Good game, Green Bay

Well, it’s after midnight Sunday night .. Monday morning. If I was missing “The Walking Dead” on AMC I got a booster shot of zombies on the postgame “Glee,” which on top of Green Bay bringing home the win at the end of a close and hard-fought game I was actually getting into a few times, made for a fine night of television. Although in retrospect it may have been a mistake to let Vaseline sponsor the ball.

But yeah, this was the first year probably that I ended up watching the whole thing and while I nearly closed my GoDaddy account after that disturbing Joan Rivers appearance, it wasn’t all just the commercials. I thought the billions of cameras FOXSPORTS had trained on the game -- which I’m not going to mention by name in case there are licensing issues -- kept my attention. In past games there was the occasional sense of waiting for stuff to happen. Here we had cameras everywhere and different angles on everything, we threw to commercial, we spotted the fans, we had multiple angles on everything that happened. The director probably deserves an Emmy for their mad control-room skillz.

OK, yeah, that’s the kind of stuff I notice, but to be fair, I’m a card-carrying member of the MTV generation and we’re pretty easily distracted.

Saturday Night Live

Speaking of throwbacks, Dana Carvey hosted “Saturday Night Live” this weekend with musical guests Linkin Park so I felt obligated to reacquaint myself with this sketch comedy fiasco. I’ll preface this by noting I had occasion this weekend to watch a whole bunch of “Laugh-In” clips on YouTube, which reminded me of what passed for standards in the past. You could wish that they’d rehearsed their stuff a bit more, but my God there was a freshness, an energy to the shows they put together.

What Dana did was remind us of how bad things were and how much worse they’ve gotten. No, it’s fine. The cold open was fun but credit where it’s due how much of that was Mike Myers? And to be perfectly fair, the Church Lady sketch was exactly what Dana Carvey would still be doing if he were still around, still grating the same pile of cheese. So yeah, back then it was Fawn Hall and Gennifer Flowers, and now it’s the Kardashians and Snooki, but where’s the evolution? Where’s the growth? Catchphrases and a Superior Dance with Justin Bieber, well, isn’t that special?

Can I pretend I wasn’t amused? No. But it was a time capsule. Bringing Jon Lovitz out during that wheezy monologue reminds us how Phil Hartman is simply no longer available. I saw Matt LeBlanc on Cheslea Handler’s show making himself out to be the master thespian elder statesman of the “Friends” troupe and I’ll just remind him by comparison David Schwimmer has practically gone Salinger. The ‘90s must be left in the past.

The Fashion Police

Speaking of the E! network I’ve hesitated to mention this little dishfest but since I already talked about Joan Rivers earlier, she gets together with a few friends each week to talk fashion on something called “The Fashion Police.” They spend the week skimming footage of various chi-chi gatherings of celebrities and say horrible things about them.

I see this because I record “The Soup” with Joel McHale and then the DVR stays on that channel and there they are. It’s irritating because I remember Joan Rivers nearer the beginning of her career in her truly funny stand-up stuff and she made up an assistant Heidi Abromowitz who she called a tramp and she was the heir apparent multiple guest host sitting in for Johnny Carson of the Tonight Show until she was shoved out of that chair by Jay Leno’s chin. According to quantum physicist Brian Greene there’s a parallel universe where Joan Rivers is still host of a perfectly successful “Tonight Show” in which she knew to leave well enough alone and Conan’s not on basic cable and in which this universe is also mostly filled by Jay Leno’s chin.

Grey's Anatomy

What else, well, obviously this week is running a little short because I’m throwing this together in the early hours of the new week, really. Seriously, like the game wouldn’t have happened without me watching it? Well, it was more exciting that way. Going back to a game you’ve DVR’d, I mean at that point it’s a point in history, a blip, two teams, a final score, it’s over. How they get there is the exciting part, much more than how they got there. But I wanted to talk about “Supernatural” came back on the CW, and that was pretty good. It wasn’t as confusing as “Grey’s Anatomy” which I feel I must have missed an episode, from all the chaos and mishegah with Arizona coming back, Callie discovers she’s pregnant with Mark Sloan’s baby and Lexi is thrown for a loop, all the guys in my audience wondering what the hell is “Grey’s Anatomy”?

Well it’s a show, I watch it, I’ve loved it for years but yeah, it’s pretty soapy but I like the writing. I enjoy this notion of a woman we meet, her mother’s dying of Alzheimer’s, falls in love with a neurosurgeon who she inspires to find a cure. I enjoy her best friend is all but on the spectrum, finds it so difficult to be close, to love, falls in love with a brilliant cardio-thoracic surgeon, wants to focus on heart surgery, these kinds of storylines. Iconic, brilliant, but oh my god so many complicated interpersonal relationships how does a thing get done in this hospital?

Supernatural

Anyway, I thought last week’s episode felt like it came out of nowhere. It was much easier to get up to speed with the ghoulies and ghosties on “Supernatural.” They brought Sam’s soul back and with it a sense of conscience but also there’s this timebomb that could go off if he was ever consciously aware of anything that happened to him while his soul was trapped in the pit with Michael and Lucifer.

These people’s problems aren’t like yours and mine.

Meanwhile, his brother, Dean, is tracking down a dragon, and it seems like the dragon is arranging for a virgin sacrifice to summon Julia Maxwell as The Mother of All, who I’m guessing is meant to be the Big Bad for the balance of the season. The glimpse we got of her at the end of of the show reminded me of how Denise Richards occasionally wanders into movies and television programs and other people’s lives to make them worse, but despite Ms. Maxwell’s less than stellar resume, here’s hoping her appearance bodes well for a series that has seemed a little at loose ends as compared with past seasons.

Perfect Couples

In other news, there is officially no need to bother with “Perfect Couples.” I ripped it apart provisionally last week thinking that was just one episode, maybe it will get better. Well, if it does I don’t see how. It’s like wish fulfillment for … actually, I just do not know anyone, single or married, whose lives are like this. Maybe if I did I’d have more time for it, but it seems like stuff just happens to these people so they can comment on it to each other and have funny lines to say, but the sad thing is their characters are so sketchy and inconsistent there’s just insufficient basis for actual comedy. It’s too random, like the worst episodes of “Seinfeld.”

Now, maybe this will become NBC’s version of “Modern Family” where I’m the only one in the world who doesn’t like it but that’s not going to endear it to me any more. Just like with “Modern Family,” if you like “Perfect Couples,” go right ahead. You can have mine.

The Cape

Speaking of being contrary, I heard some bad news about “The Cape” this week. NBC is cutting its order from 13 episodes to 10 and some people have treated this news like they elected a new pope. Seriously, when people are enjoying something it’s just rude to celebrate how it’s going off the air because you don’t like it. Unless you’re hooked up to one of those “Clockwork Orange” machines where you’re being forced somehow to watch it, I mean jeez, there’s just nothing about the show I approve of and yet I’m not dancing in the streets because they’re cancelling “Chase.” You don’t like “The Cape,” no one was forcing you to watch it, you weren’t out anything, it was fine. Change the channel, turn off the television. I suspect most of them objected to the additional time they had to spend doing homework. :P

Coming up

This week they’re premiering “The Chicago Code” on FOX where a corrupt politician has the police force in an uproar so I bet that’s not going to be a metaphor for anything. That’s Monday at 9/8c. Also, a new season of “Top Gear” premieres Monday night on BBC America. Also Monday at 10/9c “Harry’s Law” looks like it’s about to get a little dark post-settlement of a ridiculous case which is a favorite plot twist of David E. Kelley from his “The Practice” days so that’ll be fun.

Tuesday they’re premiering “Traffic Light,” which looks like the FOX version of “Perfect Couples” after all new episodes of “Glee” and “Raising Hope,” can’t pretend I’m not looking forward to them, maybe less so on “Traffic Light.” “Human Target” has its second season finale Wednesday night at 9/8c on FOX, opposite Matthew Perry’s premiere of “Mr. Sunshine” in .. the spot of my beloved “Cougar Town.” He’d better not have bumped fellow “Friends” alum Courtney Cox or I shall be quite cross. That’s at 9:30/8:30c on ABC. Peeking ahead I’m not seeing a new “Cougar Town” the following week either, yet “The Middle” and oh my God, “Better With You” bumble tediously forward, continuing to be even worse than “Modern Family.” Perry?! This better be worth it. I’m already missing my cul-de-sac crew.

Also premiering Wednesday night is the second season of "Justified" with Timothy Olyphant playing U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, returning to his hometown in small-town Kentucky to mess around with the bad guys, some of whom he grew up with. That follows the two-hour FX movie presentation of "Wanted" starring Angelina Jolie so it's a pretty full night of television all around.

Finally, next Sunday night, the Grammys take over CBS and … I don’t care. It’s late and I’m calling this. Enjoy!