There's an obvious pun to made on the name "Germain," fortunately, I'm better than that

...so I'll just point you to this top 10 TV Shows of '06 list by critics named Germain Lussier & Robin A. Rothman

Obviously, I agree with their number one choice-hello, "Studio 60!"-while disagreeing somewhat with this assertion:

Sure, many people who talk about this "dramedy" refer to Bradley Whitford as "Josh" ("West Wing") and Matthew Perry as "Chandler" ("Friends").

I really hope that's not true, though I'll concede in the case of Whitford's character they haven't done as much to define him. We know he likes Jordan & he's a recovering drug addict. But, who, really, is he? I hope we'll get a chance to find out.

But Perry, as I think I've mentioned, has really impressed me on this show with the way he's made me, not exactly forget Chander, but believe in Matt as a seperate fictional entity. Even if he is another example of Sorkin's weakness for creating Sorkin-surrogate writer characters, who are insecure about their sex appeal, and then casting the likes of Matthew Perry or Rob Lowe.

Their number three, "Friday Night Lights" I continue to find paradoxically one of the most watchable, yet missable, shows of the season. When I'm home and it's on, I will often zap over to it several times in an hour, and I almost always find something rewarding. Yet it's missing, for me, that feeling of "I can't miss a single second!" that you get when you're really hooked into some characters or storyline. But as I said many times at the beiginning of the season, any show about high school football that manages to hold even that muhc of my interest must be doing something right.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that last year's "24" was their best yet. After renting the DVD's last week, I have to say, I don't think it holds together as well as the other "days" do. There were one or two more "wait a minute...did they ever explain how..." moments than I remember from the others.

That's quite aside from my continuing qualms about the George W. Bush loving' producers. But I'll still be back for this season, especially after reading a (spoiler-free) review of the first four episodes by Stephen King in the new Entertainment Weekly. I'll probably even have fun.

Oh, and I'm going to make a prediction. This is not a spoiler since it's based on no insider knowledge whatsoever: This is the year they ice Chloe.