The Simpsons Movie returns to the original scene of the family's crimes when it debuts on HBO Sunday, July 6 at 9 PM ET. And the new tube-spawned film The X-Files: I Want to Believe is being readied for July 25 release. From TV to the movies and back again, it's the sort of life cycle that used to find its exponents dropping dead at the box office.

Does anybody remember that ABC's '60s campfest Batman was made into a theatrical film? (Well, it didn't have Julie Newman playing Catwoman, so that explains things right there.) What about Munster, Go Home? (CBS' fright family heads to England.) In the '90s, we had Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was supposed to explain things about David Lynch's largely impenetrable (if enjoyable) ABC series, but didn't.

Manly men doing manly things are big-time on the tube now. Discovery's Deadliest Catch. History's Ax Men. TruTV's Black Gold. So maybe the manliest genre of all -- westerns -- is primed for a comeback.

Why sweat to catch seafood, cut down trees or work an oil rig when you can swagger down the street wearing guns and hot-looking leather, heroically hunting outlaws and cleaning up towns embodying what we now know as The American Way?

You know time flies when Molly Ringwald is playing someone's mom. Weren't we just watching her surviving high school in movies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles? Or dishing dating woes in ABC's sitcom Townies?

Yes, it's been awhile since she started as one of the kids on The Facts of Life, but c'mon. Can Ringwald really be old enough to be the concerned mother of a pregnant girl on July 1's new ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager?

What was most brilliant about comedian George Carlin was the way he got seven words officially cancelled off broadcasting altogether. Carlin's essential 1971 Class Clown LP routine about the "seven words you can never say on television" was the subject of a landmark Supreme Court indecency ruling seven years later that reverberates still, three decades down the road.

We have a bit of a perverse streak here at Brilliant But Cancelled. So when we think of Father's Day, we don't think of earnest Ward Cleaver, or nice Mike Brady, or even Homer Simpson. We think of Ken Titus.

Yes, the drink-this-beer-kid, pull-your-pants-down-in-public, tough-lovin' carouser of the Titus sitcom.

Where could they be found before they were Lost? While some stars of the ABC smash are genuine newcomers (Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly), most have long resumes including short-lived TV shows to inspire that seen-'em-before feeling. Here's your own flashback as ABC airs the two-hour Lost season-finale this Thursday (May 29).

OK, so Army Wives may not be the most representative military show for us to salute this Memorial Day (which is probably why this soap-o-rama does so well on Lifetime, where it starts a new season June 8). We'll have to suggest the underseen Iraq war drama Over There, which went 13 episodes and out on FX three summers back. (It's out on DVD from Fox Home Entertainment.)

They're outta here. Over and gone. Last year's news. In the words of Monty Python's parrot sketch, these shows have ceased to be. Kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible.

They are ex-shows.

Quirky is a weird thing in a TV show. A good thing. And a bad thing. It's fun for those in-the-know to savor. But it can be off-putting for folks who feel on the outside looking in.

Is that the fate befalling Reaper, the CW delight that remains on the bubble as the struggling netlet prepares to announce its fall schedule Tuesday evening?

Hmm. Boston Legal got renewed in March last year. Here it is May, and still no word if producer David E. Kelley's law-'n'-sex romp will make ABC's fall lineup. Since the network announced renewals of half its current slate in February, one has to wonder if William Shatner will have a place to play this fall.

Oh, wait. Shatner always has a place to play.