TVSquad

(S01E07) Right from the beginning, The Middle had me in familiar territory. I remember rushing around the house gathering trash and trying to get it out to the curb before the trash truck finished at the neighbor's house. And I remember just missing it; what a horrible feeling that was.

From there, while I was still able to enjoy the episode for the laughs it offered, I was just as equally terrified. As a parent, I've often wondered just how close we are to having the state take our children away. How innocent a comment or statement would it take before these agencies swoop down on our lives with all their self-righteous glory and scare the living crap out of us that they're going to tear our families apart?

From the moment when the police officer told Mike he wasn't even allowed to touch Brick in the principal's office, to the social worker refusing to tell Frankie and Mike how the evaluation went until she filed her report, it just seems like way too much power for some outside entities to have over our families.

(S01E06) Something big is going to happen with Axl, and I can't wait for it. Yes, he's doing the same bored, sleeping, lazy teenager act that we've seen a million times before, but I like the way he works off of both Neil Flynn and Patricia Heaton. And I think there's real potential for him to break out into something unique; like when he put his clothes on for the bus in two seconds.

The writers have already crafted both Brick and Sue into wholly unique, and bizarre, children. By comparison the only thing odd about Axl so far is his name. He's just so ... ordinary! Ordinary was enough, though, for him to be part of a pretty funny storyline that pitted him at odds with his father.

It also makes me terrified of the upcoming teen years. Maybe I'll just ship mine out to some other family to deal with. Maybe he can move to Orson, Indiana and I'll just let Mike and Frankie take care of him. Better send him with an extra coat. You never know when a door might go missing.

As my Thursday afternoon time slot to interview Tracy Morgan came closer, I knew I was in for an interesting twenty minutes. As most people have seen and heard over the years, interviewing Tracy is an amusement park ride that even Busch Gardens couldn't conceive. He's blunt. His emotions rise and fall quicker than a roller coaster. And you never know what he's going to say.

When I got to talk to him, he had been interviewing all day in support of his surprisingly emotional and inspirational memoir I Am The New Black, and he was tired. But there was a lot of stuff I wanted to ask him about, only some of which involved his well-publicized smackdowns of SNL co-stars Cheri Oteri and Chris Kattan. There was also his criticism of David Israel and Jim O'Doherty, the creators of The Tracy Morgan Show, and just the general details about his rough upbringing in the Bronx and Brooklyn in the '70s and '80s. Tracy didn't disappoint.

So, buckle up folks, and get ready for a fun ride. Audio and a transcript is after the jump.

(S01E04) Okay, there's clearly something going on with Atticus Shaffer's legs, or leg. It's not a big deal, but at the same time I can't help but notice it when he's limping around. I wish the show would just address whatever it is, so I can stop thinking they're trying to pull a fast one over on us and pretend there's nothing there. It's like when How I Met Your Mother was horribly trying to cover up two pregnant bellies all last season.

Brick can have a medical condition, and we'll still love him as much as ever. In fact, it would make the family even more "just like the rest of us." Regardless, Brick was hilarious this week with his new girlfriend. I remember when my son was getting his first little girlfriends, and it seemed to go down about the same way. Not the point where his new girlfriend gives me a verbal beat-down on my own front porch, but maybe we're just not to that point yet.

The other main plotline had us finally finding something that Sue is good at! I'm as shocked as you are.

(S01E03) We already know that Sue Heck has no discernible talent, but a ton of enthusiasm. This week we learned that her cluelessness goes even beyond physical activities. She's as earnest in her social endeavors as ever. Unfortunately, she's also as oblivious to the reality of her actions and their consequences. I love everything about it.

The moral of this episode, I guess, is that a mother is never allowed even fifteen minutes of time alone. Granted, it appears that Frankie's fifteen minutes happened to coincide with the worst chain of events possible, but the moral remains the same. A mother's job is never done, and she's never off the clock. At least she has the love of her husband to help her when the time comes, and he came through in a big way for her.

(S01E02) I didn't realize it as much in the first episode, but the Hecks are living the exact Midwest life that I had growing up. Okay, not exactly, but our run of luck and struggle went about like theirs did. I even remember when our dryer leaped across the room and died, though it wasn't nearly as melodramatic as theirs was.

The Middle surprised me last week by premiering with a really strong debut episode. Maybe, I thought, it's because I just watched Hank. Watching my grandmother shave her armpits would be high entertainment compared to that.

Well, Hank was so horrible I managed to convince myself that ABC's comedy lineup didn't start until 8:30 on Wednesday, so I tuned in fresh and ready to see how The Middle came out of its pilot. And it actually got better. Just about everything that happened in this episode was funny, and it was absolutely packed with things happening.

Landing a film like Bollywood Hero in the wake of the aftershocks that Slumdog Millionaire left on moviegoers and Oscar voters might seem like perfect timing on a scale that only a NASA pilot could coordinate.

Executive producers Ted Skillman and Belisa Balaban said the idea isn't just right for its time. It was also ahead of its time, four years ahead of time to be exact.

"The project was initially conceived of four years ago, but the script was written before we'd seen ever Slumdog," Balaban said. "When we first came up with the idea, very few people were talking about Hindi cinema and we got a lot of blank stares at first."

Now audiences across the country will get a re-education on the Bollywood machine when their three part miniseries starring Saturday Night Live alum Chris Kattan airs at 10 p.m. Pacific/Eastern on Aug. 6, 7 and 8 on IFC.

Good news for all you Chris Kattan fans. The Saturday Night Live veteran has snagged a regular role in the new ABC single-camera comedy The Middle. He will play a car salesman alongside series star Patricia Heaton.

Based on what I've read, this sounds like one of those safe, non-controversial, family comedies that the networks love and I loathe, such as According To Jim and Two and a Half Men (nowadays I prefer sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory). As a result, I doubt we'll be seeing characters such as Mango make an appearance (that and the fact he's on a competing network to NBC and would likely be sued for doing so).

And here I thought Kattan would end up like one of those obscure SNL celebrities like Garrett Morris or Rich Hall. In a tough economy, he's got a job. More power to him.

In a perfect example of "you never know", Chris Kattan has separated from his wife, model Sunshine Tutt, after two months of marriage. I would have called it "nuptial bliss," but I don't think that qualifies here. This was a quickie, even by Hollywood standards (although they were dating since 2005. I guess the actual wedding was a catalyst for a reexamination of the relationship).

They must have foreseen problems since a prenuptial agreement was signed. Thank goodness there are no children to worry about. Children always make a separation more messy.

This whole announcement came three days after Kattan's rep announced the split, but stated that no divorce was in the works. How quickly things change.

After a two-month wedding, you have to wonder if any romantic feelings were involved at all, or if someone just wanted a career boost. There can be such superficiality and phoniness in Hollywood. It couldn't have been a real marriage like Christopher Knight.

The best of the night so far. It starts off innocently enough with Troy Aikmen commenting on the action in the first quarter when Joe nods off and bangs his head on his mic. Queue music ("What is Love?") and we then get a montage of people across all industries nodding off at their jobs, at dinner, at awards shows, on game shows. I'm pretty sure that's Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and Macy Gray nodding off while they were up for "Song of the Year." This keeps up until Diet Pepsi Max comes along on a mail cart and everyone starts doing "The Roxbury," or the head bopping made famous by Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell in the recurring SNL skits. The bit ends with Troy staring at Joe as Joe bops along. But the best part is after the blurbs about Diet Pepsi Max and the slogans, we get a quick shot of Chris Kattan shopping, yelling "Stop it!" to two girls doing the head bop.

When the networks all get together at their secret meeting. . . you know, the one where they laugh about how none of the mysteries will be solved on Lost and where they try to figure out how many more shows they can stuff into Thursday nights to cause our DVRs to have a meltdown . . . they need to adopt a new amendment into their secret constitution. An amendment that will be as important as the one that decrees that Cop Rock will never be duplicated, and the one that commands CBS to continually green light shows by Joe Pantoliano and then cancel them or keep them off the air entirely.

I'm talking about the amendment that prevents the networks from making live-action remakes of classic animated programs ever again. Especially if it is a remake of an animated holiday classic that millions of viewers still remember fondly. Because, no matter how hard they try to stay truthful to the original, they always manage to screw it up. Particularly when they decide to update the live-action remake of the animated holiday classic to reflect modern fads and values. When they try that disaster looms.