Just read that one of Sid Caesar's writers, Mel Tolkin, just passed away at age 94, godlove'im. Instead of running vintage Leno re-runs they should be running some of this classic comedy that actually had great writing from way back in the day. The kids might learn something. 8:00pm A Charlie Brown Christmas ABC - If only this didn't have commercials, hmm, but if it didn't have commercials the show would be about 11 minutes......

The WGA and the producers are back at the negotiating table, hopefully they will catch the breaks that they need so that the collapse of Western civilization is averted. In a desperate attempt to avoid family time over the holiday, I managed to watch season one of Showtime's Dexter and my optimism for the future of mankind was restored. I missed Dexter when it premiered last year but was happy to cover the zany stunts......

Tuesdays are a slow day for the networks. Dancing With the Stars will soon require someone to pass out every week in order for the show to remain interesting and House seems like it jumped the shark a while ago. For satisfaction we'll have to delve deep into cableland or pay-TV. 8:00pm TCM Crime Drama Marathon TCM - Starting out with The Lineup and following on with Armored Car Robbery, and Follow Me Quietly 8:00pm......

Watching Nip/Tuck has always been a dirty and guilty pleasure. Season five of the show returns tonight on FX and McNamara/Troy are moving the business to our own Los Angeles (as if you haven't been pummeled incessantly by the promos for the last month, and particularly during the World Series). The overpromotion irritates me a bit because it can set up what has been a pretty good show for a fall. Since Nip/Tuck has always......

Did you know you can still get tickets for Monday night's Rilo Kiley show at the Santa Monica Civic? Do you know why you can still get tickets for the show? Because it's in Santa Monica. And when the people of Santa Monica aren't trying to destroy old trees and houses, they're looking for things to do Other than see great rock shows. Let's think of things they do on the Westside other than......

8-11pm CBS - All new episodes of: How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory (series premiere!), Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement, CSI: Miami 8:00pm The War PBS - I think PBS completely effed this up by taking this great series head-to-head against a week of season and series premieres on the networks and cable. They should have shown it last week or the week before where there wasn't jack-shit......

Looks like they cut the budget at Dancing With The Stars again.......

A Word or 76: Finale-fest tonight! Enjoy now because re-runs and other sub-par programming is all we have on the horizon. Tonight - Tuesday - May 22, 2007 Brewers @ Dodgers (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Angels @ Tigers (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.) NCIS (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) The team's secrets unravel Dateline NBC (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Author John Grisham discusses wrongful murder case The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) The fiancee is chosen(!)......

A Word or 3: Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy! Tonight - Monday - May 21, 2007 Brewers @ Dodgers (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) The final 3 pairs Heroes (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) Pain and peril in Kirby Plaza - try to stop an exploding man 24 (Fox, 8:00 p.m.) 2 hours of Jack The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman (ABC, 9:30 p.m.) Just 2 bachelorettes left. Law & Order: Criminal Intent......

A Word or 76: CBS lineup tonight is wiped out by the CMAs and unless you are up for a Sir Laurence Olivier marathon on TCM then there's no movies on. I'm getting kind of sick of the parade of authors on late night TV, particularly Comedy Central - who the eff has time to read when there's so much bad TV? Speaking of bad TV, we're down to the final 3 on both......

A Word or 146: It was fun to watch Molly Shannon on SNL. In general it was a great broadcast and she was just as funny now as she was then but who could really care about Linkin Park? Less fun is reading about the continuing poor decision-making by the networks in their upcoming program development. NBC is trying to cover all it's bases milking Heroes, their only good horse in the running, by creating......

A Word or 10: I hope Jon Stewart rips Tenet a new one tonight. Tonight - Tuesday - May 8, 2007 Indians @ Angels (KCAL, 7:00 p.m.) NCIS/The Unit (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) Murder victim found in taxi, Jenny discovers a "secret"/The team is having past mission infractions investigated Dateline NBC (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) NBC exploits families looking for loved ones Gilmore Girls/Veronica Mars (the CW, 8-10:00 p.m.) Rory's graduation party/Verionica investigates the disappearance of......

A Word or 89(approx): One thing I didn't mention over the weekend was Sunday's SNL In the '90s because I thought it woudl suck. I was right. First, why did it take them 7 years to come up with this 2 hours of dreck? Second, the equal emphasis of the (pathetic) music acts and the comedy was a mistake - the show is an hour and a half with 2 songs in it, the......

Tonight - Tuesday - May 1, 2007 NCIS/The Unit (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) This week the gimmick is a blind photographer - dude, what's your Flickr site?/Parachute malfunction Brando (TCM, 8-??) Biography of Marlon Brando followed by several of his films, starting with A Streetcar Named Desire. Dateline NBC (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Boys confess to 2004 murder of 12-year-old girl Gilmore Girls/Veronica Mars (the CW, 8-10:00 p.m.) Lorelai eating, drinking, shopping, karaoke/Veronica investigates vandalism of......

A Word or 36: 60 Minutes was interesting what with alleged ratfink George Tenet telling us all the things he should have been telling us years ago, when it would have mattered, when we could have done something about it. Tonight - Monday - April 30th, 2007 D'backs @ Dodgers (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) How I Met Your Mother/The New Adventures of Old Christine/Two and a Half Men/The King of Queens (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) Two......

A Word or 49: Iggy Pop redeems Jimmy Kimmel tonight. For petessake when is the stupid 'house' gimmick ever gonna end on House? (new one tonight) I'm rockin' the slot with the Shield tonight though - now that Vic seems to be in the clear perhaps we're just back to some stellar violence. Today - Tuesday - April 24th, 2007 Rita Hayworth Marathon (TCM, 5- p.m.) Starting with Pal Joey, then Salome, etc. Check......

A Word or 45: Been thinking about the whole VTech thing from last week and whether or not the Cho footage should have been put on TV: of course it should have been put on TV. It wasn't done distastefully and it was newsworthy and timely, end of story. Tonight - Monday - April 23rd, 2007 The New Adventures of Old Christine/Two and a Half Men/The King of Queens (CBS, 8:30-10:00 p.m.) All new......

It's hard to live in Los Angeles and not be a sucker for a good courtroom drama, particularly the televised kind. And chances are, if you’re a Gen Xer, you’re already very familiar with Twelve Angry Men. That’s because the classic 1957 Sidney Lumet film (adapted from the 1954 television show) was a standard in most American classrooms. You know the story: place twelve white men in a jury room, put the life of......

A Word or 73: LA, get ready for your dirty underbelly to be nauseatingly exploited as the sixth season of The Shield gets underway tonight. There's a bit more room on the dial after, thank god, the following shows got the ax last week: The Wedding Bells (Fox) which was truly awful, Six Degrees (ABC) another bad one, 7th Heaven (the CW) which I don't even know about and The Black Donnellys which was......

Tonight - Monday - March 19th, 2007 Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) Season premiere. Featuring peg leg Heather Mills, Ian Ziering, Clyde Drexler and Paulina Porizkova, Cliff Clavin, that skating guy Apollo Ono, etc. How I Met.../The New Advent.../Two and a Half.../Rules of Engag.../CSI: Miami (CBS, 8-11:00 p.m.) All new tonight. Prison Break/24 (FOX, 8-10:00 p.m.) New episodes for old thrillers. Larry King Live (CNN, 9:00 p.m.) Senator and prez wannabe Barack......

A Word Or 30: Who else is waiting to hear the announcement of the Anna Nicole Smith Story film deal? Jaime Pressly presents us tonight, with the first reason to watch Leno in years. Tonight - Wednesday - February 21st, 2007 That Touch of Mink (TCM, 6:30 p.m.) Cary Grant wants to get hot n' heavy with Doris Day. Trail Blazers @ Lakers (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.) Jericho (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) Back from hiatus.......

As a commenter mentioned yesterday on our mysterious signs post, her favorite sign is the one at Moorpark and Laurel Canyon rooting Joey Lawrence on in Dancing With The Stars. Well, here it is. In a picture at least. Unfortunately, the sign has since been taken down. We hear Mr. Piken is a weird dude and eats a lot of cheese, but as anyone who knows this part of town, he sure does sell......

"Live with Regis and Kelly" guest-host Clay Aiken, during an otherwise boring interview with "Dancing With The Stars" winners, playfully put his hand over Kelly Ripa's mouth as he was clearly annoyed that Ripa was asking all the hard-hitting questions. This clearly annoyed Ripa, who quipped "Oh, that's a no-no." Followed by "I don't know where that hand's been, honey." The American Idol runner-up is rumored to be into homosexual fisting.......

Wednesday Night "NBA Basketball" (ESPN, 6:00 p.m.) Grizzlies @ Kings "NHL Hockey" (Fox Sports, 7:00 p.m.) Flyers @ Ducks "Office Space" (IFC, 7:00 p.m.) Unwind from humpday with the unedited neo-classic. "College Basketball" (Prime 42, 7:30 p.m.) BYU @ UCLA "Dancing With the Stars" (ABC, 8 p.m.) The moment of truth. Season finale. "Jericho" (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) The town comes up with a plan to repel "intruders" (use President Bush pronounciation on that word)......