I kind of adore Andy Richter. I loved him on Conan. Andy Richter Controls the Universe was must-see TV for me, I even watched most of Andy Barker, P.I., and I thought he was sweet as a dopey divorcee on New Adventures of Old Christine ... though my love didn't extend enough to make me watch more than one episode of Quintuplets. Anyway, I'm excited now because he's going to be on an episode of Bones, which I watch weekly and end up blogging about a lot. I look for any excuse, really. EW's Ausiello says the Richter episode in January (or some other far off date) will be circus themed, and I'm still kind of freaked out by the creepy clowns on last week's Pushing Daisies, so I hope that since he's the ringmaster he keeps them under control. Or at least that one of the corpses is a clown. That would ease my irrational fear.

I thought I'd made my peace with Deadwood being over. It ended two years ago and I was devastated by the unanswered questions and potential material still left to cover. (How the hell is the town going to change with Hearst gone, but with a new sheriff in town who doesn't want the job? Will Saul suck it up and marry Trixie already, or will he wuss out for his political gains?) I gave up on the long-promised TV movies a year ago when Al Swearengen told me that it was dead as a doornail. I was heartbroken. However, time has healed the gaping wounds that pained me more than Swearengen's knife twisting in a hooker. And while there is little else that comes close to this amazingly written and crafted show, I've learned to go on with my life. Mostly.

Poor CBS with its lackluster comedy lineup. They should rename themselves UFBS for UnFunniest Broadcasting System. That's right, I said it. One hilarious show (HIMYM) ain't enough to make up for the stinkers like Worst Week and Gary Unmarried. I know, the truth hurts. BUT reports that hilar-ville Daily Show news correspondent Samantha Bee and her hubby, the less-funny but still comparatively giggle-inducing Jason Jones (who also appears on The Daily Show from time to time) are developing a comedy series for the network that is sure to have you (me) in stitches. The yet-to-be-titled show is said to focus on the life and times of a celebrity chef and the underlings who pander to his needs. JJ will play said chef and Bee will be one of his underlings. I smell an Emmy! And a divorce!

For years, I've been hearing how good the British series The IT Crowd is. "It's so good," everyone kept telling me, "that they're talking about doing an American version!" Being an inherently lazy person, this gave me even less of a desire to seek it out, as I was willing to wait until it got to the U.S. in some bastardized form. (Hey, this was when the American Office was just winning people over, so I was not being completely irrational.) Now, with no remake in sight, IFC has come to my rescue, because they've been airing the original IT Crowd Tuesday nights at 8:00, and it is every bit as hysterical as promised.

I like game shows a lot, I really do. And I know this is unforgivably blasphemous to say, but I have always hated The Price is Right. I don't trust a show that a) works perfectly sane people into a rabid mouth-foaming frenzy over the cost of dish soap, and b) sticks some pins in a board and asks contestants to drop a hockey puck aimlessly down it while standing anxiously by, hoping the hockey puck of destiny lands in just the right slot by pure, dumb luck like the lives of their entire family depends on it and calls it a legitimate game. Oh Plinko, how I hate you! It's the stupidest game in the entire world! It's so stupid it's not even a game! Hungry Hungry Hippos requires more skill. And ever since the Facebook app launched, all my friends have become obsessed with it and have to schedule serious chunks of time into their day to play it, like it's the damn second coming of Tetris.

So I finally got around to watching the Style network show The Dish. Yes, I realize that it premiered over the summer, and I do normally seek out stuff featuring Topanga (I don't think I'll ever be able to call Danielle Fishel by her real name), but I swear it took me this long to discover that I even had the Style network on my cable lineup (we've got some crazy system with too many stations and half of them are in high-def, foreign languages or involve sports). Anyway, I finally found it and watched, and it is amusing and filled with clips and highlights of the latest and greatest happenings, and Topanga reading off funny little jokey commentary. But (and this is a really big but... not implying that Topanga has a fat ass, just saying... well, you know what I mean) it is exactly, EXACTLY, like The Soup, except with Topanga instead of Joel McHale. It has the same tone, the same look, the same random fake cheering in the background, the same sort of send offs. I mean. If I hadn't known better, or tuned in during the middle, I would have thought that Topanga was subbing for Joel while he was on vacation.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who actually watched CW's Sunday night dramas, or read our Mondo, or had the good sense to avoid these shows solely based on premise alone. Media Rights Capital, who has purchased the Sunday night block from the CW, has put the brakes on Valentine (a crappy show about Greek Gods living among us and trying to get people to hook up) and Easy Money (a slightly less crappy, but really boring show about loan sharks). And while neither drama has been nixed from the schedule yet, and the folks at MRC insist that the four to six week shut down was planned (which seems unbelievable), it seems like we may have seen, or soon will see, the last of both these mediocre shows.

If you've been watching this Amazing Race season, you've likely noticed that one competitor, Terence, of the Terence and Sarah (and not Terrance and Phillip, as I'm dying to call them) team is a ticking time bomb of rage and what I can only describe as seething homicidal tendencies. Why do I think these awful things? He doesn't want his girlfriend Sarah to talk to other people who are not him at all (and this is not negotiable), he's prone to screaming fits with little to no provocation, and sometimes he gets imaginary cuts that he forces her to blow on if she's not paying him what he deems as enough attention, like he's a five-year-old. Which he is, in so, so many ways. But, like, a five-year-old who maybe keeps some severed heads in his freezer. Sarah, as Oda Mae Brown from Ghost would say, "You in danger, girl."

Apologies to those of you who were somehow too busy to watch Mad Men last night (as if anything could be more important!), but I feel compelled to comment on the episode, so either cover your eyes and move along or get ready for a rant. Mad Men, as most of you are aware, is one of my all-time favorite shows. It's sexy, style-y, crammed with mystery and intrigue, and on top of all of that, not afraid to tackle some of the deep-seated issues inherent in its period 1960s New York setting. The time period is one of political unrest and social progress, and topics of race, war, feminism, consumer culture and the fast-deteriorating American Dream have all been touched upon, as has the subject of homosexuality, though only peripherally and subtly.

I like Heroes. Or at least in theory I do. But there's a point where even I have to draw the line. Last week was kind of that line. And while I really don't want to stop watching this show, I'd hate for it to devolve into Prison Break territory, where I'm only watching it to see what ludicrous and preposterous new things they've come up with. It would be easier for me to make a clean break. But I'm willing to give it a little more time. Especially if they make any of the following changes. Stat. Because I'm not falling for that "we made it better, we swear" thing again. Adding in a few cool twists in a mess of a show does not make things all better.