So, one of my favorite seasons of 24 ended with a whimper, not a bang, as Jack on his deathbed (yeah, sure) expressed deep remorse to the skullcapped imam of a storefront mosque.

But the two-hour wrap-up also had some fun moments - for instance, Jack strapped to a surgical table, yelling at his departing betrayer, "Tony! Tony. D'oh!" - thus evoking Fox's other dauntless leading man.

Circling back to the previous sentence, I want to point out that you can safely put an exclamation point after every line of dialogue Jack delivered this season. Even ordering breakfast, he would've yelled: "Bring me eggs, dammit! Fry 'em!"

Later in the show, Jack shoots Tony, whose gun then goes skittering across the floor, ending up five feet from Jack and Renee. Tony begins to crawl toward the weapon with agonizing slowness. Rather than merely kicking the pistol away, our hero waits until Tony is within arm's distance, then shoots him again.

D'oh!

Know your audience. What a finale on American Idol. I can't decide what was my favorite musical moment. A wobbly Rod Stewart? A fully pyrotechnic KISS? (Was I the only one who expected Adam Lambert's tongue to roll out like a frog's in the middle of "Rock and Roll All Nite," outdoing Gene Simmons?) Steve Martin?!

I admire Martin as a wit and a writer, but performing on Idol?

Let's face it, nothing screams "young," "hip," and "pop" more than a white-haired 63-year-old playing bluegrass on a banjo.

Three-part harmony. Adored the debut this week of Glee, especially that goosebumping rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." (Hey, wasn't that the climactic song in the series finale of The Sopranos?)

But while I was taken with Glee (although not as much as the similarly themed movie Hamlet 2), the pilot seemed distinctly self-contained. A magical TV experience, but where do they go from here?

The last laughs. Say goodbye to week-ending comedy. Saturday Night Live had its season finale this week while its longtime competitor, Madtv, had its series finale after 14 often raucous seasons.

Madtv was always the rude younger brother of SNL, trying desperately to get attention with flatulence jokes and potty humor.

But while it was often off-target and offensive, at least Madtv kept it topical.

On its season-closer, Saturday Night Live had a Lawrence Welk sketch. If you're old enough for that premise to resonate, there's little chance you can stay up late enough to watch SNL.

Buddy, can you spare a dime? The networks all unveiled their schedules for next season this week. One disturbing trend is that some series on life support were renewed - with the proviso that they seriously scale back their production budgets.

That sounds like a sure-fire solution: take shows that weren't working too well and then make them cheaper.

Consider Dollhouse, on which blank-slate "dolls" are programmed with instant skills, knowledge, and personalities to assume an infinite variety of exotic identities.

From now on, they'll only play postal workers. Saves on wardrobe.

And on Chuck, which escaped cancellation thanks to a product-placement deal with the sandwich chain Subway, all of the actors will be contractually obligated to shout three times per episode: "Eat fresh!"

Contact staff writer David Hiltbrand at 215-854-4552 or dhiltbrand@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/daveondemand.