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Motion to strike

OK, so those guys are on strike (photography by Albert Ching, by the way).

But guess who's back! That's right! Me! To celebrate the occasion, here's a clip of Angel returning in season three of "Buffy."

Talk balk

In under a week, we've had two famously awkward talk show confrontations - Paris Hilton on "The Late Show with David Letterman" Friday and "Hardball" host Chris Matthews on "The Daily Show" Tuesday. Like 99% of America, I thought the Paris Hilton interview was pretty funny - I mean, really, who was expecting probing (no pun intended) questions about her perfume? But the "TDS" bit was a little harder to take for me. It seemed more like Jon Stewart was taking issue with Darrell Hammond's Chris Matthews impression than the actual guy himself, who seems like a pretty cool dude. Sure, "Life's A Campaign" sounds like a pretty dumb book, but Stewart never explained - or gave Matthews a chance to explain - beyond what's in the title. It'd be like having the author of the "The Neverending Story" on and complaining about the fact that it did, indeed, end. I've preferred "The Colbert Report" to "TDS" for a while now, and this further illustrates why - in having Matthews on for seemingly no reason to take him to task and not give him much of a chance to respond, he sort of becomes what he satires.

So, much like celebrity deaths, it stands to reason that awkward talk show encounters come in threes. So what's next? Looking at upcoming lineups, I'm gonna guess Josh Duhamel on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" on Friday. That is just an explosive controversy waiting to happen.

In case you missed them (the "TDS" one will probably be yanked by Viacom sooner rather than later):

Comedy can be funny

Comedy Central has made some head-scratching moves lately, like renewing "Li'l Bush" - I can see renewing "Mind of Mencia," which they also did, because I guess there's people out there that like it - but "Li'l Bush"? Is there really another season worth of material out there? Isn't he going to be out of office soon? Wasn't this show a better idea like, seven years ago, when they did have a Bush-themed show that was pretty funny? They also canceled "The Showbiz Show," which I don't really care about and wouldn't have been such a big deal if not compounded with this other news (I would take a million "Showbiz Show"s over one frame of "MoM"). I also fear that the "Michael Ian Black Doesn't Understand" project might be DOA; I haven't heard anything about it in months.

But, Wednesday nights, it's all good, because tonight "South Park" and "The Sarah Silverman Program" are back with new episodes (props to CC for not putting new South Parks with the execrable fellow animated series "Drawn Together"). I've seen a lot of Sarah Silverman the past 24 hours, on Letterman last night, "The View" this morning (I watched it only because I knew she'd be on - honest!) and I even heard her sniffing Richard Christy's balls on Howard Stern today. Hopefully I won't be too sick of her saying naughty things while talking in a little girl voice by the time her show comes on.

'Dancing with the Stars' - guy with awesome first name gets eliminated

I'm playing catch up here, but yes, Albert Reed, whoever that is, was eliminated last night on "Dancing with the Stars" - not a huge loss all things considered (other than my prediction being wrong, a rare occurrence indeed). The real tragedy is saying bye to Anna Trebunskaya, his awesome professional partner. Fellow "DwtS" historians remember that she was Jerry Rice's spunky, fiery, redheaded, Eastern European partner in season two. She missed the last couple of seasons, so it was great to have her back, albeit fleetingly.

'House' 4.2 - Scottsdale brat

What a huge bummer to find out that Cameron and Chase hadn't really moved to Scottsdale (480 shoutout what what), it was just a playful gambit on the part of one James Wilson. I was all excited to call them up, maybe take in dinner at Cowboy Ciao or hit Martini Ranch, then grab some late night grub at Mickey's Hangover. Pity.

This was a really super great episode, with plenty of comic relief from the team of wannabes (referring to them exclusively by number sorta reminded me of "Gossip Girl" characters calling each other "S" and "B"). A black Mormon, wha? It stretches believability somewhat that a dude with no medical degree could get that far in the interview process, but I guess House was serious about not reading resumes.

Looks like Kal Penn is going to be a series regular - I knew he had that bold, experimental style that House was looking for! Good for him, I mean, between this and the will hotly anticipated "Harold & Kumar 2," we're in a new era of Penntasticness. But it also sounds pretty awkward, given that it doesn't exactly take a world-renowned diagnostician to see that Chase, Cameron and Foreman will be back on staff soon.

Primitive notion

It's here! On TV, right now! "Cavemen," the show that is so bad they won't let critics see it, the show with the worse buzz since "Baby Bob." Maybe a little worse, actually. Let's see how long I can last with it - personally, I'm surprised that it wasn't canceled before the west coast airing.

7:03 p.m. - Wow, this is a very ugly show. Both the way it's shot and the makeup of the characters.

7:04 p.m. - OMG, Nick Swardson! I like him! Not that his presence indicates quality. He was in "The Benchwarmers."

7:07 p.m. - So, what's the plot of this show, exactly? That this show takes place in some sort of alternate universe where somehow there are cavemen that have survived today but are otherwise in every way like anyone else except for having crappy makeup applied to their faces? And other than that, the world is exactly the same? That's the kind of thing that's not important in a 30-second commercial, but on a series, will start to seem even stupider than it obviously is. So is Swardson a regular character on this show or what?

7:10 p.m. - "Carpoolers" (which I didn't realize until right now stars the patriarch from "Sons and Daughters") looks like it won't be much better; at least this has some sort of a (lame) hook. I probably won't find out. I probably won't find out what the next 20 minutes of this is like, either.

7:27 p.m. - I turned it back on and caught the end. It's not like this show is SO bad - though it is quite bad - but it's more, like, what the heck is the point? The best jokes are just ones about three dudes, and at that point the caveman gimmick seems wholly unnecessary. But since it is such an obnoxious and intrusive element, it's not like you could get past that - and for all the times the cavemen aspect is played up, there's hardly even any creepy, vaguely racist overtones people were crowing about. No buys.

The doctor is inane

By some terrible stroke of luck, I ended up seeing the first three minutes of the initial"Dr. Steve-O" episode Monday night - and, just in that short time, it officially beat out Fuse's "Rad Girls" as the most loathsome show I've seen on "actual" TV in quite a while. And keep in mind that "Rad Girls" is mainly just women in bikinis vomiting.

The show opens with a jaunty musical number explaining the premise of the show (because apparently it's fairly complex). Basically, "Jackass" vet "Dr." Steve-O helps "wussies" (and yes, that's the word they use. because, you know, people actually say that) become, well, less wussy. To make things even worse, it's giving Trishelle work.

'Dancing with the Stars' - Wayne whorled

Wayne Newton getting the lowest score yet (15) on season five of "Dancing with the Stars" is, of course not surprising. What also should not be surprising is him staying past Tuesday's elimination show - the Jerry Springer/Cliff Clavin rule of sympathetic old men states very clearly that he's got at least a couple more weeks of life left in him.

So who gets the boot? I'm not quite as sure as I was last week with Josie Maran, but let's look at the stats. With so many of the guys doing so much worse than the women, and so many of the guys being complete unknowns, I gotta go with one of the - Albert Reed, Cameron Mathison and Floyd Mayweather all notched 21s, but they're handsome men (crucial for the "DwtS" demographic), so I can't see any of them going out second week. Although given his obvious name value, I don't feel great about it, but I'll have to go with Mark Cuban - sure, he's famous, but much like season 3 first exit Tucker Carlson, more people will want to see him fail than actually vote for him, plus he got the second-to-lowest score (18). It'll be a shame be cause that means no more Kym Johnson. Another reason to hate Mark Cuban.

Sad to see Jennie Garth biff that move at the end there, I guess she was in tears afterwards. Wah!

Digital divide

So, all the buzz from the 114th "SNL" season premiere was about the Kanye West sketch, which indeed was hilarious, but this was the highlight for me - the 1-second Jake Gyllenhaal cameo merely being the icing on an uproarious cake. Of note: This sketch was posted on YouTube by NBC themselves this weekend, but was taken down by the network - weird, perhaps there's some sort of "Dear Sister"-esque controversy behind it I'm not aware of.



I thought there was actually plenty of funny stuff in this episode - Will Forte saying "The Black ET" repeatedly, the sketch where Bill Hader says "JEFF!" and "I get it" to Jason Sudeikis, the return of Penelope, the mildly funny HSM3 sketch - could be worse. I really like Samberg, Hader and Sudeikis, and hope they continue to, you know, be funny (and be in quality summer movies).

UPDATE: Yes, there is some sort of controversy, involving an uncleared Aphex Twin sample used in the sketch. Bummer.