Happy New Year! I hope 2011 is treating you right so far.

For those of us covering TV, the new year ushered in one of the busiest mid-seasons in recent memory. A lot of new shows are debuting, many notable shows are returning and Ryan McGee and I tried to cover quite a few of early January's offerings in this week's super-sized Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan podcast.

We gave our impressions of 'V' (and you can find my season 2 review of that ABC show here), 'Southland,' 'Downton Abbey,' 'Bob's Burgers,' 'Shameless,' 'The Cape' and Matt LeBlanc's new Showtime series, 'Episodes.' Just for fun, we also talked a bit about the recent 'Doctor Who' special that aired on Christmas Day.

Please note that in the next few days, I'll be posting full reviews of many of these programs (though not for 'Bob's Burgers' or 'Southland'). Read on for the running times of the various podcast dicussions, and also for news on notable reruns beginning this week.

Below are the time codes for when various parts of the podcast discussion begin and end. For extra credit, listen for Ryan's bonus 'Waiting for Godot' reference.

0 - 3:50: Introductory chatter (including some nice news about the 'Talking TV' podcast)

3:51 - 10:10: The 'Doctor Who' Christmas special, 'A Christmas Carol.'

10:11 - 13:39: We note few dates to remember:

* IFC begins airing 'The Larry Sanders Show' 11PM ET Monday. Check out this great series, which is set at a fictional late-night show, if you've never seen it. No flipping!

* The final 5 episodes of 'Caprica' begin airing 6PM ET Tues on Syfy. If you're a fan, double check that your DVR is set to record these episodes, which may be erroneously listed as repeats.

* DirecTV's 101Network is rerunning the first three seasons of 'Damages' starting 10PM ET Wednesday (a fourth season debuts on DirecTV this summer).

13:40 - 18:24: 'Southland' (which returns on 10PM ET Tuesday on TNT). Even if you don't watch 'Southland,' you might be interested in our discussion of when it's OK (and not OK) to use the '10 Hours Previously' gambit in the opening minutes of a TV show.

18:25 - 21:32: 'Bob's Burgers' (which premieres 8:30 PM ET Sunday on Fox)

21:33 - 29:33: 'V' (which returns 9 PM ET Tuesday on ABC; my full review is here).

29:34 - 41:24: 'The Cape' (which premieres 9 PM ET Sunday on NBC before moving to its regular Monday timeslot)

41:25 - 51:16: 'Downton Abbey' (which premieres on PBS' 'Masterpiece' Sunday; look for my full -- and very positive -- review on Tuesday)

51:17 - 1:00:34: 'Shameless' (a new drama starring William H. Macy, Joan Cusack and Emmy Rossum premiering 10PM ET Sunday on Showtime; look for a review and feature on the show later in the week)

1:00:35 - end: 'Episodes' (a new comedy starring Matt LeBlanc premiering 9:30 PM ET Sunday on Showtime)


As always, you can grab the podcast on iTunes, or you can listen to or grab the MP3 file from this site.

The podcast is also available here, as are full archives of every 'Talking TV' podcast. The 'Talking TV' archives are also now available on iTunes as well, thanks to some digital wizardry by Ryan.

Thanks, as always, for listening! We hope to bring you lots of great gab in the coming year.

A big thank you to Ryan's wife, Diana Kennedy, for the fab new podcast logo.


Follow @MoRyan on Twitter.