It�s been a mediocre season for the most underrated show on television.

There�s been something different, something about Ed that was different from last season. It wasn�t the same show that I anxiously awaited each week. It didn�t leave me with the same feeling at 9 p.m. every Wednesday, that feeling of Oh my God, how will I last six days and 23 hours until the next episode? It wasn�t the same show that Casey longed for someone to curl up on the couch with to watch, and I hoped to be that person.

It�s been obvious so far this season that more and more of the episodes are being shot in the bowling alley, in the sets built inside the old Country Club Lanes of Northvale, New Jersey, now Stuckey Bowl of Stuckeyville, Ohio. Court scenes are filmed there, Smiling Goat scenes are filmed there, perhaps even Pie Shop and house interior scenes are filmed there. It just doesn�t have the same feel as knowing that they�re using a courtroom in Essex County, or the Bourbon Street restaurant, or the Runcible Spoon in Nyack, New York.

But last night, it all came back.

Right from the start, I felt it. The show opened with Ed and Carol sitting at a counter in a diner, the waitress serving their breakfast, and it looked like a new place, a new New Jersey landmark to visit on the ever-expanding Ed Tour. Maybe it was a set, but maybe it wasn�t. Maybe they�re back out on location, scouring northern New Jersey for sites. Maybe the film commissions are allowing more shoots around the metropolitan area now that we�re further removed from Sept. 11.

Even some of the scenes in the Smiling Goat seemed like they might be back at Bourbon Street. The outdoor patio set is part of Stuckey Bowl, as Casey and I saw back in October. And the inside with the arcade games and checker-board tablecloths is likely inside the building just off the patio. But there were wider shots, scenes at the bar that seemed like those from last season to the point that if it is on the set in the bowling alley, then they�ve done a good job recreating that part of it.

One of the more noticable changes in the Smiling Goat was from the moderately priced restaurant interior of the Bourbon Street Smiling Goat to the country bar burgers-and-beer ambiance of the set. Bourbon Street is a large restaurant, a casual place several steps above the level of burger joint. The set of the Smiling Goat is a jeans-and-jersey type sports bar fit for a bachelor party at 10 p.m. on a Friday night but also O.K. for a Saturday night high school hangout.

Perhaps the appearance of Vincent Pastore as a Special Guest Star helped. Something�s been lacking in The Sopranos, too, it seems, since Big Pussy was rubbed out. But his character brought a spark to Ed this week. And when his character settles a bet at the bar among three women that �pimiento� is a sillier word than �lascivious� or �squid,� that bar seems more like Bourbon Street than a corner of Country Club Lanes.

There is also more of Carol and Molly at school, more exterior shots of Montclair High School, more hall shots of Stuckeyville High, all of which are shot on location at one of two schools in the area, because aside from the principal�s office and perhaps a classroom, can you really recreate a high school on a set? Is there enough room?

Then there�s Warren�s meeting with Jessica Martell outside the shoe store in downtown Stuckeyville. Likely Westfield, New Jersey (right across from the Windmill restaurant at the end of the opening credits), but perhaps Nyack, the two can only be talking outside on the street. Cut to Dominick�s Barber Shop, which may just be the real name, and inside sit Tom Cavanaugh and Vincent Pastore and in walks John Randall and out walks Ed the redhead -- the fusciahead -- 10 bucks richer.

The best part came when Carol and Dennis walked outside the school, down a leaf-strewn hill, in and out of the trees, to a bench by a rock wall. My mind raced, looking for clues that would identify the site as either the amphitheater adjacent to Montclair High or the park near the Stuckeyville Pond, which is really Mindowasking Park next to the church in the opening credits. Either is a possibility.

And there�s a new restaurant in this episode, which just might be -- with the crest reading �Cormack� above the mantle -- the Hennessey Tavern, just down the road from the bowling alley in Northvale.

But beyond all the scenes, all the filming locations, there is one aspect to this episode that clearly explains why it might be the best of the season to date.

Ed and Carol are mad at each other.

Last season, the show started with Ed chasing the girl. He nearly got her, but didn�t, then got another girl. And Carol was upset. This year, though not together romantically, Ed and Carol were getting along just fine as friends. But there�s something about the tension between them that makes for better television than the best-of-friends Ed and Carol. When they�re buddy-buddy, it seems inevitable that they will one day do the deed and, within the hour, Ed will sign off the air for good (that�s how series like this always end -- for the lack of a better example right now [as I type at 3 a.m., though I posted in the morning], consider Who�s The Boss?). But when Ed�s got the girl (or all but got the girl) and Warren�s on a date with Jessica Martell, everything�s too good in Stuckeyville.

The plot this week wasn�t anything spectacular, nothing mind-blowing or earth-shattering as some television plots can be -- or think they can be. It was about Vincent Pastore turning 50 and wanting 48 hours to do anything he wanted -- including sleep with another woman -- and his wife letting him, but only if Ed went along to tell her what happened, just so she�d know. But, in my mind at least, the fact that Ed got back to its roots, it�s New Jersey-as-Ohio roots, that old feeling was back.

With Carol boinking Dennis Martino and Warren pissing off Jessica Martell and back to being his stumbling, stuttering self, the Stuckeyworld seems more welcoming. The natural order of this universe, just like the big one, is chaos.

And to bring it all to a neat, tidy close (for this week, anyway), Ed shows up on Carol�s porch (a real porch, somewhere in New Jersey, not on a backlot) at night to apologize and make up.

But she�s still sleeping with the principal, so there�s plenty of tension left for the rest of the season.