sitcom

(S07E11) How great is it that Jake Harper has turned into a rotten teenager? No more the butt of the joke (okay, he still is on many occasions), now at least he's dishing it out as well as getting it. This was one of the better shows of the season and I think it's because they shipped Chelsea out early on. Can she stay away permanently? More on that and the mice at play after the jump.

Just when you thought you were rid of him, your television sucks him back in with a big emphasis on the "suck."

ABC approved a last minute deal for comedian Carlos Mencia to have his own sitcom.

The show will focus on his own life growing up in a "very large multigenerational immigrant family." How can we be sure its his actual family and not one that he stole from another comedian? Kidnapping is a still a felony offense, you know.

(S07E10) There's something to be said about a good situation setting up a situation comedy. It didn't take much to get Charlie off and running on this episode, and after a bit of yelling and a "drop dead," we were off to the races. How it spiraled from one thing to the other is one of the best things about Two and a Half Men. That and the ever-present kick in the pants that Alan endures time and time again, even when he doesn't deserve it.

Oh, and the flashbacks were worth every commercial break. "I Had the Time of My Life" indeed. More after the jump.

Just a week or so ago we told you about Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy being cast in the new NBC comedy Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, which stars David Tennant, Jane Curtin and Jeffrey Tambor. Now comes word that maybe Ramamurthy shouldn't give up his gig on Heroes just yet.

Jerry O'Connell has replaced Ramamurthy in the role of a lawyer who is a close friend of Tennant's (the plot of the show has Tennant as a lawyer who suddenly gets nervous and can't appear in court so he trains his clients to represent themselves - can't wait to see how they keep that plot fresh).

Of course, we should have seen this coming. I believe O'Connell has a contract with the universe that he has to appear in a new quirky sitcom every single year. In 2008 he starred in the short-lived Do Not Disturb, and in 2007 he starred in the short-lived Carpoolers.

On October 14, Kelsey Grammer was telling the media to tune in to his ABC sitcom Hank because the show was getting better and better. More funny, he said. Well, now that Kelsey has accepted the fact that Hank is dead and buried -- except for whatever episodes ABC burns off down the road -- Kelsey's may be singing a different tune.

Kelsey pulled the plug on Hank because it wasn't funny. That's according to an interview he did in which he claims that after the Thanksgiving episode, he returned to work and the show was just not getting any laughs. "Honestly, it just wasn't very funny ... We finished and I was like, 'Oh boy, there wasn't a laugh in the house on this one.' And I called the president of Warner Brothers ... and I said, 'Listen, when can we put a bullet in this thing?'"

One of the best British comedies you've never heard of is headed to BBC America in early 2010.

The Inbetweeners features a handful of awkward young men constantly stuck, well, "in between" childhood and adulthood, loneliness and popularity, romance and dignity, etc. The electric wit of the show's dialogue helped it knock down "Best New Sitcom of 2008" at the British Comedy Awards.

Written and created by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris (Peep Show, Flight of the Conchords). the show stars Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison as the hopelessly awhward teens struggling through a new school in suburban Britain.

If you don't count Hank -- and I'm trying to erase the two episodes I saw from my memory banks -- ABC has had a pretty good year launching new comedies. In fact, if you go back to the spring, you can add Better Off Ted to Cougar Town, The Middle and Modern Family.

Why then would ABC be giving Nicole Richie a new sitcom? I just don't see where she's worthy of a show, let alone that she has the star appeal or talent to carry a situation comedy.

Perhaps ABC has some take on The Simple Life star that I'm missing. She's cute, yes. She's not a complete airhead judging by what I've seen of her on talk shows. But, really, aren't there better actresses -- stars -- who are more viable for a new comedy series? Stars will more talent than celebrity to their credit.

(S07E09) How far are the writers going to take the Charlie and Chelsea relationship? Do you think they're actually going to get married? I ask because tonight's show was a glimpse of what married Charlie might be like. Funny, yes, but is a domesticated Charlie really what I want to watch? Gin rummy and snoring? Charlie being sensitive and in touch with a woman's feelings? Where has my Charlie gone?

Alan, fortunately, is in exactly the same spot where he's always been. The crapper. Remember that Emmy that Jon Cryer won for Two and a Half Men in September? He may have earned a bookend with this season's work. More on his hair care products and dating services after the jump.

When you think of Brooke Shields, you think glamor and fashion and high style... Well, I do anyway. She's Suddenly Susan and one of the hot ladies on Lipstick Jungle. I do not think of her as a suburban mother of four in Orson, Indiana. However, that's exactly what she's going to be on an upcoming episode of ABC's sitcom The Middle.

As oxymoronic as it seems, I love the idea of Brooke on The Middle. She'll be going deep into the heart of the heartland to play a character who's supposed to be like Fran Heck, Patricia Heaton's character on The Middle. There's nothing as liberating for an actor as the chance to let loose and break the mold.

Dear Jay,

Let me start by stating that I think you are a very funny man. I have been following your career for years and you're great. You were wonderful in Jerry Maguire. Of course, you were speaking lines written by Cameron Crowe, so that was a plus, but you delivered the performance. Bravo, Jay Mohr.

That said, I have to talk to you now about Gary Unmarried. Jay, you can make this so much better. Really, you are capable of so much more. Yes, you don't have Cameron Crowe writing for you now. I'm fully aware of that. But you're there.

Gary Unmarried may have started as a formula, and it still has too much of that formula intact. The bitchy, controlling wife/ex-wife? Haven't we seen the Allison character on Two and a Half Men (Judith), Everybody Loves Raymond (Deborah), The King of Queens (Carrie)? Do you see the pattern here? I do.

CBS Monday night comedies have been doing pretty well so far this season, as far as the ratings are concerned. The Big Bang Theory is challenging Two and a Half Men for top Nielsens for a sitcom; How I Met Your Mother is doing as well or better than last year, and the new kid on the block, Jenna Elfman in Accidentally on Purpose, has benefited by being smackdab in the middle of all that established comic success.

CBS has ordered five additional episodes of Accidentally on Purpose. It's not a ringing endorsement, but it does give the show a chance to improve on what it's done thus far.

Fantasy football is a tricky thing. You either love it or you hate it and that largely depends on whether you're good or bad at it. For the most part, the same can be said about FX's newest comedy The League. When it's good, it is good, but when it's bad... well, you get the picture.

The show, which premieres tomorrow night, Thursday 10/29, at 10:30 p.m. after It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, is FX's first solid attempt to produce a lasting companion piece to Sunny and, given some of its predecessors (like Starved or Testees), it'd be easy to write The League off. But, like a two-minute drill that gradually picks up steam, The League might actually go... all... the... way.

OK -- no more football metaphors.

One of my favorite character actors will be guesting on an upcoming episode of Modern Family, Chazz Palminteri. And for a change of pace, Chazz will not be toting a gun. Instead he'll be swinging a golf club, and unless the sitcom takes a radically wicked turn, I don't think Chazz will be taking swings at Ed O'Neill's head.

On the other hand, things can get pretty intense on the links. In the episode, Chazz is golfing with Ed's character, Jay, and somehow the relationship between Cameron and Mitchell comes into play and there's a big gay understanding... or is that a misunderstanding?

(S07E05) If there's anything that will make you look bad, it's driving lessons. That's whether you're the driver or the instructor. In my experience, driving lessons are like a big magnifying glass revealing everything in too sharp a focus. And so it was that Jake had the misfortune of trying to get some time behind the wheel with the peanut gallery of Charlie and Alan offering advice in between hurling insults at each other.

But the real horror was still to come. Alan and Charlie have been brothers for their entire lives, but the past six and a half years of living together has turned them into something foul. Jake didn't know how foul until they went for ice cream. More after the jump.

I wasn't really prepared to like The Middle. I had no expectations, really, because aside from knowing that it was Patricia Heaton's latest sitcom, there had been very little scuttlebutt about it. So, when I tuned in, I expected the typical Patty Heaton I had seen for years on Everybody Loves Raymond or the upscale version I'd watched on Back to You.

Well, what a surprise when I saw her on The Middle. This is a Patty I had never seen before, and I not only liked her character, I admire her performance.