WITHIN THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES, IT ATTACKS A BUNGEE JUMPER:  Yes, several of us are watching Sharktopus on the Syfy Channel tonight, and it's exactly what you would hope for from the network which brought you Mansquito.

17 ACROSS. YES, 17 ACROSS IS WRONG. YOU'RE SPELLING HIS NAME WRONG. WHAT'S MY NAME? MY NAME DOESN'T MATTER. I'M JUST AN ORDINARY CITIZEN WHO RELIES ON THE TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE FOR STIMULATION: Based on the criteria of "1) stylistic innovation and influence, 2) overall excellence in writing, direction, performance and production, and 3) ability to withstand repeat viewings," MZS slideshows his list of the top ten tv drama pilot episodes of all time.

It is an oddly predictable list, but I think that's only because how strong the critical consensus is around so many of the entries.  If there's one I'd add to the list (presuming it's not on his comedy list), it's the Moonlighting pilot film which did such a wonderful job of setting up the characters, the mood, the occasionally fourth-wall-breaking universe.  (Or may it's because I was 13 when I first saw it, so I'm predisposed to remembering it as awesome.)  Also of recent vintage, the show may have gone downhill fast but the Desperate Housewives pilot was compelling, different and gripping.

[(".,';...—:-?!")]: Happy National Punctuation Day!  Be sure to party in moderation, lest you start employing unnecessary quotation marks.  The official NPD folks suggest crafting a haiku in honor of your preferred mark; here's mine to start:

Larry King's column
Actors, sports and random shit
Many ellipses

PLAYING TRACK SIX, TRACK SEVEN, AGAIN AND AGAIN: A week ago Saturday, Superchunk played the Bowery Ballroom on Delancey, here in New York City. (This is a wonderful place to see a show, with a full bar in the basement, pleasant-but-durable appointments throughout, a great big open floor in front of the stage, and seating for perhaps two-dozen upstairs, all in a room which manages to preserve a sense of intimacy with the band even from the stools at the balcony bar.) The songs from their set (and free-associatively selected favorites from the rest of the Superchunk catalog) are still echoing behind my eyes, surfacing as a hum-alongs while walking to the store, or inspiring full-on unselfconscious wife-has-left-for-work-already singing in the shower. It was an amazing show, in that matter-of-fact manner that Superchunk is often amazing.

The one set list for the Bowery show that I’ve been able to locate on line is wrong. Not through-and-through wrong but at least wrong about the first song, which was Baxter. I am not likely to be wrong about this, as it is one of the more obscure Superchunk songs and one of my favorites. (There’s a poorly captured version of Baxter from a 1995 show here at about 3:10, after Shallow End and some noodling. That’s the only version I could find on the web.) The point is that a room full of people yelling “He’s always happy about something… !” is not something I’m likely to forget, or misremember, or remember out of sequence, particularly because I can contrast the experience with an old roommate looking over at me in the car as I rocked-out to Incidental Music circa 1998 and sneering “Yeah, that fucker. Always happy about something.” Some folks, they get it. Some folks, they don’t. Baxter is a favorite of mine because it reminds me of that. It was really, really great to be in a room full of people who got it last Saturday.

Local fan-favorite Throwing Things was the last song of the show, as stated in the semi-suspect internet set list above, but it came as a stand-alone second encore and not as the end of a single encore, if that matters. (And, I mean, wow. Wow! Does that link make up for the crappy Baxter link, or what? Can you hear them singing along? Yes, yes you can.)

Throwing Things, Cast Iron, Detroit Has a Skyline, and Baxter were surprise all-in sing-alongs. Slack Motherfucker, Hyper Enough, 100,000 Fireflies, Driveway to Driveway, and Foolish were sing-alongs as well, but I don’t think anyone was surprised.

Overall, the band was tight and upbeat, the sound was absolutely fantastic. Songs off the new album worked seamlessly into a show that pulled material from the whole length of their career together, and all the old favorites came with the expected earnest roar and punch.

So, if you get it, or think maybe you'd want it, and there’s a date near you, go. Just go. This year, next year, 2020 if it takes that long. Go. Go go go go go.

DONDE ESTA LA BIBLIOTECA? We're used to aggressive footnoting of shows like Treme and Mad Men to explain the historical and local references at issue, but you don't normally need them for a comedy. However, for Community, it certainly helps, and Vulture gives us Dan Harmon's annotation of last night's excellent season premiere (seriously, the "study group waking up" tracking shot that opened was damn impressive).

OH MY PAPA:  South Philly native Eddie Fisher passed away yesterday, and it brings up a topic I've droned on about in the past -- what does it take to kill a career these days?  For Fisher, of course, it was leaving his wife Debbie Reynolds -- where they were seen as America's sweethearts -- to shack up with that grieving hussy Elizabeth Taylor.  The scandal wrecked his career as a crooner, though it obviously gave his daughter Carrie a lot of material going forward.

In 2003, as you may recall, Billy Crudup left his longterm girlfriend Mary-Louise Parker -- who was seven months pregnant at the time -- to take up with Claire Danes.  Career consequences?  None.  And neither Brad Pitt nor Angelina Jolie seemed to have been hurt in the slightest, though Jennifer Aniston -- like Debbie Reynolds decades earlier -- seems to be doing fine centering her celebrity around her victimhood (see #3). 

No, to have your career die in Hollywood for non-criminal reasons, it looks like anti-Semitism (Gibson) or flagrant overall weirdness (Cruise) are what you need -- but even in Cruise's case, neither Valkyrie nor Knight & Day were total bombs and both did well overseas.  But infidelity?  In Hollywood, it doesn't seem to be an issue, which I suppose begs the question of why over in the sports world Tiger Woods has generated so much genuine resentment and outrage.  Is it the quantity/quality?  The way we found out?  Was America just bored?  Why did Tiger take the hit which so many others did not?

THEY'VE GOT A LOT OF THEM, JEFF.  MORE THAN THEY DO IN LOUISIANA: I recognize that I'm a little late on this, but I wanted to offer one thought on this week's Survivor.

There are two ways that a Survivor season can be enjoyable.  One is what we've seen recently, which is brilliant people out-strategizing each other, often by taking advantage of the one dumb person who's out there.  The other is what we saw this week, where a tribe is full of people who have never played poker or understood the wisdom of occasionally keeping one's feelings to oneself, and the prospect of a satisfying self-immolation is always near.  Fienberg spoke with the eliminated contestant yesterday, and hoo boy does this person double-down on the stupid.