Stephen King stopped by to help Tig and Gemma out of a sticky situation on "Sons of Anarchy."

Credit: Prashant Gupta / FX

Due to premiere week demands on my time, a shorter-than-usual "Sons of Anarchy" review coming up just as soon as I'm in the mood for some '80s music...

Michael Imperioli in the "Detroit 1-8-7" pilot.

Credit: ABC

I didn't exactly review "Detroit 1-8-7," but I did offer some general thoughts on it - specifically, that I missed the documentary format from the original pilot, and that Michael Imperioli was quite good as the lead cop - in the lead-in to my Imperioli interview. There are moments, like Fitch calling his partner from the next desk, or James McDaniel and his partner finding unrelated shell casings at the overpass, that had the flavor of a 21st century "Homicide," but maybe not enough to keep me around long-term.

You're all obviously seeing it without the documentary gimmick, though some elements of it (the chyrons, the random guy with the boom mic at the hostage stand-off) survived to the final version. So as with all the new shows, I'm curious what you all thought of it.

Peter Krause and Lauren Graham on "Parenthood."

Credit: NBC

I'll be honest: I want to be able to write a review of tonight's "Parenthood" - if only so I could do some kind of Ray LaMontagne joke for the "just as soon as" - but I am just ridiculously, incredibly slammed with premiere week, and I can't imagine finding time to do it anytime before next week's episode airs at the earliest. So feel free to discuss the Lessings' marital problems, Sarah and Adam carpooling, Julia again bungling an encounter with another mom, etc., and hopefully I'll have more time/energy for next week's episode, which I've also seen (and liked quite a bit).

(Horse) size matters for Peter Serafinowicz and Will Arnett in the "Running Wilde" pilot.

Credit: FOX

I reviewed "Running Wilde" yesterday, and was very disappointed in the reunion of so many "Arrested Development" people. I had hoped that perhaps I was just burned out on hearing the same jokes repeatedly through multiple viewings of multiple versions of the pilot, but then episode two showed up in yesterday's mail and wasn't very funny, either. 

What did everybody else think? Did you laugh? If you didn't, do you hold out hope that this can work down the road, given the number of talented people involved? 

Lucas Neff and Martha Plimpton on "Raising Hope."

Credit: FOX

In lieu of a "Raising Hope" review, I posted my interview with Garret Dillahunt. As I said in the intro, I don't know how much long-term interest I'll have in the show, but I did laugh several times at the pilot, which was unfortunately more than I could say about most of this year's new comedies.

If you watched tonight, what did you think? How high of a tolerance will you have for baby-endangerment humor? And did you like the little "My Name Is Earl" gag in the evening news?

Derek Jeter saying farewell to old Yankee Stadium.

Credit: ESPN

I really wish ESPN had scheduled tonight's "30 for 30" entry, Barbara Kopple's "The House of Steinbrenner," for virtually any other week of the baseball season. I have so much to say about this one, and absolutely no time to say it in the midst of Premiere Week hell, so let me see if I can sum up my thoughts quickly, after the jump...

Dot Jones as Coach Beiste joined Sue and Mr. Schue on the "Glee" season two premiere.

Credit: FOX

In a less cuckoo-bananas week, I might actually do a write-up on the "Glee" season premiere, which introduced a bunch of new characters (I quite liked Dot Jones as the new football coach), set up new stakes/tensions for the characters, had a bunch of songs, and opened with a very meta sequence in which Ryan Murphy essentially used Kurt to dismiss all criticism of the first season. But I have to do some writing triage here, and frankly there are shows I care about a lot more that I'd rather spend the time on something else.

Still, I saw the premiere, and as I've said before, I often find the response to "Glee" more interesting than the show itself, so I'll open up the floor for y'all to discuss what you thought of it, and perhaps when the rest of my schedule slows down within a few weeks, I'll check back in on how the new year is going.

Rob Morrow and Maura Tierney in "The Whole Truth."

Credit: ABC

If it had even a token regular police presence, it would be easy to re-dub ABC's "The Whole Truth" (which debuts Wednesday at 10 p.m.) as "Law & Order: ADD." This is a criminal law show that doesn't have much of an attention span, and one that suspects that you don't, either.

Chalky White (Michael K. Williams) will be pleased: HBO has already renewed "Boardwalk Empire."

Credit: HBO/Craig Blankenhorn

HBO has given a speedy renewal to "Boardwalk Empire" after Sunday's premiere was the pay channel's biggest in six years.

"All the ingredients aligned for this one, from Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson’s initial pitch, to Martin Scorsese’s enormous contributions as director and executive producer, to the genius of Terry Winter and the expertise of Tim Van Patten, to a stellar cast led by Steve Buscemi,” HBO president Michael Lombardo said in a statement.  “The response from the media and our viewers has been nothing short of amazing.”

Sunday's premiere (you can read my review of it here) drew 4.8 million viewers at 9, and if you add in the 10:15 and 11:30 p.m. airings, the number goes up to 7.1 million.

Either way you choose to count it, that's in the neighborhood that HBO's current flagship "True Blood"  gets, and is the most-watched HBO premiere since "Deadwood" back in 2004, when that show had "The Sopranos" as its lead-in.

As I've said before, with "Boardwalk Empire," HBO threw a lot of money at the problem that was its post-"Sopranos" malaise. Sometimes, when you throw a lot of money at a problem you just waste money (see most of the Dan Snyder-era Redskins). Sometimes, though (see the 2009 Yankees), it pays off, both creatively and commercially, which it clearly has here.

Jim Belushi co-stars with Jerry O'Connell in "The Defenders."

Credit: CBS

Jim Belushi wrote me an e-mail once.

It was about two years ago, and Belushi's ABC sitcom "According to Jim" was going into its 8th season. Rather than go the expected route and write a screed about how the show's continued existence was an affront to all that's good and decent about America, I instead took a more statistical approach. I listed some of the all-time classic sitcoms that had had shorter runs (it ran more seasons than "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and made more episodes than "Seinfeld"). Then I listed some of the shows (some good, some bad) that "Jim" had aired against and outlasted, including "Frasier," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Veronica Mars" and "Father of the Pride." Then I listed a bunch of comedies (including "Arrested Development" and "Undeclared") that debuted around the same time or shortly after "Jim" without lasting nearly as long.

"Jim Belushi," I wrote, "I'm sorry I ever doubted you and your mighty, mighty Buddha belly. I have faith that your show will outlast everything else on television. It will outlast me, and my children, and my children's children. 'According to Jim' is eternal."

And Belushi wrote me a brief note to thank me for not doing the knee-jerk thing of just using his show as a punching bag, which every critic in the country did throughout its 182-episode run.

The thing about Belushi is that he's a much better actor than he gets credit for, mainly because he's picked (or been given) awful material for much of his career. It's easy to think of him as the guy from "According to Jim" or "Mr. Destiny," but when given good material ("Salvador," "About Last Night...," his recent small role in "The Ghost Writer"), he rises to it. He obviously never made the impact on "Saturday Night Live" that his late brother John did, but he also came in at the worst possible time: a year at the tail end of the Eddie Murphy-dominated period, then a year where outgoing producer Dick Ebersol brought in ringers like Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest who dominated the airtime. And then Lorne Michaels came back and got rid of everyone, so he never had a chance to really prove himself there.

And Belushi is the main reason I enjoyed the pilot for CBS' "The Defenders," which debuts Wednesday at 10. As a shameless Vegas defense attorney, Belushi is likable, convincing when he wants you to take this clown seriously, funny when he doesn't. Like most CBS dramas, it's not reinventing the wheel, but it's effective for what it sets out to be, and Belushi is a huge part of that.

So when I sat down after "The Defenders" panel at press tour to talk with Belushi about the role, and his career, and lessons learned from his John, I of course opened up by mentioning that e-mail. He thanked me again, and said, "That was so nice, because - man! - people were just dumping on us." We'll let the transcript take it from there...