), C)survive all the deaths associated with New Caprica (including Gina's nuke), and D)end up leading the resistance against their secret brothers and sisters?

Maureen Ryan and I talked a little after we both saw all four episodes, and she has a bunch of theories, including the idea that there's been an ongoing Cylon civil war, and maybe even that everyone is really a Cylon, that humanity ceased to exist a long time ago and the Cylons have been having the same civil war over and over again, causing so much destruction that, by the end, they've forgotten who and what they all are. (UPDATE: For more on Maureen's take, visit her fine and dandy blog.) I don't know if I go that far, but I think of the number of times that characters on this show (usually the religious nuts like Leoben) talk about how all of this has happened before and will happen again and I wonder: how long have the Cylons been around?

Or maybe the explanation is this: the Final Five didn't always look like this, but after a massive philosophical disagreement with the other seven about what to do to their human creators, they built new bodies for themselves based on pre-existing humans, downloaded into those bodies along with memory implants to convince themselves that they had always been Tigh and Tyrol and Anders and Tory, and left their old bodies and friends behind.

I don't know. But I do know this: all four actors in general, and Michael Hogan in particular, were amazing in that scene. I love the idea of them finding out that they're Cylons and deciding that this doesn't change anything about who they consider themselves to be and where their loyalties lie:

"My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be."

A-frakking-men. Goosebumps galore at that. Some of this is obviously echoing the Boomer arc from season one, but I feel like there's a lot of mileage left in the concept, whether these four are really Cylons or not.

Meanwhile, is Laura the fifth? Again, she was the only resistance leader not in that room, but she's also suddenly projecting herself into the opera house, which Caprica Six seemed to think was impossible. So either Laura's also been a Cylon this whole time, or Hera's blood is turning her into enough of one that she can pull certain Cylon tricks like projection.

Or is Kara the fifth? That's certainly the easiest explanation of how she survived the Viper explosion, but then it would make her entire backstory and all the flashbacks in "Maelstrom" into a lie. I'm okay with dismissing what we know of Tyrol's childhood as a memory implant or something, but Kara's biography is too important to who she is for it to be dumped -- especially after we devoted her entire "death" episode to it.

And I have to applaud Ron and Mrs. Ron for being able to so casually lie through their teeth about Kara being dead during the "Maelstrom" podcast. As you all know, I was sure taken in by the death, and I was apparently wrong -- unless the Cylons do have the capabilities to make duplicate bodies of humans, which ties back in to one of the theories for how Tigh could be a Cylon. Or maybe it's Occam's Razor, and the phantom Raider we saw in "Malestrom" somehow picked her up right before the explosion (though, as I recall, the canopy was still intact when the ship blew, so it didn't seem like she ejected).

Again, my brain hurts. So let's move on to the rest of the episode.

I think it was inevitable that Baltar would be acquitted, because he's too valuable a character to shove out an airlock, or even to turn him into Hannibal Lecter in a cell forever. As things went, I think the writers did a good job of showing how three of the judges -- including Adama -- could have been swayed to vote that way, and of course we have the benefit of knowing that Baltar's sins go much, much deeper than the charges in this trial. (Laura suspects his role in the genocide but has no proof, Caprica Six ain't testifying, and the only people who know about Baltar and the nuke are Baltar and a dead Cylon.) In that speech on the witness stand, which was brilliant except that it was on the witness stand (we'll get back to that), Lee made some excellent points about the hypocrisy of this trial.

So there's a general amnesty for everything that happened on New Caprica, except where Gaius Baltar's involved? So he and Laura and Adama are all completely innocent and untouched by what happened in the military coup storyline that bridged seasons one and two? So Helo disobeys orders and ruins their best chance of eliminating the Cylon threat forever because he's having a crisis of conscience, and it's no harm and no foul? At this point, it's all about degrees of sin, because everyone's dirty in some way or other. Everyone in this gang they claim to call a civilization.

Really, the only thing I would have changed about that speech was the fact that Lee was delivering it as testimony. When you do a courtroom story, even one in a sci-fi setting where the rules maybe aren't exactly the same as they are in 21st century America, you're relying on our knowledge of the basic frameworks of the legal system and of the last 100 years of legal dramas, and I don't care if Adama wanted to hear what he had to say, there ain't no way that defense counsel's assistant would be allowed to deliver sworn testimony in which he gave a speech about why their client should be found not guilty. Better that Lampkin had decided to have Lee deliver the closing argument because the judges would be more kindly disposed towards Lee than himself. Same exact speech, same sentiments, and you don't have the audience spending the entire time distracted by why the prosecutor doesn't object every five seconds, the judges' earlier ruling be damned.

But that's my only major complaint to an otherwise brilliant finale. A very inverse bell curve of a season, huh? Genius at the beginning and end, and lots of mediocrity in between.

Some other brief thoughts:

• In the podcast for "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II," Moore said that his original idea for what Baltar would find in the ruins of the temple was a room where a Jimi Hendrix song was playing, and Dirk Benedict would show up and ask Baltar if he recognized the tune, and Baltar would say he did, and Benedict would say, "Hi. I'm God." Moore said he moved off the idea because he had no idea what any of it meant, but clearly the Hendrix part stuck in his head ("All Along the Watchtower" is technically a Dylan song, but everyone knows Jimi's version the best), and I have to assume he knows exactly what that means now. Does it mean that this show takes place far, far into our future, or far, far into our past, and that "All Along the Watchtower" is a folk song that survived the 13th tribe's voyage across the galaxy?
  
• And so farewell to Romo Lampkin. As I said a few weeks back, I grew to like him over time, but I wish he could have been proven thoroughly wrong on something, you know?
  
• God, Gaeta really hates Baltar. First the stabbing, now the perjury.
• So how many episodes into season four before Apollo's resignation is rescinded?
  

What did everybody else think?

Best. Couch gag. Ever?

Haven't watched the rest of tonight's "Simpsons" yet, but the couch gag -- in which Homer evolved from single-cell organism to 21st century man, with stops through prehistory and the Renaissance -- was definitely the longest I've ever seen and maybe the funniest. (Lenny and Moe's cameos alone were brilliant.)

Tell me I'm wrong. Name a better one.

UPDATE: So it's on YouTube, for now. Watch it while you can, and hopefully if NewsCorp has it pulled, an official version will go up on Fox.com somewhere.

Peyton Funny on SNL

Even yours truly has to give Manning credit for this commercial which is damn funny. And a quick note to predict that Oregon is going to get homered out of the gym today.

Battlestar Galactica reminder

The finale is longer than an average episode, even though most on-line listings I've checked have placed it in a 60-minute timeslot. If you're not watching it live, you're going to want to pad your VCR or DVR recording by at least 5 minutes, if not 10 -- or, just to play it safe, record the 11 o'clock "Dresden Files" rerun.

You will be very mad if you miss the last few minutes.

The Weak Ender

As many of you are aware, Gisele is not pregnant. The supermodel finally put to bed the rumors with a recent announcement. Whether the whole thing was just a rumor, or if Tom just pushed her down a flight of stairs (Tommy Tuck Rule's theory, the bottom line is that she is not pregnant and that is what is really important.

SWEET 16

With UNLV and Georgetown back at the top of the basketball world, it's like the 1980s all over again. The humorous thing is that neither team resembles the teams of its past. The Rebels certain aren't the Runnin� Rebels and the Hoyas are running the Princeton-style of offense. Either way, the rebirth of these two programs has been enough to want to go out and fire up the Nintendo to play some Baseball Stars (easily the greatest baseball game ever created).

Bad news for the Rebels though, the Sports Dork has picked them to win tonight. He also liked Tennessee last night. Is there any way to stage an intervention to stop this guy?

• Is this the year that four No. 1s make it to the Final Four? No. Ohio State has been living on borrowed time for a while now. They can't possibly survive into the next round. Memphis should come out and boat race the Buckeyes, only the Tigers won�t let up on the gas this time. UCLA and Kansas should be a good battle, and it wouldn't surprise if both No. 1 seeds went down on Saturday.

• Phil Jackson hates March Madness and was a little upset when the Memphis Grizzlies fans were paying more attention to the Memphis/Texas A&M game than Kobe Bryant going for 60 against their club. Jackson complained to the scorer's table, who showed the closing moments of the college game on the stadium scoreboard. This upset Jackson because he felt that the disrespecting Memphis crowd should have its eyes trained on Kobe. Yeah, like the crowd at the Lakers game is all about the game.

• Could be wrong, but getting a growing sense from the Trojans fans that they are annoyed by the team�s recent success during the NCAA tournament. Like it is taking too much attention from spring practice or something.

• Gomer is going to be on Saturday Night Live this week? That's so surprising. Not that Gomer is going to find a way to get more television time, but that SNL is still on the air. THN will give Gomer a pass if he does two of the following things, reprises the Joe Montana/masturbation skit, mocks Eli Messiah, mocks James Dungy. Actually, any James Dungy jokes will earn him THN Patron Saint status.

• Carrie Underwood is going to be the musical guest on the show, so add a Tony Romo gag to the list of skits Gomer must perform.

• PacMan Jones had his house robbed. Why would anybody go to that trouble? If they hung around a strip club long enough, Jones would show up with $80K to give to the crowd. Of course, you run the risk of getting shot, but $80K is $80K.

AND FINALLY
Josh McRoberts is leaving Duke early to go to the NBA. Looks like he wants to get a head-start to retirement. Christian Laettner and Danny Ferry were actually good in college and they couldn't hang in the NBA. But maybe he's on to something. Guys that have escaped from Duke have ended up being much better in the NBA, like Elton Brand. So maybe getting away from Coach Krzytydfjkxcski will help improve his NBA stock. Imagine how horrible Kobe Bryant would be right now if he actually attended Duke. Skipping straight to the NBA was the best thing he could have ever done. Even though nobody watches him now.

Grey's Anatomy: Urge to kill... rising...

Very brief, bitter spoilers for"Grey's Anatomy" coming up, and if you want to use this thread to comment on "October Road," too, feel free...

In the comments on last week's episode, a number of people all but urged me to give up on the show in the wake of the George/Izzie sex fiasco, and after last night's episode, I think they may be right. I've just grown to hate virtually all of these characters, except for Addison (destined to escape to the spin-off), Karev and McSteamy (who never has enough to do because he's not currently sleeping with another character, and whose love interest is leaving for said spin-off), and my tolerance for the sledgehammer parallels between the patients and their doctors is wearing thin. Glad to see Catherine Dent out of "Shield" uniform, and Michael Boatman getting a paycheck (in a weird "Arli$$" reunion w/Sandra Oh), but I don't care anymore.

I'll probably keep watching for a while for professional purposes, but I don't know that I'll be blogging at length about it anymore, barring either a massive creative turnaround or an episode even worse than this one that inspires me to swear it off altogether. Maybe I'll put in my two cents on the backdoor pilot for the spin-off, I suppose. Sigh...

What did everybody else think, of either this or episode two of the Bryan Greenberg show?

Scrubs & Andy Barker: Fate and the fat man

Spoilers for "Scrubs" and "Andy Barker, P.I." just as soon as I pack my thermos of emergency bisque...

"Scrubs" seems to be edging ever closer back to the real world, where strange things happen in the real world (the guys' perfectly-concocted lie about Mexican football), but the really bizarre stuff has been consigned back to JD's fantasies (the boobie horn, JD's perfect date), and I think the show is better for it. Not a fantastic episode, but funny enough in spots, and the Laverne twist both surprised me (I was expecting the tragedy from the episode description to be the loss of Jordan's baby, followed by Cox begging Laverne to give him a reason for it) and is going to provide some strong material for Mr. McGinley.

"Andy Barker," meanwhile, provided the funniest of the five episodes I've seen. (Co-written by celebrity blogger extraordinaire Jane Epsenson.) In particular, the running gag with the flashbacks to Guy's running made me laugh so long and so loud each time that Marian (on the phone with an old friend) had to get up and leave the room. It wasn't just the image of a fat guy running in slo-mo, but the context each time, plus the giant sub jiggling in his hand and that same music snippet over and over. (Also loved the tragic Vietnam movie score after Guy collapsed, and Guy's physique made Andy look positively svelte.) The addition of Nicole Randall Johnson from the pilot as Andy's disinterested secretary is a good choice, even though I'm constantly distracted by the fact that she looks a little and sounds a lot like Gina Torres, and her presence gave the otherwise misused Tony Hale something funny to do.

I wouldn't say it's all downhill from here, but I think the concept's a thin one for a series, and this is about the best they can do with this. If the show gets renewed, I hope Andy, Conan and company prove me wrong.

What did everybody else think?

Feeding the beast

Question for those of you who read this blog via an RSS Reader or similar program: do you have a preference about whether the site feed publishes each post in its entirety or just the beginning? Given some recent issues with spoiler protection -- and with the spoiler-riffic "Galactica" finale coming up on Sunday -- I'm toying with switching to the partial feed option, but only if there aren't a lot of objections.

Thursday's Sweet 16 Predictions

But first on Tubby Smith�good for him for getting out of Kentucky. Why put up with trying to win national championships when you can hang out in Minnesota, win 18 games a year and be considered a hero? Smith is a hero to slackers and underachievers everywhere. Celebrate Smith�s decision by taking tomorrow off to play some golf.

On to the predictions:

FANS WILL quickly turn off the Southern Illinois/Kansas game when they get a glimpse of some of the Saluki players, Randal Falker and Jamaal Tatum, believing that they have stumbled on to a women's basketball game. Watching Southern Illinois lack of scoring won't help change that notion...

SPECULATION ON John Calipari going to Kentucky will dominate the conversation during the Texas A&M v. Memphis game. This will constitute the most anybody has ever thought of Kentucky, outside of Ashley Judd wearing that hockey jersey...

SADLY BRUCE Pearl will keep his shirt on...

DID YOU know that Ben Howland once coached at Pittsburgh? The prediction here is that the announcers won�t talk about it once. They won't talk about Jamie Dixon being Howland's prot�g�. The announcers will instead talk about what�s happening on the basketball court. No, not seriously...

WESLEY SNIPES and Woody Harelson will challenge Greg Oden to a game of two-on-two, thinking that Oden is really one-half of the "King and Duck" duo from White Men Can't Jump. Larry Bird will then correct them and say that Oden is the reincarnated body of deceased Celtics star, Robert Parrish.

WAIT A minute. Parrish is still alive? What are the (expletive) odds?

YOUR HOST will show up tomorrow claiming to have gone 4-0 in all of his picks, doing it after the fact. Just kidding, here are the picks, Tennessee money line, UCLA first-half under and Texas A&M giving the points.

Messiah Engaged

The Messiah wanted to do something special for his long-time girlfriend, Abby McGrew so he did it after a singing "Endless Love" during one of his famed karaoke performances. Oh wait, he didn't. the Messiah actually proposed at home, probably during a commercial break of the Gilmore Girls.

Maybe it�s a good thing Eli didn't pop the question in public. He probably would have had the ring intercepted by some other broad. Like the one in the picture.

Worst. Theme. Ever.

From the Fox press release for next week's "American Idol":

Grammy Award-winning artist Gwen Stefani will work with the Top 10 finalists next week on AMERICAN IDOL Tuesday, March 27 (8:00-9:07 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), and will perform �The Sweet Escape� with Akon on the results show Wednesday, March 28 (9:00-9:30 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. It will be a pop-themed week, as contestants pick their favorite songs from that genre.

When I assumed Stefani would be there for another '90s Week, I thought that was bad enough, since decade themes are just an open invitation for every contestant to pick the most boring song possible from their respective niche, when we all know that the best performances tend to come on themes that force the contestants to challenge themselves.

But Pop Week? Given how elastic the producers let the themes be, that's pretty much an excuse for the contestants to sing any damn song they want. This will be spectacularly boring, I think.

Six Degrees of trickery

Today's column features an interview with "Six Degrees" co-stars/old friends Hope Davis and Campbell Scott, plus some brief thoughts on Showtime's "This American Life" adaptation. The most interesting part is where the two talk about why they would leave their indie-movie cocoon to do a TV show:

So what made them want to do it?

"I was kind of lured into it," Davis says, referring to Laura's backstory as the widow of a TV reporter killed in Iraq, "thinking that my story was going to be quite political and that it was going to be about what it was like for the average American that you don't expect to be caught up in the Iraq war to be blown sideways. I thought my storyline was going to have much more to do with politics and the war, and it's hardly done that at all. It became clear that some powers that be wanted me to quickly recuperate and get on with my life, which wasn't what I intended.

And Scott?

"I bamboozled Campbell," Davis explains.

"I don't think 'bamboozled' is the correct word," he counters.

To read the full thing, click here.

Lost: It's my dad in a box!

"Lost" spoilers coming up just as soon as my wife and I work out our own code for "a man with a gun is holding my daughter in the closet"...

Curioser and curioser. I fully expect certain revelations like the truth about the island's Magic Box to be either too prolonged or too silly when they come, and I'm annoyed that Hurley's been AWOL the last two weeks (thank goodness he was in the previews), but I'm not going to complain overly much about any episode that features Kevin Tighe as Locke's terrifying dad, or one that has Locke back to his insanely selfish primitive man self from the pre-hatch days.

So let's see, John: You don't want to ever leave the island, so you blow up the only means of escape for everyone? That's not taking your ball and going home; that's taking your ball and then sealing everyone else inside the ball-free gym forever. If you don't want to leave some day if rescuers ever come, don't go with them. And if you're annoyed that The Others are cheating with their electricity and white meat chicken, just go live deep in the bowels of the jungle by your lonesome. Rousseau's shown that it can be done (though she did have a little cabin for a while).

But while Locke was being an idiot, he was doing it in the way that we all came to know and love in season one. I vastly prefer the zealot whose solution to every problem is a timed explosive to the guy who just pushes buttons all day.

I love watching Tighe work (and now that we know that one of his many aliases is Seward, which is only a hop, skip and a jump from Sawyer, is their any doubt that he's the man who destroyed our Sawyer's family?), but I'm glad that the flashbacks were kept at a minimum. Better to spend more time on the island, especially with the Michael Emerson/Terry O'Quinn acting duel, which was the first time a character has successfully matched wits with Ben. Locke may have done what Ben wanted, but he understood that the whole time and didn't let Ben's agenda interfere with his own, where Jack would have done the opposite just to be a dick about it.

So now Seward/Sawyer/Cooper is on the island, eh? (Along with Nestor Carbonell from "Not in Portland.") This raises at least three possibilities: first, that when The Others gathered intel on the Oceanic 815 survivors, Ben decided for some reason that it would be valuable to have a personal means of manipulating some of them and had his people on the mainland kidnap Cooper (and possibly others); second, that Cooper was on a plane or a boat that unexpectedly crashed her the same way that Eko's brother did; third, that he came out of the Magic Box.

A few other thoughts:

• Glad somebody finally tried to tell Alex the truth about her mom. (My wife rarely watches "Lost," but she was with me for this one, and when she asked what Sayid was talking about, I said, "Her mom's the crazy French lady who lives in the jungle," to which she replied, "Of course her mom's the crazy French lady who lives in the jungle!" Maybe you had to be there.)
  
• Ben's latest henchman, the one who was guarding Sayid at the playground, was played by Brian Goodman, who was the best thing about ABC's otherwise underwhelming mobsters 'n FBI agents show "Line of Fire."
  
• So weird to see Kate on the island sneaking into a tastefully-decorated bungalow and hearing piano music. Also, is this the first we've seen Jack can tickle the ivories, or did it come up in one of his flashbacks?

What did everybody else think?

American Idol: Sad but inevitable results

My comments on the results show over at NJ.com, your comments can be right here.

Friday Night Lights: She's all growns up!

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" coming up just as soon as I cook up some of my award-winning chili and then take hostages...

In my review today, I talked a bit about the genius of "I Think We Should Have Sex," and while this one wasn't quite as epic, it was another beautiful Taylor family tale. Kyle Chandler's specialty has been the hard-ass, sarcastic side of Coach, and he got to show a compellingly softer side here, especially in the scene where Tami suggests that Julie is really in love with Matt... about three seconds before Julie walks in looking extremely grown-up (but not all hoochie'd out the way she was that time Matt wore his Members Only jacket), and it finally hits him that his daughter is becoming a woman worthy of more respect and consideration.

I especially liked that the story didn't end with Julie's speech at the dance convincing Eric to give up on his dream job. It was much more realistic and, honestly, touching that he heard her out, made it clear that he understood her concerns but couldn't let those concerns be the sole factor in a decision that would affect the whole family's future.

The flip side of that was the story with Tyra and her mom, which very much fit the encroaching TV-ism that occasionally infects the writers. Up until the scene at the dance, I was really going with it, I liked how Mama Collette took Tami's mentoring as an indictment of her own motherhood, how her own hang-ups were making her push her daughter towards the same life she's had. And maybe if she came around to the college plan over time, or if some significant event happened to make her change her mind, I would have gone with the uplifting ending, but as it was, it just felt like the episode was coming to an end and so they had to wrap things up.

Street's story heads back towards making him a part of the main ensemble again. For all the liberties they've taken thus far with the Murderball storyline, it's still only been a few months since Street was put in that chair, and world-class athlete or not, he shouldn't be Paralympic-ready yet.

I've seen next week's episode, but it doesn't take a psychic to figure out what course Jason's going to travel from here. Loved the scene with the four guys -- the former superstar and the three players who have combined to carry the team in his place -- getting drunk, comparing sob stories ("Chair says I win. Every time.") and, eventually, scrimmaging to instill some confidence in poor Matt. Very "Dazed and Confused," only if Pink still gave a crap about the game.

Some other random thoughts:

• I've talked before about how most of the kids are having to raise themselves and, in some cases, their parents, but this is the first time it's occurred to me that the only kids with fathers in their lives are Julie, Lyla, and Jason. Buddy's a waste of a human being and Mr. Street's clearly distanced himself from his son since the accident, so that really only leaves Julie. Huzzah for the nuclear family!
  
• Lyla trashing Buddy's car lot was a nice touch. Minka Kelly's much better when she doesn't have to talk.
  
• Is there some revisionist history at work about the Taylor's geographic history? This episode implied that they've moved around a lot over the years as Eric's moved from job to job, but the pilot established that he'd been coaching Street since Pee-Wee football. So unless the Streets have been moving around a lot while the Taylors followed their meal ticket from town to town, that doesn't make sense.
• For them what care, the band at the Austin club where Street unleashed his bitterness on Herc was a local Austin band called Little Captain Travis. I liked the sound of them but can't find much about them online.
  
• My issues with Riggins and the MILF next door story remain the same as last time: Bo's too sitcommy cute, and Taylor Kitsch and Brooke Langton look too close in age.

What did everybody else think?

Gruden Likes to Watch

Jeff Garcia will marry longtime girlfriend and former Playmate of the Year, Carmella DeCesare. When Garcia told Jon Gruden that he was getting married, the coach, "asked if he could go on the honeymoon."

Well somebody who wants to sleep with her probably should.

Oh stop it, that was just too easy. But somehow had to be done. Besides, you can't really forgive DeCesare who won POY going au natural, before altering her body with implants to look like just any of the other anonymous centerfolds in the magazine.



Much love to The House's MDS for finding this link and actually finding the wedding registry.

Friday Night Lights: How do I love thee?

NBC kindly sent out the next two "Friday Night Lights" episodes, which gave me an excuse to write my first full-blown column about it since the pilot:

"Friday Night Lights" is a drama about a high school football team that rarely features more than five minutes of gridiron action, if that, per episode. It's a high school soap opera in which the most compelling lovebirds are the football coach and his guidance counselor wife, a show that raises familiar teen drama questions about sex and drug abuse and race without offering simple answers.

In other words, the "Friday Night Lights" writers are aiming at a target far smaller than the tire swing their quarterback hero rifles passes through in the opening credits. In general, female viewers who might love the relationships are too turned off by the football to watch; guys who love sports don't gravitate towards soaps, even ones in which the halfback option is as important as people talking about their feelings.

Creatively, though, the writers have hit their postage-stamp target with uncanny accuracy. Anyone who can get past their preconceptions for a show with that title and setting will find the best drama currently airing on any network.

To read the full thing, click here. I'll have an episode-specific post up tonight.

American Idol: Shirley Bassey is coming! Shirley Bassey is coming!

British Invasion Night comments are up at NJ.com, but you can do your commenting right here.

Freeway Series?

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated seems to think so. Not really buying the argument for the Dodgers, though. They have the kids, but count on way too many veterans. The Padres would seem like a more logical choice, and more in-line with his own argument about aging ball players. The Padres do have a lot of kids, and a knack for knocking off the Dodgers. So maybe instead of a freeway series, it would be an Amtrak series.

The Angels have huge question marks at the corners going into this season. Chone Figgins might benefit from playing only one position this season, but he�s a stubbed toe away from playing a multiple-position rotation again. First base could be settled with Casey Kotchman, but the dude always seems to be injured, sick, or whatever. And that trends goes back all the way to his first season in the minors.

Hey, hopefully the guy is right, but it�s hard to see that right now.

I've always been interested in drama

Very brief thoughts on "24," "The Riches" and "The Black Donnellys" coming up just as soon as I practice my chokehold move...

"24" continues its annual middle third dip; the only difference here is that the first third wasn't so hot, either. The writers are cobbling together bits and pieces from other seasons with minor tweaks (the Powers Boothe march to war plot is straight out of season two, with the difference being that the President himself is the one itching for an immoral war), but without the unifying Big Idea that Howard Gordon says they try to find for each season. I'm either apathetic or outright hostile towards most of the new supporting characters -- I'm a Ricky Schroder fan going back to his OCD/snot-rubbing days on "NYPD Blue," but Doyle may be the most badly-introduced TV character since Ana-Lucia on "Lost" -- and Jack is disappearing far too much within episodes.

The commenters last week seemed more into "The Riches" than I was. I think it works in spots -- the Russsian Roulette game with Wayne/Doug's golfing buddy was great -- but on a broader level I feel like the show's holding me at a distance.

Meanwhile, "The Black Donnellys" has turned into a punchline on a lot of other TV blogs and message boards; I've seen a phrase like, "Well, I didn't like this episode of Show X, but I watched it after The Black Donnellys, and it was a masterpiece in comparison." Maybe it's just my blind loyalty to the "Young EZ Streets" vibe Haggis and Moresco are going for, but I still don't hate it. That said, there be problems. Though NBC wouldn't allow the show to be a '70s period piece as originally intended, I think references to contemporary life should be few and far between to create the illusion of timelessness, and the entire subplot about Louie Downtown's tricked-out cell phone keeps ruining that. Also, while I like the rotating audience for Joey Ice Cream's narration, it feels like the writers have already started moving away from the unreliable quality of his stories that was one of the show's most appealing traits.

What did everybody else think? Anybody even watching "Donnellys" anymore?

Identifying Idiots

As noted in this space before, Raiders fans are into tattoos. And that's pretty cool. Like a snake shaking its rattle to warm others to stay away, Raiders-themed body art allows common folk to distinguish between the innocuous Raiders fans, and those who are barreling towards their third strike.

SI.com recently ran a feature of sports fans and their tattoos. Not surprisingly, nearly a third of these fans pictured are Raiders fans. Although Bears fans are starting to catch up.

Veronica Mars, FBI?

Some people have been asking what I know about this Hollywood Reporter story about "Veronica Mars" doing a time jump to season four so that Veronica will be training at the FBI Academy in Quantico.

Getting details on this one has been hard, because no one wants to talk on the record, and Rob won't talk about it period, but here's what little I've been able to gather:

• If this happens, Veronica won't be studying at the FBI Academy; she'll be a rookie agent.
• All of the actors are still signed for next season, though I can't imagine all -- or even most, or maybe even anybody save Kristen Bell and maybe Jason Dohring -- surviving into the new format, unless Veronica gets assigned to the FBI's Neptune office. (Logan's rich and has nothing better to do than follow Veronica from place to place, assuming they ever get back together.)
  
• The comparative success of the Pussycat Dolls show has made the chances of "Veronica Mars" returning in its current incarnation all but impossible. On the other hand, I know at least one decision-maker at the CW who's intrigued by the possible new format, and everyone there wants to stay in business with Kristen if they can.
  

So that's what I've got. Now three questions for you, my little research monkeys:

• What shows have done a significant mid-series time jump? So far, I've got "Alias," "Galactica" and "Wonder Woman" (which shifted from WWII to the '70s between seasons). I don't count a show that just did a time jump for the finale, like most of the "Trek" spin-offs.
  
• What shows have been successful after so thoroughly changing their premise? I guess if you count "All in the Family" and "Archie Bunker's Place" as one show, that counts, which leads me to...
• If the CW decides they want a new title -- under the theory that new viewers aren't going to come to a fourth year show, even one that's been totally revamped -- what would you call the new show? And I'll pre-empt all the "Silence of the Lamb" suggestions right now. RIP, Lamb.
  

Fire away.

HIMYM: Provode?

"How I Met Your Mother" spoilers coming up just as soon as the second hand on my watch tells me 23 minutes have passed...

So good to have a new episode, even if we're back in reruns next week. Lots of funny stuff, which I'll list bullet point-style in a second (which is either my new shorthand for an episode too good to say anything else about, or else just a sign that I'm starting to phone it in), but also two important thematic elements.

First, another reminder that Ted and Robin aren't meant to be, and why. And the more I see of Robin independent of Ted, the more convinced I am that she and Barney are destined to be together -- though, given their obsessions with keeping their apartments just so, I imagine that they'll never actually co-habitate, just hang out for smokes, Laser Tag (and more potent firearms) and sex, then go happily sleep in their own beds.

Second, it established again that, while most of us could take or leave Ted, especially as the main character, Marshall and Lily and Barney all badly need Ted as he currently is to make their lives work. I guess the hug at the end said he was the inside tree, huh?

And now for the obligatory list o' funny stuff:

• The 23 minutes flashbacks, especially the one with the woman looking to have revenge sex with Barney;
• Lily and Marshall arguing about what they can say now that they can have loud sex (though I have a question: why did they bother to get dressed again in between the naked TV-watching and the sex?);
• Barney's impression of the guy from "Saw," plus his Letterman top 10 list, which only former Letterman writers like Thomas and Bays should be allowed to do, since they got the whole structure right (the funniest jokes at the beginning, Barney repeating the joke that bombed) even before Barney broke the glass with the index card;
• A callback to Robin's secret gun obsession ("A hand-grenade phone? Let me give you my work address") and her farewell smoke in the tub;
• Marshall covered in wet toilet paper after his shower, and then the payoff when he failed to provode some more for Lily.

What did everybody else think?

Levi Jones Splits 10s

That has to be the reason why Joey Porter stalked and punched Levi Jones after playing blackjack at the Palms in Las Vegas. Because it really takes something serious for Porter to actually hit somebody. (His dogs, not so much.) Porter is kind of like the Fonzie of the NFL. Sure he has a tough guy image, but have you ever seen him actually hit somebody? Hell, he's kissed more dudes during an NFL game than he has actually punched somebody. Jones� transgressions had to be egregious enough to draw that kind of response from Porter. And the only thing harsh enough to elicit that kind of response would be some dude splitting 10s or other jerk moves at a blackjack table.

Most of those times, beer-impaired Fraternity brothers (which is why you need to be cautious about gambling at O�Shea�s or Hooters) or Boston guys who write for ESPN�s Page 2 perform those kind of moves, but NFL players can be dopes. Hopefully Porter gets cleared for this to send a message to people to start playing better blackjack.

(And for the record, Canseco plays pretty good text-book blackjack, but his betting progressions kind of suck.)

The Post Mortem

The first weekend of March Madness has concluded and the question on everybody�s mind today is how many vodka tonics does it take for Alyson Hanningan to seem really hot? Really is it a combination of all the booze mixed with second hand smoke, or is she starting to look that good?

The weekend proved a couple of things, namely, the ACC is the most overrated conference in college hoops. You might even make a case for the Big Ten, but there is no shame in Wisconsin losing to UNLV. Anybody who follows college hoops knew that the Runnin' Rebels were going to beat the Badgers. But enough about that, time to call out the ACC for being a fraud of a conference. It gets sickening listening to all of the ACC-honks back peddle as the conference schools fell to the likes of Virginia Commonwealth and Butler. When you look around at all of the teams still playing, maybe the time has come to cap the amount of teams each conference can send to the tournament.

DUKE IS DUKE

Looking back, Duke needs to be in the tournament. Not because they bring flavor. And certainly not because they deserve it. Rather, they are needed to bring the sports book together and give even the most hapless of gamblers an automatic win. The Las Vegas sports books seemingly conspire to give gamblers one chance to get a win under their belts. Like the free drinks they dispense (thank you Excalibur), a freebie like Duke gives a gambler the "itch" to do more gambling. Seriously ask anybody you know if they wagered on Duke. You can�t do it. Nobody bets money on Duke, and certainly nobody takes them in their office bracket. So keep Duke in the tournament.

GRATUITOUS BAD BEAT STORY

Leave it to UCLA and Seth Greenberg to contribute to the two worst losses of the weekend. (But thank God because if those games had won, THN would be originating from here.) Bruins fans seemed a little chipper for a group that lost on Saturday. At least UCLA and Indiana did go under for the first half on Saturday. The booking agent raised an eyebrow and pointed out that the under is 59.5 when the wager was made. And that number was never in doubt. One of the easiest wins of the weekend. (Followed only by the Tennessee/Long Beach State over.) But way to set college hoops back about 600 years with that game.

• Mike Scyphers really screwed Maryland with that bogus call on D.J. Strawberry. But since the money was on Butler, it was nice to be on the other side for a change.

• The Big XII may or may not belong on the list of overrated conferences, but Kansas looks damn good, and Texas A&M beat a damn good Louisville team. Acie Law IV will never have to buy another drink in Sunset Beach for his part in the miracle cover over Louisville. Two free throws to push over the �2.5 halftime line was one of the highlights of the evening.

• Welcome back UNLV. College basketball missed you.

• Oops to those of you who also took Nevada to the Final Four. Huge upset loss to Memphis. (Shut up, can�t you just go along?) What, nobody else had Nevada in the Final Four?
  

• Doesn�t it figure that some dude in the back row wearing a Duke sweatshirt would miss every one of his bets on Saturday? Each one. But God bless him, he kept on cheering. Too bad he left before he could be asked who he liked in the UCLA game. (He must have chosen the Bruins.)

• So long Kevin Durant. Please turn pro so the Sports Dork can go back to ignoring college hoops again. He has cast a stain on your college career that can�t be erased. Having the Sports Dork give you his endorsement is akin to that smoke smell that gets engrained into your clothes after a weekend in the sports book. (The stench is especially jarring when you live in a non-smoking state.

• Greg Oden, you might want to stick around for another year. If for nothing else, so you can continue to push around people smaller than you. What a jerk.

• You know that Simpsons episode where Homer swears off the Isotopes, but becomes a full-fledged fan after his team nears the pennant? That�s USC fans right now. Of course, all of them will tell you that they were always a fan or slept with half of the team when they were in college, but don�t believe them. (You can see the clip here.)

• Celebrity Sighting: Slugger Jose Canseco was playing the $5 tables at the Excalibur early Sunday morning. The bad part, Canseco recognized that he was recognized and was actually enjoying it. Waited 20 minutes to try to get on Jose�s table, but nobody was budging. Missed out on an opportunity to go totally fan boy and do a �bash brother� with Jose after a black jack. But that dream will have to live on.

• The hype surrounding Entourage was too much to give a chance until the ride back from Las Vegas on Sunday. Surprisingly, the show is really good. Good writing, good characters. Not having HBO, can�t wait for the next season to come out on DVD. Jeremy Piven has long been a favorite actor, and this role is probably his best since �Draz� in PCU.

AND FINALLY

What is the protocol on taking your buddy's money at the poker table? The Tropicana poker room accommodated our group with its own private table, that allowed us to fleece each other. In some sense, losing money to your buddy instead of a casino makes it a little easier. At the same time, you would rather win the casino�s money anyway, right? So what is the proper decorum here?

Battlestar Galactica: Family law

Spoilers for "Battlestar Galactica" coming up just as soon as I figure out why Lee gets to keep his fancy quarters...

So much going on here, and yet almost all of it is set-up for the mind-blowingness to come with "Crossroads, Part II." And since I'm going to need about seven weeks just to put to paper all my thoughts on that, I'm taking the lazy way out and going straight to the bullet points.

• How good is Mary McDonnell? So good that, as Romo Lampkin gives his opening statement about how Baltar's capitulation to the Cylons probably saved humanity, you can see Madame President fixing him with an incredible "revenge is a dish best served cold" smile, and she's not even in focus in the shot. Lee's cross-examination of her was also a superb moment from both her and Jamie Bamber, particularly her callback to the days when she called him Captain Apollo and they braided each other's hair and sang "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" together on karaoke nights.
• Now how great is Michael Hogan? That entire sequence from Tigh visiting Caprica Six's cell through him drunk on the stand through him really drunk and being helped back to his cell by Adama rivaled Dennis Franz on the Classic TV Boozers of all time scale. Tour de freaking force.
• And while I'm laying out the superlatives, more genius from Bamber and Edward James Olmos. I love that the show's willing to take these relationships to extremes, and that it has actors who can play those extremes.
  
• Getting back to Lampkin's opening argument, does he have a point? If Laura was still president (and somehow had allowed herself to be convinced into settling New Caprica), would she have defied the Cylons? And would that have just resulted in her death, or the death of all humanity? It's a shame that the prosecutor can't introduce Baltar's role in the genocide (Lampkin's crowning achievement was getting Caprica Six back on their side), and that nobody knows that Baltar was responsible for the nuclear detonation that killed a good chunk of the fleet (add that to the whiteboard differential) and tipped off the Cylons about the location of New Caprica.
  

Really, I'm afraid to say anything more this time lest I betray what's coming, so take it away, folks. What did everybody else think?

The Amazing Race: First team to hug Phil may be AWESOME

"Amazing Race" spoilers coming up just as soon as I paint some fingernails...

On the one hand, not a well-designed leg at all. Way, way, way too much bunching, a Roadblock in which the Racers seemed like virtual bystanders, and a Detour so lopsided it allowed the loathsome, barely competent Mirna and Charla to go from worst to first simply because the other teams were too dim to realize that selling a buck's worth of nail painting would be easier than loading 10 bags of coal.

On the other hand, it featured the spectacle of a filthy Oswald chasing Phil off the mat, which may have been the funniest thing I've ever seen on this show. So there's that. Those two better stick around at least as long as they did the first time, preferably at the expense of this week's first-place finishers and immature homophobic sexist tool Eric.

I hadn't watched the last few seasons, so I didn't know about the new rules for the bottom team in a non-elimination leg. I vastly prefer this to the old mugging policy, as I find watching reality show contestants beg for cash really distasteful. Has any team to be hit with the new penalty avoided elimination on the next leg?

What did everybody else think?