I haven’t been the most faithful watcher of Chuck, but I have to say, last night’s episode reminded me why I’ve always had a soft spot in my hard heart for this show: its distinctive combination of wacky comedy (congratulations to Tony Hale for being a superb mean boss), guest stars like Scott Bakula as Chuck’s kidnapped dad, throwaway jokes like the new frozen yogurt flavor “Obama guava,” and the unique mixture of comedy and action scenes like this one:

But Chuck isn’t doing very well in the ratings, while its co-creator Josh Schwartz gets more media coverage for his other show, Gossip Girl.

Do you think Chuck is worth saving for another season? After last night, I do, but I’d like to know what you think, below. Thanks.

Anyone who loved Joss Whedon’s short-lived series Firefly (2002) or its underrated movie adaptation Serenity (2005) will probably be watching some TV tonight, as two members of that cast, Nathan Fillion and Summer Glau, pop up in prime-time in new contexts.

Glau, now better known for a lesser show than Firefly, Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, guest-stars as herself on Big Bang Theory. She’s a perfect object of adoration for the show’s lovable geeks:

Sight unseen (except for that clip), I’ll bet I’m going to enjoy tonight’s episode, given what a roll Big Bang has been on recently. (I am a member of my colleague Alynda Wheat’s campaign to get Jim Parsons an Emmy nomination.) It’s interesting the way Glau has achieved more success as a grim bombshell these days than she did as a waif-with-interesting-flaws as Whedon’s creation River. In fact, Glau’s glassy-eyed gaze in both Firefly and on Terminator can be seen as a precursor to the dazed-and-confused, “wiped” women of Whedon’s current series, Dollhouse.

Fillion, meanwhile, is starring in Castle, a too-playful-by-half cop-mystery series. In it, he plays a highly successful mystery writer who gets himself assigned to tag along with a cop (Stana Katic), ostensibly to research a new novel, but really because he thinks she’s cute. I gave the show a reluctant C- in EW‘s current “What To Watch” section, which pained me because I really like Fillion, but his charm is really squandered in a premiere episode whose lines are cute and predictable. But, given its plumb time period — Castle debuts right after the premiere of the heaven-help-us, highly-anticipated return of Dancing With The Stars — Fillion may end up with a ratings hit. Given his terrific work in the past (including Whedon’s Dr. Horrible Internet sensation), I can’t begrudge him any success, even if it’s in a vehicle that doesn’t match his talent.

Will you be watching Castle? Were you planning to watch Big Bang Theory anyway, or will you tune in especially to see Summer Glau?

Believe me, you do not want to miss tonight’s double-shot of 24, nor the white-hot TV Watch recap my colleague, Dandy Dan Snierson, will be writing about it. But certain things I will tell you to entice you:

1. Jack Bauer tasers a telephone. It’s awesome.

2. Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and Janis (Janeane Garofalo) have a tense/funny techno-geek face-off.

3. The best line of the night?

“Stress is the fertilizer of creativity.”

I won’t reveal who utters that, but those are words to live by, my friends.

Torture could not induce me to give away anything else. So while waiting for 24 to begin this evening, check out this clip from last week’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, in which it looks as though Garofalo’s tattoos are about to spread and engulf her neck and face, and she mentions, among other things, her pal Rajskub’s 2007 “date” with Rush Limbaugh, below.

Did I mention Jack Bauer tasers a telephone?

Paul Harvey died on Saturday at age 90. He was a remarkably original radio personality. My parents used to listen to his mixture of news and anecdote every day, and when I was a child I became transfixed by Harvey’s rumbling-deep voice and strikingly unique phrasing. He’d pause in the middle of sentences for dramatic effect. He’d rush to the end of a story, pause for so long you thought the radio had gone dead, and then you’d suddenly hear him bark in mock-triumph, “Page two!”… his term for changing the subject, and off he was, onto another story, or to a commercial whose copy he read himself and promoted personally.

Harvey belonged to the pre-TV generation, but lasted well into the Internet age. In recent years, I would hear him only on car trips, around noon wherever I was, on the AM radio dial. He had the gift of making it seem as though he was talking only to you. “Hello, Americans!” he’d greet you merrily: patriotism never sounded so much fun.

Paul Harvey, sir… good day!

I strongly commend to your attention The Black List, Vol. 2, the second installment of interviews with black performers, artists, activists, and one Episcopal bishop, on HBO tonight, 8 p.m./EST. From Laurence Fishburne to Maya Rudolph, from Tyler Perry to Angela Davis, these brief, striking interviews — the subjects face the camera and talk, casually, engagingly, with wit and sometimes bittersweet wryness — about what it’s been like for them to grow up black in America.

Don’t tune in expecting to be lectured to. These folks each have unique stories to tell and ideas to impart, and interviewer Elvis Mitchell (off-camera, never heard) elicits choice moments. I loved hearing SNL‘s Rudolph talk about her mixed-race parentage and how that’s influenced her worldview, and admit to getting goosebumps seeing Angela Davis, her famous 1960s Afro now calmed, speak about the “excitement” of the counterculture era, and how now, when people meet her, they frequently react with joy. Not because they’re meeting someone who was once famous, but because, as she puts it, “I’m a vehicle for time travel” — to a time when “we were going to change the world… we knew we could.”

The first season of Privileged concludes tonight, and I’m pulling for this beguiling little show to survive for a second one. Far be it from me to encourage you not to watch the President’s address to Congress tonight at the same time, 9 EST, but the bright escapism of Privileged, starring the charming, smart JoAnna Garcia, is nourishing comfort-food during the hard times the President will be addressing this evening. The special guest star tonight is Kathy Griffin–on Privileged, not in Congress, that is, though with her reported $2 million book deal, Griffin might as well show up there, too, and donate some of her advance to the ailing economy, don’t you think?

Privileged is one of the few freshman series that’s gotten better since it premiered. It doesn’t help its chances for survival, however, that the low-rated Privileged lives on the CW, where it’s overshadowed by its more-hyped lead-in, 90210. If the CW wants to keep moving in the direction of hip/cult-y/retro, as its nighttime soaps Gossip Girl and 90210 suggest, Privileged, with its unironic heart and sweetness beneath the tart jokes, may not fit into the network’s future.

What do you think? Do you want this show to return? Will you be watching tonight?

More about Privileged: Five reasons to save the show

With Dave, Jay, and Craig in reruns, Conan packing up for L.A., and Jimmy Fallon waiting to move in, the late-night schedule is mostly reruns tonight. This leaves a huge post-Oscar-night joke-gap. I want to hear the annual wrap-up thoughts from the night-time guys who read the jokes for a living, don’t you?

This means we must place our faith in Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel, all putting on fresh shows this evening. My guess is that Stewart, as a former Oscar host himself, will come out punching with the best material, followed closely by Colbert. (Who will make the best retort to Hugh Jackman’s “The musical is back!” manifesto? Who will dissect Sean Penn’s acceptance speech most amusingly?)

I enjoyed ABC’s promo for Jimmy Kimmel:

… but I’ll be curious to see if Kimmel can follow up with material as strong as Stewart and Colbert.

What do you think? Who’s your go-to guy when the other chat hosts take the week off?

Naw, I’m not talking about Kyle Chandler’s Coach Taylor. I mean D.W. Moffett’s Joe McCoy, the blowhard-bully dad of the Dillon Panthers’ new “QB1,” J.D. McCoy (Jeremy Sumpter). Tonight’s edition of Friday Night Lights finds the controlling loud-mouth putting even more pressure on his emotionally-squashed son. One of J.D.’s teammates remarks, “Daddy got him on a leash.”

Veteran character actor Moffett looks like he’s having a great time playing this falsely-jovial, mean, petty backslapper, and why not? He’s getting some typically terrific scenes from the FNL writing staff. They’ve taken a pop-culture archetype that goes back at least as far as 1955′s Rebel Without A Cause (James Dean’s parents pressure him to conform) and, combined with Moffett’s shark-smile and intensity, have made every moment of father-son interaction incredibly tense.

We know that the true father-figure for J.D. (as it is for so many of the young men in this series) is Coach Taylor, and the deadly, silent stares Kyle Chandler shoots Moffett when Joe McCoy enters the sanctity of Coach’s locker-room tonight are priceless.

Everyone in this series is first-rate, of course, but I just wanted to tip my hat at this season’s best villain. Take a good look at Moffett’s performance tonight as you watch.

I mean, you will be watching Friday Night Lights, won’t you? Please?

Reading today’s latest report on the upcoming shake-up in the late-night schedules–you know, Conan doing his last New York show tomorrow night; Jimmy Fallon replacing him March 2; Conan taking over The Tonight Show in June; Jay Leno moving to 10 p.m. in September–I’m starting to think more and more:

You know who might very well benefit most from all this? The two guys few people are talking about in this context: CBS’ David Letterman and Craig Ferguson.

Think about it for a sec. (And hey, wasn’t that interview with David Boreanaz amusing? Watch Bones, all new, tonight!) When NBC makes all these shake-ups, I think a lot of viewers are going to say, enough with all the shifting and the show-biz-political maneuvering. Where’s the stability? Where’s the quality you can count on?

I’m not knocking any of the NBC guys. I have an open mind about Fallon, I like Conan’s show and think his transition to The Tonight Show will be interesting, and believe Leno might actually be better at 10 p.m.–looser, funnier.

BUT: Letterman has been on a roll of late, and he loves to tackle new competition. And Craig Ferguson is increasing his viewership all the time, and has the most distinctive style of all of them right now–no one does celebrity interviews so free-wheelingly. (See above.)

What do you think? A few months from now, when all the moving boxes are unpacked in late-night, after all the new shows have been sampled by viewers, do you think Letterman and Ferguson just might benefit simply by staying put and doing the good work they’ve been doing?

In case you don’t get the reference in the phrase above, it’s an echo of the famous 1975 front-page New York Daily News headline, “Ford To City: Drop Dead,” about then-President Ford’s refusal to sign a fiscal bail-out. I second that emotion about The Real Housewives of New York City: I sorta wish the show would expire, fast. Not a chance, of course: Too many of us — I admit it, I’ve watched — cannot resist gazing upon the icky-beyond-belief “real” housewives of New York City, whose new season of crass social-climbing begins on Bravo tonight.

There’s a new housewife this season: Kelly, who proves in this clip that she’s a deluded exhibitionist and even-more-deluded horse-rider (I’m told by a trained eye living in my house that her form is pretty lame).

Me, I put my hands over my eyes and peek through my fingers at Alex McCord’s hideous husband, Simon, and the couple’s ramshackle summer rental we’re taken to tonight. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with ramshackle, especially in these economic times, but the way Simon talks up the house as though it was an idyllic mansion worthy of his slippered toes–it’s just too, too much.

But, really, that’s the only reason to keep tabs on these squabbling, spendthrift people: to goggle at their cluelessness, their disconnection from the very concept of Reality that Real Housewives promotes.

So will you be watching or avoiding The Real Housewives of New York City?

More on The Real Housewives of New York City: The Real Deal on ‘The Real Housewives of New York City’