Somewhere in the sitcom cosmos, Felix Unger (Tony Randall version) is smiling, because there's a new odd couple in town, and a frenetically funny fussbudget on the loose who makes Felix seem almost normal.

Equal parts smart and silly, and refreshingly short on smarminess, The Big Bang Theory is the season's one great new classic comedy. As Sheldon Cooper, a prickly mathematical genius who hasn't yet figured out the formula for successful human interaction, Jim Parsons is a marvelous discovery, creating the most hysterical misfit since Monk.

A hapless Einstein in comic-book T's, Sheldon is geek as freak: a bit like a hostile alien puzzled by social niceties yet as vulnerable as a child, having sacrificed his youth to academia. He is a constant embarrassment to his roomie, Leonard (the charming Johnny Galecki), who's every bit as nerdy but tragically knows it. Since misery loves company, the boys are often joined by their winningly weird pals Howard (Simon Helberg), a clumsy Casanova, and tongue-tied Raj (Kunal Nayyar).

Leonard pines for their sexy new neighbor, Penny (Kaley Cuoco), who thinks Leonard is sweet but can't crack Sheldon's frosty shell. The episode in which Penny is forced to nurse the obsessive Sheldon ("I shower twice a day and wash my hands as often as I can") through the flu was a riot. As she reluctantly prepares to rub Vicks on his chest, he directs her, "Counter-clockwise, or my chest hair mats." Ewww.

Penny once asked long-suffering Leonard, "Why can't all guys be like you?" His awww-some reply: "Because if all guys were like me, the human race couldn't survive." For anyone convinced the sitcom is nearly extinct, I offer up The Big Bang Theory as uproarious evidence to the contrary.

The Big Bang Theory airs Mondays at 8 pm/ET on CBS. 

Cranford

Masterpiece is on a roll, with the Jane Austen series followed by the wrenching wartime tragedy My Boy Jack and now capped by the best yet: Cranford, a splendidly entertaining three-parter best likened to a Victorian "Desperate Spinsters."

One character describes events in this rural 1840s hamlet as "a sequence of continuous delights." And so it is, as a community of busybodies (led by the austere Eileen Atkins and the fluttery Judi Dench as unwed sisters) contends with the joys, tragedies and scandals of an insular town about to be dragged into a new era with the impending arrival of a railroad.

Cranford, based on Elizabeth Gaskell's stories, creates a world unto itself, with rigid class and gender inequities but also a full and forgiving heart for its residents' human failings. Trust me when I say you'll laugh and cry, copiously. I relished each performance and every moment.

Cranford airs Sundays through May 18 at 9 pm/ET on PBS.