Guilty Pleasure

I try not to watch too much television but I do like three nights of television viewing. All comedies except for Madmen.

On Sunday nights it's still the "Simpsons", and if I'm in the mood, Family Guy but rarely American Dad on Fox.

On Thursdays it's NBC's comedy line up of My Name is Earl, The Office, 30 Rock and Scrubs. I touched on this subject in a previous blog entry.

I'm also a fan of CBS's lineup Monday comedy line up. It doesn't get mentioned much but CBS has been the consistent place to go for comedy on Monday nights for over twenty years. From "Designing Women", "Murphy Brown", to "Cybil and Everybody Loves Raymond", there was always a strong comedy presence on CBS on Mondays.

So, I like to record the four comedies airing on Mondays while I'm at work. The most established comedy is "Two and a Half Men", which is still funny but getting less funny as the Half Man has started becoming One and a Half man on his own.

That show is followed by "The Rules of Engagement" which is usually only funny when professional lunkhead, Patrick Warburton delivers his lines. A word of advise to future situation comedies, don't put David Spade on your show.

pleeeeease.

The best show of the night is the first one that airs, "How I Met Your Mother". If you haven't watched the show you're missing out. It's at its peak, It's very well written, well acted and even well edited. It features Neil Patrick Harris in a role that will make you forget he was Doogie Howser. And yes, it's always a plus to have Alyson Hannigan in anything that shows off her cute quot ion, especially teaming her up with "Freaks and Geeks" alumni, Jason Seagal.

But I'm here to write about my guilty pleasure of the night and that is the freshman comedy "The Big Bang Theory" It is a show about two super intelligent nerds who live across the hallway from a cute blond played by Kaley Cuoco, the blonde from "Seven Rules...". She is much better on this show. The two nerds are played by Johnny Galecki from Rosanne, and Jim Parsons who plays a character named Sheldon Cooper, who I feel is the biggest comedic breakout character since Niles Crane from Frasier. My god he's funny. You have to see it to believe it.

The show is standard sitcom 101, with dialogue that effectively shows off the intelligence of the characters and Kaley's acting is good enough to convey the fact that she's not a dumb blonde, just one who is not on the same wave length of the male characters. The show employs a slight sight gag involving two characters who exchange dialogue while walking up, or down a flight of stairs passing a broken elevator at each turn.

The reason I call this show a guilty pleasure is that this show is easily the worst reviewed show I have enjoyed since I was a kid. I read several articles about how bad it is and how it needs to be cancelled. One pointed out a flaw in the show I agree with, which is the India Indian character on the show. He is weak, a cliche that could have been prevented if they had casted Kal Penn.

I dunno, I laugh more at this show that than all the other shows I watch and that's key to me. I also root for Kaley's career because on her other show she not only had to deal with the death of John Ritter but had to put up with his replacement,


David Spade.