Remember that old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial:

"You got chocolate in my peanut butter!"

"You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"

That may be how two of CBS's most popular series will come across when the writers of the comedy "Two and a Half Men" (9 p.m. Monday, KDKA) trade places with the writers of crime drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (9 p.m. Thursdays, KDKA) next week.

On Monday's "Men," scripted by "CSI" writers with a story by "CSI" executive producers Carol Mendelsohn and Naren Shankar, a CSI team investigates a mysterious death at the home of Charlie (Charlie Sheen).

On Thursday's "CSI," scripted by "Men" writers Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn, a sitcom diva (Katey Sagal) is murdered in Las Vegas, which leads the CSI team to Hollywood for further investigation behind the scenes of a TV comedy called "Annabelle."

"I mentioned it as something ridiculous to Carol about a year ago," Lorre recalled of the trading writers idea. They discussed it again at a Canadian TV festival last summer and decided to give the experiment a shot.

The "CSI" plot is not coincidental: Lorre worked with several of TV's most notoriously difficult sitcom stars: Roseanne Barr ("Roseanne"), Brett Butler ("Grace Under Fire") and Cybill Shepherd ("Cybill"). When asked if he had a burning desire to script a "CSI" episode, Lorre said, "The only burning desire inside of me was to do an autopsy on a sitcom diva."

For the "CSI" writers, writing "Men" offered a chance for a lighter story than what they usually traffic in.

"We learned that puns are the lowest form of humor," Shankar said.

"We learned it again and again and again," Mendelsohn said, laughing.

But the shows still have to resemble themselves.

"The biggest challenge for ['Men'] was doing a comedy with a murder in it," Lorre said. "Generally, our stories are a little lighter."

"Our characters don't usually have to react to a corpse," Aronsohn added.

For "CSI," dark comedy isn't entirely new.

"The show's done black comedy before," Shankar said. "What distinguishes this one from episodes in the past is you really do hear Chuck and Lee's voice in it. It's probably a little broader than we've done in the past, but it's absolutely a 'CSI' and has a great mystery at the heart of it and a great payoff at the end."

There are no true crossovers between the very different "CSI" and "Men" universes, but Lorre said eagle-eyed viewers will spot "some wonderful little cameos in both episodes that are a little wink at the audience, but we didn't go beyond that."

May sweeps began last Thursday and Channel 11 kicked it off with some low-hanging fruit: The dirty hotel investigation.

TV stations (and some of the prime-time newsmagazines) have done these let's-creep-viewers-out stories for years, so the topic is not new. But the subject matter in last week's report offered a twist I hadn't seen before. Stations once took black lights to hotel bedsheets to find bodily fluid stains, but for this report Channel 11 set up hidden cameras in hotel rooms to observe housekeepers failing to put clean glasses by the bathroom sink.

The report included the typical woman-on-the-street reactions ("I think that's terrible!") and loads of tsk-tsking. It's certainly in the public interest for hotels to be caught and put on notice for unsanitary conditions, but the tone of the report seemed overblown.

Plus, when it comes to hotel investigations, I always wonder how much viewer benefit there is. How many people in Pittsburgh check into Pittsburgh hotels? Probably not many, but I suppose this story could make you think twice about using a glass when staying at a hotel elsewhere. I also couldn't help but wonder this: If Channel 11 hid its camera in the room, did staff check out that day or did they just leave for the day and check out the next day with their camera (the report wasn't clear on these specifics)? For a housekeeper not to replace the glass of someone staying another night is a lot less egregious than if a new guest was expected to arrive.

KDKA anchor Patrice King Brown introduced an Andy Sheehan piece on foreclosures Wednesday night, suggesting it would discuss the impact of foreclosures on neighborhood real estate values, a potentially interesting spin-off story from the much-chronicled foreclosure crisis. But the report didn't address real-estate values at all.

Sheehan's piece was fine, but a report on what was suggested in the introduction might have had broader impact and appeal.

Ratings for the Penguins playoff games have been through the roof. Tuesday night's game against the Rangers on FSN Pittsburgh ranked No. 1 in its time period, handily beating the competition on local broadcast channels, including "Dancing With the Stars" (WTAE) and "American Idol" (WPGH). ... Actor Hector Elizondo ("Chicago Hope," "Cane") will join the cast of "Monk" as the title character's therapist, a new character. The actor who played Monk's previous therapist, Stanley Kamel, passed away last month. ... Due to concerns about the digital television transition on Feb. 17, 2009, Nielsen Media Research has decided to move one of its ratings sweeps periods from February to March next year. ... Former Pittsburgher Eric Himan is up for a Logo channel NewNowNext Award. He is nominated in the "Brink of Fame: Music Artist" category. Vote at LogoOnline.com. Winners will be announced in a Logo telecast at 9 p.m. June 7.

Results of the Post-Gazette's annual Readers' Remote: Keep or Cancel? poll will be published in TV Week and online on May 11.

In this week's podcast, I chat with KDKA-TV traffic reporter Jim Lokay about where he gets his traffic information, the value of PennDot cameras and why "The Big Bang Theory" is an underrated sitcom. Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/tv.

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Kitchen Nightmares," "The Price Is Right" and "The Mole." Read it as post-gazette.com/tv.