Had one of those “can’t get to sleep” nights last night, so I just kept watching the various TV shows I had recorded throughout the evening. Sunday has become a big TV night, with Extreme Home Makeover (two hours last night), Desperate Housewives, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Grey’s Anatomy. The shows started at seven; I started watching them at nine. And by quarter of two, I was done.

And that is indeed a lot of TV, by anyone’s standards. Why, it was so much TV, I didn’t have time to watch this week’s Doctor Who for a third time!

And most of it is stuff I want to keep watching. Extreme Home Makeover is a recent addition, but it’s totally the sort of emotionally manipulative, tear-jerking, feel-good nonsense that I love so much. I realize this makes me a complete little girl, but I can’t watch the bits where they tell the bus driver to move the bus without getting choked up. Every single gruddamned time. I don’t even mind the constant product-placement logo shots, because even if the companies are donating their time, manpower, and products in exchange for publicity, something good still comes of it. (See? Little girl.)

Law & Order: Criminal Intent only joined my schedule this year because half the episodes star Chris Noth and Annabella Sciora, but I’ve grown to like the Vincent D’Onofrio episodes as well. I can’t put my finger on why this one and the original show have found their way into my heart, but not SVU, which is reportedly the best of the three. Part of it is, I just don’t need three L&O shows every week. But, if the rumors are true and this is the final season for the original show, I may have room next year...

Grey’s Anatomy continues to be one of the best TV shows currently on the air. And it’s on ABC. How did that happen?

And then there’s Desperate Housewives, which I’m afraid I’m watching out of habit more than anything else. I liked last night’s episode okay, but it’s nowhere near the compelling viewing that it was in its first season. People complain about Lost having strayed from the path, but while everything I loved about the first season of that show is still there, still being expanded upon, Desperate Housewives is looking more and more like it has shot its wad. The first season had a strong focus to hang everything else on. This year, it just feels like they’re trying stuff out without a definite plan, and whenever they get back to an earlier storyline, it’s a surprise that feels like an afterthought, rather than a planned return. Like last night’s plot between Bree’s daughter and the Applewhite kid. We’ve seen them in, what, three scenes together this entire season? And nothing has been done to develop their characters, either separately or together. So how am I supposed to be invested in the future of their relationship, or their manipulations of their families? Please.