(S01E18) "Surprisingly perceptive for a bunch of clowns with pitchforks." - The Devil

I think my favorite part of the opening scene was the look on Tony's face when he saw Sam avoid the washing machine. It was the disappointed look most people get when a politician they voted for gets caught taking payoffs. The look that says, "I pretty much knew it but I never had the proof."

When Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black were added to the cast I had mixed feelings. While I really enjoy Marino, I was never a big fan of Black. Luckily for me, that problem was solved by the devil himself. Not only is Marino hilarious in his role, his character has allowed Reaper to explore elements of the show that would have seemed forced otherwise.

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(S01E12) These are very interesting times for our pals down at the 'Bench. Reaper was noticeably absent from the list of renewals their CW overlords sent around a couple weeks ago. The Hollywood Reporter article that Anna posted about last week, talking about bubble shows, didn't do a lot to instill confidence either. It looks like it's going to take some solid ratings in the Winchester slot to bring the show back for round two. We'll get to that, and what was another very good episode, after the jump.
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For all you Andy Richter fans who are still waiting for that one show that will actually last a while on the schedule, this might be good news: the former Conan O'Brien sidekick has a new show in development at Comedy Central, for the 2008-09 season. The show is still untitled, but it is described as a comedy/sketch show.

That's just one of many shows in development at Comedy Central.

Comedy Central has announced what's on the slate for the upcoming season. Here's the rundown:

Pilots:

Held Up: a series about a group of bank workers who are held hostage and slowly develop a "comedic version of The Stockholm Syndrome."

"Larry the Cable Guy" Animated Project: a series that features Larry as the owner of a cable station. His character is always at odds with the stations other owner, who doesn't care for Larry's ideas. Isn't that pretty much the plot of the Weird Al movie UHF?

We've speculated about this many times here at TV Squad, but now we have word from Ed himself, Tom Cavanagh, that season one of the show is coming to DVD.

In an interview with Collider.com, Cavanagh says:

"Yeah, I guess they're talking about it. Last I heard was they were close on season one. The stumbling block as it's like a lot of the time is the music rights. They were fortunate enough because of the clout they had as Letterman's producers to get a lot of great music as one-offs. Of course, when you put those on a DVD that becomes a whole different thing."

This was the better of the two ads that ran very close to each other in this commercial break. The other had to do with the cast taking a karate class run by Michael Ian Black. But I wonder what the hell is going on with these commercials. Every single ad, the cast members seem to have different jobs, different relations to each other, probably even different names. Sometimes they work at an airport, sometimes they had hair combovers, sometimes they're married, sometimes they're just friends. Strange.

Anyway, the hair ad was better than the karate ad. (karate video after the jump)

Everything you need to know about the web site Television Without Pity - and why I hate it so much - can be found in the subtitle of their new book. It's called Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love To Hate (And Hate To Love) About Television.

Why does it have to be like that? Why do they either have to "love to hate" or "hate to love" what they see on television? Is it not "hip" to really like television? I've long suspected that these people don't really like TV, they just find it a convenient place to use all of their snarky tools and be sarcastic. Of course, that doesn't mean that a book about television, even from them, couldn't hold some promise. But reading through the damn thing, this is what I found out about TWoP's view of television.

• May 31: Jorge Garcia (Lost), Michael Ian Black (Stella), Andrea Martin (SCTV);
  
• June 7: Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle), Jason Alexander, Susie Essman, Kevin Sorbo;
• June 14: Fred Savage, Jennifer Tilly, Brett Butler, Doug E. Doug;
• June 21: Jenna Fischer (The Office), Rocco Dispirito, Mario Cantone;
• June 28: Christopher Meloni; Joy Behar, Andy Dick, Macy Gray

Anyone who knows me knows how much of a huge Ed fan I was. I even wrote an essay about it that got me more mail than anything else I've ever written.

So, it's really great to not only see Tom Cavanagh coming back to series television (in the it-looks-a-lot-like-Ed-from-the-commercials show Love Monkey). But the good news doesn't stop there: Ed's best friend is back too. Josh Randall, who played Mike Burton on Ed, is the guy who's Courting Alex on the CBS sitcom. (Hey, both on CBS - maybe Cavanagh and Randall can have lunch in the CBS cafeteria). And let's not forget Ed's love Carol Vessey: Julie Bowen is a cast member over on ABC's Boston Legal (and has a recurring role on Lost). And Michael Ian Black's Stella over on Comedy Central.  

Now we just need Lesley Boone (Molly), Jana Marie Hupp (Nancy), Rachel Cronin (Shirley), and Justin Long (Warren) to get regular gigs on TV and fans will be all set.