I’ve missed a few weeks, but luckily nothing significant happened. There are now plans in place to ensure this never happens again, as we are training panda bears to write this column in the event I fail to (please don’t go extinct or anything).

• The big story of the week was the funeral for Michael Jackson, which turned into a star-studded three-hour event broadcast worldwide on way too many channels.
• Continuing his meteoric second coming rise, Neil Patrick Harris is tapped to host The Emmys.
• The group Little People of America have called on the FCC for a ban of the word midget on the airwaves, as the word is as offensive to them as racial slurs.
• Hulu is heading to the UK. The site is working on a deal to bring its wide range of streaming television across the pond.
• Sci Fi rebranded itself Syfy with the debut of new series Warehouse 13, and the world still thinks the new spelling looks stupid.
• Former House actor Kal Penn officially started his new job for the Obama Administration in the Office of Public Liaison. Look at that, a Hollywood star who actually gave up acting to pursue politics, rather than just talk about it constantly.
• In a bizarre but fun publicity move, Lost producers have asked fans to create a theme song for the show, which will debut at San Diego Comic-Con but probably not really on the show.
• Robin Williams is coming back to HBO to scream and yell a lot in a new special … wait a minute, is Robin Williams the Dane Cook of his generation?

The summer season is getting under way now. Here’s a handy guide of what’s to come:

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

• It hasn’t even debuted yet and I’m already annoyed with NBC’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. I say get them all out of there, and off my screen before the two-hour premiere. (Mon. 8pm)
• But if you can’t get enough of Heidi Montag and Spender Pratt, you can flip over to MTV and see “Speidi’s Wedding Unveiled” in a special presentation of The Hills. (Mon. 11pm)
• Scare tactics are alive and well on ABC’s Earth 2100, which takes a speculative look at how we might just wipe ourselves out in the next 100 years. It WILL happen. Bob Woodruff says so. (Tue. 9pm)
• The following night NBC takes us into the Presidency with Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports. I wonder if he’ll ask how we’re going to avert oblivion in the next century. (Wed. 9pm)
• Just in time for Land of the Lost, find out how Will Ferrell would really fare in the wild as he takes it on with Bear Grylls in a special Man vs. Wild on Discovery (Tue. 10pm)
• The NBA Finals kick off with a Jimmy Kimmel special on ABC before the Orlando Magic take on the Los Angeles Lakers. (Thu. 8pm)
• It’s The Tony Awards in HD for the first time on CBS, and it’s hosted by NPH himself, Neil Patrick Harris! (Sun. 8pm)
• Worst Week is back to burn off its remaining episodes on CBS (Sat. 8:30pm)

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I know that everyone was really excited about NPH hosting SNL, and I certainly thought that it paid off. Expectations are hard to meet, especially when you’re talking about Saturday Night Live, but I thought that this week’s episode was one of the best of the season. Between rocking out the Doogie Howser theme on a keyboard, slapping on a horrible wig and some massive press-on nails, and delivering a great monologue, NPH gave a great performance. Because we like to speak in hyperbole, and arbitrarily rank unimportant things, I have to ask the question: Was Neil Patrick Harris the best host yet this season?

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The fans of How I Met Your Mother baffle me. They’re hardcore, that’s for sure, and their incredible love for the show has permeated the Internet, triggering enough curiosity in me to tune in for a few episodes over the summer. As it turns out, this show makes me groan more than laugh and cringe more than chuckle.

Despite numerous attempts to enjoy them, CBS sitcoms just don’t float my boat. I mean, seriously, how does Two And A Half Men consistently show up at the top of the ratings? HIMYM was over-hyped, to say the least. Overall, I don’t care for it, but … I watch it. Every week. I’ve seen every episode. Why do I hate it? And why do I keep putting up with it? Well, let’s start with the former.

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No Doogie Howser, MD (the show, not the unfortunately named city in Maryland) fan in their right mind would have ever expected Neil Patrick Harris to become one of the funniest people on television in the late 2000s. In fact, NPH’s dead-on timing is the only reason why I tune into the tragically mediocre How I Met Your Mother (yeah, hardcore fans, I went there).

He also has the ability to instantly woo women and men alike, which automatically makes him the most powerful man in show business right now (you may not have noticed, but your pants actually removed themselves during the course of this paragraph). It looks like Saturday Night Live is next in line to get the goods when it returns on January 10th for its first 2009 show, because NPH is finally hosting.

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Sears / YouTube

Commercials are the great equalizer, aren’t they? You may like a particular actor, for instance, and think that they’re having a great career. Then they pop up in an ad, and you realize that most of them are struggling along just like the rest of us.

Take the case of our favorite Twitterer, Felicia Day. By most standards, she’s doing quite well as an actress; geeks everywhere swooned at her turn as Penny on Joss Whedon’s internet sensation Dr. Horrible. She also had a meaty patient-of-the-week role on House. But if you’ve been watching commercials lately (and that’s fewer and fewer of you, thanks to DVRs), you might have noticed Day hawking washing machines for Sears, as part of their “Blue Appliance Crew.” Video is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »