How come Marc or Amanda can't be Jewish?

Thursday makes for a hard flow. I switch from ABC to NBC to ABC again, and it's sometime quite jarring. At least Ugly Betty, The Office, and 30 Rock all take place in offices, but then Life on Mars comes along and the police station doesn't resemble any of the others. Not that ER should have made more sense, but somehow it never seemed quite as abrupt.

Maybe it's because LOM is such a guy show. I still don't see what it has to do with me, but I'm sufficiently intrigued, if only by the music and as I've said, TV at 10 on Thursday is so ingrained, it really keeps me from watching ER.

But where are all the Jewish characters? I don't just mean only on these shows, I mean overall. A medium that brought us George Burns, Rhoda Morgenstern, Joel Fleishman, Michael Steadman, Ross Gellar, Grace Adler, and Ari Gold (who admittedly is still on) and there's no one. No one on Gossip Girl, even though Rufus was in the books, and therefore Dan and Jenny half, I guess Navid and Silver on 90210 are at least part, but it's been hardly mentioned (and in Silver's case, not, but her dad is Mel Silver and her brother David), no one on Heroes, or Lost, or The Office or 30 Rock or Ugly Betty. Maybe we're supposed to be so assimilated now that we're just "there" and no one needs to notice that Judah Freedlander, Christine Rose (I think), Amy Brenneman and others are Jewish (granted I haven't watched Private Practice this year, maybe they've acknowledged it). It just strikes me as odd, though.

Anyhow, Ugly Betty was Lindsay-free and was better, though still not great, The Office was better, with tons more Pam and tons more Kelly, but still not great--I chortled once. Obviously the fact that Jim is buying his folks' house in Scranton, while Pam, who is extremely suggestible, will probably really want to stay in New York now that the guy from Mad Men told her to. Awkward given the mortgage-meltdown. Frankly I think buying a house without consulting your fiancee is dumb, anyhow. I feel the same way about a diamond ring. She's going to have to live with that stuff a long time.

30 Rock was pretty damn good and between that and all the Obama stuff, I have a newfound respect for OPRAH, and also for Tina Fey who just played that perfectly. The look on her face when she said Oprah's name was excellent. Life on Mars was interesting enough, and Whoopi was pretty good. Liked, didn't love, the music. You can never go wrong with Sly and the Family Stone. In fact, if I actually liked cop shows, I probably would have really liked this one, but I don't so I didn't.