The highlight of this very busy night will hopefully be Heroes. In case you’ve forgotten, Peter and Nathan have totally exploded out in space, Hiro is in old-timey Japan, Sylar is making friends with sewer cockroaches, and everybody else is just kind of chilling. Oh yeah, some of them are shot. But otherwise they’re doing all right, all things considered.

Chuck occupies the slot before Heroes, and I’m certainly curious. It sounds just goofy enough to be delightful, but it’s the type of thing that could veer into cheesy and painful territory before the first commercial break. We’ll see. I’ve invested a lot into it on TV Big Shot, so I’m hoping for the best.

Journeyman, the not-Quantum Leap, sort-of-rip-off of The Time Traveler’s Wife premieres after Heroes. Sweet time slot. I’m still betting it’s one of the first shows of the year to get canceled.

In the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother, Ted is on the market again. Come on, ladies, who wants a needy, demanding, clingy, impulsive-in-a-bad-way boyfriend? No? Well, at least Barney and Lily and Marshall will be there.

And it’s the GRAND FINALE of one of the GREATEST REALITY PROGRAMS of our TIME, The Pick-Up Artist. I’m rooting for Kosmo, because Brady is kind of a dick. I hated what he said to that stripper last week. There is a fine line between well-delivered neg and being a douchebag, and he crossed it. Also, Kosmo is remarkable. He has no filter; he lets everything out — and what’s inside him tends to be quite likable.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: I just wanted to point out that due to the miracle of TiFaux, you don’t actually have to watch all of this at once. Huzzah!

News is here now. Rejoice.

• Kathy Griffin actually got to go on Ellen. Click here to watch her appearance on YouTube (it’s in two parts). Plus, set your TiFauxs to tape Larry King tonight — Kathy will be on to talk about her Emmy speech, etc. (Listen to the Emmy speech here)
• Speaking of Ellen, Neil Patrick Harris went on her show and talked about not having to hide his boyfriend at the Emmys.
• Watch the Chuck premiere online.
• Psych got renewed.
• Sally Field’s okay with her speech getting bleeped.
• iTunes is making enemies. Now, Fox is thinking about pulling out.
• Salon gives the Buffy Award to Friday Night Lights, deeming it the year’s most under appreciated show.
• Television Without Pity interviews Pete from 30 Rock.
• And then there’s this:
  

Oh, Larry. You’re such a goof.

• NBC is now streaming Conan.
• Victoria Beckham will play herself on Ugly Betty.
• Drew Lachey will host a show called Dance War. Which, for the record, is the closest I could ever come to actual military service.
• Busy Phillips will be coming to How I Met Your Mother.
• Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin will present at the Emmys. That’s really all you need to know about this story, but click the link to see the mega-awkward press photo of the two of them.

I’ll tell you a little more about it in a little bit.

• John From Cincinnati has been put out to pasture.
• The new My So-Called Life DVD box set will include contributions from Joss Whedon and Janeane Garofalo, in addition to a 40-page book.
• Trent Reznor: gothic icon, industrial music pioneer, TV series creator?
• An E! spoiler chat.
• Will Geico competitors advertise on the Cavemen show? Will anyone?
• Indie rock on TV: Smashing Pumpkins, Chuck D, Andrew Bird, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
• The New York Times lends some ink to The Hills.
• An episode of CSI will deal with the murder of a female TV star that is basically either Roseanne or Cybill Shepherd.
• Neil Patrick Harris talks about his Emmy nomination and the whole gay thing.
• Sesame Street promotes literacy with Tina Fey, etc. Also, if (through the miracles of science) Maggie and Cristin were to have a baby, this is what it would look like. (the one on the left, not the red furry one)

Don’t worry.  Fall’s not far away.

• TV Guide’s Ask Matt covers My Boys and How I Met Your Mother.
• Mexican police aren’t looking for Dog the Bounty Hunter anymore.
• Watch Katee Sakhoff on Jimmy Kimmel. She talks about her fear of nerds.
• Jenna Fischer is still sore, but sitting on fancy chairs.
• FOX is messing with its schedule, including adding its karaoke show full-time this fall.
• Donald Trump is still awful.

CBS, will this finally be the year that makes me care about your programming, other than How I Met Your Mother, which has thankfully been renewed? We shall see…

The I’m Actually Excited In a Serious Way Category: Finally, the world is taking notice of my demand for a musical television drama. (I was too young for what I can only assume was the ahead-of-its-time Cop Rock.) Viva Laughlin is a drama with music, starring Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman! A musical! On TV! Oh my god. I really hope this show is as good as it is in my mind.

The Has Potential But I Won’t Commit Category: Cane looks like this year’s Smith, a very, very high-prestige project that will probably fold under the weight of its own expectations. This is not to say it’s not a little intriguing, I suppose. Swingtown stars Jack Davenport, and even though it sounds totally silly, that’s reason enough for me to give it the benefit of the doubt.

The Yeesh, Don’t Bother Category: The Big Bang Theory, a comedy for the Monday-night block that includes HIMYM. I like loveable geeks as much as the next girl, but I’ve never liked any of the other shows in that block. Kid Nation, a reality show which sounds like it’s sort of based on Lord of the Flies, except trying be all feel-goodery. Which, now that I type it out like that, I realize I may have put this one in the wrong category.

The Seriously, Guys, WTF Category: Moonlight. This show is Angel redux, right? Why? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love me some vampires. The more vampires the better, I’ve often said. But is there really only one way to do a vampire TV show?

Tomorrow we’ve got Fox and the CW, and then the fun’s all over. First impressions of CBS’s slate?

All the upfronts talk and Cristin’s post have served to remind me that the regular season is coming to a close. There are only two more episodes of Heroes left this season. I don’t want to get pessimistic, but I’m pretty sure — what with all this peripheral nonsense NBC’s got planned, and a general sense of desperation conveyed by their relentless marketing — that Heroes is going to have a major backlash in either quality or viewer response next year, so enjoy these two episodes even more with that in mind.

That’s what we probably should’ve done with last season’s 24, but how were we to predict the show’s incredible decline? Jack Bauer continues his busy day tonight. Terrorists. Spies. Yawn.

In the most drawn-out television wedding I can recall (counter-examples? anyone?), it’s Marshall and Lily’s reception tonight on the season finale of How I Met Your Mother. Oh, and thank you, show, for explaining Marshall’s hat.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: American Experience on PBS profiles Alexander Hamilton, which I only mention so that I might direct you to this: Who shot Alexander Hamilton? That, in turn, has inspired me to find this, which I may like even better.

My eyes feel scratchy.

• Surprise, surprise — ABC picked up Private Practice. Read about the rest of its upfronts here.
• Survivor ended last night — click here to find out who won.
• Which reality show has a more terrifying title: Rapping with the Stars or Farmer Wants a Wife. Rapping with the Stars is scary just because it sounds so embarassing. But Farmer Wants a Wife is scary because, well, it sounds like some hayseed is tired of putting a skirt on a goat and calling it Eileen.
• Adrianne Curry, one of the luckiest people alive, complains about all that hasn’t been handed to her.
• Law and Order will continue for its 75th season. Criminal Intent, meanwhile, will suck it up and move to USA.
• Luke from Gilmore Girls talks to TV Guide.
• The hairy mole that is King of Queens has been removed.
• Age of Love takes a semi-famous tennis player and makes him decide whether or not he’d want to date an older woman or not. Yeesh.
• A spoilery interview with the guy behind How I Met Your Mother.
• October Road and Notes from the Underbelly got renewed.
• In bullet-dodging news, The Office’s 4th season will consist of 24 episodes, 4 of which will be one hour long. This could definitely work.

Heroes is kicking ass, isn’t it? The grim future, the ever-mysterious-er present, the growing camaraderie. There’s only three more episodes before the end of the season, and I can’t wait to see the craziness unfold.

You know what doesn’t kick ass any more? 24. I can’t believe how quickly this show nosedived. The producers keep talking about how they’re going to shake things up next year, but honestly, if they were capable of bringing any sort of freshness or insight to Jack’s world, don’t you think they would’ve done that this season? Why would they purposely be lazy and tired if they had any new ideas at all?

It’s Marshall and Lily’s wedding on How I Met Your Mother. I really hope they have some sort of explanation for that truly terrible hat Marshall was wearing last week in the brief glimpse of the wedding. If it turns out to be some sort of religious garment, I apologize in advance for my ignorance. Seriously, though, I doubt it’s religious — it looks like a tuxedo and a raincoat gave birth to a fedora.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: Quick, someone write a movie about it — Talk to Me: Hostage Negotiators of the NYPD. Oh, has that been done already?

True? Not true?

So, how fun is Heroes? SO fun. Tonight’s episode is in the future. The bad future! I can’t wait. I also just wanted to point out that the only comments for this post were about how cute Peter’s new hair is. I don’t know what that means, except that apparently people have very strong opinions on Peter Petrelli’s hair.

24 continues whatever it’s doing now. Remember way back when Jack killed that guy by biting his neck? Did you ever think you’d be so disappointed in the show as you are now?

Barney goes on The Price Is Right tonight on How I Met Your Mother. Because of course he does.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: A PBS documentary about the Mormons. Or Hitler’s underground lair on Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel. But seriously, just watch Heroes.