Pushing Daisies‘ penultimate episode offered a Penny for your thoughts: Emerson’s long-lost daughter — whom he’s spent the series looking for, yearning for, and writing for (his pop-up book about his missing child, Lil’ Gum Shoe, has now been accepted for publication, we learned) — was within his grasp.

So as most of you thought, the whole Bruno-Eminem face-plant was a put-on to boost both men’s new projects, and we all got a good chuckle out of the whole thing. It followed a now-familiar kind of media script: A “spontaneous moment” became a “controversy” which became a “put-on.”

Less amusing is the Heidi and Spencer Pratt put-on over at I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! It’s not so much Heidi and Spencer themselves — we expect them to be phonies, right? — it’s more the way NBC is trying so hard to pump up this reality-game-show’s ratings.

Late yesterday afternoon, MSNBC.com reported that the head of NBC reality programming, Paul Telegdy, said the Pratts were “everything that’s wrong with America… insincere, lazy, entitled, and they claim the devil has possessed them.” (Personally, it lowers my opinion of Satan to think that he’d bother to latch onto those two souls, but anyway… )

Telegdy said in his statement that if and when H&S return to Celebrity, “their value system [will be] utterly deconstructed.” (“Deconstructed”? Uh oh: has some NBC exec been spending company-time reading his Jacques Derrida?) “These people are really going to bare their souls,” concluded Telegdy.

Really? I think the only time this couple bares anything is when Heidi is snapped by the paparazzi wearing a thong bathing suit. (To be fair, Bruno/Borat wears a mean one, too.)

Sounds like P.T. Barnum-style publicity-seeking to me, rather than a sincere scolding. Maybe I’m wrong. 

What do you think? Whose put-on do you like more, Eminem and Bruno’s, or Heidi, Spencer, and NBC’s?

For more on I’m a Celebrity:

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!: Janice Dickinson took my pillow

For more on Eminem and Bruno at the MTV Movie Awards:

Eminem speaks out on Bruno stunt

Burn Notice came back with a fine third-season opener written by creator Matt Nix entitled “Family and Friends.” When a TV series gets back to its basics, when the people working on it say to themselves, in effect, “Hey, you know that stuff we did the first season? That worked, and we’ve gotten away from that” — that’s when you get some satisfying TV. Burn Notice did exactly that. There was a lot of BN trademark stuff: Jeffrey Donovan’s Michael Weston making disguises and weapons out of ordinary stuff at hand (love that briefcase tricked out with a knife); Michael goofing around with Fiona and Sam while obsessively scarfing down yogurt, Michael throwing a lot of elbows and bashing bad guys in well-choreographed fight scenes. (Tim Matheson, whom BN fans remember as playing Larry, directed this episode.) Call me a simple man, but I’ll take that over the fancy shimmying on So You Think You Can Dance or new crap like The Listener any day.

At first, it seemed as though Michael Weston was back at square one: “You’re as burned as ever,” as Sam put it. Yes, he’d rid himself of the “Management” group that had been bedevilling him last season (and which became too intrusive and action-slowing, for my taste). But he’s still taking on clients; he’s still being betrayed regularly. (I was glad that guy Harlan doesn’t look as though he’ll become a regular; I like that actor, Brian Van Holt, but I want my core characters. As Michael’s mom said, “You three need to stick together.”)

It was a little odd that the episode’s main villain, the big bad rich guy with the most to lose, was overshadowed by his henchman, but when that henchman is played by the fantastic character actor Jeff Kober, just about anyone in the frame is going to be upstaged.

Next week, we meet Michael’s new ongoing nemesis, a Miami cop, Det. Paxson, but I’m not giving anything else away.

No, I want to know what you thought: Did you watch the Burn Notice season premiere? Did you like it? Does it seem like an improvement on last season? Let me know; thanks.

And so we come to the end of the first week of I’m A Celebrity. The show cheated on its promise to reveal whether Heidi and Spencer would be allowed back into the camp in Costa Rica. We saw just a few seconds of them entering the dark, buggy, snakey room where they must spend the night for a chance to beg their way back onto the show, but even those few seconds were made revolting by Heidi praying to “dear Jesus” to give her and her husband the strength to be able to continue to make other people’s lives miserable.

As for the eviction (do you really want a Spoiler Alert?) Angela, half of the Frangela comedy team, was the first person voted out by the public phone-in vote, and… does anyone care? 

The only amusement tonight was provided by Janice Dickinson, who has turned out to be a bit of a kleptomaniac, thieving items from others. (“Who took my pillow?” bellowed John Salley. Boy, they’re really roughing it out there, aren’t they? Janice stacks up nice, soft pillows for herself.) Janice also has some sort of chest congestion that compels her to heave sprays of mucus everywhere. The now-departed Angela had the best line: “Janice has been hawking up something from her Studio 54 days.”

The Hosts So Mediocre I Shall Not Write Their Names promised viewers that we’ll be told Monday whether Heidi and Spencer will re-join the competition. 

Me, I’m not a celebrity, but I want out of here. How about you? Will you be watching next week?

The “surprises” continued on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! As NBC was careful to reveal before Wednesday night’s episode, Heidi and Spencer Pratt have decided they want back in after screaming to get out, and a previously-announced substitute for them, Daniel Baldwin, joined the Costa Rican cuckoo’s nest. Even though there’s no need for him, since H&S have returned. (The closing live-broadcast minutes ended in the middle of the celebs taking a vote as to whether the Pratts can rejoin, but there’s no way the producers aren’t going to force those two onto the show. I mean, Heidi even claimed “the Devil” made them leave; no self-respecting TV exec is going to let that kind of looniness get away.) 

In a show that so far has simply been dumb and fitfully funny, Stephen Baldwin’s reaction to his brother Daniel’s arrival was distinctly odd. Stephen said it was “a gnarly Jedi mind-trick” to allow Daniel in, and Stephen started mumbling incoherently about how to behave when “a lion” enters and something about Bruce Lee. (I worry that Stephen may soon place a long-distance coconut-phone-call to his brother Alec to ask the 30 Rock star to send him his teddy bear and blanky.)

Before all this, Janice Dickinson, until now this insane show’s voice of reason, finally reverted to the diva ditziness we know from the 438 other reality shows she’s appeared on. First she went into hysterics after John Salley called her bad names in response to her constant demands. Then when the new cast member arrived, she uttered this bit of semi-English: “I know all the Baldwins; I never met the Daniel.” OK, go have a little lie-down now, Janice.

Alright, I’ve watched for three days, there’s no way I’m not going to tough it out and see who gets evicted tomorrow, the final night of Celebrity‘s first-week run. After that, I’ll see if my head can bear any more inanity.

How about you? Still watching? Enjoying I’m a Celebrity more than I am? Less? Let me know; thanks.