andreikirilenkotattoo on TV: 'House' gets a creative shot in the arm

Blog as column incubator, part 936: today's column is mostly a rehash of last week's blog entry about the final four "House" fellowship candidates, though I talk a little more about why I feel the search has reinvigorated the show.

Ricky Williams

Greetings, it's your old pal McLean Stevenson here, the king of career choices. Being the king allows me to make fun of other people who are making bigger mistakes than I ever did. This is the part where I would link back to my own personal blog, but I don't update it because I have a life. Just kidding. It's because I'm dead, people. How do you still now get this?

But anyway, I was kicking around the old Match Game set here in Heaven, when I ran into Kevin DuBrow (hair still looks great) in the commissary. Damn that guy can still belt out �Bang Your Head.� All the meth heads who died in the 1980s on the Sunset Strip, including River Phoenix, have been hounding this guy all day. Like he just got here, leave him alone. But anyway, Kevin told me that Ricky Williams was making a comeback today on Monday Night Football.

I tuned in during the second quarter and the Williams' comeback was already over. Even Priest Holmes thought that was fast. Was Ricky concerned that there were a few people left on the planet Earth who didn�t think of him as a burnout with no heart? Because he has them all convinced now. He can�t be making enough money to justify this. Ricky should tried out for the Surreal Life because at least they don�t hurt people there. Unless, of course, he was asked to shack up with Danny Bonaduce or something.

Bad move, thumbs down.

Chuck and Life get the back nine (or whatever)

Hot off the e-presses, from NBC:

NBC has picked up the freshman dramas "Chuck" (Mondays, 8-9 p.m. ET) and "Life" (Wednesdays, 10-11 p.m. ET) for nine more episodes -- or the balance of the 2007-08 season -- it was announced today by Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios.

If the strike goes on and on, a back nine is moot, but as the release says, these two shows will get to make as many episodes as any other show with a full season order if/when the strike ends.

We all know that "Bionic Woman" is basically dead (expensive, constant backstage turmoil, nobody much likes it), so that just leaves "Journeyman" among NBC rookies with an undecided fate. That show's creator says the final episode they produced will provide some level of closure, which is something.

Don't know whether the announcement suggests real progress was made today in the WGA/AMPTP negotiations, or simply that NBC had to make decisions around now to avoid losing their options on the casts, producers, etc., but as I like both shows, I'm pleased.