Joel McHale, host of The Soup on E!, star of Community on NBC, and all around snarky good guy, is (supposedly) a candidate for People’s Sexiest Man list. Not sure if it’s just for 2011 or for all time, but in any case: he made a video. Apparently People asked him to do a day to day task, but in a sexy way. Here’s what Joel came up with:

If that’s not the gosh darned sexiest thing I’ve seen in a while, I don’t know what is! Joel, you get my vote for sure!

Louis CK’s brilliantly irreverent Louie returned last week for its second season FX and if you aren’t excited about that, well then you might want to check your pulse. The first episode of the second season showed no signs of changing what made the first season so great: toilet humor in one scene and poignant thought-provoking dialog in the next. Louie is a show that covers a lot of ground and as a result, things tend to get pretty uncomfortable at times. For example, the second season opens with Louis’s daughter innocently asking when she gets to see her mother, Louis’ Ex-wife, again. Such a line seems innocuous enough, and Louis explains when that will happen. The daughter seems pleased with this answer and goes on to explain that she enjoys being with her mother more because she loves her mother more. Despite being hit with such an honest and depressing revelation, Louis shrugs it off with nothing more than a furrowed brow. But as his daughter walks away Louis shoots his daughter the middle finger behind her back.

That’s just the sort of show Louie has been from the start: shockingly bleak situations followed by frank and irreverent humor. In that way, Louie is similar to CK’s stand up work, which seems not to have any areas that are off limits. For example, in Season 1 Episode 10 Louis is telling a joke about why we should get rid of the stigma around pedophilia. There’s no possible way for my writing to do justice to CK’s masterful delivery of such incendiary material, so head over to blinkx remote and see for yourself. But it is not the shocking humor which sets Louie apart from other summer TV offerings. Rather it is the abrupt and adroit manner that CK is able to shift gears from the absurd to the allegorical, from the depressing to the delightful and many points in between.

Throughout it all, CK remains utterly empathetically relatable; I can’t help but feel for the guy when things go pear-shaped and that’s what really makes Louie a must-watch.I never know where the show will take me, but I am always laughing along the way. There is another element that really helps the show. Louie is on FX because they gave CK full control of his show, something no other network was offering. Louis CK actually took less money in the belief that he could make a better show if he was free to be himself.Frankly, it’s nigh on impossible to imagine Louie being a watered-down major-network show and retaining any of the qualities which makes it so great. Thankfully, we don’t have to imagine such a show. Instead we get to watch Louis CK have free reign to trample all over our delicate sensibilities.

-This post brought to you by Dan

Ok, these are actually the judges and the host.

After several weeks of tryouts and semi-finals the Last Comic Standing top ten have been chosen and the actual competition can begin tonight! But the fact that they actually chose 10 pretty funny(and a couple really funny) comedians this year isn’t the only change. No, the show has been completely revamped and will be barely recognizable to fans of seasons past.

Before the show was never really unable to pin down what it wanted to be. A talent search to find comedians? A Big Brother type show to watch professional funny people live in a house together? A competition program to force comedians into awkward and sometimes humiliating challenges that have little to do with actual stand-up comedy? All 3! The way the old seasons worked actually sounds like a parody written by comedy writers, but unfortunately it was just the typically awful, convoluted nonsense that defines most reality TV. After 10 comedians were selected by rotating judges they would have to go live in a house (or, for no real reason one season, a boat) and would take part in a challenge each episode. Whoever won that got immunity. Then all the comedians voted by declaring themselves funnier than someone. Whoever got the most votes got to pick out two comedians to compete against. But they could only choose comedians who voted for them. Confused yet? From there the 3 comedians would perform and the audience in the theater (it wasn’t shown live) would vote. Then, in the final weeks, the viewing audience could finally call in to vote on what comics were left and choose the winner.

This season? It will apparently be American Idol, but with comedians. How simple is that? 10 performances, a host, 3 judges. A format we can all understand! And with Craig Robinson hosting, Andy Kindler, Natasha Leggero and Greg Giraldo judging, and 10 professional comics competing, we can hopefully expect better results show banter than Ryan Seacrest awkwardly trying to get contestants to cry. Though, to be fair, I don’t think anything that happens on this show will be funnier than Ryan Seacrest trying to high-five a blind contestant. Come on, Ryan! Rookie mistake! Don’t make them bring back Dunkleman!

The only problem I can see with this new format is that it forces comics to perform a new set every week, which hurts anyone with very little material. Though if you are in the finals of Last Comic Standing you better have a few hours of solid material ready to go. No joke repeats!

My pick to win right now? James Adomian. He does impressions (which people love), but unlike most impressionists actually goes beyond a good voice with hilarious and unique material. Then again, none of my picks for this show have ever made it past the top 6. America and I just don’t agree on what’s funny. So enjoy James on the show while you can! Here he is on the semi-finals, doing some jokes, impersonating the judges and doing impressions by request: