We here at AtAT are TV junkies, and everyone knows that what TV junkies crave most is Sweeps-- that quarterly monthlong orgy of violence, sexual exploitation, and social irresponsibility all dished up in the name of ratings. Toss in the fact that reruns are virtually forbidden during those glorious days, and we're talking about a couch potato's little slice of heaven on earth. Imagine our dismay, then, when the February Sweeps paradigm got thrown out the window because NBC had the Winter Olympics and FOX had the delayed-from-January Super Bowl. During that holiest of viewing periods, many times we were faced with a choice between sports and "encore presentations" of shows that by all rights should have been airing all-new episodes dripping with sleaze. Dark days, indeed.

So aside from the occasional "Glutton Bowl: The World's Greatest Eating Competition" and "Playmate Fear Factor," February was largely a wipe-out as far as the typical tasteless Sweeps spectacles went. But let us ask you this: did Sweeps get moved forward a month due to the Olympics and nobody bothered to tell us? Because if we had to judge purely by what's happening on "Redmond Justice" (where all hell has just broken loose, dramatically speaking), we've got a solid month of sleaze ahead of us on the tube as all the networks duke it out in a massive tussle for our eyeballs. We just don't want to get our hopes up if we're only going to wind up disappointed.

Here's why we ask: faithful viewer Helen (yes, that Helen) tipped us off to a Salon article about the videotaped deposition of Microsoft veep Jim Allchin, who not only had to contend with "a severe cold," but also had to put up with state lawyers reopening old wounds. When Allchin snufflingly insisted that the separation of Internet Explorer from Windows was impossible ("I couldn't do what you've got there. Forget about any business thing. Technically I just couldn't do it."), the states first got him to admit that Microsoft has done "no studies to see if it could be done," and then dragged out the sledgehammer. They reminded Stuffy Jim that the last time his company introduced evidence to prove that Windows "could be damaged" if IE were removed, it soon became clear that Microsoft's videotaped demo of the ensuing carnage and desolation was faker than the cleavage on the aforementioned Playmate episode of "Fear Factor." "Do you have any expectation as to whether or not you will be putting together a similar demonstration for this part of the case?" asked the lawyers. Jim's response: "Not exactly like that one." That's ratings gold, baby!

But wait, that's not all: Allchin also "admitted to lawyers for the states that Microsoft violated the law but refused to specify the violations" because, and we quote, he says he's "not an attorney." When the lawyers asked him whether it might be important to know what violations were committed in order to avoid repeating them, Allchin's response was reportedly, "Well, it's a very complicated area. Very complicated." Oh, Jim, Jim, Jim... where was your deposition in February, when we needed it?

Meanwhile, The Register says that, for his deposition, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has traded in his usual "rampaging ape" overblown theatrics for some far more court-suitable "quietly-agonized" overblown theatrics. Reportedly Ballmer appears as a "beaten little bald man with hollow eyes bravely fighting back the tears"-- and then goes and blows it all by claiming that the states' sanctions would require Microsoft to create "thousands to millions of additional versions" of Windows. A tip for future performances, Steve: try not to go over the top. It's all too easy to lose the audience's sympathy by taking it one step over the line. Heck, just take a look at how newly-returning states' lawyer Stephen Houck (hey, it's no "Return of Smilin' Dave Boies," but it still smacks of a ratings grab) has been squaring off against old Redmond rival Steven Holley, as described by the Associated Press. They started off sniping at each other in classic soap opera fashion ("I find your presence here bizarre, frankly," said Holley) and eventually devolved into what sounds like the litigational equivalent of a full-blown hair-pulling contest. Are they auditioning for roles on "Ally McBeal"?

So yeah, you can perhaps understand our confusion as to whether Sweeps just got pushed forward and we're sitting smack in the middle of ratings-boosting hijinks. And heck, even if this isn't a postponed Sweeps, between the circus known as "Redmond Justice" and getting to watch Greg Brady pound the tar out of Danny Partridge on Celebrity Boxing, well, we guess this makes up for the February upheaval just fine.