TVSquad

"Clusterf@#k to the White House": Maria Shriver and some of the potential first ladies got together and basked in each other's powerful-by-association womanliness. Fact: Within five minutes of meeting each other, their views on universal healthcare synchronized... That was bad, I'm sorry. I tried. Another fact: Jon Stewart's Shriver impression sounds more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than his Arnold impression. It was while watching this segment when I realized who Henry Waxman looks like. That tiny little man at the end of The Triplets of Belleville. You know, the mousy mechanic/operator fellow? Yeah? No? Okay. Look it up.

In addition to the recent renewals and new episode orders for TNT's Saving Grace and The Closer, the USA Network has ordered up thirteen new episodes of Burn Notice.

Burn Notice is great summer fare: a series that doesn't exactly break new ground but is still fun to watch. USA's motivation in picking new shows has been to focus on strong characters, and that's exactly what keeps Burn Notice from being just another crime/detective/mystery series (even though it is just another crime/detective/mystery series). It's also what keeps me tuning into Monk after all these years, even though every episode is pretty much the same. The lead players, Jeffrey Donovan, Sharon Gless, Bruce Campbell and Gabrielle Anwar, work well within the sometimes cookie-cutter self-contained plots, elevating the series to something worth checking out each week. It's not the plots so much, it's the people.

The Company is a six-hour movie that will air over three nights, beginning this Sunday at 8 pm on TNT. It stars Chris O'Donnell, Alfred Molina, and Michael Keaton as players in the early days of the CIA. It is based on the highly-acclaimed novel by Robert LIttell.

The story focuses on three Yale friends who join the spy business, two of them go to the CIA and one (the Russian) goes to the KGB. It is set during the beginning of the Cold War, starting with the 1950s and then to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

When the new USA series Burn Notice debuts this Thursday at 10:00 p.m., it will air without commercials. The first episode will be presented in its entirety by DIRECTV, so while you won't be seeing any ads, expected to hear a few allusions to the digital satellite TV service during the first couple episodes.

Burn Notice stars Jeffrey Donovan as a CIA spook who is given his "burn notice," (meaning: he no longer works for the CIA) and uses his skills to help out people in need. The series also stars Bruce Campbell, Gabrielle Anwar and Sharon Gless.

After the premiere of Burn Notice, Donovan's character Michael Westen will appear to thank everyone for watching. In this segment, Westen will be seen de-activating a tracking bug he found in his apartment, and then tossing it into a frying pan.

"Elizabeth II: Visit From A Nice Old Lady": That "Hellooo!" never gets old. Never. I think Jon's Elizabeth II impression is my favorite out of all of the things that he does. I'd take a "Hellooo!" over a "Heh-heh" any day. Royal Watcher John Oliver felt the sting of Richard Quest. That was absolutely hysterical. I haven't seen much of Quest in the past because I normally tune off when he pops up on screen, but I had forgotten just how mind-numbingly annoying he can be. Or perhaps I had just blocked it from memory.

(S03E10) This week brought us a special 60-minute holiday episode of The Office, and as you just saw, a lot of things happened, and we're sure to see a number of new storylines take shape over the next few episodes.

Last year's holiday party episode was a classic, so it was with eager anticipation that I plopped myself down in front of the TV to see what would take place this year. Although it probably could have been cut down from 60 minutes to one of those NBC "super-sized" 40-minute episodes, this one was satisfying enough for me and for most viewers, I'm sure.

(S02E03) Who would have thought that we would have gotten a lesson in acceptance and tolerance of others from, of all people, Earl Hickey?

After watching the classic movie "Freaks" this past weekend, I had wondered if we'd see anything in the mass media that depicted people who were considered "freaks" anymore without encountering a great deal of controversy. Leave it to My Name Is Earl to bring it forward, but doing it in such a way that it warms your heart in the end.

Some of you long time readers of TV Squad -- in particular those who are Alias fans -- know that I've had a love-hate relationship with the show. I've been an avid viewer since its first season, and although I will say it's had its ups and downs, there's no denying that the show has retained one simple yet important characteristic: it's fun.

Unfortunately for some, the show comes to an end next week, having completed a solid five season run. Though I feel some may not find it so unfortunate, as the show gets to wrap up the way it should, giving it the proper send off it throughly deserves.

Speaking of fortunate, I was just that for having the opportunity to talk to Carl Lumbly last week. Carl's been playing Marcus Dixon on Alias since day one, starting out as Sydney Bristow's partner in what they both thought was the CIA. He's also supplied the voice of Martian Manhunter from the Justice League cartoon series. We talked about his work on Alias, Justice League, his new 'do and a little bit of golf.

"This is Wire Tap" (I guess this joke will be sticking around for a while): The New York Times recently reported that since 9/11, the NSA has flooded the FBI with thousands of names, e-mails, etc. of people who are possible links to terrorist organizations. Virtually of these have led to dead ends. Brilliant. Our safety measures since 2001 have grown to listening to people's boring-ass phone calls and having old people take their shoes off at the airport.

Welcome to yet another episode of The Daily Show. Tonight's has been crafted lovingly out of, uh, cheese curds. But let's step away from the fake news for a moment to the real news... specifically, CNN's Situation Room, a room in which you can see any... situation. The show did 29 hours of coverage on the BTK Killer because the people need to know! Like... is he a bad guy? Well, his name is Bind Torture and Kill. One can only assume so. It's not as though we need CNN to tell us exactly how to feel about this guy getting a life sentence (and by the way, the way to feel is "f*cking great").