Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Yeah, it’s not like that.

Good idea. Lousy execution. I may watch a couple more episodes, but I am not impressed. They’re repeating it tonight if you missed it.

The Good Wife: Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, and the obnoxious kid from Gilmore Girls playing an obnoxious kid on this show—what’s not to like? Actually, this was a very good pilot. Sure, it’s a lawyer show, but it’s a very different twist. This is a woman re-entering the workforce because her husband is in jail on corruption charges, struggling for her job against a kid fresh out of law school and ready to cutthroat his way to the top. And it’s from Ridley Scott! No wonder it’s so good.

Modern Family: The critics are hailing it as the best new comedy of the year. I watched it. Eh. Watched it some more. Okay, that was funny. Watched to the end. Yeah, it’s funny. I think I’ll keep watching.

Cougar Town: Eh. I laughed a bit. It might get funnier. Boy, you can’t watch this show with young kids around, though. When did primetime TV get so adult at 8 p.m.?

And this is the difference between me, and a Judith Warner from the NY Times. I watched the show in the hopes of finding a comedy that would make me laugh. Here’s why she watched it:

I’d watched “Cougar Town” on Wednesday night not because I thought I would like it, not because I was genuinely interested in seeing it, but because I thought I, too, would be able to derive messages from it about the zeitgeist — the pop-culture zeitgeist now permeated with talk of cougars, women over 40 who take up with younger men.

Darn it! I’m just not up on the current pop-culture zeitgeist! How is it that I was cool when I was young, and now I’m so unhip as to be unable to keep up with the New York City zeitgeist-seeking crowd?

Then again, I’ve lived in the ‘burbs most of my life. Uncool. Uncool. (And they wonder why we call them “the media elite.”)

Vampire Diaries: Okay, I admit it. I was bored. It was on. I watched it twice. I did not watch the third episode. Seen all I needed to see to know that it’s basically another vampire romance teen saga, and, well, ew. Vampires must be staked. No exceptions. Wait. Angel. He’s the only exception, because he has a soul. Everyone else (including Spike), boom.

Castle: Yay, it’s back, and it’s still good. It’s the only crime show I’m interested in, and that’s because they don’t generally cut up bodies and try to figure out how they died.

Looking forward to: V. The new series looks excellent. Dollhouse: Premiere tonight. My DVR’s been set since last season ended. Which is a good thing, because it’s on while I’m in synagogue. Bummer that Terminator didn’t make it.

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, and Mary is gone. No more Puff the Magic Dragon. Or any of the sixties protest songs that I still love to hear, even though I no longer want to march on Washington after listening to them.

And Henry Gibson, that stalwart of the Laugh-In era, and his poems. And his late career on Boston Legal.

I wish they’d release Laugh-In on DVD. I’d buy it.

Netanyahu caves: There is a freeze on all new settlement construction. Oh, and the reason he’s freezing construction? He’s hoping to get Europe and America to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. Because they’ve all indicated that that’s what they want to see happen, right? Epic fail, Bibi. Epic fail.

Time for the latest round of Iranian running out the clock: Iran says it’s ready for nuclear negotiations without preconditions. I think this makes the tenth or eleventh time they’ve said they’d talk about their nukes with the west. But this time, they really mean it. Honest. You betcha! (And watch the Obama spin machine on this one. It should be a laff-riot.)

Death at Disney World! Here’s news you almost never see: Three workers have died at Disney World so far this year. Wow, the Disney PR flacks have really dwindled in talent. Oh, wait—three people died at Disney world so far this year? And this is the first you’re hearing about it? I stand corrected. (Actually, I read about the monorail crash. But I really have no desire to visit Disney World ever again. Crowds. Ugh.)

But the stimulus is working! Eric Cantor sponsored a job fair in my neck of the woods yesterday. The Times-Dispatch says more than 2,000 people showed. Cantor’s office says it was 3,200. I’m not at all surprised. We lost Circuit City, had massive layoffs at places like Capital One and Genworth, and are also affected by the overall dreadful economy.

Dancing with the exterminator: Ew. Tom Delay is going to be on “Dancing with the Stars.” Mind you, I’ve never really cared for the show, watched it for, at best, a minute at a time, and don’t care at all about the show. But ew—Tom Delay? Tom “the Exterminator” Delay? Now that’s reaching. And a little bit gross. (I don’t care how far to the center I move, I will always loathe Tom Delay.)

Because, yikes—I think it was the best thing I’ve ever seen from Joss Whedon. Including my favorite Firefly and Buffy episodes.

If an army has to be there for your swearing-in, are you really the “elected leader”? Robert Gibbs said yesterday that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the “elected leader” of Iran, in spite of the fact that he had to have 5,000 security forces at his swearing-in ceremony, the opposition boycotted it, and his mentor, the Ayatollah Khameini, didn’t give him the victory kiss of congratulations the other day. Sucks to be you, Mad Mahmoud. (As for that “Smartest administration EVAH” thing—I’m thinking not.)

Billy Jeff goes to North Korea: President Clinton came through with the goods and got two American journalists out of the hell that is North Korea. As I am simply glad that he got them back, there is not much to snark about. Oh, of course there is. The North Koreans rejected the Obama administration’s first choice for mediator: Al Gore. Do you think it was the gasbag effect, or the Gore Effect? The good news is that Clinton didn’t do to Obama what Jimmy Carter did to him, and go off the reservation. We’re still paying for that trip.

News I really don’t care about: Paula Abdul is leaving American Idol. The fact is I have watched, perhaps, a total of ten minutes of the show since it first aired. The only “reality show” I’m finding myself at all interested in watching is Wipeout, because you get to go “Oooh!” “OW!” “That had to hurt!” and “No way are you going to make it!” at the TV when you watch it. Plus, it’s fun to watch people get knocked into the water over and over again. I can’t explain why. But it really is.

Meryl: I just saw the most bizarre news report I’ve ever seen.
Sarah: Yes?
Meryl: I’m watching Fox News, and they have a segment on a guy who’s been arrested for a bizarre sex crime. He was caught in the act with a horse.
Sarah: Ewwww.
Meryl: And then they show a picture of the horse!
Sarah: I thought they’re not supposed to show pictures of the victim.
[Pause for long, loud laughter.]
Meryl: And there were two horses! One was grey and one was brown. Maybe it was file footage.
Sarah: Probably stock footage.
Meryl: Then again, they did say it wasn’t his first offense.
Sarah: They were showing all of his victims! They’re not supposed to do that!

Yeah, that’s why I call Sarah. To wonder why on earth Fox News found this an appropriate news story, even in the ten o’clock slot. And to mock it.

Is it sweeps week or something? And really—did they have to show pictures of horses? Because, it’s not like we don’t know what a horse is, or anything.

Good Lord. Our culture really has defined deviancy down.

Boy, I miss the Carol Burnett Show.

Either that, or Mad TV’s writers got way better.

Sorry. But it was really funny. Who is that Bobby Lee guy? High-larious.

Ron Moore is obviously suffering from Gene Roddenberry-itis. Because hey, overcoming human nature isn’t a problem. All you have to do is write it, and it’s done.

While I was talking with my friend Kim from out of town, we realized that Moore really, really, REALLY believes in the concept of deus ex machina.

Dude. It was old when the Greeks used it.

And by the way, the unanswered questions weren’t solved by the deus ex machina ending.

Subsistence farming. Woo-hoo! Count me in for a life of poverty, starvation, and hardship! Yeah! All right!