Last night, IFC premiered the three-hour miniseries spoof The Spoils of Babylon. Starring the likes of Tobey Maguire, Kristen Wiig, Tim Robbins, Will Ferrell, and Carey Mulligan (voicing a mannequin love interest), it's one of those bits of pop culture that owes debt to a lot of things while being not quite like anything that ever existed. Created by SNL writers Matt Piedmont and Andrew Steele (and directed by the former), it exists to skewer the epic, multi-night network melodramas of the '70s and '80s (a la The Thorn Birds), which makes it the spiritual cousin of other high-concept retro spoofs that take on the format they're affectionately parodying. What Strangers With Candy was to ABC Afterschool Specials, what Grindhouse was to grindhouse schlock, what Far from Heaven was to women's pictures of the '40s and '50s, and perhaps what Dredd was to dumb '80s action bloodbaths, The Spoils of Babylon is to the network miniseries.

ABC has optioned How to Survive a Plague for a possible dramatic miniseries. As if losing the Oscar weren't bad enough.