A roast is for a pig.

The best parts of Comedy Central's roast of William Shatner were the taped bit with Shatner and Leonard Nimoy on the phone at the top of the show -- seriously, if you only watch ninety seconds of the show, watch those -- and Shatner's speech at the end of the show. Whoever wrote those gems is brilliant and only made to seem more so by the deft delivery of those two geniuses.

I had a lot of commentary written in IM form while I was watching the show, but it all just seems like cranky nitpicking now. I hate certain people. I love certain people. The broadcast did little to change my mind about these things. Betty White is a-okay. Lisa Lampanelli was in top form, and she looked great. Geoff Ross was funny, but the crowd was no good. Or at least, he had to remind them they were at a roast at one point, which may not be the equivalent of bombing, but you know what a fine line that is. Jason Alexander is very low on my list of people I ever want to see do anything, and he remains there. Artie Lange is not my cup of tea. Nichelle Nichols and George Takei did fine. Distinguished themselves even. Especially considering their careers in stand-up. I was very impressed with the accomplishments achieved by Andy Dick's stylist. He was swank top to bottom. And I was bored by Farrah Fawcett's percocet-addled performance. I don't really subscribe to the need for the token blonde freakshow at these things. And she's another plastic surgery nightmare. Her face looks like it was carved out of a block of marzipan. The broadcast clipped the night's festivities to pieces, so I don't know, maybe if you watch the uncensored clips online, you'll find that I was wrong about everything. I have no problem with this. Mainly, I'm just mortified that Steve Agee had an invite and did not use it.

I don't care how many embarrassing clips you have of him; William Shatner is a dream in a sportcoat. And he has aged a good deal more gracefully than Adrian Zmed.