So, our corporate masters over at the Bohemian State Closed-Circuit Television Network (which recently acquired an overspent HWTN for three Maria Theresa thalers--still accepted in Ethiopia!--and some of Pius VIII's pocket lint) recently demanded some info on our new TV lineup (either that, or our summary arrest by the Holy Vehm). After a rather jittery committee meeting of about twenty minutes, ten of which were spent arguing about the role of the assistant priest at a Lyonnaise pontifical mass, and a further five about ways we could trick Sarah Chalke into making a pilot show for us without her realizing it, we managed to get together these ideas, which we then presented to our sponsors on a crumped sheet of lined notepaper. (In my defense, it was college-ruled). Our suggestions, and corporate representative Frau Mesmer's reactions:

Godly Chaste Poverty - Like Dirty Sexy Money, but with Franciscans. But no dirt, sex, or money.

Frau Mesmer: What's left?*

30 Petrus - Emily Lemon (Tina Fey), head writer of the renamed Joordan Traacy Show, featuring the deranged Dutch Dominican of the same name, struggles to make sure her top star doesn't inadvertently commit heresy, schism, or a latae sentae excommunicable offense while being interviewed by Mother Angelica. Using tranquilizer darts if necessary. Blerg.

Frau Mesmer: But how is she going to act and manage Alaska at the same time?

(NB: We're still trying to explain to the Frau that Saturday Night Live isn't real. And also, we're not sure how we're going to get Tina to star after Dan lost the miraculous pocket lint of Pius VIII in the studio washing-machine, which sort of destroys 95% of this quarter's budget. My suggestion of luring her in via a deluxe Star Wars DVD box set placed underneath a large box propped up with a stick was not well-received. Neither were subsequent variations involving jelly-beans, doughnuts, oreos, and a very large butterfly net.)

Fringe - Papal operative Sister Olivia Dunham and her associate, the brilliant but slightly addled SSPX Bishop Walter Bishop join forces to stop the nefarious and twisting conspiracy known only as The Pattern--a labyrinthine effort by the Freemasons to steal the world's supply of maniple fringe to subvert the Motu Proprio.

Think of it as a cross between The X-Files and the Wippel's catalog.

Frau Mesmer: Wippel's is too Anglican, make it Barbiconi. But the plot is otherwise quite believable.

(NB: This is why I worry about my job sometimes.)

House, O.P. - This week, Dominican Fr. Gregory House diagnoses a case of ruptured hermeneutic in the visiting Cardinal Kasper, even though everyone thinks it's just a mild, harmless case of ecumenical rash. Guest appearance by Edward Schillebeeckx as the text of an eye-chart, and a lot of weird, atmospheric tubular music.

Frau Mesmer: But Hugh Laurie is too skinny to be a Dominican!

(Respondeo dicendum: Why do you think he's so bitter?)

Informercial: Wayne Newton sings Songs of the Carlists 30-CD Set, yours for only twenty installments of 30 scudi each--

We only got that far before Frau Mesmer exploded into a 30-minute diatribe about the wrongful outcome of the War of the Spanish Succession, and who cares about different Bourbon Spaniards, give it back to the friggin' Hapsburgs.

(CORPORATE LAWYER NOTE: THE HWTN DOES NOT ENDORSE ANY OF THE 1,735 SEPARATE CARLIST PRETENDERS, THOUGH WE WOULD LIKE TO REITERATE THE FACT IN UNRELATED MATTERS I PERSONALLY THINK KING LOUIS PHILIPPE OF FRANCE WAS A TWIT.)

*I haven't actually seen the show I'm parodying here, but ignorance has never stopped me before.