THE NEW BEST SITCOM ON TV

With the demise of "Arrested Development" (and let's hope we will see more episodes), is there any sitcom worth watching? Yes, there is.

The new "How I Met Your Mother" is a solid series. It's more in the traditional mode than "AD" but still can be pretty funny. Plus, any series making use of Alyson Hannigan ("Buffy"), Jason Segel ("Freaks and Geeks"), and Neil Patrick Harris ("Doogie Howser, M.D." hisself) has to be worth watching.

Also of interest is the just wrapped first season of "Extras." I watched and enjoyed the first episode and then circumstsances forced me to lose track of it after that. I have slowly been rectifying that by catching it on HBO On Demand. I never watched the original "The Office" (though I still want to) but I really enjoy the sensibility of Ricky Gervais. And Kate Winslet's appearance in the premiere episode is not to be missed.

My frontrunner, however, is "My Name Is Earl." I havem't been able to watch it on its regular night due to my "Amazing Race" habit (boo, Weavers!) but NBC has been rerunning episodes on Satruday nights occasionally. Last night they replayed the last four episodes and I laughed quite a bit. Every episode seems to have one huge laugh for me, such as Randy's wonderment at "Karma's Army, made up of all the nations of the world" or his telling Catalina that when you play the card game War in America and you both pull the same card it's called a "Truce" and the players hug because America is a peaceful nation. Jason Lee is perfect as the titular Earl and Jaime Pressly is fantastic as his trashy ex-wife Joy (and she looked great in a small bikini during the Pretty Prettiest Pageant on one ep last night). And after telling you my favorite parts, can I ignore Ethan Supplee as Randy? And how about guest-stars like Johnny Galecki and Giovanni Ribisi? Great stuff. If you haven't watched an episode, please do. I think you'll like it.