In the Hot Seat: What to watch (or not) on TV talk shows the week of March 4
Monday, March 4
Watch: It's Sean Night on Kimmel; Sean Rowe plays and Sean "Diddy" Combs hits the couch. (Please, please let him announce that "Making the Band" is back.) (He won't, but we can dream.) The adorable Paul Rudd is on "The Daily Show," and the equally adorable Jane Lynch is on with Conan. And Zosia Mamet, who plays the adorable Shoshanna on "Girls," visits "Kelly & Michael Live."
Skip: Letterman, Leno, Fallon, and Carson Daly air reruns all this week.
[Related: Sean Combs admits to bed-wetting as a kid]
Tuesday, March 5
Watch: The Foo Fighters play Kimmel -- and becomes a supergroup with guests Krist "Nirvana" Novoselic, Rick "Working Class Dog" Springfield, John "Creedence" Fogarty, and Rick "Cheap Trick" Neilsen. Remember when James Franco was everywhere? For now, he's just on "The Colbert Report" (preceded by Sandra Day O'Connor on "The Daily Show"), and Martin Short seems like the perfect candidate to make fun of his own appearance on "The View" while actually doing it.
Skip: We love makeover shows, but we've lost patience with Tyra Banks, who's doing the making-over on "Rachael Ray."
Wednesday, March 6
Watch: The "sauce doctor" shows Rachael how to de-boring a meal in 10 minutes; sounds kinda dirty but we're all for it. We're totally into Craig Ferguson's random guest combo of Christina "Mad Men" Hendricks and Jackie "Hollywood Husbands" Collins, but the one on "Kelly & Michael Live" isn't too shabby either: Tom Coughlin and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Because nothing goes together like football and ghosts/prostitutes.
Skip: Jessica Simpson on Kimmel. Remind us again why she's famous?
[Related: Get the lowdown on 'The Vikings,' the History Channel's first scripted series]
Thursday, March 7
Watch: Lily Tomlin visits "The View," and Craig Ferguson gets smart with Zach Braff and Alison Brie. It's memory-lane day on "The Talk" with guest co-host Arsenio Hall and '80s grade-school-locker-door sensation Ricky Schroder (funny how that "call me 'Rick'" thing never really worked out). And Croatian sensation Goran Visnjic, who has been on our locker doors for years now, talks to Kelly and Michael about "Red Widow."
Skip: Nothing leaps out at us; we don't know who's on with Ellen today, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
[Related: Schroder directs his own daughter in Hallmark TV movie]
Friday, March 8
Watch: Kind of a slow day, but if you're really missing your dose of Colbert, you can watch a Fallon rerun he's on. And "The View" looks like a scorcher: Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo co-hosts, presiding over a random guest combo of David Hyde Pierce and Sigourney Weaver. Ellen's talking to Steve Carell.
Skip: Another one for the "we can't miss you if you won't go away" file -- Nicole Richie on "Kelly & Michael Live."
Watch Lily Tomlin's "SNL" monologue from early 2011:
