TV Update

So, it turns out, that after trying to fill the space on Monday nights between "How I Met Your Mother" at 8 PM Eastern and "2 Broke Girls" at 9 PM Eastern with new shows, CBS filled the 8:30 PM Eastern slot with an old show. CBS brought back the David Spade-Patrick Warburton sitcom "Rules of Engagement" for another season and placed it in between the aforementioned established shows. It will be interesting to see how CBS continues to revamp its Monday night sitcom schedule as "How I Met Your Mother" prepares to introduce us to the third-party title character in the 2013-14 season. So, as you can probably guess - and I'm sure I said so earlier on my blog - the 2013-14 season of "How I Met Your Mother" (its ninth) will be its last. The series finale, now little more than a year away, will likely end with Ted Mosby marrying the woman fated to be the mother of his two children.  Ted has been looking back on the present from the year 2030, which is roughly the same time Pope Francis II ordains the Church's first female priests. (I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)

Meanwhile, Sarah Chalke - who played the Jersey girl Ted almost married until she left him at the altar - returns to sitcom television after her CBS sitcom "Mad Love" didn't make it (even though it should have). She stars in "How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life)," playing a divorced mom who moves back in with her parents as a result of a bad economy. Too relatable and realistic, you say? Yes, yet "The Middle," a sitcom in the same realism vein, is a huge hit. ABC is airing "How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life)" on Wednesdays, beginning April 3. Elizabeth Perkins and Brad Garrett play her parents. This should be an interesting sitcom, both for its subject matter (thank supply-side economic policy - now in its thirty-third year of practice after liberals predicted it wouldn't last six months - for bringing back multigenerational homes) and for the idea of Elizabeth Perkins as a grandmother. Doesn't that make you feel old? :-O

Meanwhile, "The Neighbors," a dumb ABC sitcom about aliens that critics expected to be among the first new shows of the 2012-13 season to be canceled, is a hit. Go figure.