American Idol men perform tonight for two freaking hours. My college acquaintance Tom Lowe will not be among them, however, because apparently he was the perfect storm of American Idol controversy. Also this means there will be no House. Tear.

So you have your fun, AI. I'll be watching Gilmore Girls hopefully keep up the momentum after last week's very sad but incredibly satisfying Christopher and Lorelai breakup. Now that it's over, I see why they decided to go there with that relationship, but it doesn't make any of this season's episodes any more enjoyable.

"Is that my shirt?"

Then there's the latest mystery on Veronica Mars, a continuation of last week's murder plot. My suspicion is that the person who killed the coach also killed Dean Ed and that he/she's a serial killer of some sort, based on Landry's lecture topic. Perhaps someone obsessed with the horrible time they had at Hearst. Like the girl who walked off the roof — Patrice! There's my guess. What's yours?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: It's a re-airing of latest Disney Channel original movie — Jump In. My understanding is that it's a High School Musical with less music, which to me is straying way too far from the formula. Corbin Bleu, Troy's basketball friend in High School Musical, plays a boxer who joins a double dutch jump-rope team. No, I am not making this up. 

So, I had heard about Fox News' spin on The Daily Show, The Half Hour News Hour, and of course I thought it was gross.  Purely in theory it's gross.  But then I saw the real thing and it's just a hundred times worse than you could ever imagine.

Watch a promo for the show here. And then, once you've prepared yourself, watch this clip.

Okay.

You back?  Good.  You've got a little bit of vomit on your upper lip. 

First of all, the HHNH (almost the same name as a long-gone MTV show – The Half Hour Comedy Hour) is just not funny to an incredible degree and I feel like I can say that objectively.  If they had some sharp comedic digs for the left, I'd like to think that I could at least recognize it and take it in stride.  But no.  It's very Jay Leno-y schtick delivered by two unfathomaby smug anchors.

Much of the reason why the Half Hour News Hour isn't funny is because it lays bare the creators' fundamental misunderstanding of the other side.  Do liberals love cocaine?  I guess so, according to their portrayal. We also have some sort of fascination with gay penguins, I guess (or does just adding gay plus penguin equal comedy gold?).

I'm just waiting for them to scream "We hate gay people!  And Muslims!  Hell, we hate non-Christians!"  But you know it's not going to come to that.  They're just going to say everything but that. 

It'd be really easy to say that conservatives can't be funny.  Really easy.  But I don't know if I believe that.  What is clear, though, is that this show is not good from any standpoint.  If that is, in fact, the audience laughing during the segments, you can practically see their faces wincing from their strained over-laughing.

Dude, I didn't even know this girl and suddenly I found myself on her party bus.

• 
• First item of business: Jenna Fisher from The Office, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett (Arrested Development) are all going to be in a movie called Blades of Glory.  You might not know that because it's all Will Ferrell in the commercials.
• Finally, this isn't so much news as much as it's just awesome, but click here to watch a YouTube clip of Naveen Andrews (Sayid from Lost) break it down. (via Sour N Sweet)
• Kathy Griffin's dad, who was basically the star of her reality show, died.
• PR3 winner/jerkface Jeffrey Sebelia claims to be completely broke despite winning $100,000 through the show.  Fear not, though, for his adorable baby.  He's currently doing, get this, costumes for a Paula Abdul-produced movie based on the Bratz dolls.
• Colby Donaldson from Survivor: Australia will bring his prettiness to Rachael Ray's talk show.
• Caroline Rhea got canned from her Biggest Loser gig.  Some soap star who looks just like her will take her place.
• Lost's ratings have hit an all-time low — I blame the new time slot.
• This HR professional keeps a blog about The Office.  She tallies up how much liability Michael Scott and company rack up per episode — pretty fun stuff.  Plus she rallies around Toby.
• Lost crew members keep having heart attacks.
• Tracy Morgan pleads guilty in DUI case.