Blog Posts by Tara Ariano

Nailed it. (Hulu)Granted, the "SNL" Sketch Predictor is based on a combination of informed guesswork and pure imagination. But I will still get way too excited when I happen to be right about anything in the show. Below, a celebration of me and the things I accurately predicted — plus a couple of things I should have known to expect.

What I Got Right!

1. and 2. and 3. That the cold open would feature a politician giving an address, and that the episode would touch on the death of Muammar Qadaffi.

Dr. Drew is really in for something. (Hulu)You've seen them sexing up a pumpkin patch. You've seen them dressed up in unfortunate costumes for Halloween. You've even seen her "without makeup." Soon you'll be able to see them in a reality show, but BEFORE THAT, you'll get to see Doug Hutchison and his much younger wife, Courtney Stodden, on "Dr. Drew's Lifechangers." We've seen host Dr. Drew Pinsky being sensitive yet firm with such no-hopers as the participants in "Celebrity Rehab" and the too-young parents of "Teen Mom"; the prospect of seeing him face off against all this nonsense has caused me to use my DVR to search for "Dr. Drew's Lifechangers," find out the channel that carries it in my market, and record it for the first time in my life. Well played, Pinsky. [Popdust]

Last night introduced us to two interesting facets of Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase): His multipurpose moist towelettes have made him a household name (in gay households), and his father is a crazy loon. Larry Cedar played the senior Hawthorne, a man even more bigoted than his son: In a minute (or so) of screen time, he insulted every member of Pierce's study group — even the white ones — and explained why, in place of a wig, he was wearing what appeared at first to be some kind of white sculpture. The jokes per minute rate here is very, very, impressively high.

Plotting, wistful. (ABC)As you may have noticed, the networks mostly don't bother to program their Friday nights, throwing up a mix of repeats of shows that aired on more competitive nights, and cheap newsmagazines. So if they're not going to give you interesting show options, you're going to have to do it yourself. We'll help you out by directing you to Your Time-Shift Friday Show of the Week — the kind that work well accompanied by a glass of wine and a stack of catalogs; or that can be enjoyed even if you doze off in the middle, because you can still pick up the plot thread in the end, or next week.

Show: "Revenge," which airs on ABC Wednesday nights at 10 PM EST.

Plot: Mysterious billionairess Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp) arrives in the Hamptons just as — coincidentally — the lives of all the most important socialites in town start falling apart.

It'll look a little something like this. (Hulu)I've been to the future and brought back this sketch-by-sketch rundown of tomorrow's episode of "Saturday Night Live." Or is it just a series of very educated guesses? Read our "SNL" Sketch Predictor and judge for yourself.

11:29 PM Cold open: An increasingly incoherent Rick Perry (Bill Hader) defends himself against charges that he delivered a recent speech while drunk or otherwise impaired.

11:37 PM Monologue: Host Charlie Day talks about having starred in "Horrible Bosses, and reunites with his co-stars Jason Sudeikis (himself), Jennifer Aniston (Nasim Pedrad), and Jamie Foxx (Jay Pharoah).

I know you can't possibly watch "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" — or any other late-night talk show — every single night. I mean, they're on EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! Fortunately, we live in a time when, if you happen to miss the return of a classic comedy segment like "Cupid's Arrow," the internet will let you catch up the next day. In case you've missed my previous effusive posts about it, the premise of "Cupid's Arrow" is that the "Late Night" studio was formerly used to shoot bachelors' clips for a video dating service in the '80s. And needless to say, the gentlemen in question are all almost certainly still single. Last night's installment featured returning love-seekers like Albert Manfield ("Late Night" writer Bashir Salahuddin) and Gary Chutch (Jimmy Fallon), as well as newcomers Denny Piff (announcer Steve Higgins) and Rod Rory (Fallon again). If this sketch ever fails to make me laugh, please take me to the hospital because it will be a sign that I have had a stroke.

JACKPOT. (Matt Rourke/AP)With the economy continuing to tank, jobless numbers showing no signs of improvement, and ordinary people looking for new sources of income, it's no wonder there's been a boom in reality shows about, essentially, sifting through garbage in search of saleable goods. And if your appetite for such programming hasn't been sated by "Pawn Stars," "Storage Wars," "Dresscue Me," "Auction Hunters," and "American Pickers," good news! Spike has greenlit a pilot for "Luggage Wars." Which is exactly what it sounds like: "Storage Wars," but with lost luggage auctions instead of storage unit auctions.

What settings remain for enterprising producers looking to spin consumer-culture straw into reality-TV gold? Here are a few ideas.

With a show as perfectly cast, carefully written, and generally excellent as "Parks & Recreation," it's tough to say which are the best characters. But if, as a web producer, you were charged with choosing which two could sustain a five-episode series of webisodes on their own, without the rest of the cast, you could do worse than Andy (Chris Pratt) and April (Aubrey Plaza). In the series, the two embark upon a journey that can test the strength of even the best-established couples: a road trip. All five episodes will be online after tonight's new episode; here's a preview.

[@parksandrecnbc]