Friday Night DVR

The Mentalist. Simon Baker is a lovely, lovely man. Robin Tunney is as pointless as, well, Robin Tunney in anything she's been in. I understand a faint cheer went up across the land when she was finally dispatched on Prison Break. Put Robin Tunney, Elisabeth Roehm and Anna Torv together and you could form a perfect triangle of pointlessness. Seriously, all the charisma of used lawn furniture. The second best thing about The Mentalist is Tim Kang, or as the S/O refers to him, "Asian Jack Webb."

The problem with The Mentalist -- other than Robin Tunney lurching pointlessy about -- is that it's a CBS show. You know, the kind of show your grandparents watch. It's like a slipper, or oatmeal, or like a slipper full of oatmeal. And while slippers and oatmeal can offer a certain comfort, they lack pizzazz. When a show like The Mentalist -- acknowledging the charms of Simon Baker and Asian Jack Webb -- can be "America's Number One New Show" while Pushing Daisies is, well, pushing up daisies, just goes to show that we are not at all hip or cool or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

The New Twilight Zone. Episode 1 was "To See the Invisable Man," a sappy paean to the need to connect with our fellow humans, blah, blah, blah. Made me realize that if I was sentenced to a year of no one acknowledging my presence, I would be a very happy woman indeed. Episode 2 was "Button, Button," starring a delightfully dippy Mare Winningham and an almost as dippy Brad Davis as a bickering couple trying to decide if they should push a button that would kill a perfect stranger but deliver them $200,000.

Watching The New Twilight Zone on Chiller is like opening a time capsule from the '80s. Look! Bruce Willis with hair! Pam Dawber wearing a skinny pink tie and a cashmere sweater vest! It's uneven but there are some gems, particularly the adaptation of Robert McCammon's excellent short story "Nightcrawlers," and the nasty little tidbit "Need to Know" starring William Peterson. I still remember watching the adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "The Elevator" alone one night at college and being unable to sleep without the lights on.

BBC's Top Gear. First thing I realized while watching this episode: given the choice between the Dodge Charger, the Cadillac, the Corvette, and the old Fiat you had to drive with the boot open so the engine would keep running, I would still choose the Fiat. The second thing I realized while watching this episode: Jeremy Clarkson is a very funny man, but also the kind of guy likely to get you arrested for something you didn't actually do.