This week had several shows returning to the screens, mostly comedies:

How I Met Your Mother:
The fourth season opens with a reasonable episode, the main storyline - involving Stella and Star Wars - was OK and had some brilliant moments, mostly involving Marshall. But it was the side story centered around the amazing Neil Patrick Harris that carried most of the great material. No matter what he's doing Neil is always captivating on the screen and this was no exception. It was a well written story that added depth to Barney without compromising the things that make him so funny.

Heroes Episode 1 + 2:
The premiere of this sort of snuck up on me, I kind of lost track of when they would happen. We got two episodes and I think convoluted time travel mistakes would be the order of the day. Seriously, in any work of fiction if you're going to include time travel the first thing you need to do is establish what rules of time you're going to follow (Hint: Avoid re-writing time unless that is the principle focus of your work.) As time has passed I've become less and less excited with Heroes, now I'm certainly not going to stop watching as long as Zachary Quinto is a part of the cast. But seriously, can no-one die in this show? People keep coming back from the grave more often than zombies in a George Romero movie, it's kind of hard to feel attached to a show when the norm is always 1) The world is about to end (again) and 2) Core cast can't die.

But, that said. It is fun.

House M.D:
Hum, so House is looking like it's going to lose Wilson and replace him with Wilson P.I. The most notable part of the episode was an appearance from Felicia Day (Doctor Horrible, Buffy & The Guild) but really they didn't do that much with her in the episode. Not surprising because House is literally jammed to the medical gills with characters these days. Michael Weston's (not this Michael Western) P.I. is potentially a spin off character if fan response is good enough. Honestly, I don't care one way or the other at this point. All I do know is he's about for a few episodes and then he's going away. Maybe I'll grow an opinion on him, but right now I don't even recall his character's name.

Fringe:
I didn't watch it and after reading this, I'm glad. The show either needs an enema or canning. Fast. It will be departing from my round up after this as I don't want to waste time bashing the show. Hopefully the writers manage to fix things and turn it into something special, but I shall not hold my virtual breath.

Supernatural:
Last weeks events were huge, the events this week were not quite as earth shattering but they were still significant. Bobby is as fantastic as always and it's good to see him doing his stuff. Sam and Dean need someone with his reserves of knowledge. It was also great to see characters returning from previous episode. This episode also revealed who the 'Big Bad' is and it's not Lillith, she's just a smaller part of the picture. So the stakes this season are high, so high that I'm not sure how many more seasons of the show we'll get after this one.

My Name is Earl:
While I do enjoy Earl, I think it's officially slid into third (or fourth) place in my personal sitcom rankings right now. Honestly it's not that the show has weakened at all, it's just when stood next to 30 Rock, The Office and HIMYM it struggles a little. But let's forget about comparisons and just look at the two episodes by themselves. The season premiere was a blinder, featuring Seth Green firing on all awesome cylinders at once and some superb film impressions from Randy (Ethan Suplee), it managed to hit the right notes - being both funny and touching at the same time. The second episode includes some superb moments, mostly involving Mr Clark Clark, but it wasn't as strong as the first one.

The Office:
Amy Ryan! I'm so thrilled to see cast members from The Wire moving into other shows, especially high profile ones like The Office. Also, I'm very happy to see Jim & Pam get engaged, I can't tolerate more "will they won't they" stuff on that front. It's not the kind of comedy I appreciate, in fact it's exactly the kind that winds me up. Oddly enough the other engagement is a lot more entertaining. Cracking stuff as always though.

Next week brings us Life, Family Guy, American Dad & 30 Rock.