• Everyone loves Neil Patrick Harris. And how could they not? He came out singing cabaret and danced away with our undying love. Not that he didn't have it before. After this evening's turn as the show's host, we're pretty sure Harris should master the ceremonies of every Hollywood event ever. (By the way, Mediaite has the lyrics from the introductory number. Learn them. Live them. Love them.)
  
  
• Kristin Chenoweth will soon be the hardest working woman in Hollywood. The adorable actress — once known mostly to the Broadway crowd — stole the nation's heart by crying after winning best supporting actress for Pushing Daisies. The show's been canceled and Chenoweth, bless her, reminded the world that she needs a job: "I'm unemployed now, so I'd like to be on Mad Men. I also like The Office and 24."
  
  
• Tina Fey fans are upset that Toni Collette won the "best comedy actress" award for United States of Tara, which we actually enjoy. Well, Jeff Jarvis is upset, at least: the journalist and internet aficionado twittered, "best comedy actress was a crime." But, whatever, because Fey won for her SNL Sarah Palin impersonation.
  
  
• In other-SNL news, Justin Timberlake took home a trophy for his "Dick in a Box" routine. But that was announced last week, so hopefully you knew that.
  
  
• Sure, Fey didn't win, but that doesn't mean the Academy doesn't still love 30 Rock: the incredibly popular show won "best comedy series" and Alec Baldwin walked away with a "best actor" statuette. That's his second, for the record.
  
  
• Speaking of seconds: Mad Men again won "best drama series" and best writing for a drama series. Does this mean the show will continue to be a popular culture darling? Not if you ask Matthew Greenberg from True Slant — he thinks the consecutive win will alienate those who don't already watch it, because they'll think it's elitist.
  
  
• If Greenberg's right, there could also be a backlash against Glenn Close: the Damages star once again won for "best actress" in a drama series.
  
  
• Comedy Central's no doubt pleased with Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew: they won "best writing" for a comedy, variety, etc series. And, yes, Stewart commended Neil's hosting abilities. He also made a joke about going backstage to watch football, which was competing on another network and became the butt of many tiresome jokes.
  
  
• LA Times writer Tom O'Neil has crowned Bill Maher the biggest Emmy loser in history because Maher, whose show was nominated in the aforementioned variety category, has lost 22 times over the course of his career.
  
  
• Remember how we said Harris should host everything? He may have some competition from Hugh Jackman, who won for original music for his Oscar dance routine.
  
  
• Hey, did you know Sarah McLachlan's still around? And she's still singing "I Will Remember You." While, yes, we should take a moment to recognize the departed — Bea Arthur! — certainly there's a less maudlin, predictable soundtrack.
  
  
• And on that note, here's a list of the winners.

Instead, Stewart went forward with a few good-natured jibes at his corporate cousin's $150 million Oscar behemoth The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button — if you can call two narcolepsy jokes and extended plot mockery "good-natured." Worse yet, it came while introducing Slumdog's Dev Patel, who was welcomed shortly afterward as the equivalent of Oscar 2009's homecoming king. Worse yet, Stewart's smirking laughter at his own jokes led both his live and viewing audiences to believe they are actually fresher, funnier and/or more influential than they actually are.

So! That does it, right? 0-for-13? Watch your nuts, Jon; Brad Grey just stepped out for lunch. [The Daily Show via LAT]

SUNDAY

Desperate Housewives Time Travels
The big surprise in last season's finale was a series of short scenes showing the characters five years in the future. The new season picked up where that left off, with everyone older and not necessarily wiser. It's a bit gimmicky, yes, but it's allowed them to jettison tiresome plotlines and create brand new ones (Lynette's rambunctious twin boys are now rambunctious twin young men!). While some of us here at HQ still find the show to be a bit of a whiny bore, others are digging the series like it was the first season all over again. B+

Entourage's Cameoverload
The HBO boyfest LA answer to girl business New Yorkfest Sex and the City has been overdoing it with the celebrity guest appearances, yes. But its arc has also been pat and frustrating. Drama has reached Inspector Clouseau levels of idiocy, Turtle has been given little to do, E continues to rankle in his snappy-short-guy-who's-kinda-earnest way, Adrien Grenier still cannot act, and poor Jeremy Piven is going to drive himself to an early grave with all his senseless bellowing. Credit to the underused Debi Mazar and Rex Lee for keeping their characters fresh and fun, though. C-

Dexter Is Still Killer
Showtime's gory character study about a Miami forensics expert cum justice-seeking serial killer (Michael C. Hall, steamy as ever) and the people who orbit him is still as thrilling as ever. Good grades go to Jennifer Carpenter's sassy new haircut, the always-dependable Lauren Vélez and David Zayas as Dexter's weary partners in crime fighting, and to the softly heartbreaking Julie Benz who brings a quiet dignity to every tiny scene she's in. This season's chief storyline (so far), concerning Dexter's accidental murder of an ADA's (Jimmy Smits) brother, is tense and ominous. You know, as the show should be. A-

True Blood, Truly
It's campy and silly at times, yes, but with the ever-increasing mysterious death toll, we're hooked now. Anna Paquin-factor be damned. B

Mad Men
Oh you know it's good. A

MONDAY

Gossip Girl & The Hills: Hurt So Good
The Upper East Side teen soap (fiction) and the Los Angeles post-teen soap (reality!) are both dumb and gut-churning sometimes, yes, but both have mostly been hitting on as many cylinders as they can so far this season. GG has tempered the silly melodrama of last season with more groan-inducing witty New Yorky references and word play, while The Hills has mined some sneakily affecting emotional depths. (Well, not really that affecting, but you know, relatively.) It's what the kids are watching and really, they could be doing worse. GG: B+, Hills: B-

Two and a Half Men Apparently Exists
Yeah, apparently it does. And lots of people watch it. Sigh. D

TUESDAY

Greek Is The Best Show You're Probably Not Watching
Well the third season of this terrific little confection of a college series is almost over, but I'm told the entire first season is available for your ears and eyeballs to consume online. It's a funny, sweet, nice-but-not-too-nice dramedy about a college in Ohio (where it's always sunny and warm!), that has soared these past couple of months. That Greek (heh!) guy from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is on it, and, well, swoon. The various romantic polygons have remarkably not gotten tired, and the sore-thumb single gay plotline has been treated calmly and evenly. Go watch! A-

Please Do Not Watch 90210
This excreble misery of a remake is a sloppily-made, boring piece of drivel that mind-bogglingly managed to even underestimate the taste level of squealing teenage girls. With seemingly no feel for plot structure, continuity, character, or humor, the writers have blundered along, serving us tepid little piles of gruel that—despite the presence of o.g. stars Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth (plus a hilarious Hannah Zuckerman-Vasquez line)—woefully pale in comparison to the original teen whine and cheese party. Ugh. F-

Fringe: WTF?
OK, we admit we only watched the first episode of this sci-fi CSI meets X-Files pastiche. And we admit to sort of enjoying it. But nothing really pulled us back in. Joshua Jackson, way late of Dawson's Creek, is as wannabe suave and charming as ever, Anna Torv is sort of hard to pin down, and Lance Reddick is left to lurk in the shadows, reminding of us better work like The Wire and Lost. Who has kept up with this? How's it doing? We guess right now we'll give it a C

WEDNESDAY

Goodbye Forever, Project Runway
So it ends tonight, whatever. This season has been kind of unbearable, save for a few highlights (Leanne! Sort of!), with its annoying catchphrases, untalented contestants, and uninspired challenges. When the show comes back as a sad Pontiac Phoenix rising from the ashes on Lifetime (or, um, maybe not), we're pretty sure we're not going to watch it. Which is sad, because it used to be so damn good. Ah well. To everything a season and blah blah. C-

I Suppose There Have Been Other Things Airing On Wednesday Nights?
Um, let's see here.. Lipstick Jungle? No thanks. Knight Rider? Certainly not. America's Next Top Model? Never in a million years. Oh here we go. Top Design. Wait. Wait, nope. Not that either.

THURSDAY

Clocking In At The Office
We've only had two episodes, but they've been squirmy, swoony delights thanks mostly to the rainy day engagement between floppy old Jim and frizzy old Pam—though, it'd be nice to have her back in the actual office, rather than flirting it up with that teddy bear dude from Mad Men—and to the pitch-perfect Amy Ryan as a strange, nerdy, cautious love interest for ever-bumbling Michael Scott. Kudos also to the show's writers for giving lesser-seen characters like Meredith their chances to shine. A-

Kath & Kim
Sad. Just sad. Such high hopes for the usually likable Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, but this Australian import just didn't connect. D

Live From New York It's... Thursday Night?
Because of some sort of political and economic foofaraw going on these days, Lorne Michaels and co. have decided to add a special Thursday version of their Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment to the NBC lineup. You know, to stay current and all. We've only had one so far (they'll run up to the election), and it was funny in parts and strained and awkward in others. The thing is, SNL is so skimpy on the funny as is, it seems a bit foolish to stretch out their best material to two nights a week. But, we'll keep watching for now and give it a tentative B.

It Really Is Always Sunny In Philadelphia
FX's hilarious, filthy, swear-filled, low-budget comedy It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia continues to blow the brain with out-there yet somehow completely salient themes like the gas crisis and how to fake one's own death. A

(Note: Please come back, '30 Rock.' Pleeeassse??)

THOSE OTHER TWO NIGHTS NORMAL PEOPLE SPEND DRUNK

Friday and Saturday... I dunno. I guess there's new stuff on, but who really watches. So instead let's take a moment to discuss the real TV this fall, which of course has been news and various humorous reportings on said news. As we said above, there seems to be some sort of election happening as well as some coverage of the large and troubling black hole that recently opened up here in New York, south of Worth Street. The "news" programs, as they were, have been of course loud and shouty and irksome and saturated with the kind of editorializing and conjecture that has somehow slunk its way to the top of the heap. It's so rare, like really honestly rare, these days to see any reporting that's not loaded with opinions and speculation and all manner of rabid fame-clawing by correspondents desperate to earn the next truckload of sweet ass O'Reilly or Olbermann cash. Fuck who's in the tank for who, let's toss out both tanks and start from scratch. And yes, though I like her, I'm willing to throw the Maddow out with the bathwater. F+

The parody shows, chiefly The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, have fared far better because, duh, there's just so. much. to make fun of. It's no surprise that these arch hosts (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert) are performing ably, but all of their correspondents, writers, and editors have also been more on top of their game than we've seen in a long time. Wherever you fall on the issues (crazy, nonsensical shortsightedness vs. Barack Obama), the back-to-back lineup is always worth watching. A+

So that's that! Tell us what else you've been watching and if you've enjoyed it in the comments. And, you know, disagree with me. Because really I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

Fey: That thing was edited kind of weird.

I was really talking about audiences and how audiences respond weirdly to things. When I was talking I said, 'Like you know, on Weekend Update or anything' and that kind of went away so it seemed like I was saying something bad about those guys. I think they know that I think their show is great and would actually never be disparaging on their show."

While that should be satisfactory for most, we'd still like to see some sort of symbolic gesture to finally put this ugly chapter behind us: Perhaps Fey can appear as a guest on The Daily Show, at one point shedding her brightly patterned sun-tunic and climbing onto a circular bed for a gauzy-lensed, multi-position lovemaking session with the mistakenly maligned host, to the rapturous clapter of the studio audience.

• 30 Rock's Tina Fey Clarifies Her Remark About The Daily Show [cinemablend.com]

· The Daily Show host and noted sympathetic unibrowist Jon Stewart would like to reach a deal with his staff the way David Letterman did, but because the WGA will only negotiate with show owners (like Dave), they'll only deal with Comedy Central. [Variety]
· The 11th annual Online Film Critics Society Awards blows their internet-based-reviewer wads all over the old men of No Country. [Variety]
· Finally, some good news: The Two Coreys, A&E's bold foray into the loosely scripted cohabitating has-been reality TV format, has gotten a second season pickup. [THR]

While Stewart lamented his program's inability to get the kind of side-deal the WGA made with Worldwide Pants (the Guild, it seems, isn't really embracing the idea of giving corporate monolith Viacom a break), he still dedicated most of the show to the strike; in the above segment—one probably not as improvised as the WGA would like, but given the pro-cause subject matter, the union probably won't be sending anyone over to Stewart's office to have a testy sit-down about strike rules—the host details the dispute over internet compensation, explaining how the $1.99 fees charged for iTunes downloads of his show are purely a shipping and handling charge, the proposed "Shut The Fuck Up" formula for new-media residuals, and how the viewing of written content on iPods clearly falls under the "Hickory Farms promotional cheese" principle.

• Writers Strike [TheDailyShow.com]
• Comedy Central Hosts Return to TV [NY Times]

Though the sidewalk shoot progressed smoothly enough at first, their hypervigiliant Viacom bosses eventually caught wind of the guerrilla production, and in a move designed to show how seriously the company takes the staff's unauthorized actions, dispatched CEO Philipppe Dauman (who, weirdly, decided to adopt a pseudonym for the raid but didn't bother to change out of his instantly recognizable Monopoly Man ensemble) to disrupt the segment and reclaim the scripted material that is rightfully theirs.

• Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer [YouTube]

• The Daily Show [thedailyshow.com]
• Previously: Letterman Prepares His Viewers For The Writers Strike [Defamer]

Viewership for "The Daily Show" averaged 1.6 million for the six episodes after Stewart's Oscar gig. The show had been averaging 1.5 million viewers each night before the Academy Awards, according to Nielsen Media Research.

"He's sort of elevated," said Doug Herzog, Comedy Central president, "and by association we are as well. So we couldn't be happier." [...]

"I knew the visibility would be high," Herzog said. "The only thing that would have surprised me is if the ratings had gone down. We couldn't have been more proud that he was up there."

Studies have shown that a majority of parents, regardless of what they say, do tend to favor one child over the others. It's an apt analogy when you consider Herzog's cooing and fawning over Stewart, who with one neutered performance and a modest gain in viewership ascends to untouchable Comedy Central Golden Boy status, while Trey Parker and Matt Stone suffer the indignities of scheduling runarounds and doublespeak you'd extend to that one problem kid who just can't seem to learn to play by the corporate-synergistic rules.

• Stewart at Oscars Helps Comedy Central [AP]
• Previously: Night Of A Thousand Sweatpants: Anatomy Of A Bomb [Defamer]