Jason Ritter and Sarah Roemer on "The Event."

Credit: NBC

What is The Event?

I know I opened my initial review of "The Event" back in the fall with that sentence, but now my question is different. Back then, I was asking what "The Event" - as in the NBC show, which returns tonight at 8 - was, because it was hard to tell if I was meant to take it seriously, or as a parody of all the most annoying aspects of "Lost" and "24." By now, I unfortunately know it's meant to be taken seriously, so I'm wondering what the actual Event - as in the thing that the show's characters keep warning us is coming, even if they won't tell us anything about it - itself is.

Because this is getting kinda silly.

"Friday Night Lights" did not, alas, make it past the opening round of Hulu's Best in Show contest.

Credit: NBC/DirecTV

It's week 2 for Hulu's Best in Show tournament, and while many of my favorites advanced, not all did. "Parks and Recreation" lost a squeaker to "The Office," "Glee" pretty convincingly beat "Friday Night Lights," and "Cougar Town" and "Louie" were both crushed by, respectively, "Modern Family" and "How I Met Your Mother."

Jimmi Simpson, Domenick Lombardozzi, Malcolm Goodwin and Laz Alonso in "Breakout Kings."

Credit: A&E

I offered my thoughts on "Breakout Kings" in Friday's review. Now it's your turn. Those of you who watched, what did you think? Are you going to stick around for additional episodes? Will you miss Nicole Steinwedell as Philly, since she'll be replaced by Serinda Swan going forward? 

Bill Paxton on "Big Love."

Credit: HBO

A quick review of tonight's "Big Love" coming up just as soon as I build bridges in Guatemala...

"America's Next Great" restaurant judges Steve Ells, Bobby Flay and Lorena Garcia.

Credit: NBC

As Fienberg and I discussed on this week's podcast, while I don't make much time for reality TV these days, I do remain fond of the various professional talent competitions produced by the folks at Magical Elves, most notably "Top Chef." "America's Next Great Restaurant," which debuted tonight on NBC, was very much in the Elve-ish wheelhouse, offering plenty of overlap with "Top Chef" but not so much that it made you wonder why we needed this show, too. And I remain impressed that the Elves - as opposed to Mark Burnett, Donald Trump and whoever else was making creative decisions on "The (Non-Celebrity) Apprentice" - recognize that while jerks can add a certain amount of drama, the real draw of these shows is in seeing talented people show off their talents. So while a couple of knuckleheads made this show's top 10, for the most part we have what seems like smart, energetic people with intriguing concepts. (I know that if the restaurant that won the last slot in the top 10 opened in my neighborhood tomorrow, I would be eating there.)

What did everybody else think? Too assembly line, or just different enough?

Jimmi Simpson, Malcolm Goodwin, Serinda Swan, Laz Alonso and Domenick Lombardozzi in A&E's "Breakout Kings."

Credit: A&E

If you know anything about my tastes, you know I'm a sucker for underdog sports stories. But I'm only slightly less of a sucker for capers or action movies about tough guys with unique skills coming together for a mission - and particularly for its subset, in which the tough guys are bad guys who are forced by circumstance to be good guys. I've seen "The Dirty Dozen" more times than I can count. I dig TNT's "Leverage." One of the few comic book series I follow anymore is DC's "Secret Six," about a team of villains who invariably wind up acting as heroes (and which borrows characters from "The Suicide Squad," also about evil men reluctantly doing good).

So the new drama "Breakout Kings," in which a pair of US Marshals recruit a team of convicts to help them track down dangerous escaped prisoners, should be right up my alley. But the drama, which debuts Sunday night at 10 on A&E, is so flatly executed that its mediocrity overpowered my innate weakness for the genre.

The "Top Chef" final 5.

Credit: Bravo

A review of last night's "Top Chef" coming up just as soon as I find out that we're cousins...

Ty Burrell on "Modern Family."

Credit: ABC

I'm out of the week-to-week "Modern Family" review game, but I said I'd drop in on episodes in which I had something specific to say. So a review of last night's episode coming up just as soon as I undress a mannequin while a creepy guy films it...

Margo Martindale and Tim Olyphant on "Justified."

Credit: Prashant Gupta / FX

A review of tonight's "Justified" coming up just as soon as I maintain my creases...

Adam (Peter Krause) tries to comfort Max (Max Burkholder) on "Parenthood."

Credit: NBC

A review of last night's "Parenthood" coming up just as soon as we play hide and seek Israeli army style...