TVSquad

(S03E02) Originally aired on September 25, 1996.

First off, can we all agree that none of the episodes in the fifth, Phil Hartman-less season of NewsRadio aren't even in the running for one of the best of the series?

OK, once we start with that, it's still ridiculously hard to pick an episode that stands out. So many episodes from the first three seasons (and several in the fourth) could easily fit into this category. So I'm not even going to attempt to pick one episode to talk about. Thanks for reading, and have a good day.

Oh, alright, if you insist. I'll go with "Review," from the third season.

Everyone's favorite swear words get the sci-fi treatment on television so they can sidestep around the censors. On Farscape we had "frell," Battlestar Galactica has "frack," and Firefly gave us a whole slew of Chinese swear words like "tzae gao" and "ta ma de." Bilngual swearing, FTW! You know a sci-fi swearism has reached the mainstream when it's being used by a character in Scott Adams' "Dilbert" strip.

Although, come to think of it ... I'm not even sure if Captain Kirk ever said "damn." One thing is for sure, I'd really like to see Spock bust out the f-word. Just once. You know he got fed up with McCoy at some point, broke all of his Vulcan training and cold logic and just let him have it. Plus, while we're on this rant, why didn't anyone ever tell Doctor Smith to shut the f*ck up on Lost in Space? The guy earned it, for sure.

Now we can get onto the real conspiracy: is Dilbert a Cylon? Maybe he's the only human left, and everyone around him is a Cylon. We may never know the true story.

He's not the most talented artist in the world, but Dilbert creator Scott Adams had some things to say about television recently, and I have to agree with at least one of his assessments. The cartoonist/author says television has "just enough censorship to make the creators act creatively." I would tend to agree with that statement. While stifling creative freedom in any form should be frowned upon, it's actually really cool to see what a show can conjure up when its creators are forced to work within certain parameters. Apparently, Adams also likes a lot of shows I never watch, such as 24, My Name is Earl, and The OC. He says 24 is "is more entertaining than just about any movie I've seen in the past five years." He also sings the praises of the DVR, which I also agree with. In fact, I've become so enamored with my Tivo that even when a show I like is airing and I actually have time to sit and watch it I'll still wait until after it records and then watch the recorded version instead. It's as if the Tivo has become some kind of idol i don't want to anger by watching actually live TV. Does that make me weird? Yes, it makes me very weird, actually. Although, I have stopped short of actually baptizing the Tivo.