TVSquad

Former According to Jim star Jim Belushi is moving to a drama series. He's been tapped to star in a legal drama created by Murphy Brown mastermind Diane English and Homicide and Oz exec-producer Barry Levinson. The show is loosely based on the memoir "How Can You Defend These People?" by TV commentator and lawyer Mickey Sherman.

This is an excellent way for Belushi to wash the stench of According to Jim from his person. If presented as a dramedy (much like many of the popular dramas today), this could be a winner.

I'm guessing that people who never liked According To Jim or understood why it remained on ABC's schedule for so many seasons think that this is an appropriate title for the series finale. Me? I never hated or loved the show. It was just "there," an innocuous family sitcom that a lot of people seemed to like. Also: Courtney Thorne-Smith is really hot.

Did you happen to watch this episode? What did you think of this show being on for so long, in general?

This will be the last season of According to Jim, and I will miss it. Not because I liked the show, or even watched the show (I did see one episode while waiting on line at UPS and then decided to never watch it again), but because According to Jim has been the target of all my jokes about the lack of quality network television for virtually as long as its been on the air.

If you care about such things, then spoilers follow about the series finale.

Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the TV Squad Put Me Out Of This Misery Award for 2008 is ... According To Jim!

It was inevitable, really. It was the heavy favorite in the TV Squad offices, and the show has really been baffling TV fans with its uncanny ability to survive. A show hasn't survived like this since CBS' Yes, Dear, which lasted for many seasons, then was seemingly canceled, only to come back out of the ashes later with new episodes that hadn't aired yet (hell, it could still come back: the web site is still live).

While it was the clear winner in the category, that doesn't mean there wasn't any discussion. My personal choice for the award was Last Call with Carson Daly, which just seems to be a nothing show, with a lackluster host and bad guests, in a time slot that no one cares about. And his coming back early from the WGA strike didn't endear Daly to many either. But in the end we realized that even though his show is deadly, it's on at 1:35 in the morning and doesn't have the head-slapping "WTF" factor that According To Jim seems to get every season that it's renewed (full disclosure: while I think its time has passed, I find According To Jim rather harmless and better than has been advertised).

As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies -- Ever with numbers 30-21, we here at TV Squad are also looking at television comedy, but with a slightly skewed difference. Last week, we took a look at the numerous stand-up comedians who became sitcom stars. In this installment we look at one particular TV comedy that made stars out of a number of actors and actresses.

I'm talking about NBC's Saturday Night Live. Since its premiere in 1975, the late-night sketch show has given us a slew of actors and actresses who have made the move onto both the big and small screen. Sometimes the move was towards more comedy, sometimes it was a switch to more serious roles, other times it was a little bit of both. And, while many of those who made it are still in the public eye these days, some of the greatest of those who came from Studio 8H had their careers snuffed out way too early.

The amount of those who rose to the top varied from cast to cast. Some casts, like the very first one, produced a whole slew of talent who went on to bigger and better things. Others, like the first casts from 1980-85 and the mid-1990s, produced very little in the way of big stars.

I have a confession to make: I don't hate According To Jim.

Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for home-based sitcoms or maybe it's because I've had a huge crush on Courtney Thorne-Smith since the 80s (Day By Day!), but the few episodes I've seen were cute, amusing, and harmless.

Of course, that doesn't mean I necessarily welcome this news, that ABC is in talks with ABC Studios to bring the show back for an eighth season.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• Ugh. Dina Lohan's reality show starts filming next week for E!
  
• Daniel Dae Kim got busted for driving under the influence. Great. Now Jin's gonna get shot on Lost, and I really liked him.
  
• Did Jim Belushi sell a lemon to an elderly man?
  

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

I remember when I was a young man many years ago, watching a short-lived sitcom called Working Stiffs. I was enthralled with a very young and talented comic-turned-actor named Michael Keaton but even more so with the man who played his brother, Jim Belushi.

Since I was really just a kid, I was unable to be a real fan of John Belushi. Sure, I had heard about some of the stuff he did on Saturday Night Live and my parents talked about him a lot, but I was just too young to grasp his genius at the time. Jim, however, was a different story.

According to Jim is getting one more season. No, seriously.

TV Guide is reporting that ABC has suddenly renewed the sitcom for another 18 episodes. No word on why. The sitcom wasn't on the network's fall schedule, so everyone presumed it was canceled and ABC Entertainment President even alluded to that possibility.

Did anyone even make a stink about According to Jim not returning? I've heard about a lot of fan efforts to bring back shows, but I'm pretty sure I didn't hear anything about resurrecting According to Jim.

*Apparently Courtney Thorne-Smith is pregnant. Maybe they've decided to add another member to the family.

Our weekly roundup of what's happening on the other TV blogs.

• Stupidest Reality Moment of the Day, over at Best Week Ever: Nick and Aaron Carter fighting. Uncensored!
• More great stuff from Ken Levine: behind the scenes of Cheers.
• Funny interview with Jeffrey Tambor at Radar. He went bald at 17??
• Ausiello has seen the Lost season premiere.
• Speaking of Lost, Time's James Poniewozik watched that clip show and wonders if it holds any clues for the third season.
• David Cross vs. Jim Belushi: the video!

Not all television dads are the epitome of fatherhood. There are plenty of dads out there in TV land who, frankly, would rather be somewhere else. So, in the fine tradition of opposing viewpoints, we present the five worst TV dads.

Aaron Echolls (Veronica Mars):  Sure, to the movie-watching public he was known as a class-A actor who was kind to his fans. But, to his family, he was known as an adulterer with a violent temper who beat on his son Logan. Oh, he also murdered Veronica Mars' best friend Lilly and the abusing boyfriend of his daughter Trina (Update: well, almost). On the bright side, he has a really nice head of hair for someone his age.

Well, maybe. Rick Ross over at Cult News is reporting that Jim Belushi's new book, Real Men Don't Apologize, may borrow from the teachings of a controversial guru named Justin Sterling (real name, Arthur ''Artie'' Kasarjian). Sterling runs an expensive seminar where the main focus is that gender roles have become confused, with women becoming more masculine and men becoming more feminine. Personally, I thought this theory was a load of horse hockey until last night when I inexplicably gave birth to a baby girl. Apparently Sterling was really onto something.

Anyway, naysayers dismiss Sterling as being misogynistic, and teaching that a woman's only goal in a relationship is to garner power and resources. Men, on the other hand, marry for love. Again, I say that's a load of bull, and only describes four out of my last six relationships (but I kid). Anyway, the most interesting (or terrifying) thing to come from this is that apparently these seminars end with the men stripping naked as part of a ritual and being videotaped. I'm guessing there may be some correlation between Sterling's hatred of women and his desire to videotape naked men, but I'll let you suss that one out yourselves.

It seems like the number one example that anyone seems to give when discussing the all-important topic of "What's Wrong with Sitcoms?" is According to Jim. And with good reason: it's not funny. It's a paint-by-numbers script full of lame jokes. Jim Belushi's character is the epitome of the fat, lazy husband that doesn't do anything to deserve his unblievably hot wife. Oh, and did I say it's not funny? I did? Well I'll say it again: it's not funny.

But, for some reason, ABC likes this show, despite its declining ratings. How do I know? Well, Jim Belushi mentioned the show's pickup for the fall when he was on the Howard Stern show today. This means the show will be entering it's sixth season -- and has enough episodes to hit the syndication jackpot -- while innovative shows like Sons & Daughters, supposedly a favorite of ABC executives, gets the ax.

So, does anyone here actually watch According to Jim? And, if so, why do you like it? I'm extremely curious as to what you see in this show year after year. Is it the family element? Unrequited crush on Courtney Thorne-Smith? I want to know!

November sweeps stunts brought us stormtroopers on The Apprentice, a live debate on The West Wing, a dead chick on Lost and Medium in 3-D. Why are February ratings so tame? One word: Olympics.

NBC is expected to kick some television tail when it covers the Olympics every single night from February 10-26. Going into this month, the networks are touting some pretty uninteresting guest stars on the shows that need a boost. And that's about it. Oh, there is also going to be some sh*t going down on The O.C., but you don't want the spoilers, do you?

Here are some highlights for February sweeps, which began yesterday and run through March 1: