On this week’s episode of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight,” Jon uttered the phrase, “until they graduate college.”

Kate instantly scolded him for “leaving out the preposition.”  She prefers “graduate from college.”

Then, in her next sentence, she said she “could care less.”  Then she repeated it, “I could care less.”

So, to recap, she scolds her husband for leaving out [sic] a preposition that didn’t need to be there, and then uttered a completely meaningless sentence that’s a common grammatical faux pas without being castigated one bit for it.

She has it so good. . .

Things I learned from watching the Olympic try-outs on NBC this weekend:

* It’s most likely wrong to laugh at someone who lands on her butt, her face, or with a dive forward roll after a bad vault.  But I did it, anyway.

* It’s now OK to say, “That’s a tenth of a point” after anyone says or does something wrong around the house. I think it might be the new “nuke the fridge.”
* “My name is Ms. Liuken, if you’re Nastia.”  Janet Jackson must be proud.

* Bela Karoly is completely indecipherable.  They should really put up subtitles when he speaks.  Poor Bob Costas didn’t know what to do with him.

* Did Al Trautwig ever appear on camera?

* It’s OK to admit you’re not good enough.  2012 is a looong time away.  To those who finished worst than 10th place, I say, “Go to college.  Learn a skill.  Live life.  There’s more outside the gym than just a parking lot and your parents. You needn’t miss your prom.”

This week, Jon traveled to California to get a hair transplant.  Jon and Kate Plus Eight has officially Jumped the Shark.  It’s not about the cute family in Pennsylvania trying to live life with the pressure of eight kids.  It’s now about the celebrity.  I guess it’s inevitable with any reality show, should it last long enough.

THE SHIELD’s website makes it official: The final season of television’s finest hour begins September 2nd. Someone ought to develop an iPhone widget to count this date down.

An entire music based on the second season.

Yes, that includes the cougar.  You can see his pic on the website above, right next to Kim.

Why this isn’t on Broadway already is beyond me.

This might be the most insane thing I’ve seen on the internet.  This year, at least. Kim’s ode to the cougar is cracking me up as I type this. This isn’t an internet remix goof. She can sing.

As one who is very cynical of television networks, I’m inclined to believe this is a BRILLIANT idea.

Dollhouse Fans Campaign To Save Show — Before 2009 Airdate | The Underwire from Wired.com

Die-hard Whedonites are rallying to save Dollhouse, the sci-fi drama about a group of high-tech killer assassins — eight months before the show even hits the airwaves.

Fearing Dollhouse will get booted off the air, just like the Joss Whedon-helmed show Firefly, fans are plotting and organizing their efforts in online forums. […]

DollhouseForums’ trailblazing leader Nathan posted the following as a call to arms: “After seeing some of my favorite television shows get canceled in the past — as well as the ’save this show’ campaigns that followed — I had the idea that a fan campaign BEFORE the show begins may be the best thing to do.”

Can’t say as I blame him.  If the show stinks, though, he might look silly.

In watching bits and pieces of last season’s SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE on MTV, I stumbled across this piece of genius.

That’s Danny Tidwell’s solo in the finale.  I lost track of the number of spins in the middle of it after 20.  I’m sure it hit at least two dozen.

New season starts Thursday.

Some miscellaneous thoughts on TV news and shows of the week:

• One of the great things about FOX is that they only program two hours a night before throwing it back to their local stations at 10:00.  This always means their shows end promptly at 10:00, with one or two special exceptions.  (Didn’t an X-FILES episode bleed into that hour once?)  But AMERICAN IDOL rules uber alles, and their overtime airings have meant that HELL’S KITCHEN just barely squeeks to an end for the 10:00 time slot.  The show’s only scheduled for 58 minutes as it is, but my DVR still winds up grabbing the last minute of IDOL and cutting off the last minute of HELL’S KITCHEN, which is Chef Ramsey’s final monologue and the coming attractions piece.

I have a better idea, FOX.  When your show runs long, start the next reality show already in progress. I don’t NEED to see the two minute prologue that tells me what happened in last week’s episode.  It’s not that important to a reality show.  Cut that out and let me hear the Chef’s reasons for why he evicted the wannabe he tossed.

• That said, they’re all a pack of losers again this year.  Christina has a chance, I think.  The rest are complete idiots, including that Matt.

• I don’t know who’s to blame, but it was really lousy when the last 20 minutes of the season finale of AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL recorded without sound. Thanks, CW and Cablevision, whoever is to blame.  Idiots.  Now I’ll have to go BitTorrent the show, because you’re not getting any more of my time or money.

• I can’t get enough of that Fantasia performance Wednesday night. I’m still playing it back from YouTube. I hope FOX never shuts that clip down.

• BOSTON LEGAL is a show I lost time for about a year ago, maybe a little more.  It’s probably still a very good show.  It does feature The Shat, after all.  In my perfect world, I’ll catch up to it on DVDs someday after I win the lottery.  In the meantime, it’s been renewed for one last 13 episode season.  David E. Kelley will likely write them all.

It’s just another Kelley show with a short lifespan.  They flame out spectacularly and early, don’t they?  I think BOSTON PUBLIC is the best example of it.  (After the Hook Lady season, it became unwatchable.) On the other hand, I’d gladly take a creative and well written show that only lasts a few short seasons than a mediocre cliched show that lasts 7 plus.

• And I know this is setting the bar very low, but was this season’s BACHELOR the dumbest ever?  Look, I’m married.  I see these shows.  I admit it.  Sometimes, it’s cheesy fun.  The other 55 minutes of each episode is painful.  But how did the little blonde actress fake him out into thinking she was the one for him? She’s clearly the fakest of the lot!  But her Daddy is Lorenzo Lamas, so she has that going for her.  My favorite part of the series was when she referred to her father as having had a TV show once.  You know, RENEGADE?  In the 90s?  What, is FALCON CREST really too old a reference now?  Or was she just too young to have ever stayed up late enough to watch it?  It was on after DALLAS, after all, and that’s pretty late for a 5 year old.

• My mother used to let us watch DALLAS with her at night.  And we were in the room when she watched those trashy soap operas, too.  Sure, I was playing with my GI JOE toys, but still — is that suitable material for a kid?  Is my impending fatherhood weighing on my mind to this degree now, too? Wow.

• The major networks all released their new schedules this last week, and I didn’t care much about any of them.  Is this a sign of maturity?  Or poor programming? Or a healthy track record of disappointment from the networks?

Moviehole.net - 24 heads to Africa!

The original plan for “24 : Day 7” was for Jack Bauer to head to Africa for a couple of episodes. That didn’t work out. When the season was delayed due to the writer’s strike – it only just started resuming filming – the show’s producers decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do a two-hour “24” telemovie, something that would hold viewers over until the long-delayed “Day 7” arrives in January.

EP Manny Coto says a two-hour “prequel” TV movie is expected to air this fall, which will bring Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer to Africa and “lead directly into the events of Season Seven.”

You’ve gotta be kidding me:  The Shield: Coming This Fall

We have to wait another five or six months for the final season of the best show on television?!?  They finished filming it in December.  What’s taking so long?!?

‘Scrubs’ is sewn up — quietly

The network’s final “Scrubs” episode airs next week, concluding its run with the network after seven seasons. But you’d never know it from watching NBC or perusing the entertainment media.

At the conclusion of what was the comedy’s third-to-last episode on NBC on Thursday, viewers were simply urged to check out the show’s interactive features on NBC.com. The usual array of creator and cast interviews that usually accompany the final episodes of a concluding series are likewise largely absent.

The super low-key exit for “Scrubs” is tied to what’s become the worst-kept secret in Hollywood: that the veteran comedy is moving to ABC. The long-pending deal for ABC to pick up 18 episodes of “Scrubs” for next season is effectively, pretty much, essentially, done.

I’m disappointed in both Sharon and Ryan tonight.  I wanted to see those two battling it out in the finale for votes — two strong players with very different gameplay.  Instead, we have Adam once again voting for anyone who’ll cry to him and throwing the game a different way.  We have Sharon refusing to play the game one time too many, refusing a deal (even if ultimately meaningless) that might have covered her secret alliance long enough to save the day.  We have Ryan believing something Adam says?  I still don’t get that one.

So who might win this?  Ryan is the last one left in the house who deserves to win.  He’s orchestrated most of it in the last month.  He’s won competitions.  He’s had Final Two and Final Three deals with just about everyone in the house and never been caught on it.  He’s hid behind a smile and a friendly demeanor while plotting everyone else’s ouster.  He’s a great actor.  He got voted out of the house once and still survived, despite an obnoxious partner nobody liked, and a girlfriend in the house that people didn’t like.
Sheila cries a lot and doesn’t do much. She’s made one strong power play in the season and that’s it.

Adam is an idiot who gets caught in every lie, who nobody really likes, who stabs all of his partners in the back, and yet keeps getting away with it.  How he’s slid this far down the slide of this game I’ll never know. It’s still not enough to get my vote, though.

But how will the jury vote? I don’t think Sheila can win, even with the “I deserve it” and “I’m a single mother” cards being played.   The jury is too cynical for that to work this season.

So, Ryan versus Adam?  Adam is a buffoon. Ryan is well-liked, and if he’s smart he’ll tell everyone everything he’s done, reveal himself as the master manipulator nobody saw coming, and take the half million dollar prize.

That’s my theory.

I’m all caught up on Big Brother, at last.  From here on out, we’ll have spoilers for the season so far.  If you’re not caught up, you’ve been warned.

Boy, what a bunch of criers they have this year.  Who in that house hasn’t cried yet?  Ryan, maybe?

I’m torn between who should win.  It’s either Ryan or Sharon.  While playing vastly different games, they’re both following definite winning strategies.  Ryan’s is more dangerous, though.  Everything he accused Natalie of last week, he’s guilty of.  He has a deal with everyone left in the house to be in the Final Two with them.  Somehow, he’s managed to keep that secret.  Somehow, nobody else in the house has compared notes on Ryan, who’s become something of a House leader and, thus, painted a large target on his back that nobody has yet seen.  That’s remarkable.

Sharon is the first contestant EVER to truly play under the radar.  Others have gotten to the end by riding coattails and then claimed, retroactively, that their intent was to play “Under The Radar.” Sharon actually does it, and works it beautifully.  She stays out of arguments.  She isn’t disagreeable.  She never makes a spectacle of herself.  She just quietly plants bugs in people’s ears and listens to them when they talk.  She stays out of others’ arguments, then reaps the benefits.  She’s playing the game, on purpose, in a low key manner.  If she makes it to the end, she could make a convincing case that she’s the real powerhouse who deserves to win.

This last Head of Household game annoyed me, though.  Using the hamsters as a pre-existing relationship in the house is a trick question.  And, of course, it’s the one that cost Sharon HoH.  Well, that and her ridiculously low answer for the tie-breaking question.  When three people were up in the glass house for two hours each, the answer has to be greater than 130 (2 hours 10 minutes).  Idiot.  I’d just hate to see her lose the whole game for one stupid mistake.

The true power in the game this week is in the Power of Veto.  He or She who wins that, controls who leaves (but not Ryan) this week.  Period.  So while it’s unfortunate that Sharon didn’t win the HoH, she still has a good chance of making it through another week. I think the boys want to take out Sheila just as much as they do Sharon.  And while Ryan’s back door deal with Sharon seems to have been forgotten, maybe it can be revived.  He doesn’t need her, though, so she needs to make a good case that her three votes in the Jury House aren’t enough.

One last thought: Is Natalie the biggest psycho the BB house has ever seen?  You can see the crazy in her eyes, for goodness’ sakes!

Babylon 5 is now available at Hulu.com

It’s just season one right now.  Sound quality seems really good.  Video is, well, decent Flash animation. Still stuff looks good.  Heavy motion is rocky.

‘Survivor’ moving to high-definition - Entertainment News, Survivor, Media - Variety

“Survivor” is going HD.

Granddaddy of the current generation of competition-based reality shows will make the jump to high-definition starting with its 17th edition, which lenses this summer for a fall debut.

It’s about time!