The cable networks have been very, very good to women over the last few years. Particularly strong, independent women who are on par, or many times above, the men in their lives. This has been exemplified by characters like Brenda Johnson in The Closer, PJ Franklin on My Boys, Nancy Botwin on Weeds, Patty Hewes on Damages, and the ladies from HBO's Sex in the City.

Last year, someone new joined Leigh, PJ, and the rest of the women of cable. Her name was Grace Hanadarko -- the smoking, drinking, and sexually promiscuous Oklahoma City police detective from TNT's Saving Grace. Grace is played by Holly Hunter, the award-winning actress who has appeared in such films as Raising Arizona, The Piano (for which she won an Academy Award) and The Incredibles. Late last week, Holly spoke to members of the press concerning the second season of Saving Grace (premiering tonight at 10 pm) and what's in store for the hard-living detective.

We like to complain when networks don't give series a fair chance, so it's nice to see NBC getting behind the new season of Friday Night Lights with such enthusiasm. Teaming with HouseParty.com, the network is sending out party kits to 1,000 Friday Night Lights fans, including an advance copy of the season opener. The season officially begins on October 5 at 9:00 p.m. You can apply for a chance to host one of these parties on September 14 on the House Party site. The party kits will include various trinkets and ephemera, as well as episodes from season one and a sneak peek of the new Bionic Woman series.

We knew it was coming back, we just didn't know when. Well, we still don't know officially, but Paul Scheer, one-third of the sketch comedy trio Human Giant along with Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel, blogged yesterday that the series would likely return in January 2008. Paul's exact words were: "we are looking towards an air date of Jan 2008," which is not the same as "you will definitely see new episodes in January," but I'm not going to complain. It's coming back, that's all that matters.

Remember when I told you Army Wives was worth checking out, despite being on Lifetime? Well, I wasn't the only one who thought it was a good series. It scored record ratings and has now been picked up for a second season. Look for the first of thirteen new episodes to pop up sometime this spring.

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to anyone that Human Giant, the new sketch comedy series for MTV, has been granted a second season.

In order to drum up more interest in the show, MTV turned the network over to the Human Giant men: Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer for 24 hours and told them they had to garner one million hits on their Web site if they wanted a second season. Of course, taking into consideration lines from the press release like, "fans can also show up in Times Square to deliver a pizza counting for 80 hits, or carving Paul Scheer's face into Mount Rushmore for the entire million hits" it's obvious the series was going to be renewed all along. Still, it's nice to hear an official announcement.

If you click over to Muppets.com, you can vote on which of three covers featuring Miss Piggy will be used for the upcoming Season Two DVD set. There's no official announcement yet on an exact release date for the set, though Muppet News Flash writes that the set should be out in the spring. The second season had some great guest stars, including George Burns, Steve Martin, Milton Berle, Don Knotts, and Peter Sellers. I think a lot of Muppet fans will agree that the show really began to take shape in its second season. As far as the cover art is concerned, despite which one is chosen I wonder if they'll still find a way to use the other two covers somehow. I can't imagine they'd go through the trouble of creating them and not use them all in some fashion.