Best of Show

Best of Show
Finally! Here comes "Earl."
After two months of NBC promos, you'll finally see the wonderfully subversive new comedy, "My Name Is Earl" (9 p.m. today, Channel 5). Jason Lee is terrific as the small-town thief who decides to change his evil ways -- after winning $100,000 in the lottery, and hearing Carson Daly talk about karma.
"My life sucks because I've been a bad person," he says. So he makes a list of 259 bad things he had done -- such as "stole a car from a one-legged gal" -- and wants to rectify. "Earl," as with all good sitcoms, delights because it is so unpredictable, and has likeable characters. (Call it karma.) If NBC can maintain the quality week after week, it will have a new hit comedy. (Finally!)
One question: Why isn't "Earl" paired with "Scrubs?" (which has been held for midseason).

Local TV sightings
Shannon Stewart, the Warren County woman who refused to pose nude on Tyra Banks' "America's Next Top Model" two years ago, reunites with Banks and other "Top Model" participants on the "Tyra Banks Show" Wednesday (9 a.m., Channel 19). Stewart, 21, a 2002 Franklin High School graduate, proudly tells Banks: "I am still a virgin till my wedding day"...

Ann Rusin, 40, of Green Township, gets her shot at winning $1-million on the daytime "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" Thursday and Friday (9 a.m., Channel 12). If she wins any cash, she will start a college fund for her daughter, Sophie, 3-1/2, and may spend $1,000 to have a tattoo removed. She had volunteered to get a tattoo on camera for a documentary filmmaker 20 years ago, and shoe she's "sick of looking like a biker chick."