My Name is Earl

STUDIO: NBC
PREMIERE: April 3, 2008
STARRING: Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee, Jaime Pressly, Nadine Velasquez, Eddie Steeples, and Alyssa Milano
CREATED BY: Greg Garcia

Earl is back! Honestly, 2008 has been a little gloomier without Earl, Michael Scott, Kenneth, and Dr. Cox on Thursday nights and the fun returns this week with the hour-long post-strike premiere of My Name is Earl. So, where were we and does My Name is Earl pick up the delayed third season with as much cleverness and ingenuity as what aired before Greg Garcia picked up a picket sign? The first arc of the junior year of Earl Hickey's search for karmic enlightenment provided some of the best episodes in the history of the show. The series has yet to jump the shark, but we were all a little concerned that the premise would go stale after a few years. Not only has it not grown stale, but the team behind Earl have found new ways to make it fresh (and new ways to make Craig T. Nelson funny again). In today's TV world, a show is usually over the hill by the end of its third season, but, pre-strike, My Name is Earl was as funny as it's ever been and then they provided audiences with one of the best picket sign cliffhangers, by bringing the super-cute Alyssa Milano on-board before heading into the great writer's strike unknown.

In case you don't remember, My Name is Earl opens with a very odd introduction by famous NBC executive Jeff Zucker, who does a little shtick, pushes ESurance.com, shows some clips from the end of last year and then actually says "J-Z out." It's one of the weirdest things you'll see on TV this year and, at first, feels a little bit 'wrong', but when you realize that an executive actually came on television to explain where the writers left off last season, it almost makes you believe that the strike has made everyone friends again. Considering the bad blood between those with suits and those with pens over the last six months, watching Zucker catch up the viewers has a kind of karmic beauty that Earl Hickey would love.

So, at the end of last season, Earl had given up on his list and karma. He became such a jerk that the powers that be gave him a "callback" and hit him with a car again. But this time they also hit Alyssa Milano. Unlike that first encounter between boy and windshield, this one could be serious. Earl enters a dream state with his new dream girl in a sort of purgatory that looks and sounds like an old-fashioned sitcom, complete with laugh tracks and catch phrases, called "The Hickeys." While Earl drifts off into a mind raised on TV, the rest of his crew try desperately to bring him back to life. Physical comedy ensues.

Personally, it's always been the little asides and clever quips that make My Name is Earl so funny. So, the reliance on physical humor, like Joy straddling Earl on a runaway gurney, seem a little desperate, but, luckily, the writers haven't lost a beat with the jokes that come completely out of nowhere. A flashback bit with Earl and Randy shooting arrows into the sky and a nearly throwaway exchange between Crab Man and a doctor about Indians being "the new Jews" are hysterical, something that we haven't been able to say about a lot of television in 2008. Earl is back and he's brought both his excellent writing staff and Alyssa Milano with him. If would be bad karma not to watch.

One more thing - we almost forgot to mention that Paris Hilton is on the return of Earl. It's the definition of a cameo, but if the Britney on How I Met Your Mother experiment is any gauge, it's going to get a lot of headlines. Don't let it distract you from the rest of the show. It's just Paris being Paris, nothing more, nothing less, and it won't really stand out as the best or worst moment of the premiere for anyone, but we would be remiss not to mention it for all you Hilton-holics out there. Whatever it takes to make Earl a hit is fine with us. Bring it on, Paris.