13 Hours of TV to Watch this Summer When You're Not Watching Mad Men

Look, Mad Men is good. It's really good. It's probably the best show on television. The Emmy voters certainly seem to think so. It might even be one of the top television dramas of all time. I don't know, I never watched The Sopranos or The Wire. But either way, it's up there.

And it won't air in 2011.

It might never air again, it might eventually air with dramatic changes, or it might come back in the winter of 2012 as strong as ever. But it definitely will not air in the Summer of 2011. (UPDATE: Mo Ryan of AOL is now reporting creator Matt Weiner has reached a deal with AMC for 2, and possibly 3 seasons. So Mad Men will be back in 2012. Hooray!)

So what will you do for those 13 hours of your life? You could rewatch some of your favorite Mad Men episodes of the first four seasons. AMC would certainly like you to watch The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad or whatever else they air in that slot.

But here are 13 hours of television I would suggest watching. Probably none of them are the quality of Mad Men, but they feature top notch performances from the Mad Men cast.

30 Rock- "Generalissimo" and "St. Valentine's Day"

Community- "Cooperative Calligraphy" and "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design"

Dharma and Greg- "Unarmed and Dangerous"

Gilmore Girls- "But I'm a Gilmore"

Grey's Anatomy- "That's Me Trying"

How I Met Your Mother- "Return of the Shirt" and "How I Met Everyone Else"

Parenthood- "Seven Names"

Saturday Night Live- "34x6: Jon Hamm/Coldplay"

The Office- "Customer Survey"

The West Wing- "Commencement"

Will & Grace- "Big Brother is Coming" Parts 1&2

...and the network show perhaps most inspired by Mad Men (although far less successful)...

Lone Star- "Pilot" and "One in Every Family"

The TV Musical Part II: Covers

This is part two of a two part post on musical tv moments/episodes. Today we focus on TV shows featuring covers of songs in advance of tonight's Grey's Anatomy's musical episode, "Song Beneath the Song." Two weeks ago we looked at TV performances of original songs in advance of the Glee episode "Original Song." 

Grey's Anatomy has been notable for popularizing several songs, most notably The Fray's "How to Save a Life" and Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars." Tonight, the show ventures into performing many of the songs that have appeared on the show, including those two.

While Grey's has the talent for musical performances (Sara Ramirez won a Tony award for her performance in Spamalot in 2005 while Chandra Wilson starred on Broadway in Chicago a few years ago), the show does not naturally lend itself to Glee-like production numbers. It will be interesting to see what direction they take this in.

It is certainly not the first time a scripted tv series has had its stars break out into well known songs. While Glee does this on a week to week basis, several other shows have featured out-of-character musical numbers from their stars.

While my intention was to include clips of some of my favorites as I did two weeks ago, most of these videos are not available online due to copyright issues, so we are limited to a list:

The Office has done two cast numbers of popular songs, with Kevin leading the cast in a rendition of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" in "Beach Day," and Andy leading the cast in Macy Gray's "I Try" in "Andy's Play."

The cast of 30 Rock performed a slightly altered version of "Midnight Train to Georgia" in "Episode 210," complete with a cameo from Gladys Knight herself.

The finale of Will & Grace included a somewhat odd duet of the classic "Unforgettable" from Karen and Jack.

Finally, before Emma was blinded by the catchy tune of the Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" on Glee earlier this month, Arrested Development played the same joke in the episode "Afternoon Delight," featuring dueling performances by Michael and Maebe and Lindsay and George Michael.

What other musical performances would you add?