The plot of every episode of Cold Case ever

Kathryn Morris is 1) the whitest actress to ever be on television and 2) what Avril Lavigne will look like in her 30s.

I'm a big fan of Cold Case on TNT, although "big fan" might not be the best term for it. Frankly, it's formulaic approach to episodes is somewhat comforting, and for some reason, I get plenty of work done when watching it. Also, yes, I am aware that it was on some network before TNT, but that's the only place I ever see it. Therefore, to me, TNT "owns" the show.

Basically, in terms of formula, every episode of Cold Case follows a sort of pattern. In 3/4 of the episodes, you have someone struggling against the tide of the flashback.

For example, if the episode is set in 1940s Philadelphia, then we have a white guy fighting against his neighbors, who are trying to demonize some Japanese-Americans. Anything in the 1960s has the obvious civil rights issues. They had an episode set in a high school detention in 1994, which was essentially just a remake of The Breakfast Club.

The stories are pretty much all generic and uplifting. The Philly homicide cold case division isn't doing much to solve murders of Nazi members, you know. Most episodes serve as an excuse for Detective Lilly Rush, a.k.a. the whitest person alive, to either be tough or tender.

The remaining quarter of the episodes are somehow related to the cold case squad. Because this is television, all of them are really screwed up. I'm serious, by the way - Every single character is really flawed, to an unbelievable degree. Going down the list:

- Lilly was apparently molested as a little kid. Also, her mom abandoned her. Also also, her sister is a massive skank who slept with one of her co-workers (more on him in a second) and is on the run from New York police in several episodes.

- The Stern White Boss (I never remember his name; he's just a copy of other boss archetypes anyway) has never had a clean friend in the police force. I'm serious; any time one of his pals shows up, it means they're dirty or crooked.

- Will the Black Dude is probably the best of a bad lot. He still flies into a rage and punches a slimy district attorney, and also, his wife was killed in a hit and run, and the identity of the driver becomes a major plot point for some episodes.

- Along similar lines, Scotty Valens' ex-girlfriend slash hooker witness commits suicide by jumping into a river. Well, okay, maybe she was murdered. We're not sure. (I haven't seen every episode.) Valens is also the one who hooks up with Lilly's sister, which is nice of him. One of his first girlfriends shown by the show? A Colombian drug mule.

- Nick Vera is a drunk white cop who's wife dumps him in season one or two. He then dates a sassy black lady (more on her in a bit), and also has creepy affections on victims. Like one lady he goes after is a high school crush who comes in about her sister's murder years ago. Again, really happy stuff.

Despite all those issues, I still kind of like the show. It hits all of the bare minimum qualities of the detective show genre for me, so I let it fill up my DVR. This "base quality" thing isn't that surprising, since it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. While he doesn't have a ton of critical successes, the guy knows how to make a presentable product.

Also, one weird thing about Cold Case - it really loves it actors used by other shows. I don't recall it dipping much into the Law and Order pool, but plenty of people from The Wire did guest spots, most noticeably, Greggs. It feels odd seeing her play the tough-as-nails (and straight!) love interest of Nick Vera for a few episodes. Kima Greggs, I feel odd watching you harassing him over a basketball.

However, the most inexplicable bit of double-casting is… Sandy Martin, a.k.a. Mac's mom from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In Always Sunny, she plays a grizzled old lady who ignores her son for the most part. In Cold Case, she plays a grizzled old lady who was a single teenage mother who killed her best friend over a baby. She, uh, needs a better agent, because there roles are pretty damn depressing.

A Twitter Poll: Wither Conan?

Unsurprisingly, Saturday Night Live opened up with a skit on the whole Conan and Leno late night divide. The opening sketch was only so-so to me, since Hammond doesn't really do a good Leno, and the Conan impersonation was even worse. The saving graces of the sketch were Larry King and Letterman, which were both spot-on. There was a much better take on it by Seth Meyers during Weekend Update, but they didn't release that clip on Hulu, unfortunately. (They did post the bits with Larry the Goose and Laser Cats though, both of which were great, and Sigourney Weaver did a nice job hosting.)

The latest news has Conan getting a settlement in the range of $30 million, with permission to having a new show on another network within a year. However, it seems like a deal hasn't been finalized. This whole drama is familiar to me, since I wrote a research paper on the whole transition from Carson to Leno and Letterman, and to an author on Slate - Their awesome television reporter, Troy Patterson, notes that The Late Shift is eerily similar to the Conan-Leno drama.

With all of this in mind, I asked people on Twitter last night what they thought was next for Conan. The most popular option out there in the public was that he'd end up on FOX, with Eddie and Dadkins guessing that as well.

If FOX ever wants to move into the late night weekday world, with a show at 11 or 11:30 or 11:35, then now is the moment to do so. Conan's annual salary is allegedly in the $20 million range, and of all the players for him, FOX no doubt has the deepest pockets. I also like FOX's attitude on this - In the past, they haven't been shy about sticking a thumb in the eyes of the networks, and this would be a pretty strong thumb. I don't think Conan would be a consistent ratings winner, but he would be competitive enough to hurt NBC, CBS and ABC.

The biggest impediment to a Conan show would be the current lack of FOX infrastructure in late night. I'm not sure what their affliates would think of a Conan show - FOX doesn't run programming at 10 or 10:30 right now, so Conan's lead-in would probably be weak. In the best case scenario, you might have a strong one-hour nightly news broadcast. In Rhode Island and most markets, you have a 30-minute newscast and then a syndicated show like Seinfeld. Neither is a great lead-in considering that the Big Three networks all run relatively-fresh programming at 10.

Miss Movies suggested that Conan would be good to takeover The Soup, and I agree with that. However, E! isn't going to shell out that kind of cash for Conan, which is the biggest problem I see with him going to a cable network. If Comedy Central didn't already have The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, then they might be interested. But with Stewart and Colbert in the fold, O'Brien probably costs too much to be a viable option for them at 10 or 12.

If Conan is willing to take a lot less money, then the artistic options open to him are great. For example, I could see a network like Comedy Central or TNT picking him up if his annual salary was, say, in the $1 million to $5 million range. TNT makes a lot of sense to me in that it is not owned by one of the Big Three - no way does Conan pop up on USA - and because they have been emphasizing their original program lately. They do run some NBC syndicated programming, which might upset the Peacock come renewal time, but losing Law and Order would not be an insurmountable loss, given that it has been repeated so many times now.

Regardless of where Conan ends up, I agree with Shelley - Conan's population has exploded with this whole drama, and he actually beat Letterman on Friday night, despite the weakness of the Leno lead-in. I think the whole fiasco will mean the end of NBC network head Jeff Zucker eventually, who frankly doesn't have much success to point to now as a reason for his continued employment.

Channel surfing and geekdom

- The other night I was watching the Kill Bill marathon on TNT, and I thought, "This is so unrealistic, there is no way they'd let her carry that samurai sword on the plane!" Then I pondered and thought about of all the things in the movie that are ridiculous, yet I seemingly keyed in on that one.

- They have been playing commercials for some Chipmunks CD every five minutes on ESPN. Like, seriously? I can't imagine there is that much overlap between demographics.

- I played through the Chrono Trigger remake for the DS recently, and it really was splendid. If you have a DS, you need to get it, because it is worth the $40. The extra features, like FMV and four more dungeons, are neat enough, and it's cheaper to get this version than the original SNES. Oh, and the PSX version sucks compared to this one.

- My feet have been killing me because of the court I've played basketball on lately. It's indoors, at an old elementary school near me, and the floor is made out of this 60-year-old rubber. It's so springy that you sink in just a bit when you try to jump or come to a stop, and as a result, my calves have also been killing me. It also means I shoot even worse than normal, but on the plus side, it forces me to focus on the defensive end, since I can't play offense as well.

Uncharmed

Short on talent, large on... something else.

The bad thing about the WB / UPN / CW / future Sucky Network is that their continual lack of programming means shows that are just OK survive for years, to the point where their crappy producers can then package up 100 episodes and spread their stink to TNT.

Please TNT, give me anything besides Charmed, which is like a second-rate cheesy magic show. Just splurge and buy Buffy (another show I'm not crazy about but clearly better than Charmed) or show more Law and Order. Yes, I realize they already show Law and Order two to four times a day, but they do have about 400 to chose from (about 22 per year for 18 years).

My two main critiques of Charmed would be 1) it arbitrarily makes up characters and rules and powers for its characters, even more so than normal for a show of its nature and 2) the characters have the personality of this chair I'm sitting on. Shannon Doherty was the lone interesting one, and she probably knifed someone backstage, explaining why she left. I would too if my co-stars' main "acting" abilities were the knee-jerk whine (Holly Marie Combs), and being short and hot (Alyssa Milano).