Recapping The Super Bowl, The Strike And The Captain

Well, the best news of the weekend came out of Hollywood, where there looks like there might be some settlement to the writers' strike. Word on the street is that something could be hammered out by as early as this week, which means many shows may be back in production by the end of the month.

What that means in terms of how many episodes of each series we'll get and which shows will return is still up in the air. You can be sure the networks will try to get as many episodes of the big hits like "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI" as possible, but other shows may not fare as well. For example, "Pushing Daisies" has likely wrapped up its brilliant first season already.

Meanwhile, no real complaints about the Super Bowl last night, except that we will be subjected to the '72 Dolphins for a while longer now that the Patriots lost.

And who the hell was operating the clock last night? Was that the Fox graphics department screwing up all night, or was that the stadium scoreboard which was screwing up? Either way, the constant misfiring on the clock was a distraction all night, and set up that last-second weirdness of everyone having to trot back on the field after the game was over.

Of course, as a friend of mine told me, she was eager to watch the series of Super Bowl commercials which were constantly being broken up by spurts of football. As for the commercials, Pepsi/Diet Pepsi came out strong, as did Bridgestone. Budweiser always does a good job, and I liked the "Godfather" parody. But boy, were there ever commercials that came off as more racist than those done by salesgenie.com?

The "House" episode afterward was great, especially the guest turn by Mira Sorvino, and I love the way the producers have brought back Cutthroat Bitch.

MONDAY'S BEST BETS: So, I watched the pilot for "The Captain," (CBS, 8:30 p.m.) and I realized The Telegraph doesn't pay me enough for this job. Watching it in unison with the return of the always-entertaining "Old Christine" (CBS, 9:30 p.m.) makes me wonder who makes the programming decisions at the network. The former is completely devoid of humor and is drowned out by this incessant rock music track; the latter features an Emmy-worthy performance by the brilliant Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

"The Captain" is about a burnt out writer who moves into his friend's apartment building, where he meets the requisite cast of weird characters. It's utterly predictable and seriously devoid of funny. Save yourselves a half-hour of wasted time. (CBS said this was the revised pilot; I can't imagine how the original pilot could have possibly been less funny.)

"Prison Break" (Fox, 8 p.m.), coming off a brilliant promotional spot during the Super Bowl, is back as the gang tries to escape yet another prison. It's followed by a new "Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles" at 9 p.m.

"Dance War" (ABC, 8 p.m.) is back, as is extended versions of "American Gladiators" (NBC, 8 p.m.) and "Deal Or No Deal" (NBC, 9:30 p.m.) On cable, "Kyle XY" (ABC Family, 8 p.m.) is new.