Since "American Idol" is not television programming, but rather a lifestyle choice, we're going to try something a little different during the initial auditions: liveblogging. Basically I'm just going to write down whatever I'm thinking about the episode as it happens. I've never done this before, so be gentle, dear readers.And onward into the abyss...We open by flashing back to that dreaded day last May. The 2006 Idol finale. Taylor Douchebag Hicks is on the stage. Why must I endure this again? He wins. Vomit. "Do I Make You Proud?" No, you make me barf, you fake-ass piece of crap.

We’re in Seattle. More than 9,000 screaming idiots came out. Jesus. Lots of clips about how it’s raining. In Seattle! Whodathunkit?! Our first audition of the night is another asshole dressed up like Uncle Sam. Did I miss a memo or something? Is there some weird trend or fetish I’m unaware of? How is it that two seemingly unconnected contestants try to pull the exact same gimmick two nights in a row? And one so random. Anyway, we actually know this chud. It’s the police officer who sang "I Shot the Sheriff" last year, notable for rigidly obeying the song’s pauses

As the season rolls on, emotions run high on "Grey's Anatomy." Last night George discovered the truth about his father's surgery --- that the doctors performed it, at his dad's request, knowing that there was almost no chance he would survive it --- and flew off the handle, as expected. It was a dramatic scene as he yelled at both Dr. Bailey and the chief in regards to their lack of frankness with him. McSteamy wasn't quite so...steamy, as he showed a softer side of himself while expressing sadness, uncertainty and regret over Addison aborting his baby a year ago. But I've got to

I always get nervous when I hear that one of my favorite television shows is doing a musical episode. Don't get me wrong --- I love musicals. It's just that sometimes the musical episode is a signifier that the writers have run out of material and it often goes horribly wrong. But, on rare occasion the stars align and the show can be absolutely hilarious, as in the case of the "Scrubs: My Musical" episode last night. Not since the musical episode of "Buffy" (pure genius) has a show so cleverly pulled it off. The producers made the right choice

After the atrocious second season of Desperate Housewives wrapped up, I vowed never to turn the show on again. But then I started reading all these articles about how the show had brought in new writers, that they recognized what a joke Season 2 had become and that Season 3 would be different. And quite frankly, I got suckered into watching again. The first half of Season 3 ended and I once again vowed that I was done with the show. And yet here I am still watching. It's like the old cliché of the train wreck that you just can't look away

NBC's "Heroes" began the second half of its first season last night in predictably excellent fashion. It wasn't as exciting as some of the earlier episodes, or even the crackerjack fall season finale. But for an episode basically designed to bring newbies up to speed and remind established watchers of our expansive cast of characters and their abilities, it actually got a lot of things done. To wit:-Hiro began his sword quest. We know that, eventually, Hiro will get himself the must-have accessory for any hero-in-training, the samurai sword. The "future Hiro" who visited Peter on the subway back in,

And here they are:Best Picture: "Babel," "The Departed," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Queen." Eric's pick: No idea; I'm just glad that "Dreamgirls" wasn't nominated. It speaks highly of the Academy that it ignored the hype and saw the movie for what it is: a plooding, dull, cliché fest. And the music isn't very good, either.Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, "Blood Diamond"; Ryan Gosling, "Half Nelson"; Peter O'Toole, "Venus"; Will Smith, "The Pursuit of Happyness"; Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland." Eric's pick: Whitaker is pretty much a sure thing for his turn as Idi Amin, but

So, the live-blogging kicked my ass. Like, hours of my life. Gone. And it made for realllllly long blogs. We can't have that. And so, a new format for your "Idol" speculation: The good, the "good," and the good for television.So, Memphis:THE GOOD:-Melinda Doolittle, professional back-up singer. Melinda does not necessarily have the look for "Idol" --- she looks much older than she is, and has an older type of sound to match. But man, can she sing. She did Stevie's "For Once in My Life," and it was so easy and breezy that it barely seemed like work at

After last night's episode there's a good chance I'll be skipping next week's finale. I've followed the show since the first episode of the season, but I simply don't care who wins at this point. In a shocker of an elimination, Elia and Sam --- my best guesses for winner since the beginning --- got cut, leaving us with Ilan and Marcel. So basically, jackass vs. jackass. Who am I supposed to be rooting for here?Marcel was an obvious choice. It's a cardinal rule of reality TV that your "villain" makes it to the final episode. But picking Ilan over

We're in New York, and predictably get the best crop of talent thus far. Somehow this two-hour episode went by quicker than all of the previous three combined. Probably because we had some genuine contenders in the mix.THE GOOD:Jenry Bejarano says he's 16, but he looks like a 20something to me. And also, a male model. Disgustingly handsome, and a nice voice to boot. Best part: He's totally, adorably humble (or at least fakes it well), and is clearly over-the-moon about his adoptive mom. Awww! Total ringer for Top 12.Jory Steinberg is 25 and originally from Canada, where I'm guessing

Last night's episode of "Grey's Anatomy" was filled with surprises. As I predicted last week, Christina lost the battle of silence with Burke. After the death of his father, George turned to sex with Callie as his form of denial, leaving the poor girl totally worn out. While Meredith and McDreamy attended a dinner party at Christina and Burke's place Christina accidentally let out that the chief had asked Burke to step in as chief, which in turn infuriated McDreamy. The chief got a bit of his own medicine when he discovered that his estranged wife had a new man in the house when he came to

What started out as a fun, campy distraction has quickly deteriorated into a complete clusterf**k. "Surreal Life: Fame Games" gives "The Surreal Life" gang --- Hollywood has-beens desperate for a few last gasps of notoriety --- a "Real World/Road Rules Challenge" spin, as the C-listers compete in various fame-related games to win a $100,000 grand prize. The first few episodes separated the 10 players into two groups, the A-List (Rob "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle; Sandy "Peppa" Dennis; CC DeVille from Poison; porn star Ron Jeremy; and Playboy TV personality Andrea Lowell) and the B-List (Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer; ex-wrestler Chyna Doll;

By far my least favorite episode of the season. A lot of treading water, story-wise, and the focus was on most of the boring characters (Peter, Mohinder, Matt). But we did have some interesting moments:-Claire's real mom is Crazy Gina from "Nip/Tuck"! That's pretty awesome. Even better, she's a fire-starter, which should be exciting to watch. It also brings up some questions: Presumably she didn't die in the fire in which she "lost" Claire because she's immune to her own power (you'd kind of have to be, I imagine, if fire shoots out of your fingertips). But then why/how did

Ryan tells us over and over how Alabama is "Idol country," as it spawned Ruben, Bo, and Taylor. Ugh, like that's something to brag about. Judging by the crop that showed up to these auditions, we will not have an Alabaman in the finals this year. This may be the worst audition episode of the series, ever. Certainly the most boring. THE GOOD:There were precious few to pick from, but I'm rather partial to Jack Osbourne look-alike Chris Sligh, 28, who has a little chunk, a lot of poodle hair, and even more charisma. He's charming in a self-deprecating kind of way,

The best part of L.A.: Olivia! Newton! John! Yeah, she was kind of worthless as a guest judge --- she’s far too sweet to shatter the dreams of the delusional masses --- but oh, how I love her. The worst thing about L.A.: that it came on at 9 p.m. so that Fox could pull a bait-and-switch to pimp freaking “Bones” instead. I call bollocks!THE GOOD:You can tell that good things are coming for Alaina Alexander --- she had full-on Mannequin make-good music playing in the background as soon as she started talking about how she was thisclose to giving