Nicholas Dawidoff's fourth book, The Crowd Sounds Happy, is the culmination of 22 years spent thinking and writing about baseball and family. After six years working for Sports Illustrated, Mr. Dawidoff wrote his first book The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg (1994). More recently, his The Fly Swatter: Portrait of an Exceptional Character, about his grandfather, economist Alexander Gerschenkron, was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in biography.

In the intervening years, Mr. Dawidoff offered up a short personal essay, "My Father’s Troubles," in the June 12, 2000, issue of The New Yorker. It chronicles Mr. Dawidoff’s relationship with his mentally ill father and lays the groundwork for The Crowd Sounds Happy, a sad, occasionally poignant and darkly funny memoir about Mr. Dawidoff’s twin and countervailing passions: his love of and devotion to baseball and the shame and pity he felt toward his ailing father.

Naturally, this dichotomy is expressed in his love of the Boston Red Sox (his grandfather’s team) and his hatred of the New York Yankees, the team of the city where his father lived. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, once a month, he, along with his sister, would be forced to visit their father at his home on the Upper East Side, enduring countless embarrassments and minor indignities. "To me, [the city] was a fallen place, only to be endured, gotten over, like a case of food poisoning," he writes.

NICHOLAS DAWIDOFF'S FATHER WASN'T always disturbed. Once upon a time, he was a Yale Law graduate and newlywed, a promising young attorney with a burgeoning family. But that didn’t last long. He was laid off for being "a lame horse" and soon he was having hallucinations and acting violently.

Beginning at age 3, Nicholas lived apart from his father in New Haven with his mother, a private school teacher, and sister Sally, two years his junior. They would always be poor—another source of shame and frustration.

The Crowd Sounds Happy, which is more a set of vignettes than a sustained narrative, can be boiled down to an exercise in expunging the guilt Mr. Dawidoff feels for shunning his pitiable father and frustrating his mother when she couldn’t give him what he wanted. It also serves as a psychological treatise on the benefits of obsessive baseball fandom; it’s called transference, right?

It’s not clear, alas, that Mr. Dawidoff has improved upon his original work in The New Yorker. "My first memory of my father is of leaving him," he wrote in the magazine. "For months, he had been unhinged, experiencing hallucinations so powerful that he communicated with dead squirrels. Then he began hitting my mother, and not long after that she decided it was time for us to go."

As an opening line, it’s powerful in its unemotional directness—something the memoir lacks. In fact, the initial essay made only a few references to baseball. It’s as though the sport has been introduced to act as a buffer between the book and the reader—just as it did between young Nicholas and his anger toward his father.

Maybe Mr. Dawidoff is still relying a bit too much on baseball.

Jake Brooks, former deputy managing editor of The Observer, now works for the Daily News. He can be reached at books@observer.com.

When a band like Portishead—so popular in such a personal way due to their brand of trip-hop melancholia—goes on hiatus for over a decade, offering little fodder for the press and promising nothing in the way of a new album for much of that time, it can feel like one has lost a cherished friend. When it returns, like Portishead does today with Third (how appropriate!), it can feel like an unexpected reunion with one of two outcomes—either you've grown apart and its awkward or you pick up right where you left off, a little older, wiser, but still on the same wavelength. Luckily, it appears, from all accounts (and the taste below), that the fans of the Bristol band will experience the latter. They're still sad, but they've grown up, too. Welcome back, old friend!

Philadelphia hip-hop troupe The Roots has long been a favorite of hip-hop connoisseurs, if not the public at large. Founded by rapper Black Thought and drummer ?uestlove, they've separated themselves from the pack by insisting on live instrumentation both in concert and in the studio. Their lack of samples and growing political awareness probably accounts for their lack of a crossover hit, but this is, and always has been, hip-hop for adults (and smart kids). Rising Down, out today, is their ninth studio album.

Sweden's Robyn is no stranger to fame, even here in the United States. (Her 1997 hits, "Do You Know (What It Takes)" and "Show Me Love" made it into the Top Ten stateside.) So why does her fifth studio album, Robyn, to be released today, sound like a coming out party for the 28-year-old pop star? Perhaps it's because she's finally out from under the yoke of several record labels that threatened to derail her career permanently (one reason why no one's really heard from her since 1997). Paired up with countrymen Knife, she has experienced a creative rebirth—just ask Perez Hilton—which will surprise many who still remember her first time around the bend.

The Village Voice's Ian Mather's refers to Constantines as "Canada's apocalyptic poet laureates of hard work and commitment." Since the release of their second album, 2003's Shine a Light, this is the kind of language the band has inspired in fawning critics. Their dark, moody rock devoid of irony strikes an emo chord that few can resist. Try if you can: their newest, Kensington Heights, dares you.

For all of the anecdotal evidence suggesting the city is overrun with babies and the women desperate to have them, it seems the stoner population still outnumbers them by a fraction. Who said the drug-fueled days of the 80’s are a thing of the past? OK, this is pot and not cocaine, but just wait until the Wall Street sequel comes out!

To be fair, Harold and Kumar did have an advantage. It played at one more theater than Baby Mama. The margin of victory, a slim $6,000, was far less than the movie’s strong $33,378 per screen average. Since Baby had the better average, with $36,355, it is possible with an added theater, it could have beaten Harold and Kumar. But there is no way of knowing how that added theater would have affected the average, which ultimately would have dropped due to the added showtimes. By the hammer of Thor, this is a tough town ...

Deception (no. 5), an erotic thriller starring Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams, deceived few into seeing it. It managed an anemic $6582 average at 9 theaters and was not able to outgross last week’s two top films, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (no. 3) and Forbidden Kingdom (no 4), playing at the same number of theaters. According to Manohla Dargis, it was more Sliver than Basic Instinct. Ouch!

List of theaters: Paris, Zeigfeld, Oprheum, East 85th St., 86th St. East, 84th St., Lincoln Plaza, 62nd and Broadway, Lincoln Square, Magic Johnson, 72nd St East, Cinemas 1, 2 &3rd Ave, 64th and 2nd , Imaginasian, Manhattan Twin, First and 62nd St., Angelika Film Center, Quad, IFC Center, Film Forum, Village East, Village Seven, Cinema Village, Union Square, Essex, Battery Park 11, Sunshine, 34th Street, Empire, E-Walk, Chelsea, 19th Street East, and Kips Bay.

Manhattan Weekend Box Office: How moviegoers in the multiplexes of middle America choose to spend their ten-spot is probably a big deal in Hollywood. But here in Manhattan, the hottest movies aren't always the ones making the big bucks nationwide. Using Nielsen numbers for Manhattan theaters alone and comparing them to the performance of the national weekend box office can tell you a lot about our Blue State sensibilities. Or nothing at all! Each Monday afternoon, we will bring you the results.

There’s something comforting about the predictability of House (Fox, 9 p.m.), which returns tonight. Sometimes it’s nice to have a show where you can set your watch by its familiar plot points, like the show’s every climax where Dr. House has reluctantly ordered some incredibly invasive procedure to cure a patient, only to have it interrupted at the last moment by a new symptom or a phrase that triggers one of Dr. House’s Eureka moments. But, finally, there’s a twist! It’s now on Mondays. (You probably saw that one coming, too.)

Poor Chuck Bass, framed for the devilish scheme concocted by—spoiler alert, I guess—Georgina, Serena’s long-lost friend played by Michelle Trachtenberg on Gossip Girl (CW, 8 p.m.). As if Blair and Jenny’s feuding weren’t enough, it appears the show has a lot more cat-fighting in store. Luckily, the producers thought better of casting Mischa Barton in the role of Georgina. One just gets the sense that she would have been devoured by the better actress, Blake Lively, and the fighting would not have been that good. What fun would that have been?

TUESDAY

It’s a very hairy Tuesday! As in body hair, of course.

The night kicks off with the remaining six American Idol (Fox, 8 p.m.) contestants singing their favorite hits from the catalogue of the furry-chested Neil Diamond. Last week, it was Andrew Lloyd Webber … and they wonder why their ratings are slumping? Apparently, their core audience is dying off!

At 8:30 p.m., NBC kicks it up a notch with a rerun of the best of Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live. “Schweaty balls,” indeed …

And finally, Sasquatch incarnate, Robin Williams makes a guest appearance on Law & Order: S.V.U. (NBC, 10 p.m.). But the character he plays is anything but cuddly—he poses as a police officer on the phone and tricks people into committing criminal acts, like saying they liked Patch Adams.

WEDNESDAY

CBS goes after NBC’s Deal or No Deal (8 p.m.) with an installment of its Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (8 p.m.). To compete with the comedic dynamos of Howie Mandel and Drew Carey, ABC is developing a props-based “This Is Your Life” hosted by Carrot Top. OK, that’s not true, but it can’t be far off, right?

Farmer Wants a Wife (CW, 9 p.m.) is a new reality series in which ten city women compete to marry a rural bachelor. It’s like Sex and the City meets City Slickers! The first episode features a chicken-catching contest a la Rocky. What good wife can’t catch a chicken?

THURSDAY

In anticipation of Scrubs’ final episode on the network, NBC is moving it to the less desirable timeslot of 8:30 p.m. 30 Rock will take its place at 9:30 p.m., where it will benefit from The Office’s (9 p.m.) strong lead-in. Considering how bad Scrubs has been lately, its end couldn’t come quick enough. It’s as if the network is purposefully airing terrible episodes in order to ruin whatever chance the show has of getting picked up elsewhere. Just marry off J.D. and Elliot and let’s be done with it.

Step It Up and Dance (Bravo, 10 p.m.) and presumably host Elizabeth Berkley visit with Jason Alexander and the choreographer of Broadway show Damn Yankees. Alexander will serve as a guest judge—as if the show wasn’t already struggling for credibility.

FRIDAY

It’s the second-season debut of Man v. Wild (Discovery, 9 p.m.)—and on the perfect night. Lonely ladies are still cooling off from last year’s episode in which host Bear Grylls did push-ups in the nude to demonstrate how to warm up after falling into an ice-covered river. TGIF!

SUNDAY

The full Fox cartoon line-up is back. The Simpsons (8 p.m.), King of the Hill (8:30 p.m.), Family Guy (9 p.m.), and American Dad (9 p.m.) are all new just in time to offer small solace to those in full John Adams withdrawal.

Toronto's Tokyo Police Club has it all: youth, chops and buzz. All they need is an album. After teasing their fans for three years with just two E.P.'s, they finally have the goods, Elephant Shell, due out today. They're post-punk with a knack for turning riffs into earworms. Their lead singer, Dave Monks, sounds Canadian in the New Pornographers vein. And the video for the single Tessellate is endearing. How can you not love them?

It's always with a bit of trepidation that one writes about reformed bands like Blind Melon and Whitesnake. Can Blind Melon be Blind Melon without Shannon Hoon? (This is actually a question that several of us used to ask each other in bad-band-geek drag around the office.) Is Whitesnake simply David Coverdale and whoever he choses to play with regardless of whether they banged the drums on "This Is Love" or any other of the band's hits? Considering the turbulent history of Whitesnake, the answer to the latter questions is a clear yes, but the answer to the former is a bit more elusive. Is it an ontological question or one of semantics? Probably neither. Consider it cynically and it becomes plain: it's one of economics. When the music sounds like it does below, what other answer is there? Blind Melon's first studio album in over 10 years is For My Friends. Whitesnake celebrates its 30th birthday with Good to Be Bad.

HBO did Flight of the Conchords the favor of introducing them to an American audience, first with a comedy special, then later with the comedy series which ran last year. They were in no small part responsible for the band winning a Grammy, the first for a New Zealand act in 24 years. So it would be wrong to suggest HBO has been anything but a positive influence on the careers of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. That being said ... something is lost—call it spontaneity—when the cable channel does its elaborate productions of the duet's music for the series. It's just not as funny as it is when it's performed live. But maybe that would have been the case regardless of what type of production they did. The result of their labors can be heard for the first time on a self-titled CD to be released today. It's still good for plenty of chuckles.

Not only is this apparent backlash hogwash, it’s clear that this denizens of this fair city love their native son (Syosset, represent!) more than the rest of the country, opting for the romantic comedy over the nation’s favorite, Forbidden Kingdom (no. 2), the action film starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan. So all of you Apatow haters, better think about moving: this is obviously Judd country—as long as he sticks to romantic comedies, of course.

One used to be able to say the same thing about Al Pacino, but not even he could save 88 Minutes (no .3) from its fate: a tepid box office reception. The film managed to break the $10,000 watermark, which means it will stick around in the top ten for at least another couple of weeks. But this one was doomed from the get-go by bad reviews and an ambiguous marketing campaign. Not your fault, Al, we know.

Following the national trend, films in their second weeks took the plunge over the weekend. Street Kings (no. 4), Prom Night (no. 5) and Smart People (no. 7) all averaged a 60 percent decline. The Visitor (no. 8) was only film in that category to buck the trend. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that it was only playing at two theaters.

List of theaters: Paris, Zeigfeld, Oprheum, East 85th St., 86th St. East, 84th St., Lincoln Plaza, 62nd and Broadway, Lincoln Square, Magic Johnson, 72nd St East, Cinemas 1, 2 &3rd Ave, 64th and 2nd , Imaginasian, Manhattan Twin, First and 62nd St., Angelika Film Center, Quad, IFC Center, Film Forum, Village East, Village Seven, Cinema Village, Union Square, Essex, Battery Park 11, Sunshine, 34th Street, Empire, E-Walk, Chelsea, 19th Street East, and Kips Bay.

Manhattan Weekend Box Office: How moviegoers in the multiplexes of middle America choose to spend their ten-spot is probably a big deal in Hollywood. But here in Manhattan, the hottest movies aren't always the ones making the big bucks nationwide. Using Nielsen numbers for Manhattan theaters alone and comparing them to the performance of the national weekend box office can tell you a lot about our Blue State sensibilities. Or nothing at all! Each Monday afternoon, we will bring you the results.

OMFG, Gossip Girl (CW, 8 p.m.)! (Is OMFG even appropriate slang anymore? Honest to blog, who can keep up?) Too many murdered brain cells to remember exactly where the show left off? Here’s a primer. Blair’s secret affair with Chuck Bass had recently come to light after her reconciliation with Nate. He’s angry, while she’s mortified because being a “whore” undermines her leader status amongst her prim ladies. (Uh, really?) Jenny Humphrey, Dan’s younger sister, recently slighted by Blair, uses Blair’s weakened state to her own social advantage. Jenny’s rebuke—she’s from Brooklyn!—plunges Blair into a deep shame spiral. At the end of the last episode, Serena had just swooped in to console her. All caught up now? Gr8! Kthxbai.

Bonus: James Van Der Beek (Dawson’s Creek, Varsity Blues) makes a guest appearance on How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.). For better or worse, he plays a loser. Never in our hearts, Dawson! (Creeeaak!)

TUESDAY

Last week’s Democratic presidential primary debate accounted for ABC’s best showing on a Wednesday night in weeks with close to 10 million people tuning in to see ... whatever it is Tom Shales thought he saw!Is there any question that tonight’s primary in the same state will be ratings gold for all involved? It’s the most important (secretly non-important—doesn’t Obama have this thing locked up?) political event of the year. Until the next one!

Is it possible that Ashlee Simpson’s (limited) talents are underappreciated? Sure, her sister, Jessica, will forever overshadow her younger, slighter sibling, but it’s puzzling why the first single, “Outta My Head,” a catchy Devo knock-off, off her newest album, hasn’t received more play. Perhaps she should have opted for a boob job instead of rhinoplasty. Sure she’s now prettier, but who’s paying attention? Maybe after her performance tonight on Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 9 p.m.), she’ll be able to exploit that much-sought-after mom following. A gal can dream!

WEDNESDAY

American Idol’s (Fox, 9 p.m.) Andrew Lloyd Webber themed week hits its glorious crescendo tonight with the composer slated to perform with the six remaining contestants. Apparently he’s been looking for a reason to dust off his skates … Starlight Express? Anyone? Oh, hi, crickets! Moving on …

Members of the comedy troupe Second City make an appearance on Top Chef (Bravo, 10 p.m.), if only to underscore how not funny chefs are.

THURSDAY

Is it May sweeps already? Last week’s Variety headline: “NBC’s Office Tops Quiet Thursday.” Quiet? No more. Things are about to get turned up to 11 with the return of ABC’s full lineup: Ugly Betty (8 p.m.), Grey’s Anatomy (9 p.m.) and Lost (10 p.m.). It’s an arms race ... that's sure to show lots of leg!

FRIDAY

CBS is officially the only network that cares about Fridays—even if its shows display a distinct unconcern for the tastes of its viewers. Tonight promises new episodes of Ghost Whisperer (8 p.m.), Moonlight (9 p.m.) and Numbers (10 p.m.). Yahtzee!

SUNDAY

The Made-for-TV movie of the week: Infected (Sci-Fi, 9 p.m.), starring Judd Nelson and Isabella Rosselini. From the Sci-Fi Channel’s Web site: “Ben Mosher is an unlikely hero with a dead-end job and a broken heart.”—aw—­“Lisa is an ambitious reporter and Ben's estranged lover.”—sounds sexy—“But when Ben and Lisa find themselves in the middle of an alien conspiracy where humans are being poisoned and impregnated with Alien larvae, the pair must put their past behind them and work together to save mankind.”—wait, wha!?

Meanwhile, there’s Celebracadabra (VH1, 9 p.m.), a reality series that defies pithy one-liners: its celebrities—Carnie Wilson!—perform magic and compete.

It always seemed as if the popularity of L.A. band Phantom Planet was due to two fun facts: actor Jason Schwartzman used to be their drummer (he dropped out around 2003) and their song, "California," was used as The O.C.'s theme song. It couldn't be that they were—gasp—good! As far as pop rock goes, however, Phantom Planet knows how to write a hook. (Mabye it's genetic. Bassist Sam Farrar is the son of songwriter John "You're the One That I Want" Farrar.) And the titular single, "Raise the Dead," (below, but forgive the cheesy slideshow) off their new album of the same name represents a strong step forward. Could a plug on Gossip Girl be far off?

You don't have to know where Antibes, France, is to hear the coastal town in the music of M83, the electronic collaboration of Nicolas Fromageau and Anthony Gonzalez. In his effusively positive review of their third album, 2005's Before the Dawn Heals Us, Brandon Stosuy writes that their second album, 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, "found the duo lazing on their backs in an Antibes field, watching stars and birds gently collide above green mountain tops. A pleasingly disembodied traipse through the French countryside, it was a lesson for anybody who thinks electronics have no soul." Just think of their newest, Saturdays = Youth, as higher learning.

Never heard of the rock band from Minneapolis, the Plastic Constellations? Well, now that you have, don't get too attached. Their fourth full-length album, We Appreciate You, might just be their last. No tour is planned. It probably shouldn't come as a surprise; Plastic Constellations has always had the sound—their albums had the raw quality of live shows—of a band just barely getting by.

American Princes have taken the reverse path to notoriety (if it ever comes). They left New York City for the cozy (and affordable) confines of Little Rock, Ark. Two years later they were signed to Yep Rock (The Apples in Stereo, Fleshtones). Other People, released today, is their second on the label. “A few friends have said it’s our 80’s record, but it’s probably more Tears For Fears or Tom Petty than New Order,” said singer-guitarist David Slade. We won't hold that against you!

The dichotomy can be explained in part by the overlapping genre fare. Prom Night (no. 3), which grossed over $185,000 in the city, sucked the life out of the The Ruins (no. 5), which saw its fortunes take a precipitous 67.7 percent decline. Meanwhile, Street Kings (no. 1), starring Keanu Reeves as a detective who is implicated in the murder of a fellow police officer, appears to have delivered the death blow to the slick heist flick, The Bank Job (no. 8), with its $286,250 gross at 10 theaters; and Smart People (no. 2) with a bearded Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page, took the air out of Leatherheads (no. 6), which had stumbled out of the gate. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there! And with the way the box office is slumping versus the same period last year, everybody loses!

The one bright spot is the success of Street Kings, Smart People and The Visitor, in the city. The remake of the ‘80’s slasher movie, Prom Night, handily won the top prize at the national box office. Here in the city, the smaller—and dare I say smarter—movies shown brightest, accounting for horror film’s third place finish.

21 (no. 4) continued its remarkable run. Its 36 percent decline in its third week was second only to Nim’s Island (no. 9), which only declined 33 percent. Whoopty-do.

When is summer going to get here already?

List of theaters: Paris, Zeigfeld, Oprheum, East 85th St., 86th St. East, 84th St., Lincoln Plaza, 62nd and Broadway, Lincoln Square, Magic Johnson, 72nd St East, Cinemas 1, 2 &3rd Ave, 64th and 2nd , Imaginasian, Manhattan Twin, First and 62nd St., Angelika Film Center, Quad, IFC Center, Film Forum, Village East, Village Seven, Cinema Village, Union Square, Essex, Battery Park 11, Sunshine, 34th Street, Empire, E-Walk, Chelsea, 19th Street East, and Kips Bay.

Manhattan Weekend Box Office: How moviegoers in the multiplexes of middle America choose to spend their ten-spot is probably a big deal in Hollywood. But here in Manhattan, the hottest movies aren't always the ones making the big bucks nationwide. Using Nielsen numbers for Manhattan theaters alone and comparing them to the performance of the national weekend box office can tell you a lot about our Blue State sensibilities. Or nothing at all! Each Monday afternoon, we will bring you the results.

There should be something wrong when high-schoolers in Florida start to sound like their geriatric counterparts in Boca Raton. But when it's the stars of MTV’s The Paper [10:30 p.m.], it’s downright heartwarming. Though society seems to be "heading to the Internet and to virtual whatnot," 17-year-old Amanda Lorber, an editor on The Circuit, the student-run newspaper of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla. says she and her mates "really wanna keep print alive.” Aw, we feel you sister! Perhaps the staff of The Circuit will be the perfect compliment to that other popular MTV reality series starring misguided teenagers. The Observer’s Matt Haber summed it up quite nicely in a profile of the show and its cast:

Too high-minded? VH1 vies for the same eyeballs with Miss Rap Supreme (10 p.m.), a competition reality series in which ten female rap hopefuls compete for a $100,000 prize. Brought to you by the same people who produced The (White) Rapper Show, the program will seek to highlight the trials and tribulations of lady M.C.s'. First bit of advice, never make a movie with Jimmy Fallon!

Dirty Jobs (DSC, 9 p.m.) is a bit of a guilty pleasure, as is its insouciant host Mike Rowe. But this week, we New Yorkers actually have a legitimate reason to watch. Mr. Rowe visits the Big Apple and climbs to the top of a water tower at the top of a very high building and learns how to fix elevators. If only he’d shown up two decades ago, he wouldn’t have had to leave the street level to find a dirty job.

TUESDAY

Hey, did you know Barack Obama likes basketball? Yep, he sure does. But do you know how much does he really loves it? No? Find out when Bryant Gumbel goes one-on-one (get it?) with the aspiring Presidential candidate on Real Sports (HBO, 10 p.m.).

For all practical purposes, Gene Wilder has given up acting for writing. Since the publication of his memoirs, Miss Me Like a Stranger, in 2005, he has turned to fiction. His second novel, The Women Who Wouldn’t, was released in March. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Wilder isn’t one to still indulge in a bit of nostalgia. Tonight, he sits down with Alec Baldwin (TCM, 8 p.m.) to do just that.

WEDNESDAY

It’s the last debate before the all-important Pennsylvania primary (ABC, 8 p.m.) Will the gloves come off? Or will it be all strained smiles and awkward politeness? With any luck, Hillary will come out swinging. What has she got to lose … other than delegates and funding, and the nomination …? Oh, well, this isn’t going to fun at all, is it?

MTV distracts the youth vote from this thrilling bit of political theater with the Real World Awards, Roast ’Em and Toast ’Em (8 p.m.), which will only be worth watching if they bring back Puck … again.

Meanwhile, Fox launches its new Wednesday schedule with five new episodes of ‘Til Death (8 p.m.) and Back to You (8:30 p.m.), as if their primetime line-up needed any help.

THURSDAY

With Lost (ABC, 9 p.m.) and C.S.I. (CBS, 9 p.m.) in repeats, NBC will have an easy time notching a ratings victory with its primetime lineup in full force. But the free ride ends this week. Both Lost and Grey’s Anatomy return next week—and with an extra hour added to both of their seasons, apparently. (Thank Michael Ausiello for that little scoop.) It’s the least the networks and writers could do, really.

FRIDAY

Two finales! Your Mama Don’t Dance (LIFE, 9 p.m.) and Canterbury’s Law (Fox, 9 p.m.). We hardly knew ye.

SUNDAY

The made-for-TV adaptation of Sweet Nothing in My Ear (CBS, 9 p.m.) starring Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin goes toe-to-toe with My Boy Jack (PBS, 9 p.m.), a Masterpiece production, about Rudyard Kipling and his son, starring David Haig, Daniel Radcliffe and … Kim Cattrall, as Caroline, Rudyard’s wife. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon just got a bit easier.

If you prefer your humor to be of the intentional variety, John Oliver of The Daily Show performs Terrifying Times (Comedy Central, 10 p.m.), his very own stand-up special. With a British accent, he only has to work half as hard!