What do I hate most about TV?.........TV!!!!!!!

My TiVo had no trouble catching the Super episode of Earl.. well, not after I made sure it was going to record (Though I missed out on the second episode of "70's Show" that night because of it.

But it did screw me up for Deal or No Deal on Monday because of the damn President speech. I actually had to watch 24 on "Standby" to be able to see both.

I guess this comment might be a little moot, BUT, seeing that all the great Pam and Jim moments came during the "supersized" portion of the show, I guess we can't say without a doubt it was well worth it.

If The Office wasn't my favorite show on TV right now, I might agree with you Joel. But seeing that time stops for me every Thursday night from 9.30-10pm, any extra footage I see is worth it. And tonight's season finale definitely delivered on its SuperSize promise.

I once timed out a Will & Grace "supersize" episode and was unsurprised to discover that there wasn't actually any extra show -- it was all extra commercials and especially extra promos for other NBC shows.
In another instance, the show had about 2 minutes of extra length, but this was made up of content that really would have been edited out in any other circumstances -- overly long reaction takes and pauses between jokes.
In other words, NBC's "supersizing" just proves that more is less.

Even if we Office fans only receive five or ten minutes of filler, it's guaranteed to be five or ten minutes of funny filler. I can live with that. With commercials The Office only runs about twenty-one minutes. That's practically nothing. All we're getting here is a full half-hour show. I don't know about Will & Grace or My Name Is Earl, but I trust the Office writers to make good use out of the time. And I don't see your point about charging advertisers more money. I mean, I understand that it's going to happen, but I don't get why that should make the extra few minutes less enjoyable.

Seeing that my friends and I were behind the online petition to Supersize the season finale of The Office, I have to say I disagree with you on this one. Even one minute more of my very favorite show is worth it. I guess I just don't see what the down side is.

The SuperSized comedies don't annoy me nearly as much as the stretched out episodes of other shows either starting early or running long. LOST and ER come to mind. At least with SS night it is well publicized, and it has become something of a NBC tradition. Things like last nights extra long LOST are just senseless. Even Peter Jackson could have found five minutes to cut out of that episode, and Peter never met a frame of film he didn't love.

This is just another interesting quirk in the quagmire that is NBC programming in my opinion. Don't get me wrong. I love both of these shows. (Well, Earl at least. I've yet to warm up to the awkward stare-at-the-camera humor that is the basis of The Office, but that's just my opinion) But what I feel NBC has done over the years is lose focus and strayed from what I assume its mission is, or at least should be.

And that is to entertain the viewers. It's now moved into maximizing their highest rated shows and ignoring or cancelling as soon as possible everything else they have, which I think is a far more deeply rooted problem than it would seem.

And it's evident if you look at how NBC has been acting the past couple of decades or so. Back in the day, instead of merely supersizing a couple shows in order to maximize revenue, they took chances on new programming. Friends and Seinfeld were two shows that didn't immediately crush the ratings, but instead of supersizing their other shows and cancelling these two, they let them run. And look how immense the payoff was for NBC. Now, I can't even keep track of how many shows NBC has pulled off the air this past year alone. And to fill in the gaps they do odd programming tricks. Instead of maturing creative programming, they would rather air instant short term hits like America's Fattest Fatties.

Which is why I think the other networks have come and dominated NBC. Like take CBS for example. Formerly the "old person channel," they started to realize the real reason they were sagging. So to rectify the situation, they took a chances on new creative programming and let them mature. Like the CSI's. Like Numb3rs. And more recently, like The Unit. And instead of yanking them off the air if they don't dominate the ratings in the first, oh, two weeks, they try to make them even more innovative and let it mature. And now look what happened. Instead of having a bunch of disgruntled viewers who become attached to a show only to have it cancelled in a month, they are now the most watched channel in prime time.

As a result, NBC only has a couple big players, most of which consist of comedies. Law and Order, Scrubs, The Office, Earl and ER. Maybe "Guess what's in this Suitcase" might qualify as one of these. And notice that ER and Law and Order are the only two that have been here for more than a solid half decade. Can these compete with with titans like 24, Lost, Alias, CSI [insert city] or the Survivor series?

I don't think so.

What this does is screw up viewers who also watch other networks on Thursdays. For me, it's Smallville(8pm), then Earl(9pm). Now both finales are on at the same time. And not everyone has Tivo or DVRs.