SOME NIGHTS, WE'RE AMERICA'S SIXTH MOST WATCHED NETWORK! Yes, NBC's fall schedule, despite the admitted gaps, is kind of boring. The more interesting projects like Smash (which seems to be Glee with adults) and Awake (trippy procedural from the creator of Lone Star), get held for mid-season (along with the return of 30 Rock, due to Tina Fey's pregnancy) and a launch in connection with The Big Game That May Or May Not Happen Depending On Court Decisions In Minnesota and a new season of The Voice.

I may check out The Playboy Club (Mad Men "inspired" but with more boobs), the remake of Prime Suspect, and trippy procedural Grimm (which sounds like a much better fit for SyFy than NBC, and is given a Friday Night Death Slot following the final 13 episodes of Chuck), and the new sitcoms certainly have a pedigree--one has Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph and is from the writer who gave us last week's "Eagleton" episode of Parks & Rec, and the other comes from a co-creator of Party Down. That said, if you're trying to rebuild, maybe the first thing you lose is cutting Biggest Loser from two hours to one, and not building your entire schedule around talent shows (Sing-Off, Voice, America's Got Talent)?

FEAR, BASICALLY. IT’S A TOUGH PRINCIPLE, BUT FEAR KEEPS PEOPLE LOYAL. IF THEY’RE AFRAID THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO LOSE, THEN THEY’LL DO WHAT YOU TELL THEM TO DO: The last time I rooted for someone this much in a reality tv finale, it was the Battle of the Davids on Idol. Before that, you might even have go back to season two of The Amazing Race (Chris/Alex v. Tara/Wil), but let's all agree on this one -- Rob Mariano has to win tonight.

He has given us so much amusement over the years, across so many seasons -- as both a competitor and as a narrator of his own game -- and has done such a masterful job this season ... I want to see him finally claim title of Sole Survivor and the million dollars, and I want to see if Survivor can have a jury that respects the game he plays. If only for the clip below, involving Lex during All-Stars ... dayenu.

ROBIN WILLIAMS, THE COMEDIAN WHO CAN'T SAY NO:  A little trip into the meta-verse for the weekend: a very special episode of "Mork and Mindy" in which budding tv journalist Mindy is desperate to land an interview with "star of tv, movies and nightclubs" Robin Williams. She realizes that Mork happens to look a lot like this Williams fellow; hijinks ensue.

"Mork Meets Robin Williams" aired on February 19, 1981, and YouTube has it in three parts -- 1, 2, and 3 -- the last of which includes Mork meeting Robin Williams and delivering an important message to Orson on how earthlings can, and can't, handle celebrity.

ODDS OF BEING NORMAN MAILER'D OR MAXWELL TAYLOR'D - 500:1: If the mere thought of Paul Simon's eleventh SNL appearance (3 as host, 8th as musical guest; includes one double-duty) this Saturday doesn't excite you enough in and of itself, let's set out some odds to make it interesting:

If he performs ...
Two songs. 3:1 ✓ 
Three songs. 1:2
During the monologue. 4:1
In a giant turkey suit. 20:1

A song ...
Off the new album, just before Update. 1:5 ✓ 
Something from the Negotiations and Love Songs compilation. 3:1
A Simon & Garfunkel song: 7:1
A Simon & Garfunkel song not on Greatest Hits. 50:1
"Here Comes The Sun." 20:1
Anything from The Capeman. 100:1
"When Numbers Get Serious." 200:1

With a special appearance by ...

MANAGEMENT REGRETS THE ERROR, WHICH IS TOTALLY NOT OUR FAULT:  As Blogger.com explains, they're hoping to restore the last 48h worth of posts soon.

What that means is that this is an open thread for discussion of everything we would have discussed in the past day had we been able to do so -- NBC's Thursday night lineup, the Ashton Kutcher signing, the American Idol audience's decision (a) finally to respect female competitors or (b) to choose mediocrity over rawk, and whatever grammatical/linguistic issues you're having today.  Happy Fridays.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SWINGING AT ME FOR YEARS. THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO MISS: We haven't talked about Game of Thrones lately, but this chart of character relationships provides a rather nice hook for me to check in with everyone, four episodes later. For those familiar with GRRM -- is HBO doing the series justice? And for newbies like me, are you still as engaged and intrigued as I am?

A DISNEY COMPANY FRONTING A MASTER CRAFTSMAN OF MIDDLEBROW RETREADS OF HIS OWN MIDDLEBROW ANALYSIS TO A MASS MIDDLEBROW AUDIENCE:  Y'know, I was going to slam Bill Simmons for not discussing the Lakers' classless exit beyond a single, content-free tweet -- ignored on his two NBA podcasts this week, and no column either -- but then an anonymous blogger so raised the bar on Simmons criticism as to make my offerings irrelevant:

On the TV front, Simmons spent a few years proudly reminding people of his refusal to watch shows like House, The Wire or Arrested Development. Creating a culture site when you essentially have no interest in an entire medium and celebrate your willful blindness to acclaimed work from other media means it can only operate if the intent is actually to be bad at it. In one sense, Jack Kevorkian is an incredibly flawed doctor, but if you approach him from a different frame of reference, he's a specialist with an incomparable track record. Similarly, Simmons so regularly mauls subtlety and complexity with ham-fisted prose and wads multi-faceted concepts into gut-level inanity that maybe his purpose here really is to reduce culture to a kind of gray-lighted broadcast accompanied by a undifferentiated white-noise frat obscenity — like a rocky seashore whose breaking surf gives off the soothing noise of a constant fart.