Must See TV...return to glory (working)

Ah, another week nearly complete and me still without a snow day. What's with that, by the way?

At least it's a quality Thursday with a goodly amount of TV to zone out to tonight. Really, though, it's not about the amount of television to be watched but rather about the sheer quality of television to be watched.

From My Name is Earl to The Office followed by Scrubs, this may be my perfect threesome of sit-coms. And 30 Rock isn't a bad closer, in all honesty.

It would be the absolute rebirth of Must See TV if only NBC would call it that. But, no...they go with "Comedy Night, Done Right" instead, ruining their one chance at rebuilding the awesome power of the Must See TV brand, a brand that ruled television for a dozen years through the early 80's and into the 90's of my college years.

Ah, but let us take a moment to remember the glory that was Must See TV...

The core of NBC's Thursday night line-up was, to me at least, The Cosby Show. The ultimate white-safe black family - a doctor, a lawyer, an upscale house, dozens of aunts and uncles from the jazz and movie crowd of the past decades, and those classic sweaters - made for a run of sit-com dominance that defined the 80's. The Cosby Show opened the Thursday night lineup from fall of 1984 through spring of 1992 giving us classic moments like this.

Following The Cosby Show on the purest Thursday night lineup of my childhood were Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court. That lineup lasted three years until Family Ties was traded out for the Cosby spin-off A Different World. Then came Dear John, a passable entry but not one quite up to the high quality level that NBC had set for itself. In 1990, NBC saw it's first failed Thursday entry in a decade, Grand, quickly replaced by Wings and another failure - this time a two-year experiment - Final Appeal.

Four years of Friends and Seinfeld brought most of the glory back to the Thursday lineup, but until Will & Grace came along, there wasn't a consistent pairing of shows with Friends and Seinfeld, and NBC screwed everything up with the placement of The Apprentice - the first non half-hour sit-com to be between 8 and 10 on Thursdays in nearly twenty years.

And then this year came along. Finally, a new perfect lineup has returned for NBC's Thursday night: My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock. All are excellent shows - the first last one growing on me of late, particularly last night's episode with Paul Reubens as a guest star.

It's good to have Must See TV back - even if NBC isn't using the slogan any more.

So don't expect me to accomplish much on Thursday night.