FROM SNIGLETS TO THE JUDY DOLL:  In honor of HBO's fortieth anniversary this week, Splitsider's Bradford Evans attempts to rank the top 16 comedies in the cable network's history.  No love for 1st & Ten, sadly.  (Also, definitionally, shouldn't Tanner '88 have been in there?)

DOES THIS TEMPT THE WRATH OF THE WHATEVER FROM HIGH ATOP THE THING? For all the problems The Newsroom had, the quality of the people they get to be in the cast isn't one of them--heck, even Olivia Munn wound up acquitting herself fairly well.  Looks like that tradition will continue in season 2, with Rosemarie DeWitt and Patton Oswalt both agreeing to appear in recurring capacities.  (Oswalt will also apparently recur on the next season of Justified.)

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH WORKS-IN-PROGRESS:  In an interview with a French magazine, Philip Roth has announced his retirement from literature: "I decided that I was done with fiction. I do not want to read, to write more. I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote and I read. With the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced in my life."

ZOMBIEDELPHIA:  Doesn't much matter that they filmed it in Glasgow instead of here, because the first trailer for World War Z looks pretty sweet.

AT SUCH MOMENTS, THE CONSTANT THEATERGOER MAY FEEL ONE OF TWO DIFFERENT, EQUALLY STRONG URGES: TO MIST UP OR TO THROW UP:  A revival of Annie, first discussed here over two years ago, opened on Broadway last night and the NYT says:

It would seem that Mr. Lapine is hoping to introduce at least a tincture of psychological shading to a show that is only, and unapologetically, a singing comic strip....

In 1977 Miss Hannigan was portrayed by Dorothy Loudon as a juicy gargoyle, with equal parts Dickensian villainy and showbiz oomph. Ms. Finneran, a two-time Tony winner, takes a more humanizing approach... her Ms. Hannigan is a lonely lush who really just wants to land a fella. 

When her no-good brother, Rooster, proposes a scheme to swindle Oliver Warbucks and make Annie “disappear,” you detect glimmers of a conscience beneath her snarling exterior. When she performs her big solo, “Little Girls,” with a possessed, mesmerizing loopiness, it feels less like a declaration of war than like a private nervous breakdown. You don’t feel like hissing this Miss Hannigan, which adds an addling ambivalence to the show.

Yes, I will bust out the Sarah Jessica Parker singing "I Don't Need Anything But You" link again. Also, the NYT has video of many, many "Tomorrows," from Andrea McCardle to Idina Menzel to Zach Galiafanakis.

OH K:  Ascribe it to my general cluelessness or not being a coffee drinker, but did I miss the moment at which Keurig single-cup brewers became completely ubiquitous? Would you recommend one for folks who mainly sit on the tea/hot chocolate side of the hot beverages divide?

MARTINIS ON THE ROOF:  For those of us who have never, ever seen a James Bond film (don't ask me why - just an odd cultural gap), the AV Club has a primer on where to start, and names as the five "essentials" From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Goldfinger, and Casino Royale (2005).