Many TV watchers, myself included, may remember the days when NBC’s formidable “Law & Order” franchise ruled the airwaves and re-defined the crime procedural forever. These days, despite its substantial fan base, the brand seems to be suffering. Although I’m not much of a fan of Dick Wolf’s earlier cell-smashers, I was a little excited when NBC ordered up “Law & Order: LA” to replace the canceled original series.

Admittedly, this was mostly because I’m an LA resident, so I can feel superior when I recognize the neighborhoods they shoot in. Although LOLA debuted decently, the ratings dipped low enough to send the show into a long hiatus that only ended last Monday with a hyped-up two-episode return/Chinese fire drill, where the underrated Alfred Molina’s character was thrust back into the spotlight as a cop. If you’re already a fan of get-the-bad-guy TV, but roll your eyes at romantic and familial side-plots à la “Bones” and “Body of Proof,” I would actually recommend the revamped LOLA.

It was solidly entertaining. You can check out both new episodes on Hulu. Start with “Zuma Canyon,” if you, like many viewers, wish to see Detective Winters (Skeet Ulrich) and his cheesy one-liners die a painful death.

Will LOLA narrowly avoid entombment next to spinoffs “Trial by Jury” and “Conviction” come May? A better a question might be: Why is “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” the only “L&O” show to win its timeslot the past few years? Yes, that’s the one about heinous sex crimes — what is wrong with everybody? Well, if you’re wondering what’s going on with Dets. Benson and Stabler these days, you can catch up with them on Hulu Plus.

Go ahead, you know you want to. Remember, the following story is fictional, but Dick Wolf’s name is not.

CNN.com has some news about a disease that’s confusing parents nationwide. And, due to its remarkably vague wording, it sounds like a lot of fun!

A bizarre, but thankfully, rare disorder has received a lot of press in the past few months and one of my patients asked me about it this week worried that her son was sleeping too much and that he had “that sleeping sickness.”

Kleine-Levin syndrome is marked by recurrent periods of excessive sleepiness during which the patient can sleep for 24-48 hours, compulsive eating, hypersexuality, and almost all patients have cognitive and mood dysfunction.

Yep, it’s a disease with a lot of research behind it and you can even donate to try to get to the bottom of it. Help out if you can!

But that CNN.com paragraph describes, exactly, what it’s like being a teenager on a Saturday.

Granted, if I remember correctly, being a teenager on a Saturday shares a lot of traits with having the flu. But it was just all of the fun parts of having the flu.

So, of course, this is effectively scaring countless well-intentioned parents in the CNN.com comments section.

Sonia at April 12, 2011 at 16:35

my son *** ***** (Ed. note: She actually gives his full name!) is 16 n we know that teens sleeps alot but it worries me when he is in adad moon or angry most of the time he doesnt do homewrk cus he says his tired all times n sleeps all day his a house kid n dont give me know problems.

Sorry, Sonia, but your kid sounds—dare we say—a little awesome. In fact, he reminded us of an SNL character we love.

So forgive us, CNN.com doctor, if all we thought of when we read your article was Liam, The Teenager Who Just Woke Up.

Great news, everybody: Norm MacDonald has a new show and it’s completely possible that it’s funny. The great news isn’t the show itself, though—it’s that Norm MacDonald has to promote it somehow.

You know what that means: The guy who was put on the Earth to ruin the format and natural flow of conversation on your late-night talk show has been doing that a lot recently. He’s getting even better at it.

Here he is on Jimmy Kimmel last night, being very, immediately aggressive, then saying to Kimmel that Letterman is better than him.

Norm’s new show is called “Sports Show,” so it’s probably not exactly what we hoped a new Norm MacDonald show would be. In an ideal world, MacDonald’s new show on Comedy Central would just be a collection of Norm’s appearances on local affiliates messing up the entire rhythm of their show for months and maybe getting their hosts to question how they feel about being alive in the process.

He is the greatest in the world at doing that. The brand new premium information content website The New York Times got Conan O’Brien to say it best:

“Conan O’Brien wrote in an e-mail: “I’ve been interviewing Norm for 18 years and he has consistently broken every talk-show rule. He tells anecdotes that are blatantly false. His stories have always been repurposed farmer’s daughter routines that he swears happened to him.”

Mr. O’Brien added, “When Norm steps out from behind the curtain I honestly don’t know what is going to happen and that electrical charge comes through the television.”

Conan’s talking about the moth joke, probably. That’s below. It needs to be reposted every month or so—sort of like how parents are almost legally obligated to bring their kids go to the park every once in a while—just so we can all remember what’s great about the world.