The most recent episode of The West Wing was one of the better episodes of the season. Although Sorkin and his magic pen have now long left, the show continues to be of very high quality, an entertaining cross between personal drama and a stimulating civics lesson. This week featured B-stories about border skirmish and ridiculous yet believable yahoos-bringing-us-to-the-brink-of-war between the United States and Canada, as well as a group of youth suffragettes gaining Toby’s respect. But the A-story featured an event based on reality: the House Republicans, during an election campaign, shut down a floor vote on stem-cell research when campaigning Democrats come to town to cast their votes, only to deny them that right and reschedule the vote after the Dems have left town. This is based upon what Senate Republicans did last year when Kerry came to D.C. in order to cast his vote for a veteran’s health care bill in June of last year: they cancelled the vote. The only difference was that the real Republicans shut down Congress purely to spite Kerry (after having bitterly complained that Kerry didn’t vote enough); in the West Wing episode, they do it because they don’t have enough votes.

The episode was remarkable not just for its look at issues, but also because it demonstrated that the same old spark is still going with the show; this week you could see the old fire burning, even if it didn’t have the full benefit or Sorkin’s banter.

But it was not the only show that showed its old energy resurging–The Simpsons put on a grand performance as well. Though recent episodes, as well as many in the past few seasons, have shown a certain tiring, this week’s comic farce was back on at full force. Again, Homer seems not to have a job at the power plant unless it comes in handy for a plot, as he takes over for his injured father as a greeter for Sprawl*Mart (motto: “Not a Parody of Wal*Mart,” alternately, “if you worked here, you’d be poor by now”); again, Bart does some terrible stuff to Lisa, who overreacts to it (getting a restraining order, forcing Bart to sleep with the local wildlife) and Gary Busey guest stars as the narrator in an educational “Guide to…” video on dealing with restraining orders (“… all of whom couldn’t deal with me because I’m too real“). There were some misses in the episode, but far more hits, and a lot of great lines.

So if you thought that either or both of those shows were not up to their old standards, you should start watching again. Not that there aren’t other things worth looking at. For example, I never thought I’d say it, but Battlestar Galactica is a pretty good show. Not the old one, of course, that sucked big-time; rather, the new series with Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell. They’ve finished their 12-episode first season after the four-hour mini-series from 2003, all on the Sci-Fi Channel. The show has very good production quality, good writing, and good acting (you could wonder at how the Sci-Fi Channel got its two rather luminary stars to sign on to what once was a B-quality Star-Wars knock-off). It’s also the second-highest-rated cable TV show, after USA’s Monk (also a good show, though I’ve only seen a few episodes; it’s very funny, but I’m told that the gags tend to tire upon repeated viewing).

Other Sci-Fi fare include the now-cancelled Enterprise on UPN (just when the show has started to hit its stride), Stargate SG-1 (now finishing its 8th season, moving on to the 9th but with star Richard Dean Anderson bowing out) and its new spin-off, Stargate Atlantis (a show with promise, so long as it doesn’t spin off into absurdity).

A fan of the original CSI, I’ve started watching its spin-offs as well, based in Miami and New York (wait for more cities to join–maybe we’ll get a Law and Order-style spin-off-for-every-day-of-the-week schedule). And some said that Star Trek was going too far with just two concurrent spin-off series! The new CSI’s do fairly well, with fair casts, but let’s admit it: it’s the combination of the gore and the cops-and-robbers bad-guy-gets-it-in-the-end classic kitsch that keeps it going.

Speaking of spin-offs, there’s yet another lawyer show from David E. Kelley, a hand-off from The Practice (which ended last year): this one is called Boston Legal (not to be confused with Boston Public). This show is excellent, but less for the writing than it is for the two stars: James Spader (Alan Shore, the brilliant deviant with a heart of gold) and William Shatner (“Denny Crane!” the bombastic narcissist with incipient Alzheimer’s). Rene Auberjonois does well as a senior partner (rounding out the three sci-fi alumni), as does Candice Bergen, who started late, but got off to a resounding start. The show’s plots are standard Kelley fare, but Spader and Shatner give the series its real life.

And finally, there’s 24, in its fourth season. Thankfully, they’ve given up on the whole Kimberly-Bauer’s-damsel-in-distress routine after three seasons, but they’re still in their how-can-we-drag-Jack-Bauer-back-to-CTU-even-though-he’s-left phase. We’re also still seeing the old someone-at-CTU-is-a-mole (when will they ever learn?), and the petty office politics–but there are compensations. Seriously, though, I’d like to see them just put Bauer back in charge at CTU and for once have there be no moles or traitors, and see if they could build a good season with that.

This time the bad guys kidnaped the Secretary of Defense and his daughter (coincidentally Jack’s new boss and lover, those terrorists just won’t leave him alone), but that was just cover for a much bigger and insidious plot. Halfway through the season, the main threat seems to have been shut down, but naturally there will be something new coming up, unless they just want to show multiple-frame shots of all the characters sleeping for the next 12 hours with the clock ticking away (“be-boom, BE-boom; be-boom, BE-boom! … snooore!”). Or maybe Kimberly will suddenly appear only to be kidnaped again.

All kidding and convenient plot points aside, the show is actually pretty good action-adventure, and has been through it’s four years on the air. There are some good twists and turns, interesting characters, and some rousing action sequences. Though there is one questionable point: they seem to be getting carried away with the torture issue. At first, the series had Bauer killing or torturing only in extreme moments, but now it seems like someone’s getting tortured every episode (Jack’s boss’ son, two CTU employees, a terrorist suspect, and Jack’s lover’s ex-husband are the ones that come to mind immediately). You begin to wonder if this is Rupert Murdoch’s way of desensitizing the public or simply popularizing the practice. Either way, it could get tiring pretty quick. But despite that nit, the show is still well worth watching.