['Free Agents' Season 1, Episode 1 - 'Pilot']

'Free Agents' (Wed., 10:30PM ET on NBC) is a perfectly acceptable new comedy. It's just also rather unremarkable so far. For the most part, it's another office ensemble, but so far no one in the office has managed to break beyond the second dimension.

Even Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn are so deep in their individual, but very similar, character quirks, that they forgot to be well-rounded characters we could believe in. There were a few laughs, though, like when Alex (Azaria) was put on the spot in the morning meeting about his exploits the night prior and he made up a series of sexual positions he supposedly explored.

Hank Azaria's character on the new sitcom 'Free Agents' is a very emotional guy, as Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb pointed out Wednesday morning on 'Today' (weekdays, 7AM on NBC). He is recovering from a divorce and commiserating with his friend, played by Kathryn Hahn, as the two contemplate getting involved with each other.

So how emotional is Azaria's character? "He is profoundly sad," said Azaria. "There's an exchange in the pilot where Kathryn is telling me, 'You're too emotional to do anything,' I'm like, 'No I'm fine,' and she's like, 'Are you aware that you're crying right now?'"

The good news about 'Up All Night' (10PM ET Wednesday, NBC) and 'Free Agents' (10:30PM ET Wednesday, NBC) is that they are among the better comedy offerings for fall.

It's true that the broadcast networks' half-hour offerings for fall are not strong, but I'm not trying to damn these two shows with faint praise. Given time to work out a few kinks and settle into a rhythm, they may provide some quality guffaws going forward.

To their credit, neither show overindulges in sentimentality. It's hard to walk that fine line between sincerity and sarcasm in a comedy, and though each show is a bit broad here and there, neither of these shows overindulges in the kind of false, cynical patter or the unearned, warm-and-fuzzy mawkishness that sinks so many network sitcoms.

A documentary film may not be the way most television shows would choose to spend their 20th anniversary hour-long special, but The Simpsons isn't an ordinary show. It's easy to forget in 2010, with an entire lineup of animation on FOX, Adult Swim and several cable channels devoted to animation, that The Simpsons was groundbreaking for its time.

While everything today is compared to The Simpsons, The Simpsons were being compared to The Flintstones, a prime-time cartoon that lasted six seasons in the 1960s. Nobody was doing animation for adults when The Simpsons came on the air, and they got a lot of grief for what they were doing. But The Simpsons put FOX on the map, and made it okay to have a cartoon for grown-ups, too.

Say it ain't so, Ho. Homey, that's is. According to Variety, even though Fox has given The Simpsons a renewal for season number 20, the voice talent that make the show have not been re-signed. Julie Kavner, Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, Yeardley Smith, Nancy Cartwright and Harry Shearer -- the actors who are as integral to the success of The Simpsons as the writers and animators -- are looking for a new deal. The group make approximately $360,000 per episode. They want a raise to $500,000 per. While that sounds like a lot of money -- and it is! -- when you consider how much Fox and company are making off The Simpsons franchise, like the new ride at Universal Orlando, the talent have every right to expect their piece of the pie.

It was recently announced that the 60th annual Tony Awards will go hostless this June 11, because "the 60th Anniversary show is bigger than just one host". Or maybe no one wanted to step up and take the chance of getting ripped apart by the public if things don't run smoothly. Anyway, instead of following the lone emcee tradition, this year's show at Radio City Music Hall will be carried by 60 different stars, including Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, Bernadette Peters, and Hank Azaria.

Back in 2004, MTV's Video Music Awards went hostless, and I remember feeling somewhat disoriented while watching it. Whether this was because I was watching MTV or because it was hostless, is still up for debate.

In conjunction with the season two premiere of Huff, a Hank Azaria comedy, Showtime is going to be free for one whole weekend. Showtime is calling the promotion "It's All For You", and it's going to be free from Friday, March 31 through Monday, April 3. Along with Huff, Showtime will also premiere the Academy award winning movie, Crash, that weekend, as well as some boxing and the digitally remastered classic, Liza with a Z. The free weekend wraps up with the season premiere of Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t!.