Dave on Demand: Please, please stop them before they sing again

In my imagination, the god of TV looks a lot like Marcus Welby. Every night when I get down on my knees for my prime-time prayer, I beseech him, "Please don't let any of my favorite shows do a musical episode."

Apparently, he wasn't listening this week because Fringe went down that thorny vaudevillian path that leads only to calamity.

The episode was framed as a story that Dr. Bishop (John Noble) is spinning for Olivia's young niece, Ella, after he has fired up a few bongs. Using a stoned eccentric who has spent the last decade in a mental hospital as a babysitter? Probably not a great idea. And let's overlook the fact that his grim and bloody fable was highly inappropriate for adolescent ears.

The show was fashioned as a noir detective yarn from the '40s. In this wingless Maltese Falcon, Olivia (Anna Torv) sported an unbecoming Andrews Sisters hairdo. When she wasn't wearing a fedora. The willowy actress played the world's least convincing hard-drinking, hard-boiled shamus.

OK, a stupid conceit. But what made it unbearable was that every few minutes, someone broke into song, at one point even a trio of zipper-stitched cadavers.

The period detail - cars, clothes, technology - had no consistency. Even the music was anachronistic. When Olivia walks into a saloon, Broyles (Lance Reddick), now a police lieutenant, is tinkling away at a piano, singing "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys." Unless Steve Winwood and the rest of Traffic are a lot older than they look, that makes no sense.

The real problem with musical episodes is that they always come off as ostentatious, contrived vanity projects. They disrupt the premise and mood and do nothing to advance the plot.

Save it as a bonus for the DVD, boys.

I'm all for a series' reach exceeding its grasp. But it shouldn't exceed its vocal range. Much as I admire John Noble, he has the worst pipes on a TV actor since Roseanne Barr.

Marcus, have mercy.

Strange brew. The most off-putting commercial on TV? I'm going with the Dos Equis beer spot featuring the silver-bearded megalomaniac introduced as "the world's most interesting man."

We see footage of him hanging from a cliff, hand-feeding baby eagles, and exiting a train compartment, leaving behind a pair of happily flustered women in Tyrolean garb.

Then he addresses the camera, informing us that he rarely drinks beer, but on those occasions when he does. . . .

Dos Equis seems to be targeting a curious subset of the beer market: effete men who do not consume the product.

Book 'em. Neat guest-star tandem this week on NCIS. Joe Spano returned as FBI agent Tobias Fornell. And Isabella Hofmann popped up as a judge.

Both have lengthy resumés, but I associate them primarily with Hill Street Blues (Spano) and Homicide: Life on the Street (Hofmann), two of the best TV cop shows of all time.

Whoa! That Al Roker gets around, doesn't he? On Friday, Today had him at Churchill Downs for a bizarre segment.

First, Roker forecast that the powerful storm front moving into the Louisville area would make for sloppy conditions at the Kentucky Derby.

He then blithely assured us that the situation makes Devil May Care the automatic favorite because "she's a bit of a mudder." (No pun intended.) Oddsmakers had installed the filly at 10-1 in the days leading up to the race.

In the next segment, Roker, seated atop a pony, was joined by NBC's equine expert, Donna Brothers. When his pony suddenly lunged, her horse bucked so hard it threw the seasoned jockey. Roker held his mount. Of course he had been belted into the saddle as tightly as a baby in a car seat.

With Brothers on the ground, Roker plunged ahead with the interview, reiterating the nasty forecast and asking "So which horse does this favor?" He was clearly waiting for her to endorse his selection and was a little dismayed when she unhesitatingly said, "Paddy O'Prado."

Stick with the humidity, Al. Leave the handicapping to the experts.