Argh!  I'm cantankerous!

• Brian Austin Green will play the gay character in the new pilot based on Will and Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan.  The premise is basically gay writer and straight writer are friends — have adventures with their gal pals.
• Tawny Cypress (who plays/played Simone on Heroes) talks to TV Guide about getting whacked.  She also says there's more death coming this season.
• 24's Chad Lowe interviews about the show and playing hockey with Jack Bauer. 
• Mary McDonnell interviews about stuff.  I don't know.  I don't know anything about Battlestar Galactica. 
• Amanda Peet had a girl. 
• J. Lo, Bon Jovi, Gwen Stefani, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross and (?) LuLu are going to be on American Idol this season. 
• I guess the Queer Eye guys are all doing their solo projects now.  Thom Filicia is going to have his own show on the Style Network. 
• Bravo's going to start airing Taxicab Confessions.

Friday's Motto: We're Not Even Trying. Sigh. There's a new Monk tonight. And VH1 is showing Wet Hot American Summer — though I'd recommend renting/netflixing it if you're new to its awesomeness, so it's not the neutered version.

As Dan pointed out, Rainn Wilson is hosting SNL this weekend. I'm going to go ahead and say that I think this is going to be great. Not only is Rainn hilarious, and actually kind of cute when his hair's not all Dwight-y, but usually the slightly less famous hosts tend to work harder at SNL, resulting in much better shows.

Also on Saturday, the Independent Spirit Awards. Or the Film Independent's Spirit Awards. Or just the Spirit Awards. Who knows. They're kind of fun, usually, though after the Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central I think I've had enough Sarah Silverman to last me quite some time. (Yes, that show was/is [I've given up] that annoying. And I love Sarah Silverman.) 

The Oscars are Sunday. Whop-de-doo! I'm rooting for The Departed, because it was great, and also because I feel so bleh about the rest of them. 

And who dares to program against the Oscars? Why, it's none other than plucky Battlestar Galactica. This week's episode was written by Jane Espenson. 

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: Look, I'm going to count the Spirit Awards, the Oscars, and Wet Hot American Summer for this part of the post. What more do you want from me, people??? 

Okay, so I have been super late getting on the Veronica Mars bandwagon.

You see, I don't watch anything on the CW.  Or UPN/the WB in its day.  The most experience I had with the network was playing the Seventh Heaven Drinking Game.  But I always heard great things about the show, so I was curious.

So along comes Christmas and I'm bored off my ass.  No one's at work.  Everyone I know is out of town, with visions of sugarplums dancing in their goyisha heads. Taking this opportunity, I began to binge on Veronica Mars season one DVDs.

And holy shit.  This show is really good and I'm preeeetty much the last person on earth to know it.

I'm probably a little more than 2/3 of the way through season two and I have no idea how it's going to end.  I went through the entire first season thinking it had been spoiled for me and that Duncan did it.  So then, I was thinking that Duncan did it in the second season and BAM! he runs off with Meg's coma-baby.  If you can help it, please don't spoil/hint about/Brustein it for me.

So here is a list of disjointed, unconnected thoughts (the only kind I have, for the most part) on seasons one and most of season two. 

• Kristin Cavallari = worst lesbian ever.  On a variety of levels.  Lord knows I'm no fan of Paris Hilton, but at least she knew the limits on her acting chops (playing a vapid rich princess).  Or maybe the producers knew the limits…  Hmmm…
• Sometimes I feel like Veronica and her dad are going to start making out.  They both arrive home and the other is making dinner.  They share a bottle of wine.  It's the same way my roommate thinks that the Petrelli brother should start making out (which, the powers that be, I am in complete favor of).
• I appreciated the Arrested Development kids' appearance on the college tour episode.  Generally, all the stunt casting is well done with few exceptions (see first bullet).
• Throughout the first season, I had a hard time thinking that Lily Kane didn't predict the weather with her breasts. (Fun fact: Amanda Seyfried originally auditioned for the part of Veronica)
• Logan Echolls (or, more appropriately, Jason Dohring) is too goofy and boyish-looking for me to take seriously as a badass.  That said, he is ripped.
• Weevil is the most heady, sophisticated murderin', leather-clad gang leader I've come across.
• The whole who-killed-Felix subplot is confusing and not that interesting. 
• It was fun watching that journalism teacher at the beginning of season one be written out with one off-hand sentence from Veronica about how she got pregnant.

Ok, I hope none of you were part of this number. Apparently 1,478,000 people watched "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" on Fox News Channel last week. That's too many people. Even if you tuned in just to watch a train wreck, you're only encouraging them!

I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not offended as a liberal. I'm offended as someone who loves comedy. This should be something that liberals and conservatives can get together on. Don't encourage bad comedy just because you agree with the show's supposed ideology. Ideologically based comedy is a terrible idea to begin with. The Daily Show didn't set out to be liberal, it just ended up that way. And it doesn't hurt that there's been a conservative government in power. If a Democrat ends up president, The Daily Show will absolutely be making merciless fun of him or her.

So please. Don't watch this show. 

No.  Absolutely not.

• Adrian Pasdar from Heroes talks to TV Guide.  Man, he's been in a lot of stuff.  I'm surprised I had no idea who he was until now.
• And the cast of Heroes will be on Larry King tonight at 9, so you can set your TiFauxs accordingly. 
• So, apparently a certain someone died on Veronica Mars last week.  I haven't seen the past 4 episodes, so I don't know.  But here's an interview with him/her. 
• Six Degrees is coming back.  And the masses cheered. 
• When Conan O'Brien fills Jay Leno's tremendously unfunny shoes, Conan's replacement might be Jimmy Fallon. 
• The alleged Grey's Anatomy Kate Walsh spinoff continues to take shape.  Taye Diggs will guest star on Grey's later this season and, according to Zap2It, this will serve to introduce the premise of the spinoff's pilot.
• I'm sure Maggie will address this, but Rainn Wilson's hosting SNL, along with the decent, if wildly over-hyped, Arcade Fire. 

As you may know, our intrepid reporter Maggie watched the entire seven-season run of Buffy The Vampire Slayer last year, and being home sick with an 80-year-old man's disease, I joined in. We both liked it very much, although Maggie was in love with the musical episode before we had even started watching the show. It was the first one she made me watch and I didn't really get it, since I didn't know who all those people were. Having seen it a few times since, I am definitely a fan.

But I'm not a crazy fan. And it appears that there are quite a few of those. For a few years now, a group of especially… dedicated fans have organized a series of Buffy sing-a-longs. For the purposes of science, Maggie and I attended one last weekend at the IFC Center in New York City. Here is my report:

We began the evening by arriving an hour early, the customary time for special movie events. We once showed up an hour early for a free screening of Volver and 100 people in line ahead of us didn't get in either. But apparently when you pay $15 for a ticket, and the show is at midnight, you don't get such a big crowd. We were there so early that the theater didn't know what to do with us. Since the IFC Center lacks proper indoor line facilities due to its diminutive lobby we retired to the lovely bar adjacent to the theater for a drink.

After a few minutes, the couple next to us was approached by this girl

Who looks like this girl

and said "Hi I'm Dawn."

Single tear.

Tonight marks the final episode of the O.C. I will always remember this show fondly, even though I haven't watched it in years, for the summer when I was interning and didn't have cable or any friends and there was absolutely nothing new on TV ever, and then — miraculously — this show suddenly appeared for the first time, and it was silly and melodramatic but Seth Cohen was awesome and suddenly everything was okay again. Thanks, O.C.

Grey's Anatomy wraps up its cliffhanger. Look, I'd love to be proved wrong, because that would certainly be a bold choice, but they're not going to kill their narrator. (I don't know, I'm no expert. I still haven't watched last week's episode.) 

Oh, the dramedy. Jan and Michael take it public on The Office. Their relationship makes me so anxious. The strange thing is, by now I feel like I empathize with Michael so much I'm mostly uncomfortable on his behalf, not Jan's — I don't want him to screw up his own life, but I know he just can't help it. I mean, Michael and Pam's hug last week? Did anyone not cry? 

30 Rock: Hijinks ensue.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: Nothing can beat the woman with a baby in her abdomen. Nothing. Not even tonight's Oprah's Oscar special, which as far as I can tell does not really include Oprah. Julia Roberts talks to George Clooney, Nicole Kidman chats with Russell Crowe, and Jamie Foxx gabs with Sidney Poitier. 

On this past episode of Heroes, murderin' hottie Sylar killed Dale — the rough and tumble, super-hearing auto mechanic. 

It was sad and all, but she wouldn't have made a very good addition to the cast.  All ornery and such.

But before she got whacked, she and Sylar had an unintentionally hilarious moment.  She had previously commented on how she could hear his heart racing — then when he came back to do the killin', she noted his heartbeat again.

"What's that sound in your heart?" she asked.

He lowered his massive brow and replied, in a weird Visitors-like post-production way: "Murder."

It was great.  And awful.

It was great and awful.

So that makes me wonder, dear TiFaux readers, now that Sylar has the super-hearing, what can he hear in your heartbeat?

Hmmm? 

(Bah!  Voting's messed up… check back in a few) should be okay now

I don't care if he can see the future, if he's already lived it, or if he's just nuts, I love Desmond like The Others love kidnapping. Like Sawyer loves nicknames. Like Charlie loves being a whiny baby.

But sadly, we're back with Jack and Sawyer and Kate this week. So probably no Desmond. And Charlie probably doesn't die. YET.

And there are a bunch of shows I don't watch: American Idol, ugh, again, FOREVER; Jericho, some sort of a "hit" now, even though the pilot was predictable and silly; Friday Night Lights, which is gets this year's Veronica Mars Award For Best Show No One Watches; and Top Design, which I hear from some very reputable sources is terrible. Apparently Wednesdays without Desmond make me very negative.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: OMG. OMG. Gross. This is the description of a TLC show called That's Gotta Hurt: "A BASE jumper's botched landing into a shallow river drives his femur through his flesh; a seven-month pregnant woman learns that her baby is growing in her abdominal cavity, not her womb." EEEE!!! Followed by Menopause at 22, which is pretty much self-explanatory, and probably a relief after that whole abdominal womb thing.

Once again, my old pal George Takei has done some astonishing work.  When he's not hanging out in Vermont, getting roasted just as much as William Shatner or doing guest spots on Heroes, he's doing segments for Jimmy Kimmel.  Just watch.