TVSquad

The title March to Madness is almost too clever for it's own good. How did it take this many years for someone to come up with that one? I love the pitch for this one, too: "a corrupt college basketball program ... cheats its way to the 'March Madness' NCAA basketball tournament." If it's on FX, of course it has corruption.

March to Madness and FX are a match made in heaven. Nobody does the darker side of humanity better than FX. The Shield, Rescue Me, Sons of Anarchy ... even It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia tackles the lowest forms of people. It's a beautiful combination of amazing writing and gut-wrenching acting that make these dirtbag characters teem with life and humanity.

And what a great subject to tackle. There's so much at stake with the NCAA Tournament for the kids and the schools, the drama practically writes itself. The story, we're told, will be from the point of view of an idealistic coach who's struggling with the compromises he makes with his own integrity to get his team where he needs to be. Too bad Don Cheadle's only executive producing, I'd love to see him tackle that role.

• CBS has March Madness all night.
• At 8, ABC has a new Wife Swap, followed by new episodes of Supernanny and 20/20.
• NBC has a new Howie Do It at 8.
• FOX has new episodes of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse.
• The CW has a new Everybody Hates Chris at 8, then a new episode of The Game.
• PBS has a new Washington Week at 8, followed by new episodes of NOW and Bill Moyers Journal.
• MyNetwork TV has a new Smackdown! at 8.
• At 8:30, Cartoon Network has a new Batman: The Brave and the Bold, then a new Clone Wars.
• At 9, NBC has a new Friday Night Lights, followed by a new Dateline.
• Sci-Fi has the series finale of Battlestar Galactica at 9, which will include a preview of Stargate: Universe.
• At 10, HBO has a new Real Time with Bill Maher.
• STARZ has the season premiere of Head Case at 10, then a new Party Down.
  

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

Here we are in the middle of the March sweeps period (March this year instead of February, because we were supposed to switch to digital TV on February 17 and Nielsen was worried that would screw up the numbers) and The Mentalist is a repeat tonight. Not only that, but it's the third week in a row where the show has been a repeat.

Hmmm...I wonder why CBS has made this decision?

Here are the weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

Spongebob is usually in the top 10 every week, but this week he seems to have gone on some campaign to take it over completely. He grabbed the second slot (actually first in households) and four other slots, while the Duke/North Carolina basketball game grabbed number 1. Project Runway's entry was the season finale, and that election coverage on CNN is from Tuesdays Texas/Ohio/Vermont/Rhode Island primaries.

1. College Basketball - Duke vs. NC (ESPN)
2. SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon)

The best way to recover from a Super Bowl hangover? February sweeps! This week features plenty of guest stars, premieres and the return of heavyweight 'Lost.' Here are AOL Television's top picks for what to watch this week.

Rules of Engagement (Mon., 9:30PM, CBS) series premiere
Is the sitcom dead? Not if CBS has anything to do with it. Consider this: In the battle between heavyweights '24' and 'Heroes,' the winner was none other than 'Two and a Half Men.' Clearly, the audience still wants to see sitcoms, so CBS takes another shot with 'Rules.' It takes elements of the excellent 'How I Met Your Mother (two couples, one Barney-like single guy) and mashes them up with the premise of Fox's 'Til Death' (one new, one longtime couple) to make comedy comfort food.

Gilmore Girls (Tue., 8PM, The CW)
It's started. Yep, the train to Luke-and-Lorelai-ville has left the station and going full speed ahead. First, she wrote a beautiful, heartfelt letter for his custody trial. Now, Luke's there for her and the entire Gilmore family after Richard's classroom collapse. He even runs errands for Emily! And Logan borrows a helicopter to lend Rory his support. And where's Christopher? Nowhere to be seen. Not even a phone call. Choo-choo, folks, choo-choo.

I don't think there's anything I look forward to less than this two week period in March when CBS subjects us to non-stop college basketball action. Not the Olympics, not root canal surgery. And it's not even the basketball that bothers me, it's that it's college basketball. I mean, unless you go to the school or went to the school, who gives a *&#%?

And it's one of those events where people who ordinarily have no interest in college basketball all suddenly join in and bet money in various pools. They become pseudo experts, and become obsessed with scores and matchups and who's playing who and when and what happened and what the score is and everything else. And all the other networks have news stories about the games, my local paper covers it as if it's the Super Bowl (it's not, sorry), and everyone just sort of tries to force it down our throats. Ugh.

It's funny, but I don't even watch that much on CBS, now that I think of it (Letterman, maybe one of the Monday night comedies, Survivor), but this two week interruption still bothers me.

I've had a love-hate relationship with Wednesday night television. I love that there are two great shows to watch, Lost and Veronica Mars, though I hate that they both air at 9PM. I actually had to give up reviewing Lost for TV Squad because of my love for Veronica Mars. So, when I saw that VM was set to air a new episode tonight, I was thrilled . . . until I looked at my TiVo and saw that it wasn't set to record. Why? Because our local UPN station, UPN38, has decided that the Boston College at North Carolina game is better TV. Hey, I'm not dissing college hoops, but what's with not being able to see the new episode until Saturday night?!

Well, on the bright side, I get to watch Lost at its scheduled time again. One of the other TV Squadsters will be reviewing VM for you tonight, one who's able to catch it on time.