We’ve made no secret that we’re strapped for things to talk about on TiFaux now that summer’s here. In fact, that’s kind of all that we talk about now. So, rather than continue to mourn Veronica Mars, swoon over Jim Halpert or any of our other favorite pasttimes, how about a new feature? ‘Kay?

On that note, let’s get back to basics — like third grade basics. Who Would Win in a Fight is a time-honored (boy?) activity that doesn’t really require a whole lot of explanation, but it is fodder for endless conversation — and that’s basically what we’re going for.

So, first round! Our contenders are: Dr. McDreamy versus Matt from Studio 60

Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd

Strengths:

• Maturity means he’ll be able to plan an attack rather just than go at it with fists flying.
• Brain surgeon — good hand-eye coordination.
• Excellent hair can withstand being tousled in a fracas (not necessarily a practical strength, but it is still true).

Weaknesses:

• Kind of old.
• Not that buff.
• Prettyboy.

Secret weapon: Surprisingly spry.

Studio 60′s Matt Albie

Strengths:

• Emotional instability could breed a more fierce competitor.
• Feels less pain due to pill habit.
• Scrappy.

Weaknesses:

• Might become too depressed to finish.
• Not that buff either.
• Lumbering movements.

Secret weapon: Can distract with rapier wit.

Defend your decisions in the comments.

Sorry I didn’t get this out until today. I’m afraid this means I am too late to tell you about the new Creature Comforts on CBS last night. Luckily a lot of the pieces are online — check them out.

Tonight marks the season premiere of My Life on the D-List. This is a show that’s much, much better than it has any right to be, as Dan has let us know. It’s also the last ever episode of Punk’d. Celebrities can finally rest easy renting cars or eating in restaurants or yelling at their assistants.

Top Chef starts another season on Wednesday. I might watch if I didn’t think it was going to make me crave even more rich deliciousness.

Apparently a lot of ladies watched The Starter Wife last week, which continues on Thursday. I was too busy with Studio 60 and the Spelling Bee. Speaking of, Studio 60 keeps hurtling toward the end.

Calling all theater nerds! The Tonys air on Sunday! I am proud to say that I have seen at least one show in every single category. And honestly, I have to bring that up whenever I can, because opportunities to brag about how many Broadway shows you’ve seen don’t come up all that often. I’m rooting for Spring Awakening and Billy Crudup in their respective categories.

John from Cincinnati, from Deadwood’s David Milch, starts on Sunday. Which reminds me it’s not too late to order HBO in time to watch. I am so excited about this show; everyone who’s seen it is blown away. And the third season of Deadwood comes out on DVD on the 12th! Finally!

House airs its season finale tonight. At one point in the past two weeks, I got into an argument with someone who disagreed with me when I claimed that House had beaten American Idol in the ratings. I don’t remember who, and I don’t remember why he would dare to question me in this matter. As it turns out, I was wrong, and so I am sorry, nameless stranger. All I can say is that I’m an optimist and I may have read that article a tad too quickly.

Next Best Thing: Who Is the Greatest Celebrity Impersonator? airs on Wednesday, and looks like a whole bag full of crazy.

Also on Wednesday, Hidden Palms premieres on the CW. It’s created by Kevin Williamson, who you may remember from Dawson’s Creek and the Scream movies. It’s about the secret lives of teenagers in Palm Springs. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. My only thought is to wonder what exactly the past ten years have been like for Kevin Williamson.

The National Spelling Bee is airing on ABC on Thursday! Remember when it was only on ESPN? How far we’ve come, as a society.

Pirate Master debuts at the same time on Thursday. I expect Cristin will share her thoughts.

Studio 60 continues to exist and infuriate people, only as far as I can tell, no one’s defending it any more.

And in case you’ve missed the ubiquitous subway advertising, The Starter Wife, starring Debra Messing, begins on Thursday on USA. It’s summer, so I’ll mention it, and I won’t judge you if you choose to watch it, but it seems a little too earnestly feel-good self-empowering for beautiful people. Witness, the website.

You can take your fancy pants bistros. All I need is CPK.

• Reality Blurred has a bunch of Idol-related stuff, that I guess I won’t summarize because you probably care or you don’t.
• The Simple Life is even more fake than you thought it was — the alleged camp that Paris and Nicole are working at is made up of actors.
• Mark Cuban vs. Donald Trump in battle of the disgustingly wealthy.
• Omar Epps discusses his fate on House.
• TV Gal talks season finales.
• Adam Sandler’s Gay Robot YouTube series might get animated. Okay — so between that Chuck and Larry movie and this, when did Adam Sandler become the nation’s foremost queer comedy authority?  And Gay Robot is awful, by the way, but you probably didn’t need me to tell you that.
• Matt Roush talks Emmy nominations — must be that time of year.
• Corporate heads are rolling at NBC.
• There’s a new reality show for aspiring TV producers. No, not On The Lot. A different one.
• That show The Loop is coming back, if you remember it.
• Visit the TV Show Pitch Generator.
• Carol Burnett is out of luck in her suit against Family Guy.
• Ty Pennington got 3 years’ probation.
• There are now Prison Break dolls. I’m guessing some TiFaux Tournament voters might be flipping out over the prospect of a plush Wentworth Miller.
• I guess I’m not the only one who thought last Thursday’s Studio 60 was marginally less awful than usual.

Cristin and Maggie have already started hashing out last night’s Studio 60 in the comments, so we may as well dive in head-first. Here is a numbered list (you know how I like my lists) of reflections I have on last night’s episode.

We were all on the show last night.

1. Allison Janney is a trooper and a great guest star. Good show. Also, a confirmation — she and director-guy were an item on The West Wing? Because I didn’t watch that show, but I sensed there was some meta-winking.
2. I concur with Cristin that Harriet was a huge asshole, being snooty to the other cast members and then forcing them all to care about her annoying relationship problems.
3. The whole Simon-has-two-dates-to-Hawaii was kind of hacky sitcom fare — complete with pratfalls and Dynasty-era slaps across the face.
4. The absence of Matt and Danny was kind of welcome. There was a enough crap going down on this episode that if we had to deal with Matt’s neurosis and all the Danny/Jordan crap, I pretty much would have had a psychological meltdown.
5. I tend to dislike disaster comedy — the whole “Meet the Parents” kind of schadenfreude entertainment. I carry around enough tension all day that I don’t need it in my filmed entertainment. That said, the whole spontaneous bullets busting out of Allison Janney’s dress was pretty amusing. (PS — I totally spelled schadenfreude right on the first try!)
6. You probably didn’t watch it, but 30 Rock reran the episode with Liz’s lesbian date last night. That’s still probably my favorite episode and has some of the greatest lines (“those shoes are definitely bicurious!”).

Okay, everybody, let’s hear it. Don’t embarass me by not leaving comments after I’ve spent all this time soliciting them. Don’t you love me?

It is with equal parts glee and terror that I inform/warn you about the return of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip tonight (though Dan did it first). I take umbrage at the suggestion that I’ve read recently that we the idiotic viewers turned on this show merely because the sketches weren’t funny. First of all, I never turned on this show and continued to watch and talk about it long after my patience with its nonsense ran out. I was and am a “fan.”

Secondly, the unfunniness was a problem, but I found the show’s infuriating lack of perspective and holier-than-thou rants and disgust with the viewing public and tortured unbalanced arguments a much bigger offense. On the other hand, even through all that, it had style, the writing was often strong, and Matthew Perry/Nate Corddry/Steven Weber did hilarious things with what they were given.

Every time I think about that show I start to develop a split personality.

Also, I’m thinking about taking up So You Think You Can Dance, which premieres tonight. Thoughts? Center Stage is one of my all-time favorite movies, after all.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: VH1 airs VH1′s Rock Honors. I have no idea what that means. Is this a real thing? Will awards be handed out? What’s with all the old guys?

Holy crap! Studio 60 is on tonight! Remember that show? The lightning rod, the punching bag — however you want to classify it, you’ll probably watch, right? After all, these will be our final moments with Matt, Danny and the gang before they ride off into the sunset (strip). Zing!

(I’m sorry about that.)

Although we’ve come to the end of the road, still I can’t let you go. It’s unnatural. You belong to me, I belong to you.

So, let’s catch up shall we? Last we saw, Harriet’s been busy at work on the set of a suicidal-rock-star-with-questionably-culpable-female-companion biopic (working title: “We’re so not Kurt and Courtney — look at how British we are! Let’s eat some biscuits on the lift!”). Harriet has a little episode in the middle of the suicide scene where she takes issue with portrayal of her character as a bad guy. Generally, she is kind of being a pain in the ass around the set because she’s distracted by how much she loves Matt. The Studio 60 writers, I think, are starting to get all Grey’s Anatomy by having the professional life mirror the personal life and oh-my-god-it-all-makes-sense-now.

Meh.

So, the hottie lantern-jawed director who is in love with her is being pissy because he’s putting the Matt-related pieces together and that just makes him want to shoot longer and keep her for himself. Danny swings by the set to ask Harriette to come back from the movie set to the show so she can sit around and be Matt’s muse.

At the end of the episode, Harriet shows up at the show and gives Matt a cheek kiss and offers to help him write jokes. And it’s cute? Romantic? Manipulative? It’s… something.

Also, last time there was a lot of commotion going on about a sexual harassment suit brought by a former female employee from forever ago. That seemed to all get resolved within the episode (hopefully it was, it wasn’t all that interesting) and served only to make Matt more jealous and needy with Harriet and to introduce the new foxy blonde attorney. At the end of the episode, she flirtily gives him her card so I guess we’ll be seeing her again.

Elsewhere, in the comic relief subplot, Danny and Jordan’s weirdo courtship is still in full swing (she got knocked up, he fell in love with her and then just stalked away until she gave up — remember the locked on the roof incident?). On the last episode, Jordan charged Danny with taking care of her robot baby. Blah, blah, blah, disaster and robot baby decapitation. Glue that doesn’t work at repairing it and then the jig is up. Nothing’s really happening over there, so things are bound to go wrong/get complicated. Probably soon.

And I think Tom and Lucy are still getting ready to date, even though lots of fake problems arise.

I need to get back there. Soon.

• Hayden Panatierre and Tim Kring did some blogging last night after the Heroes finale.
• MTV has renewed Human Giant — whatever that is.
• An article about the gargantuan Studio 60 set.
• Paula Abdul tripped over her chihuahua and broke her nose, just in time for the Idol finale. Also, by “chihuahua,” her reps really mean “giant pile of coke.”
• Kristin has spoilers (oops – link fixed).
• The Real World is old enough for a learner’s permit.
• The guy from Prison Break could get seven years for vehicular manslaughter.
• Comedy Central will roast Flavor Flav. Kind of a fish in a barrel?
• Arvid from Head of the Class speaks.
• Newsday examines the progress of Asian-Americans on TV.
• The Washington Post looks at trends for new series.
• On the flip side, an article about this year’s pilot graveyard.

Should I get my arms all tatted up? Just like Dashboard Confessional.

• Married to the Sea takes on TV marathons.
• There was no room for Trump on the NBC upfront, but The Apprentice’s fate is still unclear.
• Kathy Griffin’s fall was a media ploy.
• Hell’s Kitchen has never given away its promised prize.
• Mario Lopez has moved in with his Dancing with the Stars partner.
• An interview with Masi Oka.
• The Office will launch a new slate of online content where you can”complete weekly corporate tasks.” For those of you who don’t get enough of that five days a week.
• Mournfest 2007 continues: The Chicago Tribune gets weepy for Gilmore Girls.
• The lowdown on Heroes: Origins.
• When the apocalypse comes, the only things left will be cockroaches and MADtv.
• Among people who will not be hosting The View: Betsy Ross, my mom, Cher, Nancy Grace.
• Fred Thompson is leaving Law and Order because he wants to be president.
• Hey, remember that time you shot my wife? And then we continued to be national embarassments for the subsequent 15 years? That was awesome. Let’s do a reality show!
• Studio 60 had “run its course.” Which is a fancy way of saying it was crazy expensive and no one watched it.

But I’m very well rested.

• USA Today has a feature on Freaks and Geeks’ Judd Apatow.
• Lost will end in 2010 after three more shortened seasons of 16 episodes each.
• For those still keeping the faith, give it up. Studio 60 sets are being dismantled.
• On Tim Gunn’s new show, they’re looking for a sassy female sidekick.
• The actor who plays Micah from Heroes does a little video thing for People. Oh child stars… so precocious.
• Lauren Graham speaks out on the end of the Gilmore Girls.
• The Office shot two potential endings for the show’s season finale — one where a character leaves and one where the character stays.
• An assessment of which pilots are likely to get picked up. And apparently that Geico cavemen pilot blows.
• Chloe Dao to design for Neiman Marcus?