TVSquad

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

There's really nothing interesting about the ratings this week (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, blah, blah, blah), except for the fact that ABC's Primetime got into the top 20 with their "What Would You Do?" special. That and the fact that FOX's 'Til Death is on the list.

The return of How I Met Your Mother made the top 20 too.

1. American Idol - Weds (FOX)
2. American Idol - Tues (FOX)

If I was to pick the Top 5 things I hate about television, the coverage of the NCAA Tournament this month would be near the top of the list. It interrupts regular shows, and I truly don't understand why people get so ga-ga over COLLEGE basketball, unless you went there or something.

But I do like the brackets set up, and we can use it for other things in life, including TV! Jacksonville.com has a tournment of their own going on. They're trying to pick the best sitcom character of all-time and they need your help. Go here and vote for your favorites in Week 1 (the second round is this Wednesday). Make sure you read the directions carefully.

Speaking of brackets, I picked up the new book The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. It's a clever idea: get an expert in a particular field to set up a tournament about everything in life (puncuation, sports rivalries, dogs, political issues, etc) and keep on narrowing them down til you get the champ. There's a lot of TV-related ones in the book, including game show catchphrases (by Ken Jennings), animation characters (by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast), black and white TV shows, talk show hosts, and several more). Lists like these are argument starters for sure, and the entire outcome depends on how you start the brackets, which is rather random (unless you do something like talk show hosts, which you can at least start by nighttime, daytime, or region). Why are certain people/items placed together and not in another bracket? So it's probably not precise, but it's a ton of fun.

[Thanks to Toby for the tip.]

• "Men don't like stop signs, they like green lights. And war." - Christine, explaining relationships, on The New Adventures of Old Christine.
• "I don't even want to tell you what I thought that said." - Bridget, trying to read a messy handwritten note that said "vanilla," on 8 Simple Rules.
• "I don't like female basketball or male pornography. Nothing against either of them..." - Jimmy Kimmel, on the Women's NCAA basketball championship.
• "He could be a dynamite center square." - J.D., about a funny patient, on Scrubs.
• "It sounds like a newspaper headline after a construction accident in a Star Wars movie." - Keith Olbermann, talking about the Wookie Hole Caves in England, on Countdown.
• "Or as I like to call it, "Waiter Weekly." - Karen, about Backstage magazine, on Will and Grace.

• ABC has the two hour premiere of American Inventor at 8, followed by a new Primetime.
• CBS has March Madness coverage. That's college basketball to you and me.
  
• NBC has all new eps of Will and Grace, Four Kings, My Name Is Earl, The Office, and ER.
• FOX has a new That 70s Show at 8, followed by new eps of The Loop and The O.C.
• The WB has repeats of Smallville at 8 and then Supernatural.
• UPN has repeats of Everybody Hates Chris, Love, Inc., Eve, and Cuts.
• Food Network has a new ep of Chefography, about Ina Garten, "The Barefoot Contessa." It's on at 8.
• Also at 8: FX has the infamous Gigli, with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. It's followed by..well, Gigli again.
• At 9, IFC has Nick Nolte in The Good Thief, while HBO has Annette Bening in Mrs. Harris.
• Macauley Culkin talks to Larry King on CNN at 9.
• At 10, HGTV has a new ep of House Hunters.
• ESPN2 has coverage of the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament. It's on at 10 too.
• Also at 10: TLC has a new episode of Beyond The Bull.
• At 11, HGTV has a new ep of Design, Inc.

Famed Men's NCAA basketball coach Bob Knight has been given the opportunity to yell at people and not get fined for it. Knight's new reality show Knight School premieres this Sunday night on ESPN.

The six episode season will follow Knight as he weeds through a bunch of walk-on players in an attempt to find the most talented one and give him a spot on the Texas Tech men's roster. The show was shot over a span of three months which should have given the camera crews plenty of time to catch Knight on tape doing any number of things. For those that pay any attention to college basketball, there's no doubt that you've seen the famous footage of Knight throwing a chair onto the court in the middle of the game when he coached Indiana. This show could be a disaster but it will probably make for excellent viewing if only to see what Bob will do.