After a much publicized battle, Time Warner Cable and Viacom have settled their dispute. For the new year, Time Warner Cable subscribers can enjoy such channels as Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, VH1 or (God help them) MTV.

I didn't see this going any other way. If Viacom withheld its (very popular) line-up of channels from TWC, both of them would lose a valuable revenue stream. This is not a good idea in such an economy where people lose their jobs; I've learned that when the income stops coming in for most households, the first thing to go is cable television. This is not the case for me because the first thing to go in my house in such a situation would be the groceries (no way am I giving up Stephen Colbert).

At least subscribers can now enjoy such greats as Spongebob Squarepants, South Park, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Sadly it means they'll also have to put up with The Hills.

What the hell is going on here? Have we entered the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Was The Simpsons canceled after the first three episodes while The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer went on to become the longest running and most award winning series in the history of television?

Variety reports that while the big four networks are cutting back on their sitcoms and dramas for more reality fare, cable networks have been ramping up their dramas, comedies and dramadies and are now in a position to compete for some real ratings.

And it's not just in quantity where cable has tipped the scales.

Would you like to see more nudity and profanity on network television?

It's no secret that the networks are losing ground to the cable channels when it comes to original scripted programming, especially dramas. Just take a look at the Emmy nominations for Best Drama this year and you see that three of the six nominated are from cable: Mad Men, Damages, and Dexter). And the three that are from the networks are shows that have been a while and are (arguably) on the back nine when it comes to their life: Boston Legal, Lost, and House. While the network shows obviously get more viewers than cable, cable (and online) is the place to go for more creative content and buzz.

Wired's Epicenter blog has a piece about how the more free world of cable television is hurting network TV.

This just might be child abuse.

OK, I'm kidding, but I know this would have freaked me out when I was a kid. A mom in Salt Lake City was spending so much money on cable television that she had to cancel it so she'd have money to commute to work. And what did her kids do? They protested, of course! The woman's two daughters, Pyper and Sadie (two very television character-ish names) got out protest signs and started walking up and down the streets to protest the high price of gas. And in a remarkable twist, the big oil companies saw the protest the girls created and have decided to lower gas prices all across America starting immediately.

Well, no, but the girls did get in the paper! (By the way, I think the AP really has to change the pic that accompanies the link above, unless the girls' protest went really far.)

(S01E07) Genesis 27:29: Finally Isaac spoke again and said to him: "Ah, far from the fertile earth shall be your dwelling; far from the dew of the heavens above!"

Last week Tommy (Jason Clarke) asked Eileen (Annabeth Gish) point blank if she was "on something." Well she is, but her husband isn't the one she admits it to. She turns to someone else instead, and gets dealt a pretty intense initial reaction -- even for this twisted family. Those Caffee's are one cold bunch, but then, that's how they'ved survived this long, and change is tough, this episode seems to say. The show gets better yet again this week, and way various characters are confronted this time with their own shattered illusions, is just one example of how really well-written this is.

(S01E08) Turns out the purebloods aren't all child vampires anyway, as another one show up this week: Alex. He is played by Kavan Smith, who's now the hardest working man on cable original scifi television, as he also plays Major Lorne on Stargate Atlantis and Agent Garrity on The 4400.

So Alex the pureblood is a smoothie and way into Chase. He tries to buy Chase from Marcus -- for Chase's own good, of course. Marcus' is about as unpopular with other vampires as he is with Blade. Jessica Gower who plays Chase, shows Marcus -- and us -- her backside, just she we can be sure that she's totally healed from her near-ash experience in Berlin with Blade a few weeks ago.

(S01E05) Matthew 12:25: But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no town or house divided against itself will stand."

Mike Caffee (Jason Isaacs) appears at times a kind of off-kilter Robin Hood, but more and more it's clear he is really an evil Peter Pan. He won't, probably can't, grow-up, and that's one source of his misery. (Spoilers below the jump.)

(S01E04) Matthew 5:6: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

Family loyalty trumps all again this week. A combination of Mike's littering the neighborhood with counterfeit bills and his slicing off a fellow mob soldier's ear (in the pilot -- who then turned informant) gets the secret service to show up at mama Rose Caffee's Sunday dinner with a search warrent. They toss the house and come up empty. Almost empty anyway, as the particular timing of the search appears to be planned to embarrass state assemblyman Tommy Caffee as much as anything. Though I missed how this is supposed to help the secret service in their investigation of gangster brother Mike Caffee. Maybe the feds are merely headline hungry. Good episode.

Tom Caffee's "hunger and thirst for righteousness," don't seem to give the satisfaction promised in the title quote, and he hardly seems blessed, poor guy.

(S01E03) For those who forgot to tune-in or record Blade The Series opposite the second half of Nightmares & Dreamscapes, or were perhaps still digesting the Project Runway premiere (don't lie, you know who you are): SpikeTV's resident daywalker Blade (Kirk Jones) and newbie hemoglobin-addict Krista (Jill Wagner) had to fight their separate battles this week. In order to find out more about the Aurora vaccine, Blade hunts down an ex-guinea pig one used by head Detroit-vamp Marcus's -- a sort of tweeker dude called Sands, while smashing progressively harder barriers (hotel room drywall, then brick wall, then big iron door) in the process.