Welcome to the Tuned In Journal, my new blog-like space on Post-Gazette.com. I'll do my best to post daily, Monday through Friday, offering observations, mini-reviews and reactions to what I see on the tube.

First up: Last night's "Desperate Housewives" kept me a lot more engaged than last night's episode of "The Sopranos." I didn't necessarily buy all the plot twists on "DH," but there were turns I didn't expect and some amusing dialogue. On "The Sopranos," Christopher got married to a woman I don't think we've even seen him with before. It just feels like the show is chasing down a lot of story threads that aren't connected in any way.

I thought it was interesting that last week's (April 30th) "Sopranos" was written by Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider. I'm pretty sure they were "Sopranos" creator David Chase's boss on "Northern Exposure." At the least, they worked together, but I'm pretty sure Frolov and Schneider were running "No. Expo." by the end. I interviewed them back in '95 (I think that was the year) when they were days away from shooting a pilot for Fox called "The Pastor's Wife." Kyle Chandler ("Homefront," "Early Edition") was cast as the pastor; not sure who was to play the wife, a horror novelist. Fox scuttled the show just before production began. It didn't seem like a Fox show, so it wasn't that surprising, but with the dearth of TV shows that acknowledge specific religions (this pastor was Lutheran, though not the more mainstream ELCA because women weren't allowed near the altar), I was still disappointed.