Maybe it's the Broadway geek within, but to have Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene singing together on "Pushing Daisies" was simply a kick.

By the way, Ann V. in the comments below noted that it was a They Might Be Giants song. (News to me. But if you want to talk about the new Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration, I'm ready.) So here's a video of They Might Be Giants' version …

And, since I'm in a full video frenzy, here's the "Pushing Daisies" version:

Getting back to the actual TV show, it continues to improve, once again going into the emotional territory involving its core gimmick …

The hand-holding business worked well when Chuck imagined she was holding hands with the Pie Maker, not so well when the show got around the problem with the bee suits. I know there's a love-conquers aspect to the show, but it's finding an awful lot of ways to let its lovestruck duo make contact — and the plastic wrap was much funnier than the bee suits.

But it's beginning to feel as if I'm with this show for the long haul, however long that may be.

If nothing else, I am more satisfied with it than with "Heroes," which continues its slide into tedium. This week's episode, with the much ballyhooed arrival of Kristen Bell, should have been an opportunity to impress the Bell cult when it checked in.

But Bell's moderately amusing villainy aside, it wasn't much. I mean, if you've acquired the power to learn anything you see being done, wouldn't you want a more rigorous test than jumping rope? (I kept thinking of Claire's tests in the first season. That was proving your power.) And it was pretty quickly evident that Nathan and Parkman were fighting each other; based on how they looked afterward, they did surprisingly little damage to each other, too. And they should have brought Hiro home by now. I'm hanging in with "Heroes," but with less and less enthusiasm.

My big reservation with "Private Practice" had to do with some of the obviousness in the plots. The teen girl's sexual claims sounded a bit fake from the beginning, we knew that the return of Violet's ex was going to go bad and it was immediately clear that the assault victim's injuries went beyond what she first said. (On that last plot, too, I'm still uneasy with the idea that the woman who has been assaulted is supposed to be strong for her upset-by-the-attack man. I don't like the suggestion that the man's problem is more serious than the woman's.)

But the show wasn't entirely unwatchable. The Bill Clinton monologue was pretty amusing, for one thing. Addison is toughening up. The characters' interaction makes more sense. Sam and Naomi talking as parents was a nice touch.

I think I mentioned last week that "Back to You" is figuring out how to be funny, and Fox apparently thinks it's doinf all right. The network has ordered 11 more episodes, on top of the 13 already commissioned, for a full season of 24 telecasts.

Since I was watching other stuff (as should be obvious from this post), I did my laptop thing for the World Series last night. Even there, it was stunning, especially in that sequence of three run-scoring walks. And no commentary, and no commercials — other than the ones we were fast-forwarding through in the shows we watched.

Sometimes people have to stop talking fast and let themselves feel something.

Last night was one of those where I just ran out of steam, managing to get through only half of "Private Practice" before sailing away on Lethe. But before that I did get through "Pushing Daisies" and was not entirely displeased. …

I've already expressed my reservations about "Pushing Daisies" being too cute for its own good, so it was nice that last night's episode let itself get serious for a bit. That Chuck finally learned that her new life came at a price, and that the others had to acknowledge their willingness to pay that price. It was a somber note, but it was one that the show needed to hit if we were ever going to accept the characters as something other than amusing little caricatures surrounded by bright colors.

Of course, the show soon enough went back to being cute, but I hope that last night's episode was a promise that, while it will never be realistic, it will at least recognize the need for real emotions — and not just the wistfulness in which it has often trafficked.

On the other hand, did I miss it or was there a dead end to the plot about the happy drops in the aunt's pie? I don't remember a noticeable change in the characters, or in Olive for that matter.

This morning, having caught up on sleep, I took a few minutes to watch "Back to You" and saw a show that is really beginning to figure out what works. Part of that, naturally, is more Fred Willard. But it also gave Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton stronger business involving their characters, underscoring their flaws but doing it by putting them in fun situations. I don't buy Grammer's last good turn for his boss, but overall this was the best episode of the show so far.

And don't forget tonight's season finale of "Mad Men." I expect to have a post after it airs.

"Back" premieres tonight, " 'Til Death" starts its second season tonight. …

I keep thinking I should write something more detailed than what I had in today's HeldenFiles about "Back to You," basically that the second episode is funnier than the first. (You have to scroll down a bit to get to that stuff.) But that pretty much covers it. The first episode suffers from the need to introduce characters and establish the situation, while the second settles into getting laughs — notably with a sequence of farcical bits involving Kelsey Grammer, which merrily recall the escalating-complication episodes of "Frasier." Grammer and Patricia Heaton work very well together, and there's always the brilliant Fred Willard to liven things up.

I didn't say much in the paper about " 'Til Death," mainly for reasons of space, but also because it was a returning show that isn't much different than it was when it left. It has the same basic problem it has had from the beginning; it's a show about two couples where only one is consistently funny. (That would be Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher.)

While the show is considerably better than it was at the beginning of the first season, it's still not a great comedy. And it pretty much stops dead when the other couple takes center stage. So be it.