GIVEN THIS SEASON'S PLOTS, DO THEY NEED TO CHANGE THE TITLE? The Good Wife has seemed a little off to me this season. With the new time slot, the writers were clearly given a commandment to up the sexiness (even though the show now airs an hour earlier than it used to) and decrease the serialization (airing after football on the East Coast creates some problems), and they've clearly delivered on both points, but a few questions from last night:

• Is Diane so oblivious that she was unable to recognize Grace's voice on Alicia's ringtone in the background? Obviously, she's had inklings that there's some sort of relationship between Alicia and Will for quite a while, and seems like she's finally put the pieces together, and is responding in an interestingly passive-aggressive way (the sexual harassment video at the end of the episode was hysterical).
• Josh Charles is a devout Baltimore sports fan, and I suspect the writers were having more than a little fun tweaking him for that with the plotline about Will's (prior?) gambling problem. (Also, credit to the writers for working in continuity--Scott Porter is off wooing Rachel Bilson and Jaime King on Hart of Dixie, so we can't see Blake, but we at least get a reference.) Charles has had a pretty good season this year, with him getting to play off not just Marguiles, but Lisa Edelstein, and to do something other than bark orders.
  
• With respect to the "secret" deposition transcripts, even assuming that such depositions would be allowed, anyone think that the government would allow such videotapes to be recorded, much less released to opposing counsel in a subsequent case? Even if the videotapes were released, wouldn't the lips be blurred as well to avoid using a lip reader to circumvent confidentiality? I'm willing to cut some slack in the name of good television--people sitting reading deposition transcripts doesn't make for good entertainment--but given how generally good the show has been about keeping it somewhat plausible, it annoys.
  

HAPPY TIME, PEOPLE:  Remember back in May when many of us gave frequent commenter (and occasional a cappella correspondent) Saray advice on passing the bar exam?

She totally passed.

THROUGH THE SECOND MILE, SANDUSKY HAD ACCESS TO HUNDREDS OF BOYS, MANY OF WHOM WERE VULNERABLE DUE TO THEIR SOCIAL SITUATIONS:  I think Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel is undoubtedly correct that the alleged Penn State child rape coverup represents what "could be the ugliest scandal in the history of college athletics."

Questions about athletes and their families receiving improper benefits seem trivial in comparison to the horrific allegations in the grand jury presentment, which asserts that after a graduate assistant reported to Joe Paterno that he saw former coach Jerry Sandusky raping a ten-year-old boy in the gym showers, Paterno waited until the next day before contacting athletic director Tim Curley to inform him of the allegations. Curley then waited a week and a half before bringing in the assistant to recount what he saw. Subsequently, Curley never called the police or any other law enforcement agency, instead merely issuing an unenforceable and unenforced ban on Sandusky bringing kids into the locker room.

Words like appalling and disgusting may have lost some of their force in our heated culture, but I don't quite know what else to say. There have been at least eight victims, and I fear more will come to light now. If the allegations are true, Penn State officials protected a colleague and for years allowed more boys to be raped.  It is unconscionable.

AND IODINE AND THORIUM AND THULIUM AND THALLIUM:  The General Assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics has welcomed elements 110, 111, and 112 to the periodic table: darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn).

THE EDGE OF GRAVY: Prepare for A Very Gaga Thanksgiving special, little monsters.

DID DOOGIE HOWSER JUST STEAL OUR CAR? Our first explicitly Christmas-themed movie of the year arrives in theatres today with A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (with Arthur Christmas and New Year's Eve still to come), and Vulture has a discussion with the writers about how they came up with the idea for doing a Christmas movie, their reluctance to do the movie in 3-D, the other concept they bounced around for the threequel, why they're not afraid of jumping the shark, and what the three essential elements of a Harold & Kumar movie are.

THREE PEOPLE WHO'VE NEVER BEEN IN MY KITCHEN: So, apparently Jeopardy! went all TV-14 last night.

THE FUTURE IS OVER:  According to folks on my twitter feed (UPDATE: and now, the Wall Street Journal), Dippin' Dots has filed for bankruptcy. There's video:

SANTO GOLDEN?  Ten men are up for consideration for enshrinement to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the 16-member Golden Era Committee, which considers players and executives active 1947-1973:

Buzzie Bavasi, Ken Boyer, Charlie Finley, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva, Allie Reynolds, Ron Santo and Luis Tiant.

It's a damn shame that Santo's deserved induction be posthumous, but let's hope it at least happens.

EVERYBODY'S JUST NOT THAT INTO UNLUCKY YOU: Forbes Magazine claims Drew Barrymore is Hollywood's most overpaid star.

REALLY, MAYBE NOW WE'LL STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS: The folks behind the original two Studio 60 Twitter feeds have unmasked themselves as Onion head writer Seth Reiss (@MattAlbie60) and comedy writer Jake Fogelnest (@DannyTripp60). It's particularly impressive, given that they didn't meet in person until well into the project, and apparently still don't know who's on the other end of some of the character feeds. Impressive work from them!

CENTRAL WESTERN TIME ZONE - ADVANCE CLOCKS 45 MINUTES: Time zone anomalies from around the globe.

DON'T TALK TO HIM LIKE THAT:  It may be season 23, but there's still a reason to watch Survivor.

THIS IS OCEAN'S 11 AFTER OCEAN'S 11 HAS SUFFERED SEVERAL CONCUSSIONS:  Will Leitch did not care for Tower Heist.

YOU CAN NEVER JUMP AWAY FROM CONCLUSIONS: Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth is fifty years old.

TWO OF THE MEN LYING ON THE BLANKET THAT DAY IN 1940 WERE RICH. THE THIRD WAS POOR—SO POOR THAT HE HAD ONLY RECENTLY PURCHASED THE FIRST SUIT HE HAD EVER OWNED THAT FIT CORRECTLY—AND DESPERATELY ANXIOUS NOT TO BE:  Thus began The Path to Power, the first volume of Robert Caro's intended-to-be-three-part biography of Lyndon Johnson, published in 1982. Today, Caro announced that the subsequently-amended-to-be-four-volumes would instead stretch to five, with a relatively short 700-ish page fourth volume covering 1958-1964, The Passage of Power, to be published in May 2012:

Why did three volumes become four? Because I realized I didn't know how the Senate worked and instead of making it rather minor, I wanted to show how power worked in the Senate," Caro said Tuesday during a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Manhattan office.

"What do I want to show in this volume? I wanted to show how a master of politics can pick up the reins of power in a time of great crisis and what he can do with that power and the extraordinary results Lyndon Johnson did with it."

Caro said he has already done an outline and most of the research for the presumed final volume, which would cover the rest of Johnson's presidency and how the Vietnam War overshadowed his domestic triumphs and drove him to give up on seeking a second full term. Caro expects the fifth book to take two to three years and adds that he even knows the final sentence.

As a current UChicago Law student tweeted: "The new Robert Caro book is to political nerds what the new George R. R. Martin book is to regular nerds."

I WOULD WATCH IF STATLER AND WALDORF DID THE COMMENTARY EVERY WEEK: Jason Segel hosting SNL to promote The Muppets makes complete sense. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy (and several other Muppets) doing a full 12 minute bit on last night's WWE Raw, with entrance music? A little less understandable. (As someone who's not followed current developments in the WWE aside from the occaisional Grantland recaps, I suspect I'm missing some of the jokes, but still....)

ALSO, BASICALLY THE ENTIRE CHARACTER OF QUINN FABRAY: Since Glee is back tonight, it seems appropriate to link to the Glee wiki (yes, there is a Glee wiki) page on "Things With Little/No Continuity," which includes a note that "The point of this list is to expose continuity issues, not to say that Glee is terrible, so please do not get defensive. These issues do exist, and for the Gleeks to ignore or deny that is an insult to the what we do love about the show, causing other fandoms to lower their respect for us."

BECAUSE I'M THE GUY WHO DIDN'T START WATCHING 'LOST' UNTIL THE FIRST SUMMER BREAK:  Please complete this sentence -- "Adam, the new show you really need to get started with is ____________."

(And the one I seem to keep hearing: Revenge.)