(S01E10) I'm officially in a love/hate relationship with this show. I've realized that I'm just about 50/50 on every episode. There's plenty I like, but lately there's been an equal amount of material that just makes no sense whatsoever to me.

I think a lot of this stems from the way the stories have developed and changed so drastically from where they started. Take Willa for example. Initially, she was being portrayed as a young Lucy, obsessed with her job and furthering her career with the magazine. Now, when she first started sleeping with Brent, I thought she was using him for her purposes. Now it seems that she's his perfect match. Obsessed with sex (butt-plugs and threesomes, oh my!), she seems less interested in her job and more concerned with where she can screw Brent next. Her character is just in a very different place right now than I originally expected.

I don't know why I'm so fascinated by Artie Lange's career. Maybe it's because I listen to him every day on Howard Stern's Sirius radio show and I get a daily dose of Lange's everyguy persona and funny wisecracks. I'm also fascinated by the fact that, while he's doggedly determined to be a success in his comedy career, he is pretty much unable to resist just about every temptation known to man, from drugs to gambling to food to booze. Yet, no matter how addicted he is, he is so open about his life that he's been able to endear himself to the show's fans, and his career has taken off as a result.

Case in point: he announced this morning that he'll guest star on six episodes of Rescue Me this season, playing a fireman buddy of Denis Leary's character of Tommy Gavin. Perhaps this is part of the development deal Lange signed with FOX last year, as the show is on FX. But it may just be a part of the fact that, no matter what he gets into in his personal life, producers know that Artie has a following and can deliver a good performance. Either way, it's good to see him getting more and more work. He just needs to get some sleep and stop being so "sick," as he has been lately.

(S01E09) Hmm... not sure how I feel about this episode. It didn't really relate to anything else. Actually, it felt like the type of episode you'd normally see as a ratings stunt. Only problem is that it wasn't all that tense and when something shocking (I say that loosely) did finally happen, it felt forced. Almost as if it got added in because... well, I don't know. It was added for the sake of being added it seemed. If you saw the episode, then you definitely know what I'm talking about. We'll get to that later though.

Centered around a former child star who took Lucy and the DirtNow offices hostage, the episode looked at the "forgotten celebrity." That's kind of an interesting phenomenon if you think about it because they're all over the place and I suppose every now and then, some of them flip out a little. This, however, seemed a little over the top.

(S01E08) Alright, this is starting to get a little ridiculous. Dirt is reaching the point where I think people are going to stop watching. This show is supposed needs to be about the gossip and the scandal that comes from Hollywood's elite. That's how this show had to have been pitched. An hour-long drama that takes a fictitious look at the world of tabloid journalism. Knowing that, explain to me how Lucy's daddy issues play into this series at all.

I think the problem probably stems from a desire to make this show bigger than it is. I don't think it needs to be that to be a success. It just needs to continue giving us the over-the-top stories that we've been getting all season. Dirt isn't a show that's going to win Emmys and Golden Globes. It is, however, meant to be an escape. So why not stick with what's simple?

Fantastic news here. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Murphy and FX have reached a new deal which will keep him around for three more seasons of the acclaimed plastic surgery drama.

Up until now, the possibility of a fifth season was only speculative, but now we've got guarantees through a seventh season. Will the seventh be the last for Doctors Troy and McNamara? Who knows, but as it stands right now, The Shield will end on seven seasons. I'd like to see Nip/Tuck beat it. That could be years from now though so let's focus on the rest of the good news surrounding Nip/Tuck's renewal.

Jonathan mentioned a few weeks ago that Bud TV would be debuting a sort of "bridge episode" of The Shield. The 15-minute short is now available for viewing on the site, and after viewing it I'd say it plays a lot more like the first fifteen minutes of the new season premiere.

For those who are sad to see Lem gone from the series, this short video will only make you hate what Shane did with even more passion. Read on for a short rundown of what goes on in the video (image to the right is a little teaser for you).

Is Hollywood finally waking up and smelling the census report? Add to the growing list of shows centered around Latino families CBS' Los Duques. Starring Jimmy Smits, who also serves as the program's executive producer, the show focuses on the Duques, a powerful South Florida family of rum merchants. In typical telenovela fashion, the family's ailing patriarch leaves control of the company to an outsider, Smits' character Alex Vega.

Smits' production company El Sendero has two additional projects set up at FX and ABC. The FX program, The Inside, focuses on a former Special Forces operative who gives up his identity to infiltrate a drug cartel. The ABC project is an epic miniseries about immigration told through several interconnected storylines. The miniseries will be written and directed by Gregory Nava, who directed Smits in the feature film My Family/Mi Familia.

(S01E07) Well it's about time, but this was finally the first episode where I really started to get into Don's character and storyline.

Before I get into that though, I have to talk about the "Previously on Dirt" montage again. This is the second or third time that I've mentioned it and if you don't bother watching it, then you need to. It's freakin' hilarious. Don narrates it and this week he essentially insulted us viewers since he had to recap all this for those of us "with a worse attention span than he has." Moreover, he's not trying to offend us, but we "should really be up on this sh*t by now." The stuff is laugh out loud funny and really helps to separate the show from anything else on TV.

Alright, back to Don in the episode. I don't think I'm alone, but I actually felt bad for the guy this time around.

(S01E06) This was a bit of a departure for the freshman drama. It's the first episode in which Lucy and her team weren't focused on digging up the story behind a celebrity. The target was a murdered high-school cheerleader and Lucy was convinced that there had to be more to it. After all, she was murdered for a reason.

The story itself didn't impress me too much. It felt very much like something you'd see on an episode of Law & Order: SVU. However, it brought in another spectacular cameo to round out the episode. Last week, Wayne Brady stole the show as Tweety McDaniel's trusted enforcer and this time around Paul Reubens stepped in as washed up criminal reporter Chuck Lafoon. Reubens really is a terrific actor. He's got lots of range and really has played some varied roles. Blow comes to mind and even just last week he was hilarious in 30 Rock. His Dirt persona was fantastic though. I'd love to see him around for the rest of the season.

Jennifer Esposito is the newest member of Engine 62, according to TV Guide. Ausiello is reporting that Esposito's character will join the cast right away during the season four premiere. She'll play a volunteer firefighter who has a history with Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary). And, her character is supposedly also going to become a love interest for Tommy as the season progresses.

Well, lucky Denis. Jennifer Esposito is gorgeous! She was spectacular in Crash, but the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Jennifer Esposito's name is her guest stint on one episode of SVU way back in 2000. She played 'Sara Logan', a sarcastic television reporter who goes public with her own rape. She has a sort-of father/daughter relationship with Det. Munch (Richard Belzer) that ends up being very heart-wrenching.

I guess this means Help Me Help You is officially canceled (it has been on 'hiatus' since mid-December). Ted Danson has signed on to a legal thriller alongside Glenn Close. Danson will play a corporate executive "involved in a class-action lawsuit brought on by a high-stakes litigator", played by Close. If the untitled series gets picked up by FX, Danson has agreed to the entire first season.

Danson and Close have starred together in a drama before. They starred together in Something About Amelia, a 1984 made-for-TV movie that got them both nominated for Emmys and won Danson a Golden Globe.

(S01E05) I still don't know Jack. Why? Because Dawson was barely in the episode. He's gay, we knew that, and now Lucy is going to put it in print. It was how the story developed that I liked. It was completely not what I expected.

From the moment we found out that Jack played for the other team, you knew it was going to become one of Lucy's cover stories. But I just expected it to be a situation when she was hitting a dry spell and needed a quick headline. I never saw it coming when we found out that Jack, America's premiere action hero, was a bit of a man-whore.

On top of that, It surprised me when Leo advocated the release of the story. Sure, he was hurt, but he also doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd be ready for the scrutiny of the public eye. But as Lucy said, they'll just "Photoshop the hell" out of Leo's face. My point is that, once again, this show has me impressed. It's not always what you expect.

Very cool news for fans of The Shield (myself included) who can't wait for the new season to start. Similar to the comedy short shown online that FX commissioned for Rescue Me last year, a mini-episode of The Shield is in the works. However, no date has been set for when it will premiere.

Here's what we do know. For the first four weeks of its availability (whenever that will be), the episode will only be viewable at Anheuser-Busch's new online media site Bud TV. It's kind of a pain in the butt since you'll have to register with the site to view the episode. After the four week window, the episode (it's expected to cost anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million to make) will be available on AOL and other online outlets. Bud TV will launch the day after this Sunday's Super Bowl.

Good news, Eddie Izzard fans! FX has finally set a premiere date for his new dramedy, called The Riches. It will premiere on Monday, March 12th. The cable network hasn't announced a regular time or day but one can assume Monday nights will be it for The Riches.

The Riches stars Izzard and Minnie Driver, who I think will both be attempting to cover up their British accents. They play a couple of American con-artists who take on the identity of a dead couple and move their family to the suburbs to live an "honest" life. It kind-of reminds me of My Blue Heaven, that movie where Steve Martin has to live a crime-free life in the suburbs.

You can see promos for the series here.

(S01E04) This was a bit of a departure from what we've seen on Dirt, but I think it was a step in the right direction. If this show ever wants a chance at a second season (I'm starting to think it deserves it), then it's going to need more episodes like this.

It took four weeks, but we've now got a solid grasp on Lucy's past, where she came from, and the relationships she has with her family. None of it is good. It's painful and it gives you a better understanding of why she may have gotten into her line of work. She's got so many secrets of her own (and you know there will be more), that it makes sense she'd devote herself to digging up gossip on others while hiding her own demons.