Emmy-Worthy Performance That Will Never Be Acknowledged: With this week’s episode of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, Ian Somerhalder proved yet again that while the Emmy voters may scoff, some of the best acting on television takes place on “genre’” programming.
Saddest Death: NBC’s corporate logo is dropping the beloved peacock in favor of… um, purple?
Biggest Letdown that we probably should have seen coming: After weeks of teasing HAWAII FIVE-0 fans that “this is the one wave you don’t want to ride,” Sunday’s post-Football crisis was averted when the TERRIFYING KILLER TSUNAMI THAT WAS MERE MOMENTS FROM DESTROYING ALL OF HAWAII turned out to be nothing more than a fake-out contrived by a criminal to create a diversion.
Idea We’d Most Like To Encourage: ABC is considering the return of it’s Friday night block of family-friendly comedies. We’ve had the STEP BY STEP theme in our head ever since hearing the news.
Biggest Letdown that we’re totally okay with: Despite the fact that the circumstances surrounding Castle and Beckett’s almost-three-years-in-the-making lip lock weren’t quite how we envisioned things going down, there’s no denying that the episode was worth the wait. Particularly when you toss in some serious screen time for Ryan and Esposito, the adorable way in which our leading players uncharacteristically started to refer to each other by their first names, and Mama Castle’s pointed interrogation of her son that went a little something like so: “I think you should be honest with yourself about why you’re doing this. You had written 22 novels before you met her and you didn’t need to spend every day at the police station in order to finish them.”
Most Blatant, Unacknowledged Rip-Off: New promos for the upcoming NBC comedy reveal to fans of bad 80’s flicks that the series is a pretty blatant rip-off of ABOUT LAST NIGHT. Wonder if they got the “idea” after hiring that movie’s star, Row Lowe, for PARKS & RECREATION?
Best Evidence that there is Still Hope for our Universe: The surprisingly stellar ratings for FRINGE’s debut last Friday that not only saw 4.3 million viewers tune in, but gains of an additional 42% when DVR playback after only three days was taken into account.
Person Most In Need Of Having Her Gaydar Repaired: Seriously, Fran Drescher? You were married to your hubby for 21 years and you didn’t know he was gay? He created THE NANNY!
Best Crossover: Michael Scott bumping into David Brent not only had us wishing Ricky Gervais would step into Steve Carell’s shoes when THE OFFICE star makes his exit this spring, but had us dusting off our old UK OFFICE DVDs in preparation for a serious re-watch.
Folks Most Likely To Be Breathing A Sigh Of Relief: They may have talked a good game, but the producers of TNT’s DALLAS update knew you can’t go back to the land of 10-gallon hats without Larry Hagman’s JR on board.
Show We Most Wish We’d Been Hired As A Consultant On: NBC’s PERFECT COUPLES features one divine pair (Kyle Bornheimer and Christine Woods) and two pairs in desperate need of fine-tuning.
Most Prescient Interview: One day after TWO AND A HALF MEN star Jon Cryer jokingly told Conan O’Brian that he checks TMZ on a daily basis to find out if he has to go into work the next day, Charlie Sheen, his troubled co-star ends up making headlines again.
Worst Timing of the Week: It’s a tie… between every single IDOL hopeful who had to audition after Milwaukee contestant Chris Medina brought a nation to tears with his remarkable voice and tragic story involving his wife-to-be suffering a catastrophic brain injury mere months after being proposed to, and the poor Congressman saddled with delivering the Republican response following President Obama’s State of the Union. 
