TVSquad

I figured I may as well make this list before I food-punish myself into a turkey-flavored coma this Thursday. It's true, television has gone through its ups and downs in the past year. A bit of residual anger still bubbles within me when I think of Jay Leno shuffling not-so-subtly around Conan O'Brien or the fact that I'll never be as daring or funny as the writers behind Peep Show, but Thanksgiving is not meant for dwelling on silly things like that (it's what the rest of the year's for). Let's review my list of a few (TV-related) things that I'm thankful for, and then I promise I'll let everyone leave and stuff their faces.

Community: I've liked this show since the pilot and I'm thrilled to see it taking off. In the beginning, I enjoyed its snappy dialogue and overall attitude, but feared that it wouldn't find a direction until NBC got impatient and chopped it from the schedule.

Man, that must have been a hell of an after-party Saturday night, huh?

Saturday's episode, hosted by Alec Baldwin, set the record for guest cameos: Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Tony Bennett, and Paul McCartney all showed up to help bring some juice to what turned out to be a middling episode (the Nancy Pelosi sketch and the Baldwin/Martin sketch were good, as was Alec's line, "Bobby McFerrin raped my grandmother," but that was about it). Some of the participants, like Short and McCartney, were true surprises, but the others weren't. Why? Because NBC's promotions department are a bunch of putzes, that's why.