Where’s the remote?

Prime time’s arrested development—because of televised sports! Were you like me? Did you feel lost when Fox got taken over by baseball playoffs, meaning Arrested Development hasn’t been on in weeks? When you go to FOX.com, you see all your favorite shows listed, with the dreaded “returns after baseball.”* Lame! What’s the deal with televised sports on during prime time? Isn’t that what ESPN’s for?

Anyway, the first three episodes of Arrested Development’s third season have been some of the show’s finest, what with the introduction of Scott Baio as Bob Loblaw (you have to say it out loud—guaranteed watercooler snicker), the Bluth family’s new attorney replacing Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler, and no, this time the Fonz didn’t jump a shark) and special guest appearances by Charlize Theron and Dave Thomas (not the former head of Wendy’s, OK, eh?). Arrested Development should be back on Monday nights at 8 p.m. … after baseball.*

Cartman’s 25 best moments: Despite the blight on prime time known as the American and National league baseball championships, Comedy Central stepped up to the plate and gave us Cartman’s 25 best-ever South Park moments in order to warm us up for South Park’s opener, Oct 19. And those moments were, of course, incredibly wrong, as Cartman is the only character on TV, cartoon or otherwise, allowed to condemn Christ, reinvigorate the Nazi party in small-town Colorado and let his J-Lo hand puppet give Ben Affleck a hand job. Are you laughing yet? If not, then you are too easily offended. C’mon, what other show could win an Emmy with a send-up of the Terry Schiavo controversy?

What happened to that funny guy on The Daily Show? Well, he got his own show. No, I’m not talking about NBC’s The Office (with Steve Carell—good guess). Steven Colbert’s The Colbert Report follows The Daily Show on Comedy Central, where you’ll get more of the former Daily Show correspondent’s oh-so-whimsical observations and wacky poker face than you ever could stand. Now I can watch an entire hour of current news four days a week delivered in the only format that keeps me from contemplating suicide.

Actually, when I saw the first episode of the Report (silent “t”), I was afraid I wasn’t an “it-getter”—and was in fact baffled by all the accoutrements of American pride adorning the set. There was a certain O’Reilly Factor (FOX’s acerbic right-wing commentator) to all the bravado, and Colbert displayed an equally self-congratulatory manner as the aforementioned irrational hater. Yet, sometimes, I shamefully forget the point of satire, for Colbert’s motive didn’t occur to me until I watched his buddy Jon Stewart host a huffy O’Reilly the next night on The Daily Show, who bitched and moaned Colbert was macking his shtick, and why was a “Frenchie” allowed a show, anyway? When the Report followed, any of Colbert’s first night clunkiness was gone, and replaced with a rightfully cocky smile.

*By the way, “after baseball” appears to mean Oct. 31. We’ll see…