TVSquad

Welcome to the inaugural edition of "Leno Weekly." As you may have noticed, there were no daily reviews of The Jay Leno Show this week. We felt that while it was important to cover the show for the first few weeks, the time for daily reviews has passed. NBC had promised that this would be a bold new comedy venture for prime-time network television. It's not.

That's not to say that it doesn't have its value or historical significance. Whether it succeeds or fails, it's still a big deal that NBC abandoned scripted television at 10pm. It's kind of like when ABC threw Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on fourteen times a week to prop up their broken schedule a decade or so ago.

For those of you still interested in how the experiment is playing out, "Leno Weekly" will be a weekly roundup of the highlights and lowlights of Leno's primetime show, including clips. For those who don't think The Jay Leno Show deserves any kind of coverage at all on TV Squad ... now you only have one article a week to ignore!

• At 8, NBC has a new Kings.
• HGTV has a new Divine Design at 8.
• Cartoon Network has a new BrainRush at 8, then a new Destroy Build Destroy.
• GSN has a new 20Q at 8, followed by a new episode of The Money List.
• TCM has Random Harvest at 8, then The Bad Seed.
• Current has Jack Black and Michael Cera Take Over Current at 8.
• At 9, CBS has a new Harper's Island.
• FOX has a new America's Most Wanted at 9.
• CNBC has a new Suze Orman Show at 9.
• Spike has a new Ultimate Fighter at 9.
• Also at 9: FUSE has Bonnaroo 2009.
• At 10, ABC has a new Eli Stone.
• Style has a new episode of The Dish at 10.
  
• At 12:30AM, Cartoon Network has two new episodes of Bleach.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Rumors that Jack Black was headed to the next Star Trek movie as stellar con man Harry Mudd were dismissed by director J.J. Abrams Tuesday.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd was originally played by Roger C. Carmel (right) in Trek's 1960s series. Whether hustling beauty drugs or androids, Mudd was always looking for a quick space buck and was a humorous thorn in Captain Kirk's side.

While some sites suggested Mudd's would-be return in Abrams' next movie could prove a great opportunity for Jack Black to come aboard the Enterprise, Abrams denied the Black casting move.

If you haven't heard, Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper might be in the big screen A-Team movie. I can certainly picture Cooper in Dirk Benedict's place, and I guess Neeson could make a good Hannibal, though he wouldn't have been one of my top choices. But how about Murdock, the crazy team member played by Dwight Schultz? Who could play him?

(S05E13) Let me ask you a philosophical question: is it possible for a sitcom to be funny and still not be a very good episode? Technically, all a sitcom is trying to do is make you laugh; if it accomplishes that, it's hard to argue that it's a bad episode. Yet, despite above average guffawing throughout tonight's Office, nothing about it worked that well.

The cold open perfectly encapsulates what I'm talking about. Dwight's actions officially crossed the line from odd-but-likable-doofus to dead-eyed sociopath. I get that Dwight's a little out there, but when it becomes plausible that a sitcom character might have a basement pit filled up with hitchhikers he's planning to use to make a girl-suit, you have to take pause and consider how he's being handled. That fire was stupid, unbelievable, and ridiculous.

But it was damn funny. You see my dilemma ...

It looks like The Office scored a major guest-star win. Jack Black will be appearing on the post-Super Bowl episode of the hit series. The episode revolves around a roast given by the employees to boss Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell). It is unknown as of yet what role he will play. Wouldn't it be funny if he was a Schrute? Feel free to speculate.

Usually a television appearance by a movie star is a sign that the star isn't quite as much a star as he/she once was. On the other hand both Black and Steve Carell are part of the Apatow clique, so that could be a factor in his appearance on the show.

A series doesn't get a bigger chance to shine than a Super Bowl lead-in (well, maybe American Idol, but that's debatable). I think between the guest-star and the timeslot, we'll see The Office bringing its A-Game to that episode. Since I'm not a sports fan, I'm looking forward to this more than the Super Bowl itself.

The new season of Sesame Street is right around the corner and, while I normally wouldn't give it a second thought, I am unusually excited right now. No, this isn't a snarky rant about how I've been driven to children's TV because of the sorry state of grown-up programming. Sesame Street's 39th season, starting August 11th, looks like it has a lot of fun lined up not only for the pre-schoolers but parents as well. I already posted Feist's upcoming special take on "1 2 3 4", but I had no idea how many amazing guest appearances were coming. Just check out this star-filled highlight reel after the jump.

(S19E06) "We're gonna be rich! We can finally afford to start a family!" -- Homer

"We have a family!" -- Marge

"A better one!" -- Homer

I think I have whiplash. One minute this week's The Simpsons was about the new comic book store in Springfield and the next Homer was getting his stomach stapled.

I didn't even think this was going to be a Homer-centric episode from the preview comments on the show.Heck, it didn't even seem like he was going to be on the episode at all since his first appearance was about 30 seconds before the second commercial break. When he suddenly became the focus I felt a stabbing pain in my neck.

I may have to sue.

No matter what I do to make my Oscar viewing experience bearable (parties, alcohol, hookers) I always end up wanting to put a gun in my mouth by hour two.

First, let me say that Ellen DeGeneres was very funny and did a great job hosting. Also the song by Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C Reilly was the funniest thing I've seen in a while.

Now let me ask you this...how stupid were those dancers?

ABC really needs to stage an intervention with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It really does. Because, year in and year out, the Academy puts on an Oscars ceremony that not only runs far longer than the network intends, it just ends up boring the crap out of viewers, many of whom are asleep by the time the real categories are decided.

This year's ceremony ran from 8:30 PM ET (after a Road to the Oscars red-carpet special that was just pointless and dull) to about 12:15 AM. That's 3 hours and 45 minutes of speeches, montages, and musical numbers. My god; even the Grammys aren't that bloated, and it's nothing but musical numbers.

Julia told everyone about the new VH1 series The Department of Acceptable Media starring Jack Black back in November, and now there's a little more information available, such as when the heck the show will debut (March 23). Oh yeah, and it's not called The Department of Acceptable Media, anymore, it's simply called Acceptable TV.

The new series will feature several three-minute shorts in one episode, some created by regular folks like you and me, and some created by Jack Black and pals. Viewers will vote on which shows to dump and which ones to keep. If that sounds an awful lot like the Channel 101 site, that might be because Channel 101 helped create the series.

Shorts that are too hot for TV will made available online, and creators will also get a share of the ad revenue everytime their short is viewed online. You can watch some hysterical promos for the new series here.

[via Lost Remote]

Justin Timberlake might be having an identity crisis. When his new album first came out, he tried to make everyone think he was a bad-ass. He gave an interview to the British magazine Observer Music Montly where he said that he tried drugs. I believe the quote was, "I've done my fair share of drugs and I've been caught with my pants down."

Now he seems to be backing off his bad boy image by hosting the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. Although, it's not like previous hosts of that show haven't had a dirtier side. Jack Black, for example, does some great kids stuff but his band Tenacious D is definitely not for kids.

To see Justin get slimed and screamed at by a crowd of pre-teens, the Kids Choice Awards air on March 31 at 8 pm on Nickelodeon.

(S32E07) I pretty much only know Matthew Fox as Jack from Lost, so I didn't really have any expectations going into the episode. As it turned out, Fox was an okay host. However, I thought the night's writing was fantastic. Even the worst sketch of the evening (usually one of those stragglers at the end of the episode) had its moments. I can't quite put my finger on what was done differently... All I know is that I was definitely laughing out loud more than usual.

This wasn't a particularly strong episode. Maybe I only feel this way because I was in a bad mood while watching the episode. I don't know. At least I laughed at the Popemobile within a Popemobile and the family of Vilsack ducks. Oh, speaking of Vilsack... I must praise the TDS writers for not going for a ballsack joke. It would have been easy. Too easy.

"Summit of All Fears": Bush met up wit Maliki again. So awkward.

I love it when stars get into petty fights. They're just like us!

Seems that Entourage star Jeremy Piven doesn't like Jack Black that much. Black beat out Piven for the role of the record store employee in the John Cusack flick High Fidelity, and thinks that Piven still holds a grudge. Black told Howard Stern that he was talking to a director at a movie premiere recently, and right in the middle of the conversation, Piven stepped in between them with his back to Black and started to talk to the director. Of course, Piven's rep insists there's no problem between the two.

This is interesting, because Piven is very good friends with Cusack, and appears in most of his movies in some role. So I wonder why (or if) Piven wasn't chosen for the role in High Fidelity.

[via Pop Candy]