Dianne Butler

STUPID Channel 10, taking off The Simpsons to show Big Brother – Intruder Alert. Throws my whole night out.

Intruder? How will they know? All those 12-year-olds look the same.

Should Ten be playing fast and loose with The Simpsons when there's a feature length Simpsons film on the horizon? Obviously not. Heads should roll. I saw Matt Groening who created The Simpsons talking yesterday and somebody had asked him how much longer the series could go on. Do you know what he said? "Open ended."

So it's just the one episode tonight. Not the usual Tuesday night three. Nine have done tweaking of their own and doubled up on CSIs. There'd be some reason. It says here it's a two parter, so I guess that could be a reason. It Takes Two could be another reason. Hard to believe it's doing well. Avoid all of them, would be my recommendation, and have an early night – say, in bed by six – then up again at 11.30 for Absolute Power followed by Nighty Night, two of the best comedies to come out of a TV.

Didn't hate tonight's episode of Numbers though, if you did want to watch something before midnight. It opens with a close up of fish flapping around, out of water, and some generic shots of bags of garbage coming out of a truck, followed by scenes of happy children having fun on a swing. So we know what's going to happen there: the environment is in trouble and children will die.

I was slightly impressed by the people in this show. It's an enormous pool of semi and unemployed actors over there in Hollywood, which is how Numbers has in its regular cast Kathy Najimy, Peter MacNichol and Judd Hirsch. Kathy Najimy has just joined this show I think.

They're all carrying on like she has anyway. They're very excited – she's not just across maths and physics but she's also very interested in cosmology. And if cosmology means reading your stars every day, then I think we're all very interested in cosmology, right?

I think Judd Hirsch is very excited in another way. I don't think I imagined the sizzle that took place when Kathy Najimy spoke to him about engineering in the Antarctic.

Not much Rob Morrow in this episode but he seems to be exactly the same age as when he was on Northern Exposure. Younger, if anything. Should that be? David Chase was an executive producer on that show. Years before he did The Sopranos. See? There's always hope.

http://www.news.com.au/sundaymail/story/0,,21769973-5003422,00.html