Slowly emerging from my other obligations, I see on TV Tattle that the Hollywood Reporter says "Rescue Me" has been picked up for a new season, with an expanded order of 22 episodes. Considering how terrible it was last season, this is awful news. The show didn't have enough ideas or coherence for 13 episodes last season, and now it's going to do 22? Oh my goodness. Or words to that effect.

I recently noted my admiration for Durning while posting about the season finale of "Rescue Me." Now the Screen Actors Guild is giving the 84-year-old actor its Life Achievement Award.

Well deserved. Full announcement after the jump.

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So that's the defense for this off-kilter, badly paced, erratic season?

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My review of "High School Musical 2" is here. My review of "Superbad" is here.

After the jump, Barry Corbin, and the perils of magazine deadlines … and a new part 2, with "Damages," "Mad Men," "Rescue Me" (so beware of spoilers if you haven't caught up)…

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Had it not been for that scene with Susan Sarandon, I would probably be done with these guys …

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"Saving Grace," "The Closer," "Damages" and tonight's "Rescue Me," after the jump …

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Over the weekend I went through a review copy of the new two episodes of "Rescue Me" and couldn't help thinking that they vindicate Jack McGee … (Possible spoilers after the jump)

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If you haven't watched this week's episode, don't go to the jump. …

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Tommy Gavin and his guys are in a state of confusion. I know the feeling …

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FX has now moved "Rescue Me" from its planned Tuesday telecasts to Wednesday, with the fourth season beginning June 13. "Damages," the new Glenn Close drama, begins July 24. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" will be back in September. "Dirt" and "The Riches" have been picked up for another year.

Detailed announcement after the jump …

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June 12 is the date. The release is after the jump. (Update: Don't read anything into the omission of many returning cast members' names from the release. An FX rep says "everybody" is back.)

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Fingers crossed on technology: Since I saw tonight's season finale last week, I'm posting this with a timer set to display it after the telecast. Hope it works. If it doesn't, well, I warned you in the header about spoilers.

So let's consider tonight's show. I liked the bit on the dock. Very funny, especially since they were willing to keep it going. And the business with the 9/11 firefighters' memorial, contrasted with the gaping hole nearby, made a good point about what people can accomplish privately versus what politicians cause on the public stage. (There is, by the way, a firefighters' memorial  in New York City — but the one in the show is a facsimile.) And Franco's scene with his daughter worked well at showing how completely he had given her up — although the scene also felt a little contrived because we never saw Franco talk to Susan Sarandon's character, which I guess resulted from availability issues.

Now for the bad stuff. Every guy is staying at the firehouse? Every one? Yeah, there's the hint that the chief's ailments are getting insurmountable (and that was series writer-producer Peter Tolan playing Pecher, the fill-in chief). But an FX rep told me all the cast is signed up for next season. And the core guys are still there, after all the plots this year indicating one might move on. And at least one should have.

Then there's the fire. Does anyone believe that Gavin was going to die in that fire? In a telephone press conference with Tolan and Denis Leary, they joked that death actually gives characters a bigger part — but Tolan came as close as he could to saying Tommy's not dead without saying it outright. Are they willing, then, to sacrifice Sheila when she has been such a part of Tommy's dramatic arc? Leary loves working with Callie Thorne, and I don't think he's ready to be done with her.

Even so, ending the season with a fiery cliffhanger felt lame. Anyone want to agree/disagree?

The show ends its third season on Tuesday. (A fourth season has already been ordered.) I have seen the season finale, liked parts but didn't like a couple of significant elements. I can't explain why without spoiling some things. So I'll save that for a post after it airs.

For now, the season does end with a cliffhanger; asked why, star Denis Leary said, "Because it's television."

But, he added, "I'm a huge fan of 'The Sopranos' … and my favorite 'Sopranos' seasons have ended with a lot of doubt."

Leary said that during today's press conference-by-telephone that also included his frequent collaborator, "Rescue Me" writer-producer Peter Tolan. (Tolan, by the way, makes a memorable appearance in the season finale. He has acted before, but this is his first time on "Rescue Me.")

For starters, the karmic payback Tommy Gavin was supposed to get for his assault of Janet will come around the middle of the fourth season, along with a lot of other events spinning from what happens in the series finale.

Leary and Tolan continue to express surprise at the reaction to what some call "the incident" and I still prefer to think of as "the rape." (Tolan did use the r-word, but in reference to what Sheila did to Tommy.) They also said they heard no reaction to Sheila's rape of Tommy — kind of surprising since I heard from some of you folks about it.

I'm also skeptical of this idea that the payback was held for next season. I think they saw Tommy-Janet and Sheila-Tommy as morally equivalent — even though Tommy's act was more violent — only to discover viewers declined to agree. Of course, they've been wrong from the beginning about Tommy-Janet, and still are.

Leary gave considerable praise to Andrea Roth, who plays Janet, and Callie Thorne, who plays Sheila. Thorne, he said, "will go anywhere. … She's on fire when she comes to work."

Tolan said his attempt to explain the show at Television Without Pity was "the stupidest thing I ever did."

The emergence of the Gavins' unseen and deaf sister Rosemary (played by "Sue Thomas's" Deanne Bray) was, as some viewers suspected, an allusion to the disabled and put-away Kennedy sister Rosemary. Tolan said the script even had a line referring to her being "like that sister the Kennedys had."

Leary is happy with his Emmy nomination but doesn't think he'll win. He's betting on Martin Sheen. Noting that Sheen has already played John and Robert Kennedy (in different TV-movies), Leary said Sheen could also play Ted "if he wanted to start drinking … and put on some weight."

Asked if Tommy's voice-mail message to Johnny was left after Johnny's death — to make Tommy look better to Janet — Leary said he'd prefer to leave the answer until the fourth season.

As for this week's episode, I didn't post after it because, well, that was the same day that this happened. I still have a job, and am glad of it, but I have many colleagues who will not be so lucky. So Tuesday night, I was thinking more about the real world than the TV world.

With a little distance now, I can say the episode worked in some ways but made at least one horrible tactical error. Why on earth, in the middle of a wake no less, would anyone want to throw viewers off stride with a jokey cameo by Bill Belichick?

Possibly the best episode of the show this season. Maybe one of its best ever, and Andrea Roth — who plays Janet — has one of those scenes that should be in her highlight reel for the rest of her career. In addition to moving around a lot of characters and advancing loads of stories, the episode went back to the show's roots in 9/11, then pushed forward to the present, and to the way 9/11 is one of many crutches Tommy uses to justify his failings.

Gosh, it was good. And yet, coming out of one of the strongest scenes in the episode, there was a long, lyrical promo for "World Trade Center." It moved me. It took me out of "Rescue Me" for a long time after it aired. It reminded me that "Rescue Me" is still, at bottom, art, and that what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, involved real death, real pain, real heroism.

I know, "World Trade Center" is art, too, "just a movie" as some would say. But the promo took me back to the real thing, and those feelings blended into "Rescue Me's" reflections on the past, and made "Rescue Me" seem a bit weaker because of it.

And still, it was a terrific episode.

I got an early-evening jump on "Rescue Me" tonight, watching my preview disc, but I'll try to stay away from spoilers here for the time being. (The one big plot turn won't surprise you much anyway.) But the show is driving me crazy. I still have this basic admiration for it, and tonight's episode was pretty good as a self-contained piece — funny and edgy, and reminding us how many different characters there are to watch and care about. On the other hand, I don't think it has come close to dealing with the consequences of what I still consider the rape — and I don't accept the claim some of you have made that there was moral equivalency in what Sheila did to Tommy. To do so would be to overlook both the violence of Tommy's original act and Janet's reaction. And I still can't do that.