TVSquad

(S03E07) "Of course we sing! We're a gang!" - Frank

Wow. Brilliant. I'm honestly not sure where to begin because this episode was fantastic. Joel and myself have both talked about how It's Always Sunny... is trying some new things season and that trend continued in this episode with winning results.

Jumping on a theme that's just ripe for laughter, the episode tackled Corporate America. Throw in some Oldies music theme restaurants, a 1950s Doo-Wop biker group, helipads, and secret tunnels and you've got a bunch of things that don't have appear to have anything in common. Leave it to this show to tie that list together.

(S03E06) "I look like Lorenzo Lamas and woman find it irresistible." - Mac

OK, number one - I'm buying a duster. Number two - I got an answer to my question. Paddy's only ever makes money when there's a bar crawl. Now it all makes sense, why they can be open all the time yet never have more than one or two customers. There I go again again with being logical though. There's no time for that. The North Koreans are moving in on Paddy's turf.

What a great premise. One of the things this show does so well time and again is take the gang's problems and manifest them in such a way that they all think they're some sort of microcosm for the whole world's issues. Fighting off a Korean BBQ down the street is the same as trying to halt nuclear war... right?

(S03E05) "You're making my chair look like it was dipped in gold." - Frank

For a place that just got taken hostage and destroyed not a week ago by a clan of incestuous bathrobe enthusiasts, Paddy's Bar looked pretty good. Of course, for fans of It's Always Sunny... we all know that means nothing. The idea of a time-line, save for a few ongoing stories, doesn't really exist on this show. You can easily watch the episodes in any order you like and not find yourself even remotely confused.

It does make you wonder though. The bar was trashed. Broken bottles. Sledgehammers taken to the walls. How would they have paid for the renovations? When do you ever see more than one or two people drinking at that bar? Doesn't matter. When you consider the simple brilliance of this show, intelligent questions are a waste of breath.

(S03E04) The McPoyles are on the loose! They've taken over Paddy's Pub and are threatening to shoot the gang in the face! The tension mounts! Frank and his gun are in the vents, nowhere to be found! What will they do? What will they do?

This is the best episode of the third season so far, mainly because it tells a nice, cohesive story from beginning to end. It also does a little something different from most Sunny episodes, as it not only makes fun of a particular movie genre -- the hostage drama -- but basically takes place within the confines of the pub. Oh, and Fred Savage is the director. How can you go wrong?

(S03E03) Say goodbye to Anne Archer. Unless she comes back as a ghost.

In this episode, Rob, Glenn, and Charlie have decided to kill off Barbara Reynolds, who is Dennis and Dee's mother and the "whore" ex-wife of Frank. Not such a bad idea; Archer didn't really fit well into the mix last year, so having her kick the bucket is probably the best for the show's chemistry.

Stephen Collins comes back as Bruce Mathis, Dennis and Dee's real dad and a peach of a guy. Unlike Archer, Collins did do a good job last year, and he does a good job here. The rest of the episode? It's OK... a little sitcommy, but OK.

We're going to try something a little different here at TV Squad: audio interviews!

Last week, I got a chance to speak to Rob McElhenney, creator and co-executive producer of FX's no-holds-barred comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which will air its third and fourth episodes of the season tonight at 10 PM ET. We spoke about the third season, about getting Fred Savage to direct some episodes, the making of their "BJ" video, and how Kaitlin "Sweet Dee" Olson almost lost her role on The Riches because of Sunny. We also discussed few details that came out on the DVD of the first two seasons, like why they shot all of Danny DeVito's scenes at once and how they got the TV legend to leer at his daughter.

Instead of typing out the entire transcript and printing it (frankly, transcribing makes us tired), we decided to take advantage of this whole Net 2.0 thing that's going on and embed the audio of the entire interview, which is about 28 minutes. So, after the jump, I'll give you the embed and some highlights.

(S03E02) You may have never seen Invincible, but you know what it's about. Schmo off the street tries out for the Philadelphia Eagles. Odds are against the schmo. Everyone tells schmo he's fooling himself. Schmo makes the team, despite the odds, and plays in the NFL. Schmo is triumphant. We've seen the formula a million times.

Only the story behind Invincible really happened, since it was the story of Vince Papale, who played for the Eagles in the seventies. So what if every lunk with some tidbit of football skill came away from the movie thinking they could make the Eagles? That's what the crew from Paddy's is going to find out.

(S03E01) The gang at Paddy's Pub is back for another season of mayhem, and not a minute too soon. When you think about it, this show is fairly review-proof; there are no deep messages or important storylines on It's Always Sunny. It's just five people with no conscience wreaking havoc and making everyone laugh. The show is going to be uneven, often with one of the plots in an episode working better than the other. But, to me, this show is on the same level as Married... With Children was: It may not be high art, but it's so damn funny you don't care.

In the third season premiere, Mac and Dee take care of a baby the gang finds in a dumpster, Dennis becomes an environmentalist hippie (don't worry, he's still the evil yuppie he's always been... more on that later), and Frank and Charlie look for treasures in the trash.

When you think about it, it makes sense that we haven't seen a DVD of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia until now; after all, the first season was only seven episodes, and the show was on the brink of extinction until Danny DeVito joined the cast in season two. So, it was wise of FX to group the first two seasons into one package, which comes out tomorrow (you can get your own copy -- for nothing! -- if you enter the giveaway Keith mentioned earlier today).

Is it worth picking up? Sure; if you're a fan of the show, there's more than enough here to make a purchase worth your while. If you never saw the show but were curious, it's a good way to "catch up" (though this isn't exactly a show where you need to do that, but still...).

It's Monday again, which means it's time for us to give away some stuff again. One of today's giveaways is for five copies of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 1 & 2 on DVD, which will be in stores September 4. All you've got to do is submit a comment below before 5PM Eastern, September 7, and mention what your favorite character from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is. We'll randomly choose five winners to receive the DVDs!

Some other details:
And now we present you with the legalities of the giveaway. (Read them. Please.)

Well it's about frickin' time. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is finally coming to DVD and the two-disc set will have every single minute of inappropriate humor from the first two seasons.

It'll be released on September 4th, right before the third season premieres. While hardcore fans like myself have taken advantage of the show being offered on iTunes, this still comes as great news. I think the one thing that bugs me is that it took this long.

ER's Doug and Carol together again? Don't hold your breath unless you can do so for at least three more years.

Julianna Margulies, who's starring in the FOX mid-season replacement Canterbury's Law, says that she'd love to do another project with former ER love interest George Clooney. But the actress,who left the hospital drama in 2000, wants there to be a full decade in between projects so that fans won't think of them as lovebirds.

Alas, the reunion won't likely take place at Country General, either.

I think I'm the last Squadder to put out one of these lists, and there's a good reason for that. After the crush of the season finales and upfronts in May, I was happy to not be a regular watcher of anything in particular, except for Yankee games, so there seemed to be nothing for me to write about.

But when I really thought about it, that's not even close to being true. Despite the fact that it's summer, there's more than enough quality programming that I'm sure I'll get sucked into some weekly habits at some point. So, after the jump, here's what I plan on watching:

Danny DeVito has found a way to capitalize on his headline-grabbing appearance on The View last year. Remember the video? DeVito was pretty obviously drunk while on the morning gabfest, and admitted that he was still pretty tipsy from a wild night with George Clooney. Specifically, DeVito said he was drunk on limoncellos, shots of a sweet, lemon liqueur.

Now DeVito has decided to sell his own line of limoncello, called Danny DeVito's Premium Limoncello, which he launched at a wine festival in Florida yesterday. According to Wikipedia, limoncello is pretty easy to make as it's just sugar, water, lemon rinds and alcohol. Danny's is 60-proof, which means nothing to me since I don't know anything about alcohol.

I always like when a celebrity can make a joke of themselves, but this drunken incident on The View didn't really seem like that big of a deal. Or, has my memory just faded because all sorts of other horrible things have come from The View since then?

Check out the jingle. It's hilarious!

Veteran writer, producer, and director Stan Daniels worked on several shows over the years. He won three Emmy Awards as a writer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and another three as a creator and producer on Taxi.

Daniels wrote for several other shows as well, including Phyllis (a spinoff of The Mary Tyler Moore Show), The Associates, and The Bill Cosby Show. As a director he worked on many sitcoms, including Dear John, Flying Blind, Best of the West, Almost Perfect, High Society, Sparks, and The Good News. His last credit was as the writer and producer of the 1991 animated TV movie The Kid.

Daniels died of heart failure on April 6 in Los Angeles.