IN THE LAND OF 'OZ': Great season premiere of "Oz" on Sunday night, as the final season of the HBO prison saga finally got underway after a wait of nearly a year. Narrator Augustus Hill may be dead, but he will continue to narrate each episode from beyond the grave. And like Shoeless Joe in "Field of Dreams," Hill has brought all kinds of friends back from the dead with him, as various characters killed off in past seasons will return throughout the eight-episode season. And those who complained about a lack of "whackings" on "The Sopranos" last season must be in heaven now, as "Oz" has averaged a DPER (Deaths Per Episode Ratio) of more than one throughout its run.
Sunday's episode also featured the return of Jericho, the sock puppet on the hand of inmate Cyril O'Riley (Scott William Winters, who played the "how do you like them apples" guy in "Good Will Hunting"). While I'm only guessing that the puppet is named after wrestler Chris Jericho, who looks just like Cyril, I can say with certainly that Jericho is my second-favorite sock puppet on television, after Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Though Triumph is only my second-favorite insult comic on television, after Donald Rumsfeld.
And in other HBO news, the network announced yesterday that "Sex and the City" will go off the air next year, after 12 episodes this summer and 8 next January. Now can we all stop pretending that Sarah Jessica Parker is pretty?