The Scrubs musical episode enlisted the talent that gave us Avenue Q, right down to one of the stars of the show. The excuse? A patient who passed out in the park and woke up to hear everybody bursting into song. Every time that patient came into contact with the staff, songs occurred. When she woke up in the end of the episode after being operated on, the music was gone—except for the humming she did to herself to end the show.

This week, Grey’s Anatomy tried it. And created the worst-ever episode of the entire series. They jumped that shark, all right. Sara Ramirez has a wonderful voice. (She’s a Tony winner.) So did many of the other cast members. I love the song “Chasing Cars,” and I liked a couple of the other songs. But the show was boring, predictable, and, well, stupid. It managed to take what should have been a moving, unique experience and turn it into “Hey! Glee’s getting awesome ratings, let’s try to copy what they do!”

The logic was inconsistent. They tried to have the gravely-injured Callie be the center of the songs with an out-of-body experience. Doctors sang as they worked to save her life. (Enter: The Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” And yet, singing doctors left the operating room and continued to sing while they walked through the hospital to comfort grieving doctors. Why even pretend that you have logic behind the songs when you throw it away the first chance you get? And we’re back to, “Hey! Glee’s getting awesome ratings, let’s try to copy what they do!”

The other side of the coin: Most of the songs sucked. I’m not alone in that review. Let’s see: Fail. Fail. Fail. Super Fail.

The doctors sing to Callie as she’s being wheeled to surgery. It’s unclear if she was crying from the pain or the sound of their voices, which were equally painful.

Yeah, except they’re not crying in pain. The ratings were through the roof, and the songs are making iTunes stars out of the Grey’s Anatomy cast. But I promise you this: If there’s a second musical episode, I’m so not there.

Until now.

NBC’s, ah, modernization of Robinson Crusoe premiered last night, and it fulfills all of my requirements for fluff TV.

Handsome hero? Check. (In Xena’s case, it was all the supporting characters and villains. Or ex-boyfriends.)
Handsome hero takes off shirt a lot? Check.
Plotlines that you laugh out loud at? Check.
Exotic setting? Check.
Lots of action? Check.
Really stupid things that you get to laugh at every week? Check.

Never mind the changing of the book. Robinson Crusoe is an excruciatingly boring book that was written in the early eighteenth century, when the idea was to pack at least half a page into every paragraph. I’m not sure why. I read it in high school, and though I’m glad I did, I have yet to repeat the experience. So NBC used the concept of a stranded British sailor, a deserted island, and a native he names Friday, and that’s about all that’s recognizable.

They filled the island with gadgets that the Professor from Gilligan’s Island would be proud of. I’m most mystified at the juicer, as I’m pretty sure orange juice wasn’t your average breakfast drink in eighteenth century London. And there was a MacGyver scene that was absolutely hilarious, where Friday and Crusoe worked hard at turning gold coins into sharp little piercing things that they loaded onto this mystifying, multi-level crossbow. Of course, it worked. They killed a pirate with it.

Oh, did I forget to mention that there were pirates? And pirate treasure (in the form of a gold cannon, that you and I both know two men never would have been able to lift, and yet, Friday and Crusoe could lift it and toss it into the sea). And a female pirate. And there’s Sam Neill and Sean Bean and a great cast of supporting actors for the flashbacks, plus a mystery: Is Sean Bean really Crusoe’s father, or could it be “Uncle” Sam Neill?

All this, and a shirtless Phillip Winchester, too.

What’s not to like?

You can watch it here.

Final: 69,989,000 viewers — Palin-Biden the most-watched vp debate ever

Slackers.

Yeah, it comes from years of reading comic books. I could write this stuff. (But I like watching it more.)

Boy, what a lot of questions to ask. But I’ll save that for the comments, which people don’t get in their RSS feeds.