Hella OK

Last night's theme on Ameican Idol was songs by No Doubt or Gwen Stefani... or songs by artists that inspired Gwen Stefani. Which is how we had just as many songs by The Police as by Gwen and her (former?) band.

In any case, no one really wowed. Those who are usually good continued, while those who are usually not so good managed to carry over some of last week's improvement for the most part. Phil, Gina, and even Haley sounded better than their usual, which Chris Sligh sounded like ass.

Speaking of sounding like ass, Sanjaya looked to hide his vocal deficiencies behind a ponytail-created fauxhawk. It was gloriously awful. It will probably save him this week, even though he continues to be the contestant most worthy of being sent home.

Instead, I'm going with Chris R., whose nasal quality continues to bore me.

The Boobie Invasion

Last night's American Idol featured songs from the British Invasion, though I'm not sure if Bond songs or songs from Oliver! really count. It also featured a copious supply of boobies, most notably from Haley, whose chestal area seemed to be dancing to its own tune during her performance. Her top was also backless, and she was wearing very short shorts. Clearly, she knows what's going to keep her on the show. A month from now she'll be out there doing the fan dance.

Not sure if it was the surprising usefulness of Peter Noone and Lulu or just the general quality of songs not written in this age of Pro Tools, but there were very few bad performances. Notable in that context was Stephanie, whose performance I can barely remember, and Sanjaya (of course), who I would like to forget after his laughable version of "You Really Got Me." As bad as it was, it was probably his least annoying performance to date.

The best part of the episode, though, was the pre-teen girl who was blubbering from Sanjaya's performance on. She's occasionally lapse into bawling. She's going to be seeing these clips for the rest of her life. It's going to suck when she turns 100 and an animatronic Willard Scott congratulates her by showing her the footage. On the plus side, she may not remember.

Anyway, while Sanjaya should go - nothing new there - I'm thinking it'll more likely be Stephanie, who is clearly finishing last in the diva battle. Phil is a possibility, though this was easily his best week to date.

A Hairy Performance

What's worse than Sanjaya Malakar singing? Sanjaya Malakar singing while sporting Justin Guarini's hairdo. Still, as bad as the hair was, the singing was still the worst part of his performance.

And for all that, you know he's not getting voted off. My pick is Chris Richardson, the dollar store version of Justin Timberlake. Boring and nasal, not a good combination.

OK, America, this is easy

As confusing as it is for picking the top six guys on American Idol - as unfortunate as it is that Sanjaya and Sundance are likely going to make it through, it's not like the other guys have done much to distance themselves - it is very easy to pick the six women. You've got five - Melinda, LaKisha, Jordin, Sabrina, and Stephanie - who are clearly above the other three.

So that leaves one spot. For that you have Antonella, Haley, and Gina. Antonella's deficiencies as a singer have been well documented. Haley is the female version of Nick Pedro - assuming you can remember him (or her). Gina, while not possessing the greatest range, at least tries to sing songs that give a sense of who she is. When choosing between a human and two automatons (one of Antonella or Haley actually said singing was like clocking in and out of a job, it's hard to tell which one as I actually think they're two sides of the same person, like some freaky Face/Off variant), pick the human.

That being said, I have a bad feeling that we're going to be stuck with Antonella in the finals. My picks for the boot are Haley and... Stephanie. I know, I said she was better, but I don't think she stands out enough in that top group, while each of the three in the bottom group have a niche.

Sadly Familiar

The last guys semifinal proved to be much like the first on American Idol, as none of the 8 remaining men did much to improve their standing. About the only person who stood out was Blake, who mixed his beatbox thing in with a song by 311.

Now, if this were actually a singing contest, I'd not be here hoping for Sanjaya and Sundance's ouster. They'd already be gone (and in Sundance's case, he'd never have made it out of Hollywood week). But as it's a musical popularity contest, I fear that we may be stuck with both of them in the finals (and on the tour - enjoy!). But I'm going to look at this as a glass half full, and say that Sundance will get sent packing after his rendition of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy". As for the other spot... it could be almost anyone. I'm going to go with Brandon Rogers, who hasn't quite figured out the transition from backup to lead singer. But it could be just about anyone; the only surprises for me would be if Blake of Chris Sligh go home.

Frustrating

Just read that ABC is going to yank The Knights of Prosperity for a few weeks, and will replace it with a second helping of According to Jim.

While I've not been as floored by Knights as some people, I've enjoyed its rather unusual take on planning a robbery. I've certainly enjoyed it more than any amount of Jim I've seen.

It almost makes me wish that the sitcom actually would die.

I'm also a little bothered that this may represent renewed confidence in Jim. It's on my LaPlaca list, and would become the first show to thwart me twice if someone at ABC decides not to give the heave-ho. It'd be just my luck.

A Fitting Nickname

Vincent Pastore, who played "Big Pussy" on The Sopranos, has bailed on Dancing With the Stars after just one week of training. Turns out the physical demands were too much.

(OK, Pastore is 60, so there's that. Like I could do much better.)

Anyway, John Ratzenberger is stepping in to take his place. One can only hope that he shows two inches of white socks during his inaugural performance.

Five women, one spot

After tonight's installment of American Idol, one thing became very clear: Stephanie, Jordin, LaKisha, Sabrian, and Melinda should be in the finals. None of the other five women is a better singer than the worst one in this group. Which means that those five other women are fighting for the last spot.

Of those five, I think Gina is the only one who'd be able to keep up, and even then not for long. Were I picking who to cut, I'd go with Alania and Antonella, neither of whom improved much over last week. Haley and Leslie weren't much better, though I think they were marginally better than the other two.

The requests were less odd than last night, with the strangest being Alania dedicating "Not Ready to Make Nice" to her mom. There's a story there, and I'm sure Access Hollywood or the like will pick it up should she last much longer.

Stepping Out, Indeed

Dropping from 12 to 10 seemed to wake the guys up on American Idol tonight, and while they didn't match the level of performance that the women put up last week, they made up a fair amount of ground.

The lone exception would be Sanjaya Malakar, whose version of "Stepping Out" was straight out of a junior high talent show. I know he's got an entire demographic to himself, being the only teenaged male on the show, but the combination of a bad show and looking like the lost DeBarge child should mark the end of his run. He really should have waited about three years before trying out.

As for the other cut, there are three or four guys who could go based on being OK but not particularly memorable. The wife thinks Brandon Rogers will go, as the former backup singer has had two fairly marginal weeks. I could also see Nicholas Pedro getting sent home; his rendition of "Fever" was a marked improvement from last week, but he's patently unmemorable. He's the sort of guy you watch and think, "Is that Nick from Sales? Or is it Accounting?"

The theme of the night was to dedicate songs to people who inspired the contestants. Which is how we got Jared singing "Let's Get it On" to his parents and Chris doing "Geek in the Pink" for his grandmother. For those not familiar with the song, consider both the double entendre of the title and these lyrics:

"Well,I could be the one to take you home
Baby we could rock the night alone
If we never get down it wouldn't be a let down
But sugar don't forgetin' what you already know
That I could be the one to turn you out"

That is one messed up family right there. And Simon thought Chris Sligh was odd for singing "Trouble" for his wife, with its chorus telling of being saved by a woman. I assume he wasn't listening to the other guys.

Anyway, I'm going to second the wife's choices for who gets sent home. The fact that Sundance Head doesn't appear among them is a testament to the restorative powers of "Mustang Sally."

And speaking of back from the dead...

ABC has announced that Six Degrees will be returning to the airwaves in March with a Friday at 9 pm (Eastern) time slot. That might not be a bad time, as there's bugger-all on Friday nights outside of the CBS lineup. And there's only so many times during the week where ABC can rely on Grey's reruns.

I don't expect that this will do much more than burn off whatever's left, which is good given that it's a chance to provide some sort of wrap-up. Assuming you can remember what was going on when the show last aired, which I mostly can't (outside of Hope Davis's character getting a kiss from her boss - her female boss). I assume we'll learn what's in that box, but part of me wants it to stay secret and have it wind up on Lost somehow. JJ Abrams would find a way to make this work.

Are there sharks in Elliot Bay?

I don't think too many people are going to need help figuring out when Grey's Anatomy finally went around the bend. If it wasn't last night's episode, it will never happen.

(Unless Mere winds up being a surrogate for Yang and Burke's baby, but let's not plant seeds, so to speak.)

If it's not enough to have a near death experience, throw in the scene where Mere gets validation - and instructions to run away from the light - from her freshly-passed mom. Then throw in the amount of time Mere was down and how she's apparently suffered no signifcant injury (I know, hypothermia does wonders, but that was extreme). Oh, and then have the Izzy and Denny "reunion" at the end.

It makes one forget about Yang's odd trip to the dollar store and Sloan's 60 days of chastity in a bid to win Addison over.

And while speaking of Addison, I will say that I am completely in favor of the planned spin-off around her character - as long as she keeps her specs on. Not only can Kate Walsh act, but she knows how to wear a pair of glasses.

It Didn't Take Long

The first woman to sing on American Idol last night was better than any of the guys. So was the last one. And so were at least 2 or 3 others. At the end of it all, Randy Jackson said if he had to choose a final 12 now, he'd have 8 women and 4 guys.

I think he's at least one guy heavy.

In any case, it wasn't perfect, as there were plenty of glory notes and unnecessary vocal pyrotechnics, but it's pretty clear that this year's winner is going to be a woman.

As for who will be the first two women cut, one has to be Antonella Barba, whose rendition of "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" was on (sub)par with Sundance Head's performance the previous night. Both were the last person to make the semifinals for their gender; nice going, judges!

With the other cut, there are 4 or 5 women whose names I can't remember and who I can vaguely tell apart. It could be any one of them. My suggestion would be Nicole Tranquillo (I had to look her up), who seemed to be on St. Joseph's Chewable Meth or something. Very odd energy to her performance, which was marginal at best.

Best Talent Yet? Right.

While the claim that the new season has the best talent yet is as much an annual rite as the bad auditions for American Idol, I don't think anyone left last night thinking that this was true. After a dozen largely uninspired performances, this group of guys is giving the first season a run for its money.

There were a couple of decent performances, but for most the strategy was to try not to fail. Which makes for some compelling TV, especially when it's as ad-stuffed as the early Idol shows are.

Were I picking the bottom two, one spot would clearly go to Sundance Head (seriously), who did a number on "Knights in White Satin." It was painful to watch, but perhaps not unexpected from a guy who made it to the semifinals based largely on his initial audition.

The other spot could go to any of about eight guys. I would most likely tab Rudy Cardenas, whose performance suggests that he feels that "Free Ride" is constrained by too many consonants, given how many of them he didn't bother to pronounce. The judges were pretty harsh on Sanjaya Malakar's performance of what was, I think, the only Stevie Wonder song not previously performed on the show. I didn't think it was that bad, and given that Sanjaya is pretty much the only guy younger than 25 I think he'll squeak through.

The only other notable thing from last night was Chris Sligh being goaded into mocking Simon for producing Il Divo and Teletubbies albums. It made him look like a jerk, which is impressive when being held in comparison to Simon.

Anyway, women tonight, with hopefully less suckage.

The fall of the Fall Season?

While Fox has been able to find success juggling its schedule around all of the baseball it shows in October, taking that idea in another direction - a "fall season" that ends with October sweeps and picks up again in February sweeps - doesn't seem to work as well. At least not where Lost is concerned.

As most folks know, Lost returned last week after a three month hiatus which was supposed to launch the Taye Diggs drama Daybreak in its old spot and ramp up viewer demand for Lost's return last week.

Whoops.

Not only did Daybreak tank, Lost returned to series-low ratings. ABC killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, and then got salmonella from eating it.

Lost isn't in any danger of being cancelled, but with its new time slot and a series of weak sitcoms as lead-in, I don't expect a quick recovery.

The second test case for the "fall season" is Jericho, which has been gone for a couple of months, and will return tonight with a catch-up clip show. The next new episode is next Wednesday, where it'll face American Idol in full effect. Jericho wasn't putting up Lost numbers to begin with, and in the face of new competition, it has less margin for losing viewers.

In any case, I humbly ask the networks to put this idea on a high shelf in the back of the closet.

The End is Nigh: Awards Season

We got to whet our appetite for the Oscars with last night's 3.5 hour Grammy telecast, which I suppose isn't derided for its length given that we get live musical performances rather than stultifying montages. That being said, I think there was certainly room to trim a half-hour off of the show. But I'll get to that.

Not much notable about the show per se, other than it was a very good night to be a Dixie Chick or Mary J. Blige. Speaking of the former, how did I not know that Natalie Maines is married to Adrian Pasdar? That seems like something I should know.

Anyway, things I liked about the program:

* The Police reunion was entertaining enough, and there wasn't a lute in sight.

* No host, rather voice-overs linking presenters. The Oscars does this from time to time, and I still think it's an idea worth pursuing. Though it can be awkward, as seen when Scarlett Johansson just kind of grabbed the microphone and told everyone the show was over.

* Outside of Mary J. Blige reading the phone book, acceptance speeches were, for the most part, short and coherent. The Dixie Chicks seemed to run out of things to say (ironically enough), but at least they were smart enough to make notes during the show.

* For the first time in what seems like forever, Neil Portnow, the president of NARAS, didn't demonize unpaid music downloads during his speech. Rather, he focused on what his organization was doing to promote music in public schools, a topic of importance that didn't drag the show down.

* There was a smaller stage from the main stage where some of the presenatations took place, closer to the nominees. It was a much more elegant solution than anything the Oscars came up with to shorten the walk to claim an award. I assume it's easier to set up on the blank canvas of the Staples Center than in the Kodak Theater.

* The awards crawl, while sometimes moving too fast, is a nice way to recognize all the winners. Not only does it highlight some categories I never knew existed (Hawaiian music?), but you get to see some oddities, like Jimmy Carter bagging a spoken word Grammy for Our Endangered Values. Of course, this was also the mechanism by which we learned that the Black Eyed Peas won a Grammy for "My Humps."

Less entertaining:

* Given that they do this show live every year, some of the transitions to and from commercials were rough, especially towards the end of the show.

* And given that the Staples Center has hosted the show since 2000, can we do something about the sound? It was, for my taste, too uneven for a music awards program.

* We got three songs performed in honor of Don Henley, who is not dead. We got one song for James Brown. They closed the honor roll of the dead by draping his cape over a spotlit microphone, which was nice, but I'd have rather seen three songs in memory of the Godfather of Soul and one song for the guy who gave us "All She Wants to Do is Dance." If that.

* Scarlett Johansson is recording an album? That trumps the "My Humps" thing as the least positive news of the evening.

* The "My Grammy Moment" promotion, where one unsigned singer got to perform a duet with Justin Timberlake, was a nice performance, but seemed kind of underwhelming as a concept.

* I'd have liked to have seen more singing from Chris Brown, whose performance was mostly dancing. Though it did mark a clean break between him and his co-performers, Smokey Robinson and Lionel Ritchie.

* Speaking of Smokey, he needs to lay off the Botox. I think he blinked three times during his entire song. And even then, it looked like he was blinking in slo-mo.

* Did I mention that "My Humps" won a Grammy?

* Oh, that half-hour savings. I'd have cut the Henley thing down to one song, dropped at least one promo for the "My Grammy Moment," and have let Smokey do a song without the tenuous tie-in with Ritchie and Brown. I'd have also cut the performance of "Hips Don't Lie," though I'm biased here as there are few, if any, artists I care for less than Shakira. Take out some of the promos for shows CBS is going to cancel anyways (hello, Rules of Engagement) and there you go.

I Am What I Hate

Tonight brings us an hour-long supply of the TV crack that is the American Idol audition shows (it'd be two hours but for the State of the Union address, which may be the only good thing that comes of it). If you watched at least 12 seconds of Fox programming over the last 4 days, you know that last week's two audition episodes brought in over 80 million viewers. I'm not sure if that number inspires more awe or sadness, though it certainly brings a healthy dose of both.

I don't care for the lengthy audition shows, with their stampede of tone deaf losers and various montages that apparently someone finds funny. The whole thing ages quickly, and while that gives some insight to what the judges go through, what airs isn't smart enough to draw that distinction. Rather, let's pair the fat kid and the guy who looks like a bush baby together as friends!

Even so, I did find myself enjoying last week's four hours of warbling somewhat entertaining. Maybe it was the dawn of a new season, maybe I was having a reaction to something I ate, but my irritation at this part of the process (if I can use that term in this situation) was markedly lower than in the past.

Of course, it could all be another sign that I'm going a little soft in the melon. Like your average American Idol viewer.

What I Did on my Winter Vacation

One of the good things about working in education is the roughly two weeks we get off for the winter holidays. As you can imagine, I spent a not insignificant portion of that time in front of the TV, rotting my brain as surely as all of the Christmas treats were rotting my teeth.

Very little of this viewing was actualy on holiday-related fare. I do have the hour-long How the Grinch Stole Christmas special on the DVR, but I did not partake of Frosty, Rudolph, or TBS's annual 24 hours of A Christmas Story. I tended to favor bowl season over the holiday season, with more time watching minor college football bowls - and their attendant fifth-string crews and repetitive tourist promotional ads - than was strictly necessary.

Spent a little time catching up with Jericho, though not all of the episodes were available through Comcast On Demand. They are available through CBS's Innertube service, so I'll likely fire that up at some point. It's still not the best show - folks in Jericho seem exceedingly slow at times - but it's diverting enough.

We also blew through most of our DVR backlog, getting caught up pretty much with every show we regularly follow - just in time for the return of 24, American Idol, and (in February) Lost. We'll be up over 90 percent capacity in no time.

One new show I sampled was Top Chef, Bravo's unscripted cooking competition. It was OK. I think I'd have to watch more of it - or at least start at the beginning - to really get into it. That being said, the challenges are interesting, even if the drama between contestants seems a little forced at times.

Sticking with food, I also watched the Las Vegas and New Zealand episodes of No Reservations, and found myself less annoyed with Tony Bourdain than normal. I imagine part of this is the production staff sanding off some of the rough edges, and certainly part is Bourdain's willingness to have a laugh at his own expense. Both help soften his usually annoying New York exterior. It also helps that the show manages to balance food and travel better than most shows that try to combine the two. Now if I can only talk a well-know Kiwi chef into inviting me to his next beachside cookout...

America's Next Top Zzzzzzzzzzzz

I was trading emails with a friend who also watches America's Next Top Model, and she raised a good point - this may have been the most boring season (er, cycle) so far. For the record, CariDee English proved most fierce in taking the title, making her the second champion from the heretofore unknown model breeding ground of North Dakota. And while she's not the dullest of the winners - paging Naima Mora! - the overall run of shows was not particularly interesting.

Why? Well, I've got some theories.

Too much crazy - while Tyra stated in a previous cycle that she didn't want to have each year's group include a bitchy African-American, she's never managed not to cast someone for that role. This time it was Monique, who didn't do quite as well as past archetypes Robyn, Eva, or Camille as far as the modeling went, but she out-classed them all in the crazy. Part of it was hidden by the usual narcissim and immaturity that these contestants have by the truckload, but when she started rubbing things related to her private area on other contestants and their stuff, she vaulted way over the line and into crazy country. Seriously, I hope she's getting some help.

Anyway, she got the gate pretty early in the competition, and while she was clearly not the best contestant there, I have to think that the folks running things decided that she needed to go quickly.

Not enough crazy - that being said, without Monique the best the show could come up with was all of the contestants hating on Melrose, who combined Lisa's know-it-all tendencies with a frustating ability to take good pictures. This season was much less catty, and not a single skank ho poured beer on anyone's weave.

Speaking of beer...

Not enough substances - while I'm not generally in favor of using alcohol as a production tool, it certainly does liven things up a bit. This season was particularly devoid of drunken model wannabes, though it seems like more of the contestants this time around were under 21.

Given how little we saw of the contestants smoking, I wonder if the CW is tighter about showing this than UPN was (thinking it'd be a legacy of the WB and their focus on teen viewers). Then again, the one season where I really remember a lot of contestants smoking was season five, whcih is also the one that (to my mind) included the most drinking.

Not enough final episode - one hour isn't long enough for the finale. There's plenty of stuff between the Cover Girl shoot, the final runway show, the two judging and elimination sessions, and whatever other background stuff that's there to go to 90 minutes or two hours. I say this with a little trepidation, fearing that they'd go the American Idol finale route, where they try to put two pounds of content into a half-ton bag. Heck, make it two separate one-hour episodes, even.

Not enough follow-up - Brooke blew off graduation for the show. Anchal has crippling insecurity based on her past appearance. Michelle might be gay. CariDee tried to kill herself once. All interesting topics of varying seriousness, all fodder for some in-depth TV. Unless you're this show, in which case there's no examination, just labeling that's useful for categorizing - and perhaps eliminating - contestants. On the other hand, coming out or discussing your suicide attempt on national TV probably isn't something that Michelle or CariDee were looking for, so the show isn't necessarily at fault.

Not enough change - really, the show is getting a little formulaic, from the initial winnowing process to the makeover (and the contestant who cries over her hair) to the interview and acting portions to the trip abroad and the go-sees and such. I'd really like to see them mix it up in the future, even if it's just to re-order some of these common elements.

The real wrench in the works for the next season is the lack of writers, given that the producers fired them after they went on strike related to getting representation from the Writers Guild of America. So it may not be the best time for them to shake things up, content-wise. So we may be in for more snores.

What Was That? Good and Bad Edition

Playing some catch-up on TV, and came across both the good and bad of TV shows that make you ask, "What was that?"

Good: Gordon Ramsay's F Word. It's part cooking show, part restaurant reality show, part talk show, and wholly odd. The gist of things (to the extent I can tell) is that Ramsay has a new restaurant called The F Word, in which he has two contestants square off as assistants for the meal prepared during the show. At the end, he picks one of the two to continue on. I'm still not clear what the last remaining contestant will get, though I assume it's some sort of regular job in one of Ramsay's kitchens.

The meal this week was a sauteed mushrooms in pasta starter which looked great and a venison with a red wine-chocolate sauce that seemed a little over the top. For dessert, Ramsay passes on the show's competition to go head-to-head with a celebrity to make dish of the celebrity's choice. On the episode I saw, some kid from Eastenders went with rhubarb crumble, and lost pretty soundly with his simple version.

Inbetween all the food, Ramsay spends some time chatting with a food critic, and they talk about the food and such, with their discussion leading to a variety of pre-taped segements, such as Ramsay teaching a woman who doesn't cook how to make a fish pie and the critic embarking on a quest to raise his sperm count (for reasons which, thankfully, don't seem to have anything to do with food).

As you can imagine, the focus here is more on Ramsay the celebrity than as the chef, most obvious in the way that the recipies are given scant notice (and even then are played with an obnoxious musical background that also serves as the show's theme song). But it's still kind of fun, in an odd way. I don't think the show will win Ramsay many converts, but as someone who enjoys his other shows, it's entertaining.

Also, for all the use of The F Word, Ramsay swore very little.

Bad: Show Me the Money, the cacophonic mish-mash hosted by William Shatner. Did you ever see the Friends episode where Joey is trying out to be the host of a game show called Bamboozled, whose rules are so arcane that they aren't figured out until right before his audition? Or the recent episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney wins money on a game involving cards, changing seats, a money wheel, and guessing which woman is holding a jelly bean? If so, you've gotten a pretty good introduction to Show Me the Money, which seemed to be making up rules as it went along.

Here's the best I could figure out: the contestant gets to choose from among three questions starting with the same word (they can pass the first two but then must take the third, a concept that upon its initial description made it sound like the contestant could only pass on two questions in total). The contestant gives and answer, and then picks one of 13 dancers (yes, dancers), who opens a scroll to show the question value (or a stopper card, which apparently ends things). We then find out if the contestant's answer is right or wrong, and the question amount is added or subtracted to their total. Once the contestant gets six correct or incorrect answers, the game is over.

I think.

I will say this - the questions are a little harder than 1 vs. 100, and they do not present multiple choice answers. On the other hand, there is so much noise and distraction that it's hard to tell exactly what I'm supposed to be focusing on at any one time. Throw in the rube they found to be the first contestant - a fey Oklahoman who brought his "murse" on stage with him - and there's a level of stupidity to this show that is breathtaking. And considering how well Boston Legal seems to be going, I'm unsure why Shatner got himself involved with this train wreck. Maybe he misses the flash set and ability to dress up that he had when he was on Iron Chef USA.

Anyway, I don't even know if this show is even still airing. There's a small, evil part of me that hopes so.

Making a List

Just in time for the holidays, TVLand is making a list - of the top 100 catch-phrases in TV history, just in time to make a special out of it. And to get idiots on the Internet to talk about it.

With most lists of this type, my biggest reservations are for the most current entries. While I still enjoy How I Met Your Mother - even though with the removal of Ted's future kids, it sounds like future Ted is talking to himself - I don't think that "Suit up!" is necessarily in the top 100. It's more deserving than "Tell me what you don't like about yourself" from Nip/Tuck, which is both not that catchy and way too generic. I'm also not sure how William Shatner screaming his own character's name on Boston Legal cracked the list, even if it is funny.

(I'd also note that "Welcome to the O.C., bitch" would be better on a list of top 100 TV phrases turned into mocking or ironic restatements.)

Not surprisingly, the better catch-phrases from the current aren't from scripted prime-time programming. "The tribe has spoken" and "You're fired!" both fit pretty well; "Here it is, your moment of Zen" less so based on not being that catch-phrasey.

Not surprisingly, the '70s is most represented on the list with 26 entries. Saturday Night Live has six entries. And odd repeat is "Hey hey hey," which is in from both Fat Albert and What's Happening. They're said differently, of course, but it's funny seeing them next to each other like that. Throw in "Heh heh" from Beavis and Butthead and you get the feeling that the list should have been arranged chronologically.

With the given list, I'm going to guess that "Do you believe in miracles?" will top the list once it's presented in order. Also not much of a catch phrase, but memorable nevertheless. My dark horse is "I want my MTV"; it not only became a catch-phrase of sorts, it also marks a generational change in how entertainment was presented (for better or worse).

Anyway, suggestions for replacements are welcome. To start, I would happily replace any of the current clunkers with "Whoa nelly!" or some other oft-repeated nugget from Keith Jackson.