I keep meaning to mention this, but my mind is like a sieve, and since it just aired last night, I thought I’d strike while the iron was less cold than usual. I don’t watch many situation comedies, but I really recommend The Big Bang Theory on CBS.

It’s about two big science geeks who live across the hall from a hot blonde. That premise sounds deadly, but the show is really, really funny, and all of the characters are endearing and hold their own. I initially stopped on it while channel surfing because I recognized Johnny Galecki, an actor I’ve always liked, and I’ve come to really admire Jim Parsons as the brilliant, totally socially inept Sheldon and the improbably named Kaley Cuoco as Penny, the sexy, strong-willed neighbor.

I heard the first season was a lot dumber than what’s currently airing, so I’m glad I came late to the party. The dialogue is great. The jokes are entirely character-driven but often laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. That seems to be a really difficult thing to pull off, but the show’s writers manage it, and manage it consistently.

I was watching the DVD of the first season of Dexter over the weekend, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I like the way the writers and producers have opened the story up for serialization, and I like some of the character work. I think TV Lt. LaGuerta is interesting in a different way. Her perniciously incompetent persona of the book was amusing but not sustainable, and the learning curve the TV writers have given her works better in the long run.

I’m now fully convinced that I’m supposed to hate Dexter’s sister, Debra, though I hate her TV incarnation for different reasons than I did book Debra. In the book, she’s whiny and entitled and selfish. In the TV series, she’s whiny and lethally stupid and the actress reminds me of Lori Petty, and I thought we flushed that thespian trend out of the entertainment industry in the early 1990s, because Lori Petty was so damned irritating. Michael C. Hall is just right as Dexter, as I expected, though there really isn’t anything he can do to patch over the holes in the character’s conception aside from be creepily charming. TV Doakes talks too much, and he ends up reminding me of about 275 other hard-assed cops.

Julie Benz is fine as Rita. I think I was in the minority in liking her work on Buffy, and I think her undercurrent of crazy really works for this particular character. Unfortunately, the scenes with Rita play out like mid-level Lifetime movies about single moms coming off of an abusive marriage and/or being deceived by the new men in their lives, and there’s a weird contrast between those scenes and the show’s crime content. I’m sure there’s supposed to be, but it’s contrast instead of counterpoint. The violence and the domesticity don’t interact so much as they just sort of sit side by side.

And I noticed something about the set design that’s probably too nitpicky to even mention, but that’s never stopped me before. There’s always a design sensibility in evidence in every set the show employs. Instead of looking like Rita’s house, Rita’s house looks like a designer’s idea of what the home of a single mother coming off an abusive marriage would look like, if that makes any sense. At one point, a character says about a set that “You can tell a bachelor lived here.” And no, not really, but you can tell that a designer wanted very badly for you to think that a bachelor lived here and strenuously employed an aesthetic towards selling that, which isn’t the same as evoking a space that makes you think a bachelor lived there.

I’m not quite sure how a designer could subtract that sensibility from his or her work, to be honest, but I’ve seen it happen enough. It was a weird thing to notice, to be honest. It wasn’t too distracting, but it stuck with me.

The blessing and curse of Bravo is that, if you miss an episode of one of the network’s original programs, you simply aren’t trying very hard. It’s almost as easy as finding an airing of the Law and Order franchise. (The curse part is when they decide everyone wants to see The Real Housewives of Orange County over and over.)

I’m still obsessively fascinated with Project Runway, and I’ve enjoyed the fourth season quite a bit. The contestants represent a really interesting mix of points of view, and they seem to have focused more on creative endeavor rather than attention-hogging drama.

I thought the reunion show was really weird. It was like if Harold Pinter wrote a sketch comedy about a competitive reality program. Maybe it was the editing and the odd, long silences, or the fact that the lack of actual inter-contestant bitchery kind of forced them to re-frame things in ways that were dramatic enough to fill an hour. And while it’s really fun to see the customary reality-show demographic reversed (one straight guy among a sea of gays instead of the other way around), the “is Kevin really straight” clip package struck me as too much. (Seeing pictures of Michael Kors in all of his 1980s finery with a giant, golden man-perm was priceless, though.)

Judging by the photos I’ve seen from the final Fashion Week shows, I hope Christian wins, though I find him obnoxious. I’ve found other finalists obnoxious and overconfident before, but Christian’s clothes are innovative but still seem like they’d translate into something a person might actually wear. His ego actually seems to be commensurate with his talent, with is a nice change of pace. (I’ve seen a few knowledgeable sources tar him as too derivative of Alexander McQueen, which could certainly work against him.) Rami’s clothes are beautiful, but they look too mature to me. It’s like he’s always dressing a high-end fund-raiser at a country club. I think both he and Jillian should have long careers as designers, because they’re both very talented, but I can’t see either of them winning.