So Thursday night television is giving me six hours (6 hours!) of television to catch up on! The new television season is upon us.

I preached this past Sunday at church. It was an interesting experience for me. Being in front of a classroom is one thing; being in front of a congregation is another. I spoke about various places the term “living water” appears in the biblical text (Jeremiah, John, and Revelation). I think I’ve lost the ability to accurately perceive things. I wasn’t at all sure of how things played out. And the praise you get afterwards is often polite at best. And yet today, four days later, a fellow church-member shared how they had been thinking more about what was said and how it had guided some thinking since then. I just don’t know. . .

TV is good this season: so far at least. How I Met Your Mother got off to a great start. It played the mystery of the mother well while also moving the Barney/Robin relationship in an interesting direction. Last night was a couple of new ABC comedies. The Modern Family was pretty sharp. The laugh-out-loud moment? the nod to the Lion King. Great timing. Cougartown was okay; nothing to write too much about. Tonight is the premiere of Flashforward, which is getting lots of buzz as a LOSt-clone. So far, so good for the show. There have been a couple of nice twists so far. And then there’s all the funny on NBC. This past week’s Parks & Recreation was funnier than the show’s entire first season. The Office was quality, as was Community. The SNL Update was pretty funny, too. Tomorrow night is the premiere of Dollhouse’s second season. And Sunday kicks off with the Amazing Race.

I can already hear potential discussions about Flashforward and destiny. Why did he have to put on his daughter’s bracelet? What if he hadn’t? Still: interesting premise. Much, much better than the botched show that we can all refer to as Jericho. The show will be great if they already know the ending. If they don’t? That could suck.