I ENJOY HAVING BREAKFAST IN BED. I LIKE WAKING UP TO THE SMELL OF BACON -- SUE ME. AND SINCE I DON'T HAVE A BUTLER, I HAVE TO DO IT MYSELF: My initial reaction to the news that Steve Carell will be leaving "The Office" at the end of this season, his seventh, is that it's pretty impressive he's stayed with the show this long given his successful film career. This isn't someone like David Caruso, Shelley Long or George Clooney who's leaving a show under the belief that he could become a movie star; Steve Carell already is.

But what a character he's created on the show. Flawed like David Brent, but wholly in his own ways. As I wrote three years ago, "Michael Scott is, at his core, a child who desperately seeks to be the center of attention and believes he's cool enough to deserve it, though he's oblivious to how others see him," but he's also surprisingly smart about his business when it matters, forcing David Wallace to blink against the mighty power of the Michael Scott Paper Company.

I do think his exit is a good thing for the show. Last season just wasn't entertaining, and the process of writing Carell's exit from the show and rethinking office dynamics going forward hopefully will impel the producers to recognize what works for these characters, and bring in someone new to shake things up again.

I don't know how to replace him on the show. Alan Sepinwall has some thoughts on it, and I'm much more strongly inclined to look from outside the show than within. In Michael Scott, Steve Carell has already given us a rich, multifaceted gem of a comic character, and I do believe that a show which has given us as many memorable moments and characters as "The Office" has can do it again. "Cheers" replaced Coach and Diane, after all.

SEARCHING FOR A DISTANT STAR, HEADING OFF TO ISCANDAR: Remake "The A-Team"? Eh. "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" movies? Who cares.

But based on my earlier research, I know there's sufficient interest here to point folks towards the trailer for the upcoming live-action Space Battleship Yamato movie. Our! Star! Blazers! are hitting the big screen, and if there's any justice in this world, a poorly-dubbed version will make its way stateside in 2011.

THE SURVIVAL OF EVERYONE ON BOARD DEPENDS ON JUST ONE THING: FINDING SOMEONE ON BOARD WHO CAN NOT ONLY FLY THIS PLANE, BUT WHO DIDN'T HAVE FISH FOR DINNER: That's actually not just a quote from Airplane! but from Zero Hour!, the 1957 film upon which it's based. How closely? Take a look:

THE THIRD ESCOBAR: I have to apologize to the makers and fans of Glee, which I frequently call the laziest-written show on television. Last night I caught the season premiere of Entourage, and I went, "oh, yeah, now that is the laziest-written show on television." Allow me to relate the plot of last night's episode:

Turtle is running a sexy-driver car service. Excellent business model. Apart from the expense account unreimbursability, how much ogling can one do from the back seat, where all one can see of the driver is the back of the head and whatever is reflected in the rear-view mirror? Turtle sexually harasses his worst driver.

Eric ineffectually makes three phone calls.

Drama doesn't get a new show.

Vinnie Chase is an action hero in an expensive-looking scarf. He doesn't want to do his own stunt, but tells only his agent and manager, and refuses to tell the director. He eventually does the stunt, but messes it up and breaks character, shrieking "the brakes don't work!" in mid-air (maybe the brake pedal got caught on his scarf?), and almost killing the director. Nobody notices. Vince is triumphant.

AND YOU GET A LIFETIME OF FREE DVD SCREENERS TO BOOT! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited 135 new members to join the Oscar electorate. It's heavy on recent nominees (Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidbe, Jeremy Renner, and Anna Kendrick all make the list off their nominations from last year), but a few surprises--Tobin Bell? Adam Sandler? Ryan Reynolds? Bono and The Edge? And then there are people who you would have thought were already in--for instance, Davis Guggenheim, who already has an Oscar, was only asked to join this year, and I would have thought Peter Sarsgaard would have been in long ago. Any other surprises you see?

WELL, YOUR MISTAKE IN CALLING ME "JUDGE" IS ALSO MADE IN ARTICLE III OF THE CONSTITUTION, BY THE WAY: In honor of John Paul Stevens' retirement today from a career in public service which began on December 6, 1941, as a cryptographer for the United States Navy and included almost forty years in the federal judiciary (and almost thirty-five as a Supreme), name your favorite bow-tie wearers.

O'ER THE LAMPARD WE WATCHED: I defer to you -- tell me how to fix World Cup refereeing.