The Suite Spot Weekly TV Round-Up: 11/2 - 11/8

Welcome to the newest weekly column here at The Suite Spot, where I'll be bringing to you the week in TV. A sort of "in case you missed it" crash course covering anything boob-tube related. If it's on TV, then I probably watch it.

If you have any sense of television history, then you've probably heard of a little cartoon called The Simpsons. This past Sunday marked the show's 19th "Treehouse of Horror" special, and while I personally think they usually suck, this one had an extremely relevant highlight - a spoof on the Emmy winning/critically-acclaimed AMC drama Mad Men. If you aren't watching this show, you should be. Now. Anyway, The Simpsons beautifully re-created the entire opening sequence (frame for frame) from Mad Men. Take a look:



Moving on to Monday night Prison Break made an effort to shake things up a bit by killing off original cast member Brad Bellick (played by Wade Williams, pictured above). This entire season has been much better as the show has been re-created into a heist drama, but Bellick's presence has been a non-factor. The idiotic redneck we grew to love over the first three seasons has played no role in this season's machinations and frankly, it seems to me that his death was inevitable from the get-go. I don't see it impacting the remainder of the season at all.

On to Tuesday night, nothing new was on save for the Presidential Election, which brings me right into Wednesday night. Anyone still watching South Park? For the most part, I try to catch it, but it's hard to figure out when episodes are new since seasons always tend to take off months at a time. However, I caught this one and I'm glad I did. Kudos to Matt Stone and Trey Parker because they must have worked their asses off following the announcement of Obama winning late Tuesday night. The duo re-cut the entire episode all day Wednesday, even going so far as to included exact phrasing from Obama's acceptance speech into the episode. While it's clear that much of the episode is ambiguous and would have worked had McCain pulled off a victory, it's still impressive to think that whole chunks of the episode were prepped mere hours before it aired. You can see the whole episode at South Park Studios.

Also on Wednesday night, FX freshman drama Sons of Anarchy continued with its trend of getting better and better each week. Embroiled in a cat and mouse game with the ATF, I'm really looking forward to see how Clay and Jax can get SAMCRO out of this mess. I'm especially impressed with Agent Stahl (Ally Walker, pictured). She's been relentless in her pursuit of the club, but after her run-in with Otto at prison, I don't see it ending the way she wants. In other FX news, the network announced this week that both Nip/Tuck and Damages will return in January. Here's the latest promo for Damages:

Moving on to Thursday night and Grey's Anatomy, ABC suits dropped a bombshell this week when they announced that last night's episode, "Rise Up," would be Brooke Smith's last. Apparently execs at the Alphabet network weren't too happy about Erica's (Smith) lesbian storyline with fellow doc Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez). Personally, I didn't care for the plot too much either but it is November sweeps. However, was it really necessary to fire Smith? Anyone else see it? To be honest, her exit wasn't too bad. Considering everything that happened (her lesbian epiphany coupled with Callie's reluctance and the whole Denny Duquette mess), I thought it made sense.

One parting shot - FOX released its mid-season schedule this week, and after a year of delays, 24 is finally scheduled to return with its seventh season with the traditional two night, four hour premiere on Sun. 1/11 and Mon. 1/12. In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the latest promo:

So what does everyone think? Good column? Let The Suite Spot know in the comments! Especially if there's something big you think I missed!