I Like to Watch

March 12, 2006 | This has been the Best Week of TV Ever. A strong statement, to be sure, but a true one. Throughout my professional, semiprofessional and amateur TV-watching career, I can't remember a better week of TV.

It all began with a two-hour episode of "24" in which CTU headquarters was filled with nerve gas! Good times! Then, on Wednesday night, there was the much awaited finale of Bravo's "Project Runway," followed by the premiere of "America's Next Top Model." You'd think that lineup would satisfy most TV viewers for the rest of the month, but instead of basking in the afterglow of such fine televised entertainments, I whipped out my advance screener of the 90-minute second-season finale of "Battlestar Galactica" (Jealous? I know you are!) and followed it up with not one, not two, but three episodes of "The Sopranos." The only way this week could've been any better is if "Six Feet Under" announced a bonus season in which all the major characters come back from the dead to haunt their equally dysfunctional offspring, "Chappelle's Show" returned with 13 brand-new one-hour episodes, and HBO announced that it was picking up "Arrested Development" to air on Sunday nights right after "Big Love."

There I go again! I'm looking back over the finest week of television that the good Lord has to offer, and all I can do is wish for even more. I'm like the fisherman's wife who lives in a hut by the sea and, when the magic fish gives my (rather meek and pathetic, you have to admit it) husband a brand-new house, I complain about the lack of closet space and the poor choice of wallpaper in the third bathroom.

Instead of escaping into fantasy about Nate chiding a teenage Maya's choice in men, I need to live in the moment, appreciating this glorious and unforgettable week in television while the delicious images of Starbuck pounding back shots with her long-lost frat boyfriend and Tony Soprano grumbling through Uncle Junior's house linger in my memory like a sweet, sweet song. Mmm, delicious nectar of the TV gods, you make me happy to be alive!

What a gas!
You also make me sluggish and dizzy from too much TV watching, but who's complaining? With programming this good, I'm high on complicated characters and compelling narratives.

Or in the case of "24" (9 p.m. EST Mondays on Fox), high on suffering and death. O joyous day, that CTU should disappear in a cloud of dreaded nerve gas! O merciful Lord, who doth smite all those blandly attractive CTU extras, whose jobs heretofore consisted of walking purposefully back and forth with important-looking folders in their hands, while Lynn McGill and Audrey Raines exchanged angry words. How bittersweet it must've been, that day they found out from the show's producers that they would soon have the most dramatic role of their acting careers. "I'll be pressing my palms up against the glass in desperation? Really? Begging to be let into the isolation chamber with Jack and Chloe, but they won't let me in? That sounds awesome!" Despite the disappointment of being cut from the show, those extras must've thrilled to think of finally shedding tears, speaking above a whisper, showing off their best panicked, searching eyes.

Even Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) must've been a little excited at the thought of watching her buddy/nemesis Edgar trapped out there with the nerve gas while she stood by and watched, helplessly. I can still remember that strained look on her face, all crumpled and pained. I felt so sorry for poor Chloe (not Edgar, that whiny bastard -- he's been asking for it for years now), watching her poor squeaky-toy sidekick die a horrible death!

And how great was it to see Lynn aka Samwise Gangee go down, after all his arrogant, ignorant bossing around? Every season of "24" features the out-of-touch, bossy boss meant to absorb all the ire aimed at all of the bosses in the known universe, and Samwise filled those shoes with arrogant, runty accuracy. I suspect Samwise was so tired of his hearts-and-rainbows Hobbit reputation, with its none-too-subtle homosexual undercurrents, that he was champing at the bit to play a loathsome cur. Ah, it must've felt good for Samwise to finally scrub the taint of smiley-faced simpletons from his hairy toes! (OK, I'll admit that it's possible that Sean Astin doesn't have hairy toes. Possible, but not very likely.)

Next page: How will we face the "Galactica"-less months ahead?