Well, not really, anyway. I mean, normally, I’ve got an interview or a preview of a new series or a commentary on an existing TV series, and it’s enough to fill up an entire column, but not this time. Between all the writing, transcribing, and family matters going on over the past few weeks, I’ve had precious little time to watch TV these past few weeks, and what I have watched has tended to be in short spurts, which means that I’m way behind on just about all of my favorite shows. Mind you, that’s not to say that I don’t have anything to say. I’m just going to kind of run through some of the things I’ve been watching lately – some new, some old – and offer up my thoughts about them.

First up: the same show just about everyone else was talking about this morning:

Seems like only yesterday that I walked up to Jimmy Fallon at the TCA Press Tour and asked him outright if he was scared shitless about starting his talk show. (His response: “Why, yes. Yes, I am.”) Now look at the guy: slow-jamming the news with the President of the United States. You know, I’d say “I don’t care what your politics are, that’s just awesome,” but I know Republicans better than that. I will, however, note that President Obama earned a little extra respect from me for taking the time to give a shout-out to Key & Peele. It wouldn’t surprise me if you forgot that I talked to them back in January, since the piece didn’t get so much as a single comment, but they’re a hilarious couple of guys, and they deserve all the success they’ve been getting with their Comedy Central Series. But I digress. Here’s that slow jam I mentioned, just in case you haven’t caught it yet:

If you’re a parent, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the addition of children to your life inevitably results in a number of changes to your lifestyle, but one of the most crucial is how it affects your TV viewing habits. It seems like it’d be easy to tell a little kid what they’re going to watch, but you’d be surprised. Battles are often fought in our living room over what I want to watch versus what my daughter calls “my shows,” a short list which includes a variety of programming that I have no interested in sitting through. As such, my wife and I regularly try to find shows that are at least somewhat of a middle ground for us all, thereby avoiding these arguments with a little lass who’s 1/4 my size, and in an effort to avoid watching “Dance Moms” at all cost, I finally asked a question I never thought would come out of my mouth: “Do you want to try ‘Dancing with the Stars’?”

Mind you, it still wouldn’t have come out of my mouth if we didn’t have Hulu Plus, because its regular timeslot(s) finds it up against several programs that I’d much rather watch instead, but since we can stream it whenever we want, we’ve taken advantage of that opportunity…and damned if it hasn’t been amazingly entertaining. I mean, I’m annoyed by the same things on “Dancing with the Stars” that I am on most reality shows, most notably the fact that it’s stretched out to an unnecessary length (particularly the results show, which could be done in 30 minutes without any problem), but it’s been hard to take my eyes off the screen during the actual dance routines. I’m led to understand that this is arguably the strongest group of celebrity contestants they’ve had on the show in quite some time, possibly ever, so I guess I picked the right season to take a chance. By the way, if Katherine Jenkins doesn’t take it all, I’ll be very, very surprised. What a cutie…

Speaking of “Dancing with the Stars,” not only is Jaleel White pulling some serious street-cred from his fancy footwork on this season of the show, but he’s also got a new full-time gig to keep him occupied: hosting SyFy’s new game show, “Total Blackout.” As with about half of the programming on SyFy, it has absolutely nothing to do with SyFy (indeed, it would really fit in better on Chiller), but it’s still a highly entertaining concept, not to mention a simple one: put people in a dark room and have them compete against each other to perform various tasks that would be simple if only they could see. The first few episodes have the contestants reaching into aquarium tasks and being forced to identify objects that range from cockroaches to a pineapple just by touching them, figuring out what they’re eating or smelling, and other strange stuff. You’ll cringe on occasion, but mostly you’ll laugh and say, “I’m glad that’s not me!”

Say what? Yep, Shout Factory has finally secured the rights to continue releasing the full-season sets of this ’70s classic, and when Season 2 arrived at my house, I dug right in. Screw all that new programming: I’d much rather delve through this treasure trove of stars on their way up and down the ladder of success and more character actors than you can shake a stick at. Don’t believe me? Take a look…

Fantasy? Magic? Get it…? Okay, so it’s a slightly imperfect segue. So sue me.

When I first saw the trailer for Starz’s “Magic City,” I was instantly captivated by the look of the series. Having not actually been in Miami Beach in 1961, I haven’t a clue how accurate the portrayal of the area and the era are, but the results sure are easy to watch. Three episodes into the proceedings, however, it’s hard to really know yet what to expect from the series, especially since the second episode fell into the unfortunate but often-repeated mistake of rehashing too much from the pilot. I will say, however, that the third episode was very strong and left me particularly excited about seeing where things will be going this week, so I’m certainly hopeful.

Danny Huston’s an effective bad-ass, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s better here than I’ve seen him in just about anything else, but I do wish they’d give Alex Rocco a storyline that doesn’t feel so damned schmaltzy. He’s made an impression every time he’s been on screen, but I’m invariably left thinking that, although Rocco was great, the storyline wasn’t. But, hey, we’re only three episodes in. There’s still plenty of time left to turn things around.

Time for another flashback, this one courtesy of Warner Home Video, who finally realized that there’s enough of an audience for this short-lived series adaptation of a ’70s classic to warrant releasing it on DVD. (It had previously only been available via download.) Although I have to admit that my first reaction upon watching Gregory Harrison’s performance as Logan was to think, “Gee, I really wish they’d release ‘Trapper John, M.D.’ on DVD,” it turns out that although “Logan’s Run” looks precisely as dated as you’d expect a sci-fi series of the ’70s to look, the stories themselves hold up surprisingly well. Mind you, it doesn’t exactly hurt that Heather Menzies is totally swoon-worthy. Also worth noting is Donald Moffat’s performance as the android Rem, which never fails to be thoughtful, amusing, and just generally entertaining.

Look, I don’t know what the chances are that Fox is going to bring back this “Bones” spin-off for a second season, but let me just go on record as saying that it’s a lot of fun and absolutely worthy of renewal. I have this feeling that a lot of “Bones” fans took a pass of trying it out because the back-door pilot for “The Finder” – that would be the episode of “Bones” that they used to introduce the characters – but I’m here to tell you that the actual series is so much better. With each passing episode, Geoff Stults seems perpetually more at home in the role of Walter, the eccentric gentleman who’s obsessed with finding stuff, and the chemistry between Stults and Michael Clarke Duncan is fantastic. As I say, I have no clue if they’ll deign to bring it back for Season 2, but I sure hope they do.

So…where were we?

Oh, fine, let’s go ahead and deal with the elephant in the room: it’s been nine months since Bullz-Eye doled out its last TV Power Rankings. What can we say? There were a lot of good shows on the air between May 2011 and February 2012, and somewhere around late October, it just kind of reached a point where we said, “You know what? It’s way more fun to watch TV than it is to write about it.” Eventually, though, the powers that be pried us off the couch (there’s still an indentation where we were sitting), set us back in front of the computer, and said, “Look, the readers demand to know Bullz-Eye’s take on the best shows of the past year* and, frankly, they’re starting to get a little belligerent about it.”

(*Rounded up for statistical purposes.)

So here we are, ready to offer up our list of the 25 best shows on television** as well as several shows bubbling just under our list, plus a new section called “Still Too New to Call,” where we praise shows that seem pretty damned good after their first few episodes but simply haven’t been around long enough for us to feel comfortable including them in the other two lists.

(**Okay, technically, it’s the 24 best shows on television plus one show that hasn’t been on since 2010, but we’re so excited about that particular show coming back that we included it, anyway.)

All told, we hope you’ll walk away from this piece either nodding your head in agreement or wondering why you haven’t been watching some of these shows. If not, however, there’s a perfectly good Comments section that’s just waiting for your opinions about what’s good on TV.

Everybody ready? Then let’s get this thing started…

No, it’s not quite the same show it used to be, owing to the fact that the cast now consists of almost as many women as it does men, but with the series now in its fifth season, the trio of Kaley Cuouo, Melissa Rauch, and Mayim Bialik have probably infused “The Big Bang Theory” with more laughs than the it would’ve had at this point if it had stuck strictly to the original four geeks. The only question now is how much longer we’ll have to wait for Raj to come out of the closet…because, seriously, you don’t need to possess gay-dar to see that that’s what they’re leading up to.

When we first picked back up with Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) for the seventh season of “Weeds,” she’d spent three years cooling her heels in the clink while the rest of the Botwin clan had been chillin’ in Copenhagen, but with Nancy being shifted to a halfway house in New York City, a family reunion was only inevitable. Big shock: Nancy started selling pot again. Possibly bigger shock: even going into its eighth season, “Weeds” is still reliably entertaining.

When it comes to watching “New Girl,” one’s level of appreciation is directly proportionate to how one feels about the concept of “adorkability,” which Zooey Deschanel brings to the small screen in seemingly limitless quantities as Jess, a too-cute twentysomething who moves in with a trio of guys on the heels of an excruciatingly bad breakup. As with most ensemble comedies, it’s taken time for the chemistry of the cast to find its feet, but it’s coming along nicely.

Some shows are perfect fare for guys and gals to kick back and enjoy together, but, guys, unless you have one of the most awesome girlfriends ever, then “Archer” probably doesn’t quality as one of those shows. Sterling Archer has the libido of James Bond and Austin Powers put together but without any of the charm, and not only is he unfailingly uncouth, but he’s a mama’s boy to boot. Damned if he isn’t funny, though, and Season 3 has started off just as funny as its predecessors…but, then, what would you expect when you’ve got Burt Reynolds playing himself?

As long as the beautiful ménage à trois between stupid people, video cameras, and the internet continues to flourish, Daniel Tosh’s career will stay in full bloom. Now in its fourth season, “Tosh.0″ may not be the most highbrow series on the air, but it’s never at a loss for material and still offers a solid number of laughs per episode.

Jordan Peele: We’ve done a couple of these so far, Will, and I’ll just go ahead and pre-empt your request to have us announce our names…

Bullz-Eye: I don’t know what you’re talking about. It never would’ve occurred to me to ask you to identify yourselves before speaking.

JP: [Laughs.] Well, this is Jordan speaking, and…I guess I’m the one that sounds more like Bert. And he’s the one that sounds more like Ernie.

BE: I’ll try to remember that during transcription.

Keegan-Michael Key: [Laughs.] Yeah, just put B for one, E for the other. That shouldn’t be too confusing.

BE: Yeah, especially not when “BE” is the abbreviation for Bullz-Eye.

JP: [Laughs.] Well, just to be safe, we’ll keep announcing ourselves, anyway. You can also identify me as the tired one. I’m Jordan.

BE: Right. If someone’s slurring, it’s probably Jordan.

KMK: He’s Eeyore, I’m Piglet.

JP: Piglet? Oh, come on. You’re Tigger.

KMK: Oh, God, what am I talking about? Of course I’m Tigger. [Laughs.]

BE: So you guys obviously worked together for many years on “Mad TV,” but did you know each other at all prior to that series?

KMK: We did. Yeah, we met in Chicago when Jordan was at Boom Chicago, which is an improv theater in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. [Laughs.] As opposed to Amsterdam in New Mexico or something, right?

JP: Hey, there’s also an Amsterdam in New York.

KMK: All right, all right. [Laughs.] Anyway, I was at The Second City, and our casts had a swap. There’s two theaters at the Second City, so one of our casts went to Amsterdam, and Jordan’s cast from Boom Chicago – which is just a really incredible theater – they came to Chicago. So they flipped, and that’s where we met: I was performing on the second stage at Second City, and Jordan’s cast had come in to visit us for a week.

JP: This was back in the day when…I had lived in Chicago for a couple of years but then had left, and in that time, Keegan had moved to Chicago and pretty quickly become the most talked-about, exciting improviser in Chicago. He won a couple of Jeff Awards just for his work on the Second City reviews, and I remember seeing that and…it was really inspiring, Key.

KMK: I didn’t know that.

JP: Yeah, it was so awesome. I saw a couple of characters that…

KMK: …that I subsequently used at “Mad TV,” yeah.

JP: So, yeah, we met each other, and we got along famously from the very get-go.

BE: So when you got to “Mad TV,” did you instantly forge a bond based on already knowing what each other’s strengths were?

KMK: Yeah, I think that’s true. Well, actually, not immediately, because we did a lot of…I mean, we improvised together in Chicago a couple of times and watched each other’s performances, but I had no idea what a consummate idea-man Jordan was until about a year into “Mad TV.” And then, if I wasn’t in a scene that he was in that he had written, I would just sometimes sit on the sidelines and go, “What…? How did he think of that?” Just really tremendous stuff.

JP: In both of our first years, towards the end, we collaborated on a scene where we played these two superstitious high-school or college basketball players who end up doing sort of fully-choreographed step dancing.

KMK: Yeah, anytime something “unlucky” would happen to them… Every scene would take place during an event in their lives, so the first scene was the regional championship for their basketball team, so, y’know, a black cat walks through, a mirror breaks, people speak at the same time, and they’re so superstitious that they’ve got to do a little dance every time to break the hex of whatever said superstition was. It was a fricking blast.

JP: In the old days, with Keegan and I, he was the guy that I knew… We both had the interest in sort of over-rehearsing before the table read, so I think we kind of bonded on the amount of work we were willing to put in. Everybody was hard workers there, but, you know ,we were just birds of a feather who had the same work ethic and everything.

BE: When “Mad TV” wrapped, did you leave with the agreement that you’d be ready to work together again whenever the opportunity arose?

KMK: I don’t think we’d formally spoken about it. We just knew that it was going to happen at some point in time.

JP: It was a given.

KMK: That’s a good way of putting it, Jordan: it was an unspoken given.

BE: So how did the series for Comedy Central come up, then? Was it something that was pitched to one of you and they brought in the other, or…

KMK: We were both working on separate projects at the time, and, um, both of the projects fell through. [Laughs.] Jordan was in a pilot that didn’t get picked up, and I was on a TV series that got canceled. And we have the same manager, so our manager said, “Would you guys like to do something together?” ‘Cause there was interest from Comedy Central and from…

JP: …from lots of different places. We were real fortunate to have had a couple of interested parties and be able to really be able to essentially pick Comedy Central as the perfect home for us.

KMK: Amen.

JP: And I think it really is perfect, too, because we like to sort of push things a little bit to a slightly irreverent point, but we also like making comedy for comedy nerds. [Laughs.]

KMK: And, also, we’re both comedy nerds, too. [Laughs.]

JP: Yes. I use the term “comedy nerds” very lovingly, because that’s what we are.

KMK: We would never say “comedy nerd” in a pejorative way. [Laughs.] But we’re also big lovers of…like, I’m a big lover of the classics, so I love silent comedy, physical comedy, pratfalls and slapstick and stuff like that. So the perfect comedy sandwich is to have a scene that has some nice and silly stuff in it that still might have some social bite to it.

BE: So what can we expect from the series as far as its content? I’ve seen the first episode, which is great, but since you guys have built a pretty decent stable of impressions over the years, will it be heavy on those, or will you be doing more original characters?

KMK: Um…that’s a good question.

JP: That’s a very good question. We’ve sort of developed a unique style. One thing that does sort of overarch our work is…we’ve got what we like to think of in comedy as a slightly unique point of view, being biracial and kind of living in between different worlds, sort of growing up and having to adapt to our surroundings. Well, not having to adapt, but choosing to adapt. And we sort of explore that. So we do a lot of racial humor, partly because, y’know, race is such an absurd concept in itself, and there are some aspects to it that we can tap that haven’t been overdone.

KMK: Or done. [Laughs.]

JP: Right. Or done at all.

KMK: I think, Will, to answer your question…I guess the best and most vague way to answer your question is that there will be a smattering of impressions. [Laughs.] There will be character work, definitely. The interesting thing about our job, especially in sketches, is that you have to wait a season before you have any idea whether or not a character catches on in the kind of “Saturday Night Live” or “Mad TV” vein. We’re not even really going for that. There are places where there are characters…where characters feed the conceit of the scene, and the conceit of the scene fuels the characters. But seldom have we done scenes in this season of the show where we were, like, “This is an outright character, and I just want to play it in a scenario.” Unlike something like Coach Hines on “Mad TV,” or Stuart on “Mad TV,” or something like that. I think the character of the show…there’s an overriding character to the show, as opposed to a bunch of well-recognized characters in the show. But you will get – and correct me if I’m wrong, Jordan – but you will get a healthy dose of Obama.

JP: Yeah, we do a good amount of Obama. Just enough. [Laughs.]

BE: I have to say, a show that is not necessarily a precise point of reference but which did leap to mind at times when I was watching the first episode was “Mr. Show.”

KMK: Oh, God, you just gave us the greatest compliment you ever could.

JP: Yeah. Thank you!

KMK: If a television critic wrote the words “a black ‘Mr. Show,’” I might quit my job. [Laughs.] Because we’d be done.

BE: And I’m not saying it’s precise – based on the episode I saw, it seems like it might be a bit more relationship-driven than “Mr. Show” was – but there are certainly some similar elements. Or, at least, I think there are, anyway.

KMK: Yeah, and you’ll see that, too, Will, that there will be episodes where – and I’ll use the word “smattering” again – there are callbacks, where characters will kind of appear and overlap a little bit. That’s an accurate depiction, wouldn’t you say?

JP: Mmm-hmm.

KMK: Not every show. But you’ll see that. It’s something that’s part of our pedigree.

JP: I think one of the things we really admire about “Mr. Show”…I mean, we’re fans of the great sketch shows in general – “In Living Color,” “Chappelle’s Show,” “SNL,” “Mr. Show” – but since you bring up “Mr. Show,” yeah, they do the heightening thing, where they’ll sort of latch onto a comedic game, and then they’ll heighten it through the roof in a way that I think no one had ever seen before. Or since.

KMK: You saw, Will, a good example of it in the first sketch of the show. Not the phone call, but after the live segment, where the two guys are afraid of their wives. I think that’s almost directly influenced by them. When I think of “Mr. Show,” I think of the scene where David Cross goes into the party store and asks Bob Odenkirk for change. Same thing. Like, I would say that this scene was influenced in my brain by that scene.

JP: The chef scene has that element as well, almost like David Cross’s famous audition sketch. The game doesn’t get past the first sentence without having to evolve. But, yeah, thank you for saying that.

KMK: We take that as a high, high compliment.

BE: Given that there are a fair amount of sketch comedy shows out there, what are your hopes for Key & Peele? From your perspective, what do you think will make this show stand out?

JP: Well, I think this show’s going to have a real new, fresh feel to it. It’s unlike any sketch show that I’ve ever seen before, and part of that is because we’ve hired some amazing people. Our director, Peter Atencio, has really made everything look very filmic and, uh, expensive. [Laughs.] We don’t have a lot of money, so we’ve done some really great sleight of hand. Also, our writing process has been so amazing. We’ve got amazing writers. So my hope, ultimately, would just be that people enjoy it, and that, at the very least, it becomes a cult classic. I mean, of course, the real hope is that we get hugely rich and famous. [Laughs.] If the comedy nerds approve, I’ll be a happy man.

KMK: I guess my hope would be that… I just hope that we’ve created a show – and I really do hope this – that we can be proud of, in the tradition of Godfrey Cambridge and Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor. I would really like… I want it to provide belly laughs and also be socially relevant. And I feel like we have an ability to do that, based on something that Jordan had mentioned prior, which is that we are representing a segment of the population that is new and is not going to stop growing. And not only is not going to stop growing, it’s not going to stop evolving. And that’s the biracial American, and, y’know, where do we fit in the fabric of the society?

JP: I’ve got another point that I’ve just realized. We’ve noticed something about black comedy, namely that most of our heroes as black comedians are stand-ups. Both Keegan and I were trained in improvisation and sketch comedy, so I think being so inspired by “In Living Color” myself when I was a kid, it would just be such an honor to be able to inspire young black comedians to go the sketch-improv route instead of stand-up, or to do it as well and just branch out. Because there really is just a wonderful world of comedy there. So that would be lovely.

KMK: That would be lovely. That would be a really lovely thing if that were to happen, yeah.

BE: You cited “Chappelle’s Show” and “In Living Color.” Would you say that your show is still going to be multifaceted enough as far as its comedy that it won’t just be black audiences who are enjoying it? Is it going to be across the board as far as the type of comedy goes?

KMK: I guess the answer to that question would be, “Absolutely.” It’s for a multicultural audience, definitely. I think there’s a few scenes that happen later in the season. Well, also, another example…like, we used as an example before the “bitch” scene – that’s what we call the sketch where the guys are afraid of their lives – and I think wherever they have wives they’ll enjoy that scene. [Laughs.] It’s just a very cross-cultural…well, that’s not even a cultural scene. That’s a human scene. And I think our show is populated with human scenes as well as specifically-targeted cultural scenes.

BE: And that’s the perception that I had from the first episode – even the first scene, with you guys on your respective phone calls, speaks to more than just a black audience – but it’s so hard to tell from just one episode.

KMK: Yeah, I know what you mean. But don’t you think, Jordan, that we tier things? It’s about…oh, God, this makes me want to talk about “Auction Block,” but I don’t want to tell him. I want him to see it. But…

JP: But you can guess with a name like “Auction Block.”

KMK: [Laughs.] And there was something about that first scene you mentioned that we really enjoyed, which is that it’s about putting on a façade. Humans put on facades. It’s just being filtered through a particular cultural filter.

JP: I think we give everybody a little bit of a jab at some point during the season. I think one of our comedy rules is, “You don’t make fun of the underdog.” There’s not a lot of comedy to be had by being a bully. You want to sort of…you want to take the rug out from under the people that have some sort of status in their community, or who are boastful or are bullies themselves.

KMK: Also, another thing is that…I mean, Will, I have to say that my partner, Jordan, is just extraordinary at this, to the point where it’s uncanny, but…there could be 100 people in a room, and 99 people would say, “Oh, look at the bloom on that rose,” and Jordan would say, “Oh, look at that leaf with that brown spot on it.” Do you know what I mean? He always sees something different than anybody else sees. And you’ll see that. It’s like he’s reading a defense in football, and he always sees the crack. And in our process, it has been invaluable. Just invaluable.

JP: That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. [Laughs.]

KMK: So I say that to say that there’s going to be, I think, some situations where you’ll go, “Oh, my God, I’ve never, ever thought of it that way.” Whatever “it” happens to be. [Laughs.]