Father of the Pride OK, it's 8:01...

Father of the Pride OK, it's 8:01 and a computer-generated lion just made a testicle joke. Nice work, NBC. Airing your "adult" cartoon so early during a week when every kid on the planet has off may be your swiftest move since, oh I don't know, Coupling? Click.Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best Now, this is good stuff. Say what you will about Branson being a wannabe Trump or whatever, but come on. The accent. The hair. The airline. That's hot. You know what's not hot? Annoy-bot Heather sabotaging bikini models Erica and Nicole into being tarmac-ed, then losing what little cool she had left during the zero-gravity flight. Suck it up, you pantywaist! You know how many people would kill for a chance to float around an airplane on some crazy gazillionaire's dime? Lovedlovedloved the space-travel commercial challenge, though Shawn and Sara's slogan sort of worried me. "Virgins in Space" sounds so porny. Then again, this is Fox, so we could be witnessing the genesis of their next reality show. Sponsored by Astroglide, of course.Gilmore Girls So, I was telling my diehard-fan editor how much this show gave me the ughs. It's just so cutesy and quippy. But you know what? It sort of grew on me tonight. Maybe because it's one of the only scripted shows that doesn't need a fingerprint kit and mutilated coed to keep us entertained. Plus, now that Ed is dead, we need factory-direct homey types like Jackson and Taylor to duke it out for town selectman while everyone else runs around being quirky and ignoring the fact that Rory is basically a home-wrecker. D'oh! No, he di'nt! Oh, yes he did. Just tellin' it like it is, kids. Don't mean I love her less, OK?Father of the Pride Again? What, did we lose a bet or something? Oh, but now, instead of scrotum humor, Larry and Kate are planning to kill a zebra to replace Sarmoti's prized throw rug. Lovely. Someone call PETA. This is cruelty to humans.High School Reunion Well, it's about time. After scads of ads touting the arrival of the Cardinal Gibbons rivals, the dudes from Douglas finally showed up. And thank God. Not only are they better-looking than the home team, they also know how to play some seriously nasty football. Just ask that monster lump on Jim's head. Damn! And sure, this "reality" is about as believable as underwear models who claim they were ugly teens, but how can you not adore the overproduced drama of having Nikol's other love show up? Too bad he wasn't picked to join the house. That would have been so ugly. And speaking of, is it me or does Nikol have total two-face? Sometimes I think she's a goddess, other times, Godzilla. I don't get it.Father of the Pride Honestly. A third repeat? I don't care if David Spade is borderline fun as a coyote trying to reunite Larry and Kate. They were gonna kill a zebra 30 minutes ago! Note to Jeff Zucker: UPN called. They said thanks for the ratings.White Noise ad My friend Andrew and I have a standing deal to see every horror movie that comes out. Even Cabin Fever, which by the way, sucked harder than you can even imagine. But this one, with the dead talking on tape? No. Uh-uh. Not. Even. Right.House You know what I was saying earlier about shows that need to do the CSI thing to keep us entertained? Well, it turns out there's actually a medical drama completely free of all things Quincy. And it is so good! Granted, if I was ever treated by a doctor like Hugh Laurie's healer from hell, the lawsuit would be filed faster than a split nail at a drag show. But at least he's clever. I mean, only this curmudgeon could figure out that the chick with the sleeping disease caught it by catting around on her hubby with someone who had been to Africa. Now if he could only explain why Dominic Purcell is here as said hubby, there as North Shore's celebrity chef Tommy and nowhere on a DVD box set of his late, lamented John Doe. Come on, Fox, hook a brotha up, would ya?The Real World OK, OK, this column is hemorrhaging reality tonight, but indulge me. I live right outside of Philly and never get to write about this show. Especially since I couldn't dodge these poorly coiffed squatters whenever I went downtown last summer. Had I known that Sarah was such a tiresome skank, ya'll would have seen me being cuffed and carried away screaming in the background at some point. Or staging an intervention for Willie. Yowsa. Mister Sister passed out on a cab ride, then told the driver he was broke! Good thing he had a camera crew on him. Anyone of us locals tried that, we wouldn't be waking up Karamo to pay the tab. We'd be waking up in a cell. Brotherly love only goes so far, ya know.Queer Eye for the Straight Guy As much as I still dig the magic of five gays grooming a straight guy within an inch of his sexual preference, this sort of broke my heart. Not because the sad sack du jour was an unemployed divorc&#233 who lost his Playboy bunny wife to his best friend. That's just a Lifetime movie waiting to happen. No, what kills me is that the poor slob scored himself a Jack Spade bag, an Apple G4 laptop and new duds from Calvin Klein. He can't even keep a Playmate! How do Carson and company expect him to take care of really important stuff?!