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Late in February Craig (late of the blogosphere) asked what I thought of the current T.V. Season in general. I responded in far too much detail. Here, with a few updates to cover the six weeks, is what I've been watching...

I'm generally pretty up on this season, more so than the nets, apparently, who canceled a couple of shows I liked.

New shows that are keepers:

30 Rock: Alec Baldwin is hilarious. This show has been consistently hilarious.
Jericho: This one came back strong after it's hiatus.
Knights Of Prosperity: This one will probably fade on me, but for now I'm enjoying it. (update: it faded.)
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip: Not as strong lately as when it kicked off, and getting put on hold in favour of "The Donnellys" won't help, but I still like it. Still waiting on official word of a cancellation, hoping against hope for a pick-up.
Shark: It's all about James Woods, which is fine with me. His daughter is getting annoying, though.
Heroes: Of course. Time-travel stupidity aside, I do like this show. And by the start of the next season, it'll be okay to lust after the cheerleader.

New shows that aren't:

The Nine: Gave up after three or four episodes. The net gave up after only a couple more.
Vanished: Aptly titled. Already canned.
Friday Night Lights: I just don't care about football. My problem, I guess.

Shows that I wish stuck around:

Justice: I really enjoyed Victor Garber as the unethical lawyer, but that ended up as a show-down between Garber and James Woods on 'Shark', and I don't think anyone ever doubted who the winner there would be. U.K.'s ITV aired a couple of eps that never got play in the U.S.
Smith: Not sure if this would have been great or not, but the acting was excellent, and three episodes was not enough time to really develop.
Daybreak: I was enjoying this, and I've managed to download a bunch more episodes that never aired, but I haven't got around to watching them yet. Maybe it starts to suck, soon.

Away from the major networks, I'm big on Psych, the not-really-a-psychic detective show on USA, and so far I'm enjoying The Dresden Files from Sci-Fi. Caught the first season of a U.K. show called Primeval (the second is greenlit) and really enjoyed it.

Kidnapped, Men In Trees, Runaway, Standoff, Ugly Betty, Brothers And Sisters... can't even think of the others I never bothered trying with. Most of the new sitcoms.

For returning series, both Veronica Mars and Lost are way less interesting this season. I thought the Liev Schreiber story arc on C.S.I. was really interesting, as was/is the Miniature Killer ongoing plot. On the L&O side of things, the two ex-Conviction cast members (who are both very hot) are fitting in nicely as detectives. Jennifer Love Hewitt is wearing some wonderfully revealing clothing this season on Ghost Whisperer but Medium continues to actually be a better show. Battlestar's finale ROCKED. The Atlantis finale was... interesting. So what, they're Voyager now? And in a recent SG-1, Vala Mal Doran dressed up in daisy dukes, so hooray. I'm going to miss that show. Criminal Minds benefits from the recent inclusion of Paget Brewster. Monk is still Monk, cute but insubstantial. House was on the verge of losing me with the David Morse storyline, but has been good since. We need more Lisa Edelstein! Supernatural is really good. Funny, good, action, nice mix of monster of the week/ongoing story. Solid stuff. And Las Vegas is a babe-filled wonderland. I'm very worried about the loss of James Caan (and a bit about the loss of Nikki Cox) next season. We'll see how Tom Selleck does...

That's my contribution. It's a little gauche, but what the hell.

Collective nouns are often odd, often of obscure origin and often quite fun. We all know "herd of cattle", and players of Trivial Pursuit learned "sleuth of bears", but had you heard of a "cast of hawks" or "peal of bells". "Peal of bells" is a fun one, being a sort-of self contained pun.

Not all of the collective nouns are officially recognized by dictionary compilers. Look up "cast" at Merriam Webster Online, for example, and there's nary a hawk mentioned. But they can be fun, and contribute to a more picturesque language all the same.

I was put in mind of collective nouns today by James Randi (nicely recovered from his heart ailments of the past year, and going on the attack against the woo-woos with renewed vigor). Randi wrote on his Swift commentary today:

I’ve invented a few collective nouns, which I think is a distinct service to the language. (A collective noun is one that designates a group of specific things. For example, the collective noun for “sheep” is “flock,” and for “geese” – when not flying! – is “gaggle.”) I choose to refer to a gathering of psychics as a “giggle,” for conmen, it’s a “fleece,” and for prophets, a “failure.” One wag on the JREF Forum came up with “Congress” as a collective for conmen, but that was unkind. I use an “absence” for a group of homeopaths, I refer to a “confusion” of parapsychologists, and a “cackle” of witches. Palmists are gathered as a “handful,” it’s a “struggle” of astrologers, and more than three phrenologists become a “bump.” And a group of spoonbenders can be called, a “desperation.”

I’m sure there are many more. Any offerings…?

And that reminded me of this offering, from author Jack Whyte...

LE MOT JUST...

We were arguing one evening, as the sun was going down,
About the names we give to groups: The old Collective Noun.
We had gone through prides of lions; schools of fish; brigades of foot,
When I wondered, "What's collective for the poor old prostitute?"

Well! I felt as though I'd stepped upon a hidden hornets' nest,
For each man proposed an answer, and each swore his was the best!
We'd a treasury of trollops, and a tragedy of trulls;
An entire Who's Who of hookers and a calamity of culls...

We'd a pastry cook among us who, in tribute to his arts,
Put forth the obvious image of a tempting tray of tarts,
While a fishmonger there present, who was more than slightly nuts,
Proposed the odious and malodorous catchphrase "a slab of sluts!"

Then our resident militiaman cried out "A troop of tramps!"
But he was shouted down in favour of a vile vendue of vamps;
A convention of solicitors; a haggling horde of whores;
Such invention for the ladies whom society deplores!

No, the task of giving pride of place was not a simple one.
The concubinage of courtesans might easily have won,
Or the hostile hiss of hustlers, but we had to share the rose
Between a bright fanfare of strumpets and an anthology of pros...

Check out Randi's writing here, and Jack's here.

And add your own collective nouns in the comments section, please. (Hmm... a "Bunch of Bloggers", a "Web of Bloggers", an "Annoyance of Bloggers...")

MSNBC has decided to stop airing Imus in the morning. This will disrupt my daily routine not at all.

Don Imus is sort-of the grandfather of shock jocks, known for being abrasively funny and politically incorrect before Howard Stern was even in radio. He has said a number of blatantly stupid and insulting things over the years. His recent remarks were not even close to being the worst.

In a recent airing of his show - which went out live on CBS radio and MSNBC - Imus described members of the Rutger's university women's basket ball team (consisting of a mix of black and white students) as being "nappy headed hos". He laughed as he said it. Clearly, he was joking. The incident can be viewed here, in a clip that includes enough of the show to give context for the 'joke'.

I think we learn two things from watching the clip in it's entirety:

1) Don Imus, whether he is personally racist or not, is not hesitant about using racial stereotypes as the basis for humour.

2) Don Imus is not funny.

Imus could very well be fired. CBS has done it before, for pretty much exactly the same reason. But they'll be firing him for the wrong reasons. He shouldn't be fired for saying something "offensive". He should be fired for saying something "not funny."

I mean, c'mon! You decide it's okay to do racial humour, and the best you can come up with is "nappy headed hos"? Why no Jungle Bunny jokes? No Spearchuckers? You didn't mention fried chicken and watermelon ONCE, you hack!

Let me give you an example of how unfunny Imus is. One of his first big "classic" bits was to call up a restaurant and order 1200 hamburgers. And then... laugh about it. That's the whole bit! Calling up some poor shmuck who's trying to make a living in the zero-margin world of burger flipping and ruin his day. Get this: Imus loved this bit so much HE NAMED A FUCKING RECORD AFTER IT.

Let shock-jocks be shocking. But don't let them be banal. Fire Imus.

Oh, and Whoopi Goldberg should go to hell, the hypocrite.

Why don't eggs taste like chicken?

Just wondering.

How can they call it the perfect bacon sandwich when they aren't even using any peanut butter? That's just wrong, I tell you.

Elvis would not approve.

And that British bacon... if I wanted a small pork chop, I'd eat a small pork chop. Bacon is supposed to be thin, and crisp.

As Adam Carolla says, "it's the candy of meat."

Mmm... bacon.

Imagine the following scenario:

You are an engineer. At an early morning meeting, a recently fired employee makes an unexpected appearance demanding his job back. The argument escalates, the fired man pulls out a pistol, and kills someone. Suddenly you're at mercy of a madman with a gun...

Or

You are a defense lawyer. At a meeting with the members of your firm, a strange man barges in with a former client of yours in tow. The strange man has a pistol, and is demanding that your former client's trial be re-enacted by those present at the meeting, as he is sure the man is guilty of killing his (the stranger's) mother. Suddenly, you're at the mercy of a madman with a gun...

Or

You are a prosecutor. At the sentencing of a convicted killer, a distraught man awaiting his own trial steals a service revolver from a bailiff, and holds the entire courtroom hostage, demanding that his case be reviewed as he is innocent. Suddenly you're at the mercy of a madman with a gun...

Or

You are the mayor of a small town, in a country recently devastated by war. The leader of a group of refugees, angry that they are being asked to leave the town, draws a pistol and shoots you, wounding you severely. He refuses to let anyone give you medical attention until the town is told that the refugees can stay. Suddenly you're at the mercy of a madman with a gun...

You don't have to try too hard to imagine these scenarios. Instead, you can watch last week's Medium, Boston Legal, Shark and Jericho. All four shows featured hostage-taking men who were portrayed as sympathetic because of their desperate circumstances. All in the same week. The same week, incidentally, that some actual high-profile hostage taking was in the news.

What I found interesting was how the criminals were portrayed in such a positive light. In Boston Legal and Medium they weren't evil people. They were people who felt they no longer had any choice. And in Jericho and Shark, the actions of the hostage takers were actually vindicated; it turned out they were right all along. I find this strange in light of the way Americans typically feel about anyone who takes hostages in the real world. Is this liberal agenda TV, or did the TV writers just get it, well, wrong?

Well, they ought to be able to get it right now.