News, random thoughts and What's on: Friday

From tv.com:

Ed Helms won't be leaving his Big Tuna. The actor has been made a permanent cast member of The Office. At the beginning of the season, Helms was added as recurring character Andy Bernard on the NBC comedy.

Helms' character was transferred from the downsizing Stanford branch to the miscreant-filled Scranton branch of the fictional paper supply company at the center of the show. He refers to coworker Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) as "Big Tuna" and planned on gaining favor with boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) by "personality mirroring."

Helms and Carell go back a few years -- before they landed their respective parts in the sitcom, both appeared on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Next, they are both appearing in the film Evan Almighty.

Big hooray for that. His last episode was probably the best this season and his character is among the best on the roster.

That brings me to the aforementioned random thoughts: last night's Office also had me rolling (as well as worried about poor, adorable Pam). But Michael was in rare form. Also genius was Scrubs, which went back to the always-awesome "His Story" gimmick. It's always nice to see inside other characters' heads, and I've been waiting for one on Kelso.

I also wanted to defend Ugly Betty to people like, well, me, who would never watch it. I'd avoided it until about two weeks ago, labeling it in my head as another beauty's on the inside, after-school special type show. Well, it is that, sort of. But what it really represents is the only show on television where I actually have some sort of connection to EVERY character, good or bad. Even on Lost I can't do that... there are characters like Desmond that I just have no connection to and don't really need to see every week. Charlie's heading that way, too.

Anyway, the point is, watch Ugly Betty. Don't, however, watch The Sarah Silverman Program. I'm sorry if you did on my suggestion. It was pretty lame. I wasn't expecting her to be running around acting like a 2-year-old the whole time. The supporting cast was pretty good though. It could appeal to the Borat crowd, but that's not me.

On to this evening: CBS has prepared an hourlong retrospective with SUPER BOWL'S GREATEST COMMERCIALS 2007 (9 p.m.). They're usually the most exciting part of super Sunday.

You'll also see new episodes of: CBS' Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs; Nanny 911 and Trading Spouses on FOX; 1 vs 100, Las Vegas and Law & Order on NBC.