June 2007 Archives

“Good Morning America’s” movie critic Joel Siegel has died, and ABC bids him adieu with a particularly fond obituary:

“Joyful Critic Joel Siegel, Gone at 63
“A Good Life Lived With Humor and Insight

“Surrounded by family and friends, ABC's beaming and insightful movie critic Joel Siegel has died in New York, after a long and remarkably courageous struggle with cancer, at the age of 63.

“Both colleagues and fans delighted in his unique way of blending cheerful good humor and piercing critical acumen in reviews that made them instantly clear to anyone. You knew exactly what he thought - often with the bonus of a good laugh.

“His battle with colon cancer was borne with such astonishing courage and humor that he almost tricked his colleagues around the office into forgetting his struggle.”

Your Mayor imagines his own obit will read somewhat differently:

Surrounded by a shredded collection of “According to Jim” DVDs, impotent regime puppet-master The Mayor of Television has died, after a long and remarkably incompetent struggle with life.

Those who accidentally came across his unique way of blending faulty thinking and obfuscating verbiage never knew quite what to make of his issuances, so generally just backed away quietly and sheepishly.

Observers noted that The Mayor lived every day as if it were his last – whimpering and waiting to die.

We've written in the past about Farfour, the delightful Hamas-TV kids-show Mickey Mouse doppelganger who schools children in the art of terrorism and anti-Semitism. So it is with deep regret that we must report the death of Farfour, at the hands of an actor portraying an Israeli who beat the rat to death in order to get his land (rodents are allowed to be landowners in Gaza?).

I cannot believe that I am not making this one up. Kid's TV is hardcore in the Middle East. Here, we get "Baby Genius Mozart and Sleepytime Friends." There, cuddly, hate-spewing mice get brutal smackdowns. Though, as commenters at Wonkette.com noted, "Way better than the Sopranos series finale" ... "at least Hamas believes in closure."

And it gets worse: The show's youthful presenter Sara declared, "Farfour was martyred while defending his land," adding that the perps were "the killers of children."

So that's the end of that show. Al Aksa-TV didn't specify what series would replace it, but I'll bet it's not long before they're hearing a pitch for something called "SpongeMohammed SquarePogrom."

Your Mayor’s grandfather was a big fan of the TV rasslers, a gene he fortunately did not pass on to me, so I was essentially oblivious to the sad story of WWE’s Chris Benoit killing his family and himself.

But now the saga has turned from tragic to creepy. First, WWE paid heartfelt tribute to the killer with a three-hour special Monday on the USA Network (subscription required):

“WWE Chairman Vince McMahon issued a non-apology last night for his organization's three-hour tribute to pro wrestler Chris Benoit that aired Monday night on the USA Network. USA itself had no comment on having telecast a three-hour tribute to a man who, according to authorities, over the weekend bound and strangled his wife, suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed Bibles next to their bodies before hanging himself with a weight-machine pulley several hours and possibly as long as a day later.”

Honoring such a person betrays a certain lack of tact, to put it mildly, but then, it is the WWE we’re talking about. Coming soon: CNBC’s tearful farewell to Ken Lay (oh, wait, they already have that show – it’s called “American Greed”).

Eventually, WWE erased all tributes and comments concerning Benoit from its official website and later removed news articles about the deaths, and his profile was also scrubbed from the roster of WWE performers.

Now, it’s being reported that Wikipedia had information on Benoit’s wife’s murder half a day before the police even found the body:

An address by Your Mayor on the floor of the Senate, on Thursday, June 28, 2007:

Mr. President, I rise today to offer observations on ABC's recent, inexplicable renewal of the sitcom "According to Jim." In my judgment, offering Jim Belushi further comedic employment has lost contact with our vital national security interests. Our continuing absorption with Mr. Belushi is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness amongst the great People of Television and elsewhere in the world to present material that can actually be considered "amusing." The prospects that the current "comedic surge" strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic comic debate. And the strident, polarized nature of that debate increases the risk that TV's involvement with Mr. Belushi will end in a poorly planned strategy for reinvigorating the genre of the situation comedy that undercuts our vital interests in American viewership. Unless we recalibrate our strategy regarding "According to Jim" to fit our domestic comedic conditions and the broader needs of U.S. national security, we risk entertainment policy failures that could greatly diminish our influence in the region and the world.

The current debate on "According to Jim" has not been conducive to a thoughtful revision of our TV-sitcom policy. Our debate is being driven by faulty, ratings-fueled calculations and understandable fatigue with bad news - including deaths and injuries to Americans who have been faithful to this program since its inception in the year 2000. We have been debating and voting on whether to fund American showrunners controlling Mr. Belushi's wacky antics and whether to place conditions on such funding. We have contemplated in great detail whether ABC's success in achieving certain comic benchmarks regarding Mr. Belushi's ostensibly amusing pratfalls should determine whether advertiser-supported funding is approved or whether a programming-oriented withdrawal should commence.

I would observe that none of this debate addresses our vital interests any more than they are addressed by an unquestioned devotion to an ill-defined strategy of "staying the course" where ABC is concerned, whether the network needs returning comedies to bolster the chances of success for new alleged sitcoms such as "Cavemen" and "Carpoolers."

Commentators frequently suggest that ABC has no good options when it comes to programming sitcoms. That may be true from a certain perspective. But I believe that we do have viable options that could strengthen our position regarding primetime comedy programming that can reduce the prospect of further reality-TV-based terrorism and other calamities.

But seizing these opportunities will require Mr. McPherson to downsize Mr. Belushi's presence on the primetime schedule and place much more emphasis on diplomatic options that increase the number of sitcoms that include actual jokes in their episodes. Thank you, and God bless the People of Television.

Jon Cryer and Kyra Sedgwick will bring their best no-honest-we’re-really-happy-to-be-standing-up-here-at-5:40-in-the-frickin’-morning smiles as they stand alongside Academy of Television Arts and Sciences CEO Dick Askin at ATAS’ North Hollywood HQ on July 19 and announce a handful of Emmy nominees.

Now, I’m not an expert on the rules of decorum here, but aren’t the celebrities who show up for this alleged event supposed to be grateful past winners rather than hopefuls trying to charm the voters? Cryer and Sedgwick were nominees last year, but didn’t win. (Sedgwick does have a Golden Globe.)

At this point, it should be pretty safe to guess at least one nominee in both the Best Actress/Drama and Best Supporting Actor/Comedy categories. After all, ATAS wouldn’t be so cruel as to force these poor guys to get up and get dressed all nice-like at such an ungodly hour if they weren’t going to throw them a bone, would they? Because if they would do that, it’d be pretty funny but I can think of people who deserve such nasty treatment more than Cryer and Sedgwick.

However, given the crazed behavior of late, there’s apparently a new accessory that’s even more sought-after than an Emmy: Should Cryer and Sedgwick be spurned nominations, at least they’ll take solace in the iPhone in their Emmy Nominations Ceremony Gift Bag.

As fate would have it, I spoke with Kenneth Johnson today mere minutes after posting the previous blog entry on Jack McGee’s p!ssiness over his character getting killed off on “Rescue Me.” Johnson, you may recall, was on the business end of one of the most shocking and grisly deaths of a regular character in TV history: On “The Shield,” his character Lem got iced when his colleague and pal Shane (Walton Goggins) dropped a live grenade in his car to prevent Lem from going to the authorities with information about the rampant corruption in the Barn.

Perhaps it’s because Johnson’s already landed a new job (we were discussing his upcoming series, TNT’s “Saving Grace,” starring Holly Hunter), or perhaps it’s because he just understands how TV works better than most people, but Johnson was positively sanguine in discussing his ouster from “The Shield.”

“I found out three months prior and wasn’t supposed to find out but heard about it through someone who knew someone. So I called in to the production office and said, ‘Is there something I should know?’ And they said, ‘Oh, no, no, no. If anything was going to happen, we’d tell you.’ Five minutes later, I get a call back: ‘They’re gonna kill you.’

Last night on “Rescue Me” (SPOILER ALERT), Jerry Reilly (Jack McGee), after losing his job in the firehouse because of his recent heart attack, blew his brains out.

(Guess I should’ve given you more warning. Sorry.)

Anyway, McGee is none too happy about it.

"My own true feeling is, I think the wrong character killed himself," he tells Matt Seitz (a friend of Your Mayor’s), who provides a sympathetic ear in exchange for a story at TelevisionWithoutPity.com. McGee thinks Denis Leary’s character, Tommy Gavin – or perhaps Leary himself – should’ve broken out the Quietus®.

Seitz says that McGee says that Leary “cultivates a public image as a bold, blunt, hands-on actor-writer-producer who loves collaboration, but is actually an insecure, controlling person who hogs the spotlight.” “I'm actually happy to be away from 'The Brilliant Bully,'" McGee concludes.

Leary’s collaborator, Peter Tolan, told Seitz that Jerry’s death had "very little to do with Jack McGee and everything to do with the fact that ‘Rescue Me’ is a dark show," yet went on to complain a little about McGee anyway.

I find it shocking to think that a guy who is so brilliant at playing an @sshole might actually be one in real life. And I find it equally flabbergasting that an actor might be bitter about getting written out of a show and lash out at his former employers. That never … oh, yeah, right; Isaiah Washington (herewith, the latest on his continuing self-immolation).

“Reno 911’s” Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant have created a series of spots featuring boorish wealthy white men – who collectively go by the moniker “The Man” – imploring young people not to vote (this one's the best of the lot). It’s actually part of “Declare Yourself,” an initiative developed by Norman Lear to encourage young people to register to vote.

But, wait … they just said not to vote. Lennon and Garant have a lot of faith in 18-year-olds’ senses of irony. Because how many of them do you think might say, “Cool – rich dudes actually like me.” And what about the teens who would vote the same way The Man would? Shouldn’t they set up a counter-site for them?

Given Paris Hilton’s mainly short, frequently unrevealing-despite-sounding-revealing and seemingly pre-planned responses to his questions (“Don’t serve the time; let the time serve you”), Larry King worked pretty hard Wednesday evening, revisiting previously discussed topics and cajoling her with occasional praise in hopes of getting a response that might come across as more heartfelt.

It didn’t work, really – at a certain point, Paris started sounding like a tape loop, reiterating that life in jail was “terrifying” yet helped her reflect and “figure out who I am” and “I’ve definitely matured and grown a lot from this experience” and “Everyone makes mistakes” and how she’s going to focus on what’s important in life, issues, Zzzz.

King (who booted Michael Moore from tonight’s broadcast – he’s been dispatched to discuss the crucial issue of American health-care system on Friday, when viewership will be a lot lower) had a couple of nice moments – after Paris blathered on about reading the Bible in jail, going so far as to insist, “I’ve always been religious. … I’ve always had a sense of spirituality, but even moreso now” (so that explains the cooter flashes to the paparazzi), he asked her what her favorite Bible verse was; she couldn’t summon up a single one. When he tossed her a softball, asking what she didn’t like about herself, Paris, who’s ostensibly trying to posit herself as older and wiser and less frivolous now (when King used the word “frivolously,” Paris asked, “What do you mean by that?”), whom everyone would’ve reasonably expected to go to the playing-the-dumb-girl card, instead demurred, offering only, “Whenever I get nervous or shy, my voice gets a little high.”

But King might’ve vaulted this lurid, pop-culture curiosity into something truly memorable had he pressed her more on the socio-economic underpinnings of the wild Schadenfreude surrounding her fate. He could’ve asked something about the public’s attitude toward celebrity justice and if she understood why there was such an antipathy toward her pampered and privileged demeanor, particularly after he cited a CNN online poll which found that 63 percent of respondents agreed with the way the justice system treated her. (Paris didn’t bite on that one at all; she even set her face in an unresponsive mode.) He might’ve also attempted to contrast her description of her time spent in jail as “terrifying,” followed up by her observation that some of her fellow inmates really don’t have anywhere else to go when released from jail (making it sort of not all that terrifying from their perspectives).

Of course, King had asked her what she made of the nation’s obsession with her early on, and her reply was a wan, “I have no idea. I’m just living my life.” So maybe King figured (realized?) that she was too myopic to have a take on anyone less fabulous than her.

Or perhaps the handsomely paid King is himself also sort of out of touch with the rest of the planet and it didn’t occur to him to ask her to compare/contrast the vast economic disparities that create this sort of bitterness. Because, let’s face it, the tax dollars L.A. County spent on punishing Paris could’ve been expended on a whole lot more fruitful things (have you tried driving on Silver Lake or Echo Park streets lately? – don’t), but the best the city can do is make its citizens feel nominally better that justice in fact kinda sorta works the same way for rich and poor alike.

Also, hearing Paris’ economic, anthropological and sociological theories would’ve been funnier and more surreal than anything Thomas Pynchon could’ve cooked up.

* ADDENDUM: It just occurred to me - Paris couldn't bring a Bible into jail with her, but unopened fan mail was OK? If so, then the fan mail must've had to have been opened in advance, and therefore it's no surprise it was all positive, since someone weeded all the other stuff out.

Anyway, a Gallup poll taken minutes after the interview found that 98% of Americans declared themselves well sated by coverage of celebutard behavior, and were ready to now focus their attentions on important social issues. (Well, we can dream, can't we?)

The entire, unexpurgated story, after the jump:

More Republicans are beginning to dissent from the White House’s policy on Iraq. Vice President Cheney can’t decide whether he’s part of the Executive branch of government, the Legislative branch, a newly formed fourth branch or if, in fact, he is the government. Alberto Gonzalez is somehow still Attorney General, even though everyone save one particular resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue believes him to be a dissembling, ridiculous, chthonic and malingering canker on the Department of Justice.

So what will CBS’s Hannah Storm be talking to President Bush about tomorrow on “The Early Show?” Per CBS’s press release, “the importance of girls in sports, Title IX and the childhood obesity epidemic.” It also notes, “President Bush launched his White House Tee Ball Initiative in 2001 in recognition of the role baseball has played in American history, and its importance as a tool for fostering teamwork among America's youth.”

So it’s come to this: The President won’t speak to anyone unless he’s assured that the questions aren’t just slow-pitch softball lobs, but actually placed on a Tee Ball tee for him to belt out of the park. Meanwhile, Tony Snow and Dana Perino earn their combat pay every day they slink into the White House Press Office and get pelted with increasingly hostile questions.

And CBS News? Considers the President the nation’s primary expert on “the importance of girls in sports, Title IX and the childhood obesity epidemic.” I guess we should just be grateful she's not querying him on his thoughts on Paris Hilton.

There’s excrement, and now there’s new, improved, Meta-Excrement®, crap that discusses just how crappy it is. Exhibit A: MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski went nuclear on the ridiculous Paris Hilton coverage early this morning, trying to set fire to her script, then sticking it through a nearby shredder.

“I’m about to snap,” she declared, while being egged on by Joe Scarborough, who took a copy of the script she had torn in pieces and inhaled deeply from it.

Hotel heiress Ms. Hilton, whose inheritance is estimated to be between $30-$50 million, has appeared on a reality show, in an online sex tape and as a bit player in low-budget horror films. When released from jail early Tuesday morning, cable news networks broadcast it live and her SUV was chased by scores of rabid paparazzi, all getting the same blurry, unrevealing images. Can anyone explain how that first sentence dovetails into the second?

Management has refused to spring me from my duties watching Hilton dissemble to a Mr. Larry King this evening. CNN’s Los Angeles studios are on Sunset Blvd., near Amoeba Records, where Paul McCartney will be performing a free concert this evening. Between Paris’ camera-wielding stalkers and Paul’s fans, one can only imagine gridlock this evening at Sunset and Cahuenga on a Biblical scale.

“Shaq’s Big Challenge,” ABC’s latest reality dud featuring Shaquille O’Neal running a fat farm for kids, tanked as badly as the Heat did against the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs. 4.4 million undiscerning viewers tuned in.

Shaq, at least, didn’t humiliate himself like Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg did with the latest installment of “On the Lot,” which drew a pittance of 1.29 million viewers. While E! might be delighted to lure that many viewers, Fox executives must be breaking out the Quietus®.

Anyway, why can’t the creators of these lame summer reality shows at least try to come up with a decent title for their dreck? The titles are pandering and treat audiences like children: “Shaq’s Big Challenge,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” (upcoming on Fox), “America’s Got Talent,” “The Next Best Thing,” “Fast Cars and Superstars,” “Age of Love” and, of course, “National Bingo Night.” It’s as if the shows’ producers, while desultorily pitching their ideas, thought they'd save some time and make the programs’ concept its title, as well.

Another day, another End-is-Nigh study on the status of Television:

"The American Life Survey, conducted in early May, found that 38 percent of U.S. adults say they enjoy primetime less this year than in previous years. Thirty-six percent reported no change, while 26 percent said they were enjoying it more. Perhaps more telling, 48 percent said that watching primetime this year was less important compared with past years, compared with 32 percent who reported no change and 19 percent who said it was more important."

The culprit? You guessed it: DVRs and programming available on the Internets. Knowing you can watch something anytime you want kinda drains it of all its joy.

Rich Luker, who worked on the study, says, "There is no time-fueled excitement associated with watching video. Watching primetime TV used to be a complete experience. Now it's no different than a book on my shelf, a board game in the closet, and the local park. All are options of wonderful fun things to do with no sense of urgency to get at doing them."

My dog might take issue with the notion that there's no sense of urgency in getting to the local park, and Luker has clearly failed to take into account Boggle sitting in that theoretical closet. Nonetheless, the argument makes sense, and begs the question:

What should the networks be focusing on creating - shows you'll be compelled to TiVo ("The Sopranos," "House," etc.; that is, shows you seek out to view with consumer loyalty) or more impulse buys, disposable products that you wouldn't set aside for a rainy day but will watch if you want to watch something mind-numbing at any particular moment ("Deal or No Deal," "So You Think You Can Dance")?

Thoughts?

There’s a subtle theme running through these items. See if you can guess what it is.

1) “The Omen” is set to spring from fiction to fact, as CNN Headline News harpie Nancy Grace has announced she’s pregnant. Worse, with twins.

She also revealed that she’s married, as well. Her husband’s name: David Linch. No, not that David Lynch, though that’d be wholly appropriate, wouldn’t it?

*

2) This guy says that contrary to reports that “The View’s” viewership is steady after Rosie O’Donnell’s departure, they’re actually down, about 400,000 sets of eyeballs. The implication being, now that the circus has left town, viewers have moved on.

Not necessarily. Viewing tends to drop during the summer in general. Ask Brian Williams (though don’t ask Charles Gibson).

*

Now that Paris Hilton is free to kill again (what? She didn’t commit murder? Then what was all that hubbub about?), GSN has a new online game, focusing on her new life as a penitent member of society. Actually, it’s pretty much like their old Paris game, instead that she’s stamping out T-shirts rather than license plates. Well, they can't all be gems.

And I may need that Quietus® sooner than I expected: Management has ordered that I watch Larry King and Paris Hilton try to form a coherent thought between them tomorrow evening on CNN.

We’ve already examined the fall season’s most winning trend: Nerds with paranormal powers presented blithely. Let us now examine trend No. 2: Transvestite whores.

Two new ABC series, “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Big Shots,” offer such as a plot point in their pilots. “Dirty Sexy Money” stars “Six Feet Under’s” Peter Krause as the reticent family attorney for a moneyed dynasty of spoiled boors – think the Hiltons, if you’re focusing on the brat angle, or the Kennedys, if you’re considering the political angle.

One of said dynasty’s young boobs, played by Daniel Baldwin, has political aspirations (forced upon him more than anything) but is an unrepentant partier and finds himself entangled with a sweet young thing who’s young enough but hardly sweet yet just might qualify in the “thing” category, as it appears she in fact has one.

Meanwhile, in “Big Shots,” Dylan McDermott stars as Duncan, one of four fairly successful yet fully emasculated men living in tremulous fear of the women in their lives (his compatriots are played by comedian Christopher Titus, former “Alias” co-star Michael Vartan and erstwhile Aaron Sorkin repertory player Josh Malina). Duncan’s a cosmetics CEO who is still sort of hot for his ex-wife, has a contentious relationship with his teen daughter, and whose entire career could be trampled if the media learns of his tryst with a road-stop trannie.

Hence: ABC believes it’s found the lynchpin to mainstream success, via a conduit that’d quease out both astringently heterosexual males and heterosexual women sweet on Dylan McDermott – a wide swatch of humanity, I’m led to believe. Said subplot has no doubt been explored on “Boston Legal” (and likely every other David E. Kelley series), and “Desperate Housewives,” if it hasn’t already, is no doubt itching to explore a similar angle. (It would’ve, moreover, been a natural for “Grey’s Anatomy” to contrive an organic storyline-related reason to kick Isaiah Washington’s character out the door.)

Here’s wagering the creators of ABC’s “Cavemen” sitcom are kicking themselves for not cooking up this narrative stratagem, as it would’ve allowed them to save that golden comic nugget, the breakdancing caveman, for episode two before they could’ve waved the white flag of aesthetic surrender.

We interrupt this TV blog for a late-breaking story: Paul McCartney will be performing a free concert Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Amoeba Records at Sunset and Cahuenga.

Last time I saw McCartney live, floor tickets were going for a cool $500 per. At Amoeba, they’re pretty much all gonna be floor tickets.

Of course, getting in isn’t gonna be easy: You’ll have to get a wrist band beginning at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, and who knows how long you’ll have to wait in line to even manage one of those? Still, it’s a whole lot cheaper than half a grand.

And here’s what a nice guy Your Mayor is: You can try to circumnavigate the wristband process by hooking up to the link above and writing eloquently about your favorite McCartney song – five articulate fans will get wristbands without having to wait in line. So, basically, I’m offering you, the great unwashed masses who don’t receive Amoeba mass mailings, the chance to beat me out for a ticket.

Much has been made of John Stamos’ slurred, borderline-incoherent interview with an Australian journalist. My concern, however, is with the journalist conducting the interview and his clearly unhealthy obsession with “Full House” and the Olsen twins.

Referring to the series as “amazing,” our intrepid reporter asks Stamos of “Full House,” “When you look back on it, do you look back on it with fond memories?” Huh? Last I checked, “Full House” was no one’s idea of a good show, just one dumb and pandering enough to last the requisite period of time to be syndicated into all eternity.

Stamos will recover from whatever’s bedeviling him during this interview and live to have more lucid days. His inquisitor, however, has forever outed himself as a moron, and a potentially unsavory one, at that. One shudders to hear his thoughts on other series in the Stamos canon just as “Thieves” or “Jake in Progress.”

The semi-annual TV Press Tour – the Gitmo of entertainment journalism – is fast approaching, prompting Your Mayor to order an industrial-strength package of Quietus® from the British government. Nonetheless, it’s a good time to take a look at the at the upcoming TV season, and today, we’ll take a rare look at the bright side of the equation.

I’ve seen most yet not all of the new shows, and can declare that three of my favorites are, essentially, the same show. NBC’s “Chuck,” ABC’s “Pushing Daisies” and The CW’s “Reaper” (yes, The CW has no longer declared itself an entertainment-free zone) all share the following narrative traits:

* The nebbishy protagonist boasts a paranormal power. “Pushing Daisies”’ hero is a reclusive pie chef who, with a touch of his hand, can bring the dead back to life. Another touch, alas, returns the deceased back to their stiff state. He’s recruited by a private investigator to touch corpses, ask them who killed them, then dispatch again once the information is secure. “Chuck” and “Reaper” hew quite closely to one another’s sensibilities, so much so that, as luck would have it, they’re even on at the same time (9 p.m. Tuesdays – awkward). The heroes of both of these shows are underachieving slackers who work in big-barn stores (Best Buy doppelganger Buy More in “Chuck’s” case, Home Depot wanna-be The Work Bench in “Reaper’s”). Through a thoroughly convincing chain of events, Chuck gets the entire CIA database downloaded into his brain and is recruited by said Agency to prevent sundry disasters. In an utterly believable turn of coincidence, “Reaper’s” Sam learns on his 21st birthday that his parents had sold his soul to the devil before he was even born, and the devil has come to collect: Sam must capture souls who have escaped from hell and return them (to the DMV, as it turns out).

* The nebbishy protagonist has an unrequited love interest. With “Reaper,” it’s a co-worker with whom he’s reluctant to share his secret. With “Chuck,” it’s his new CIA handler. “Pushing Daisies” has the most inspired variation on the trope: It’s the Pie Man’s childhood sweetheart, whom he revives when she is murdered on a cruise but is loathe to return to the great beyond. She’s sweet on him, too. But – and this is a big but – he can never touch her again, for reasons that should be apparent if you read the previous paragraph.

* Unlike similarly themed series (“The X Files,” “Heroes” and NBC’s new shows “Bionic Woman” and “Journeyman”), these programs recognize the essential goofiness of their premises and wallow gleefully in them. They’re easily funnier than most of the new sitcoms I’ve watched. “Chuck” and “Reaper” have an agreeable nerdy-hipster edge (Ray Wise has a perfectly oily charisma as the devil in “Reaper,” but it’s a character the writers can let get out of hand – if he shows up in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, it’s over), while “Pushing Daisies” has a lilting, grim-fairy-tale vibe reminiscent of the Tim Burton film “Big Fish.”

Paradoxically, even though they’re all the same show, they’re also all pretty original. We can only hope that that word – “original” – isn’t the kiss of death it usually serves as in network television.

Yes, it’s summer, but ABC averaged a staggeringly humiliating 2.99 million viewers on Sunday evening – and that’s with a repeat of “Desperate Housewives” lifting the average, ever so slightly: It had 3.19 million viewers. Which means the hit show was seen by 1/100th of the country. The network averaged its lowest rating in history this week in the advertiser-fave 18-49 demographic.

Fox managed to do even worse last night, thanks to its burning off episodes of “The Loop.”

And NBC, in a Friday-afternoon news dump worthy of the government, quietly removed “Friday Night Lights” from its Sunday night schedule. Now that Kevin Reilly and his “Well, if we’re going to be mired in fourth place, let’s at least hold our heads high and not embarrass ourselves with lousy shows” strategy has been jettisoned, look for “Friday Night Lights” to get a quick hook next fall. After all, they’ve got to put those “Law & Order” repeats somewhere.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing of late regarding the future of HBO, which recently demanded the resignation of Chris Albrecht, replacing him with capable company men but perhaps no one quite as able to green-light the next hit provocation, and just bid adieu to its biggest cash machine, “The Sopranos.”

Just curious: Any HBO patrons out there considering canceling their subscription? More questions will follow the requisite idiot analysis.

Recently, HBO added “John from Cincinnati” and “Flight of the Conchords” to their arsenal, but as much as I liked those shows, they exist in far too rarefied an air to serve as the network’s Next Big Thing. Reviews were wildly divided on “John,” perhaps since it’s anyone’s guess what’s really on its mind and where it’s eventually going. Critics, ultimately, are just like most of us: They appreciate a clue as to what’s going on with a show and don’t like to feel dumb. Certainly, almost all TV series and movies give you a pretty good idea where they’re going – Tony Soprano suffers from angst and his violent streak is a good skill set to have in his line of business. Denis Leary has a tart tongue, a self-destructive streak and brass balls. Bruce Willis will blow up the world in order to save it. Jim Belushi’s lumpen stupidity has a cuddly appeal to his hot wife.

By contrast, “John from Cincinnati” is the show for which the acronym WTF? was created. Guys hover above the surface of the planet for no apparent reason; the dead become living anew; an idiot savant may possess the answers we all seek. So how do the characters respond to all this? By skateboarding on a half-pipe. “John” assiduously avoids the visceral immediacy creator David Milch’s last profane masterpiece, “Deadwood,” managed with ease.

And “Flight of the Conchords,” funny as it is, will only be appreciated by a tiny segment of the population jazzed by deader-than-deadpan humor. HBO has recently rolled the dice on a number of series and, if not snake-eyes, hasn’t hit seven on the Zeitgeist meter, either. “Entourage” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” are more media sensations than mainstream ones. “Rome” was expensive and lurid but hardly a hit. “Big Love” intrigues without fully addicting. “Lucky Louie” was something Albrecht must’ve OK’d while on a bender.

Meantime, Showtime has finally gotten its act together and put together a coterie of programs that, while not consistently great, at least palatably challenges HBO’s putative headlock on water-cooler programming. FX continues to prove that basic cable can be at least as provocative as pay-cable. And TNT, USA and Sci Fi Channel all offer programming that’s as audience-pleasing as that offered by the ostensibly bigger broadcast networks.

So, back to our questionnaire (feel free to answer as many, or as few, of these questions as you like, or, even, answer questions that you feel went egregiously unposed – I hack away dozens of spam comments touting links to dubious Viagra websites on a daily basis (honestly – it’s amazing I get anything else accomplished) so that you can be assured that your thoughts are prominently displayed within the walls of this intellectually rickety yet proud blog):

* Again, have you considered canceling HBO? Or, in fact, have you trimmed your cable or satellite bill? And, if so, why?

* What’re your thoughts on HBO’s newest shows? Do they reach the same levels of satisfaction as its former hits “Sopranos” and “Sex and the City?”

* If you feel HBO has jumped the shark, when was the moment you think it happened?

* What was your take on the “Sopranos” finale? Did people who took the alternate view p!ss you off? Why?

* Which cable network offers your favorite original programming?

* Do you like TV that challenges or reinforces your thoughts on life, etc.? And which networks do you think do both?

* What TV show in general do you utterly hate? And utterly love?

* If you had the chance to gun down someone in an empty parking garage that had no reliable security system, who would it be (other than, say, a certain highly-placed and –regarded politician serving the Good People of Television), and why?

* Do you find online questionnaires idiotic? If so, why? Do you hate me because I’ve posed one? If so, how can I win back your affections? I’ll do it; I mean it.

What if you thought you knew everything there was to know about a pretty sordid story, more than you wanted to, in fact, and yet what you in fact knew was just scratching the surface of an even uglier story?

No, I’m not talking about Dick Cheney’s sinister scheme to create a shadow government that’ll eat our own for lunch. I’m talking about alleged behind-the-scenes hijinx in the ongoing saga that is the “Grey’s Anatomy”/Isaiah Washington melee.

Washington contacted blogger Keith Boykin, once the highest-ranking openly gay member of the Clinton White House, to uncork yet another variation on the story, and, as they say, it’s just so crazy it just might work. The real villain, per Washington, is slur victim T.R. Knight, who was playing sundry cast members off one another in an ingenious scheme to get them both kicked off the show:

“T.R. Knight was very tactical in trying to remove me from the show because he knows that I know, and I was gagged, that he has been working on a conspiracy to get Patrick Dempsey and myself off the show for the last year and a half. … The only reason I used his name, T.R., in the argument was because he had led me to believe that Patrick Dempsey was so abusive and so horrible to people in a two and a half -hour conversation on the plane. For two and a half hours, this boy talked my ear off … about how horrible Patrick Dempsey is and how he needs to be removed from the show. And in my argument, the irony of it is that Patrick happened to show some behavior that was very in line with what T.R. was telling me on the plane and I challenged T.R. to deny it or say this isn't true. … (T)o this day, when I went back to the set Patrick Dempsey and T.R. still have a rift and are still not on speaking terms. They do not talk to each other ... I know Patrick Dempsey has supported me by stating that if there is anyone that needs to be fired it is T.R. Knight because he has created such a negative environment on that set ….

“The producers are not happy about it, and quite frankly, they all think that something has gone awfully awry with the stability of T.R. Knight. And I can freely say this now because I am no longer a Disney employee and I am no longer gagged. But everyone there, including the producers, all the way up to Touchstone, are very disappointed in the behavior of T.R. Knight.”

Either Washington is even more breathtakingly crazy than anyone gave him credit for or it’s amazing that anything gets done on the set of that show. But as entertainingly labyrinthine as Washington’s account is, note that Knight got a raise while he got a pink slip. And does anyone believe T.R. Knight would've had the clout to get McDreamy kicked off the show? (Ah, but perhaps that's part of his genius: Getting Washington to believe he was targeting Dempsey...)

Just when you were completely sick of this story, Washington steps up his game and makes you kind of interested in hearing what his next excuse will be.

Thanks to Greg Hernandez’ own Daily News blog for the tip. (Which means, basically, I stole it from him.)

"I just realized that the media used me to make fun of and be mean about. Frankly, I'm sick of it," Paris Hilton seethed to Ryan Seacrest, who didn't pony up so much as a dime for the chance to chat.

Just realized?

* UPDATE: No NBC interview. Apparently, that Seacrest interview underscored how little they were paying so much for.

No small amount of controversy has attended the announcement that NBC will nab the first post-jail interview with Paris Hilton, having reportedly forked over $1 million for the honor. This may be the worst journalistic investment since Your Mayor sprang for $25 to talk to Jonathan Silverman, star of NBC’s hot new impending hit and subsequent spectacular failure “The Single Guy.”

First off – it’s considered bad form (which is to say, spectacularly unethical and unprofessional) for a respected news organization to pay for interviews. (But, then, hey, this is the “Today” show; it’s not like it’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (which only offered $37.50).)

(An NBC publicist insisted that the news division had, in fact, not offered Paris any cash for such an interview, but then, it was a publicist saying that, so draw your own conclusions.) (Then again, said publicist limited the conversation to NBC News, so she’s obviously glossing over the fact that the cash may have come from another corporate arm of NBC-GE-Universal-Kmart.) (At least ABC was being honest when it admitted it had offered the Hilton clan $100K for an interview – and, remember, Hilton family friend Barbara Walters got the “scoop” that Paris had found God – or, at least, a publicist’s new way to spin this whole mess – while in lock-up after a mere 72 hours.)

Secondly, NBC’s paying a cool mill to talk to Paris Hilton, fer chrissakes, and she’s got – what? – maybe 3,000 words in her vocabulary, tops? Which averages out to $333.33 per word. (She may have some sort of talent, but speaking isn’t one of them. NBC should’ve parlayed that cash outlay into another online video.) If NBC wanted to get some bang for their buck, they should’ve checked out Christopher Hitchens, who is just as much a loon but at least is witty and articulate and provocative and has a far better vocabulary and could probably be had for the nominal price of an open bar in “Today’s” green room. Then again, any of the contributors to the sundry LOL memes could provide more penetrating insight into our culture than Ms. Hilton.

Third: Another condition that NBC had to agree to was to arrange for an interviewer who heretofore had not mocked Paris – the best they could come up with was “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” host Meredith Vieira. You’d think that if a condition for interviewing Paris was that the journalist had never made a disparaging remark about her, they could’ve scored the scoop for about $87.99, given that just about everyone on the planet, including refugees in Darfur, have dissed P in the past year. Moreover, Vieira’s interview will inevitably be repurposed ad nauseum on MSNBC, where those folks pretty much consider Paris a fish in a barrel (“Countdown’s” Keith Olbermann recently examined her plight on his particularly astringent hard-news feature, “Puppet Theatre”). Hence, Vieira’s putative sensitivity will be inevitably be filtered through the snarky cynicism – which is to say, objectivity – of a dozen more NBC journalists.

Finally, even given all these other considerations, the notion that NBC gave money to an already obscenely wealthy person that pretty much everyone else on the globe hates (this isn’t a fully scientific finding – a recent trek through Mongolia courtesy Google Earth found some banners waved by remote villagers that might have been pro-Paris, or, at least, just respected the architecture of the Arc de Triomphe) could still hurt the network’s reputation. Particularly since those million Washingtons could’ve gone to a charity championed by Bono, but instead are going to an insanely pampered heiress’s STD medications.

Hence: Well played, Jeff Zucker. Almost as brilliant as renewing “Good Morning, Miami” for a second season.

NBC’s Ben Silverman era continues: “The Office” will be transformed into a series of computer games that may, eventually, be incorporated into storylines on the show.

“We looked at the broad demographic that 'The Office' attracts and see this as a TV property that's growing in popularity. We believe this is a property we can build a franchise around with multiple games across multiple devices for many years to come,” said the CEO of the gaming company, which is named, appropriately enough, MumboJumbo.

Since the show is all about soul-crushing ennui and the celebration of mediocrity in the workplace, one expects these games to pack the same sort of punch as “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.” Instead of trying to hide that Spider Solitaire game on your computer screen from your boss in real life, you’ll be able to vividly simulate the practice in “The Office: Fake Spread Sheet.” Making desultory sales phone calls to clients you know aren’t interested in your product becomes a life-or-death ordeal when an unknown digit on your phone is wired to explode – or, at least, not work very well – in “The Office: Trapped in the Phone Mail Tree.” Feigning interest in tedious staff meetings has never been as thrilling as in “The Office: Stay Awake.”

In “The Office: Dwight Schrute’s Big Day Out,” players with any sort of gaming skills will automatically lose.

The mere notion that someone is so famous or fascinating that they merit their own camera crew to follow them about in their everyday lives to cobble together some sort of grandiose home movie is, of course, hubris. But that doesn't stop Paula Abdul, in her upcoming Bravo reality show "Hey Paula," from gushing that fans "first see me as Paula the celebrity, but they soon realize I'm just an everyday girl."

Soon, we're witnessing what Abdul believes to be an everyday girl: Draping million-dollar necklaces on her Chihuahuas and, later, in the back of a limo, wearing a $15K Valentino gown and berating her two personal assistants for not packing the clothes she wanted for a redeye flight, apparently because she didn't tell them what to pack because she was too busy mugging for her TV cameras.

"Hey Paula" looks to appeal to fans and haters alike - she inserts just enough crazy Paula into the proceedings to ameliorate all the warm-fuzzy/faux-wacky/self-aggrandizing nonsense. Or, perhaps, it's simply impossible to scour all traces of crazy Paula from the show. Anyway, those who enjoy her blisteringly precise portrayals of a deeply troubled diva on "American Idol" should be sated here.

In addition to her beleaguered, unschooled-in-the-art-of-packing-for-Paula toadies, we meet Daniel, "my best friend and stylist - he not only makes me look good, but he makes me laugh." Cut immediately to Daniel, not delivering a witty, erudite bon mot, but emitting a guttural grunt as Paula brays delightedly. Daniel reveals, "It takes me four hours to get her ready for the red carpet," as if discussing some reclamation project. We're also introduced to her publicist Jeff who, in a scene more literal than metaphorical, is shown carrying Abdul up some steps.

Drama here is wrung from the fact that her collaborators on a movie about the Bratz dolls don't seem to pay her enough respect - "I know this movie, I know these girls and I know this project," she declares impassionedly about a film based on toys (we imagine Michael Bay said something similar about "Transformers"). There's also a trip to the QVC studios that could be potentially disastrous ("This doesn't reflect my vision," she grouses about the finish on some jewelry) but instead is an utter triumph: An elderly woman phones in, blathering on about how miserable her life is and how everyone she knows has died or something but suddenly, it's all OK because she has managed in her channel-surfing to land upon the reassuringly iconic image of professional life force Paula Abdul peddling some gewgaws on a late-night shopping channel.

Conspiracy theorists, unite!

Who needs “The View” or Elisabeth Hasselbeck or the slightest modicum of professionalism or even common sense when you’ve got “Jahero,” Rosie O’Donnell’s shockingly pedestrian online blabfest in which she gathers sundry pals and, using Apple’s Photo Booth to a self-aggrandizing extent that Your Mayor is grateful he hasn’t been able to master, sits and chatters mindlessly for as long as you have the intestinal fortitude to withstand.

The New York Times is being generous when it raved of Rosie’s performances: “Her hair seemed sticky, her T-shirt looked slept in, and her double-wide face was washed out to abstraction by the glare of amateur lighting. … (in videos) which seem to be nothing but the ramblings of an old comic who won’t be funny unless she’s being paid…”

Herewith, the most recent of her “performances,” in which she blithely accepted mindless kudos from fans and blathered on with a couple of pals about … well, something. I couldn’t be bothered to watch long enough to absorb anything of substance. (Of course, even die-hard fans might not be able to watch until anything of substance comes along.)

No wonder Bob Barker’s rethinking the whole Rosie’d-be-the-perfect-host-of-“The-Price-Is-Right”-thing.

Say what you will about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, at least they’re not openly endorsing promulgating self-promoting drivel in such an infantile manner. (Later today, we’ll deconstruct another self-promoter who fails to understand the thin line between self-love and self-loathing – or, at least, the thin line between propagating adulation and outright mocking – yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage, Paula Abdul).

More than ever before, celebrity for the sake of celebrity is more fixed upon the ends than upon the means – even a Presidential candidate is willing to posit herself as a mobster to win some cool points. Rosie’s grubbily lo-fi, ostensibly honest obfuscations are just another way to transmit inauthentic authenticity in a medium in which conveying nerd-like-cool-addiction to fans is just another artful form of bullsh!t.

Finally, a good idea in the Land of Television: CNN will direct viewers to charities and relief efforts that are salient to some of the stories it presents. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, between shots of Anderson Cooper's smackdown of Mary Landrieu there would’ve also been information on how to donate to help those stranded.

All well and good, just as long as they don’t try to funnel money into Mike Gravel or Duncan Hunter’s campaigns.

*

Stop the presses: Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O’Donnell aren’t friends.

Hasselbeck broke the news to a no-doubt stricken “Access Hollywood” lackey: “Truthfully, I think a friend is someone who you have positive communications with, so I don't know if I would define us as friends right now." She added, “Even more truthfully, if a friend is someone you don’t hate with every fiber of your being, then I don’t know that I would define us as friends right now.” She added, “To further pursue this notion of truthfulness, if a friend is a person that the very thought of doesn’t induce waves of revulsion and nausea so violently wrenching that you’re immediately instinctively emptying the contents of your stomach onto that new pair of flirty pumps that you just bought, then I don’t know that I would define us as friends right now.” She was about to say something else, but the crack “Access Hollywood” journalist interjected, “OK, I think I’m beginning to understand.”

On O’Donnell’s blog, a fan asked her what she thought of Hasselbeck’s comments; Rosie, in a rare moment of restraint, declined comment.

*

A new blight has been thoughtfully created for the People of Television that’ll more than counteract any good the CNN item might’ve enacted: Judge Larry Seidlin, the buffoon who presided over the Anna Nicole Smith child-custody case, will develop one of those irritating syndicated afternoon judge-yells-at-bickering-idiot-litigants shows for CBS.

To see what CBS – and hapless viewers – are getting themselves into, click on the photo of Judge Larry provided here. Proposed title: “Judge Larry Explains It All – And Then Some – For You.”

There was a time when reality programming felt so fresh that even the worst entries in the genre (“Temptation Island,” anyone? “Boot Camp?”) got solid ratings. Now, as the networks load up on the fatty, non-nutritious stuff during the summer, the insurgency of broadcast-network reality-TV appears to be in its final throes, leaving the broadcast networks with the tiniest, most unhealthy ratings the world has seen. Even the Dutch have better ratings.

Of 11 new reality programs cluttering the summertime schedule, only three could be labeled successes, and then, only by depressed summer-ratings standards: NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” (from “American Idol’s” Simon Cowell) and Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and its if-you-can’t-cook-you-deserve-the-verbal-dressdown-of-your-life show “Hell’s Kitchen.” Everything else: Not so much.

NBC's "Age of Love:" 6.95 million viewers (losing 5m off its "Deal or No Deal" lead-in). ABC’s “American Inventor:” 6.3m. ABC’s “The Next Best Thing:” 6.2m. (Really, a show about celebrity impersonators? Did ABC not notice how badly Rich Little bombed at the White House Correspondents Dinner this year?) CBS’s “Survivor”-served-up-as-leftovers “Pirate Master:” 5.4m. ABC’s wrenching-divorce-reimagined-as-entertainment “The Ex-Wives Club:” 4.1m. “National Bingo Night:” 3.5m. (Good numbers if the nation is Albania, perhaps.) Fox’s “On the Lot:” 2.8m. ABC’s “Fast Cars & Superstars:” down to 2.1m.

Those are approaching basic-cable numbers, folks. Or, in some cases, well beneath cable: Season three of “The Closer” debuted Monday before a record 8.8 million viewers.

(To be fair, ratings for original scripted programming – CBS’s “Creature Comforts,” ABC’s “Traveler,” Fox’s “The Loop” (it’s back – did you know?) and The CW’s “Hidden Palms” – are similarly abysmal, but that sort of the fault of the networks, who over the years have conditioned viewers to understand that any scripted show that airs original episodes during the summer has must-avoid written all over it.)

At this point, reruns are starting to look good. The networks have stopped repeating certain shows because they don’t do well in a second run. But certainly, even the weakest of those shows could at least manage ratings like those cited above, and at least they’ve already been paid for. Though reality-TV is cheap, it’s not as cheap as already-been-paid-for, and it’s hard to justify the bill for any of those exercises in futility.

If memory serves, back in the ’80s, networks would air their failed pilots during the summer. They were already paid for, why not? And viewers got a glimpse into how network minds thought – what they were willing to invest in, what they subsequently considered failures. If the networks are looking to burn off their summer schedule with original programming, why don’t they return to that practice? People more are obsessed than ever with the entertainment industry; the networks could even promote blocs of failed pilots as an opportunity to play Monday-morning quarterback (or, network executive) and second-guess the decisions not to pick up a certain program: “NBC Tuesday – is this crap, or are we idiots for not picking this up? A very special ‘Ft. Pit!’”

While you’re breathing at this very minute, there’s a hilariously futile effort afoot to try to save “Hidden Palms,” a show The CW had all but cancelled before it even aired its first promo, by mailing cocoanuts into CW offices. (I imagine a good two, maybe three cocoanuts have come pouring into the CW mailroom at this point.) Networks could encourage this sort of behavior with their Failed Pilot Theatre – c’mon, kids! Help save the fate of a show you’ve only seen one episode of! – with online polling, etc.

They could encourage this sort of behavior; they just wouldn’t have to pay any attention to it.

Slow news day.

That’s the only excuse for infotainment show “Extra’s” breathless Email today; its subject read: “‘EXTRA’ Item: John Travolta on rumors th…”

Well, you think, that could be interesting. Until, that is, the email is opened and the giant headline screams:

“JOHN TRAVOLTA ON RUMORS THAT HE IS NOCTURNAL”

“John Travolta … set the record straight about reports he stays up all night – living a nocturnal life.”

Turns out he does. Well, good to know; that’s all cleared up. But there were “rumors” and “reports” about this?

Perhaps it’s a metaphor of some sort.

Otherwise, what have we got today? Rosie may or may not host “The Price is Right” (that'll be interesting only if she jettisons Bob Barker's "spay or neuter your pet" sign-off in favor of a spiel about rising up against the Bilderberg Group) and a minor scandal with a “Skating with Nitwits” celebrity no one can bring themselves to care about (or, in my case, remember her name).

Unfortunately, “Extra” is constantly sending me irrelevant tripe like this, usually involving someone you hear too much about or someone you don’t want to hear anything about (granted, there’s a fair amount of overlap there). It’s like they’re cyber-stalkers, popping up at random times with motives that aren’t exactly sinister but are disquieting nonetheless … they just want you to remember they’re around.

Swanson! It’s Kristy Swanson, isn’t it? She’s the Buffy no one remembers, right?

Aficionados of New Journalism, rejoice: TMZ has printed a particularly salacious excerpt it maintains to be from O.J. Simpson’s landmark epic “If I Did It.”

The only surprise is it took someone this long to post something like this. The other surprise is how lame it is. Oh, wait – that’s not a surprise at all.

A couple of quick excerpts:

“I've heard the theories: … That I did it. That I did it but I don't know I did it.”

That he did it but doesn’t know? Are there people that stupid in the world? At least he doesn’t float any other theories, like the drug-lord one that was popular briefly around the time of the trial. Or the one that Fox Mulder briefly pursued, that it was a chupacabra that slipped over the Mexican border (those damn porous borders!) and just as mysteriously vanished into the ether. Or any other theory, like, you know, it was any other person on the face of the planet except O.J.

O.J. then takes us to the scene of the crime, where he’s standing with an accomplice named “Charlie” and looking at Ron Goldman in a karate stance:

“Then something went horribly wrong, and I know what happened, but I can't tell you exactly how. I was still standing in Nicole's courtyard, of course, but for a few moments I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there, when I'd arrived, or even why I was there. … And now?

“Now I was standing in Nicole's courtyard, in the dark, listening to the loud, rhythmic, accelerated beating of my own heart. I put my left hand to my heart and my shirt felt strangely wet. I looked down at myself. For several moments, I couldn't get my mind around what I was seeing. The whole front of me was covered in blood, but it didn't compute. Is this really blood? I wondered. And whose blood is it? Is it mine? Am I hurt?”

Pretty impressive, even for a sociopath: You kill a couple of people and your first thought is, but what about me? How do I feel about all of this? Pretty incoherent, too: How many times does he have to remind us he's in Nicole's courtyard? And "the whole front of me" is an awkward construction that a careful ghostwriter might've taken an extra 30 seconds to smooth out.

Anyway, if you’re up for more, the link’s above. Just schedule some time for a good long shower for you and your soul.

One of the advantages for a newspaper with a limited news hole like the Daily News is its reporters don’t have to kill themselves to contrive TV-related stories to fill the vast swatches of newsprint available to the writers of the Paper of Record, the Old Grey Lady known as the New York Times. To wit:

Long story not saying a whole lot, just that HBO probably has some more changes ahead in the future, though it’s unclear as to what those changes may be. Never accuse the Times of not getting out in front of a story even before there’s a story.

The fact that there are a number of actresses over the age of 40 on television makes it a trend of some sort. Where was the Times with the Zeitgeist angle when a bunch of slovenly louts were married to cute sitcom wives?

Yet another take on “The Sopranos”’ conclusion, with lots of highfalutin references to literary works and the nature of not ending: “What is that dark screen but an image of the darkness that was there before you turned your TV on in the first place?” And what were the closing credits but the closing credits of a show you missed just as you turned on your TV in the second place? Fortunately, the story itself ends.

Dammit, you’re gonna watch TV on your cell phone whether you want to or not! Or, at least, someone’s gonna be making TV to watch on your cell phone whether you want it or not. Which produces quite a quandary: My local gas station recently installed video monitors at its pumps pumping propaganda for ABC and its affiliated cable concerns into my cerebral cortex while I fill my tank. So which will I watch: GasFumeTV or TeeNeeTeeVee on a cell phone? Because heaven knows, I certainly don’t want a respite from the ubiquity of pandering media images, even if it lasts the mere five minutes it takes to refuel my car.

Not a sign of the Endtimes, nor necessarily of better days ahead, just a sign:

In his continuing search for hot properties, NBC’s Jeff Zucker floated a trial balloon in Jon Stewart’s direction.

Stewart’s signed with “The Daily Show” through the 2008 election. Based on the effort he puts into his interviews with politicians and authors, he seems to be enjoying his status as counterculture pundit. But, after a new President is elected – that is, if the current Administration can’t cook up a sinister plot to retain power – Stewart may figure that he’s had a good run and that the new leader won’t simply hand him comedy gold on a silver platter on a daily basis, and be ready to try something new.

Conveniently, something will be opening up in NBC’s late-night schedule in 2009, one way or the other. The network had previously announced that Conan O’Brien would replace Jay Leno as host of “The Tonight Show” then, but curiously, people continue to watch Leno in huge numbers. If O’Brien does replace him, Stewart could ease into O’Brien’s timeslot. On the other hand, NBC might decide to stick with Leno, whose genial buffoonery plays with heartland audiences better than O’Brien’s semi-edgy urban sensibility, and hand O’Brien $40 million to do nothing, which he invariably would do, and again his timeslot opens up. Bill Carter’s no doubt thinking sequel to his bestseller “The Late Shift,” which essayed the late-night-TV wars of the ’90s.

In keeping with our obsession with new NBC head Ben Silverman and his love of product placement in formerly respectable TV properties, and since NBC wasn’t one of the networks to reject the condom ad mentioned directly below, let us be the first to recommend “The Trojan Condoms® Jon Stewart Show.” Although those in the market for said product may not actually be watching TV at that hour.

As inevitable as the stench of marijuana at a Raffi concert comes the predictable stink over another inane controversy: A new condom commercial has raised some hackles amongst those who no end of hackles to have raised.

The new commercial, which was rejected by the fuddie-duddies at CBS and Fox (Fox? Fox had taste issues with something?), was described thusly by the New York Times:

“(W)omen in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles to the men’s room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine, he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar, a fetching blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him invitingly.”

The tagline: “Evolve. Use a condom every time.”

Apparently, the ad's creators were home-schooled, because they didn’t get the particulars of evolution right: We didn’t evolve from swine (at least most of us didn’t). And “fetching blonds” will give the cold shoulder to a pig, but will happily cozy up to a piggish guy with a condom? Man, the dating scene is brutal.

At least Seth Rogen has a new excuse he can use for knocking up Katherine Heigl: He only watches Fox, so, stoner that he is, he didn’t realize that such convenient protection existed in the world.

Fox, in rejecting the ad, told the advertiser, “Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.”

“It’s so hypocritical for any network in this culture to go all puritanical on the subject of condom use when their programming is so salacious,” media critic Mark Crispin Miller told the Times.

How about this approach next time: “Warning: Unprotected sexual activity could result in the creation of a broadcast network standards-and-practices executive, which could have adverse results for much of humanity?”

This just may prove to be the best worst idea ever: CNN and Google are co-sponsoring a Democratic debate in which the questions will come from ordinary (and, just guessing/hoping, a number of abnormal) people who post them on YouTube:

“[Anderson] Cooper has already made an appeal on CNN to viewers to be “creative” in their videos. No one knows quite what to expect. The videos are likely to reflect the irreverence inherent on YouTube. But how far will CNN go in airing the site's often-subversive attitude, like the "1984" video portraying Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as Big Sister? If the videos shown are too bland, there could be a revolt on YouTube, where users are likely to post their videos anyway, whether they make it on the air or not.”

This is a tacit admission that there are certain questions reporters are too wussy to ask politicians, so it’s up to We The People to challenge them. (Do you think Republicans, in this atmosphere, would agree to this format?) I can’t wait to see questions asking when they’ll come clean on the government’s role in bringing down WTC building 7 or if it takes a stake through the heart to take down Alberto Gonzales why doesn’t someone just f@$&ing do it already or if they can get Barney Frank’s phone number.

Alas, it ain’t happening yet. Based on my cursory search, there aren’t many questions submitted yet and few have any production values or are remotely amusing – most are pretty earnest, actually; some come from one-issue people not worth pandering to and others are stock questions that have been asked before. Still, a few merit comment:

If the candidates don’t publicly reject creationism thereby alienating religious wingnuts, this guy won’t vote for them.

Question on gay marriage where the only honest answer is “Because I’m pandering to religious wingnuts.”

Maybe you shouldn’t tip your hand by wearing an Obama ’08 T-shirt.

Myopic, arcane, and you don’t even get to vote in the first place, you Aussie loser.

A modicum of effort creativity-wise – but just a smidgen – but a really dumb question.

A wonderfully weird question that seems to conceal a little menace: “Have you given blood within the last 5 years and where did you donate?” What is this guy, a vampire?

Scoreboard: “Please try to avoid the political clichés that we constantly hear all the time.”

The most professionally done of all the questions (nice zoom); too bad the question’s too arcane to get screen time.

Most awkwardly posed question so far. Dude doesn’t like being in front of the camera.

If anyone really doesn’t like illegal aliens, it’s legal aliens who feel they wasted their time.

Good question, but good luck answering it in a minute without sounding like a phony gasbag.

Excellent question; good luck, however, answering it in any fashion in a minute.

Finally! A bona fide crackpot! From the crazed look in the initial freezeframe to the escalating anger as he works himself up, this is a guy you don’t want as a neighbor.

Another loon, but he’s intentionally working his lunacy.

C’mon, America! We can do better! Post your how-soon-after-you-take-the-oath-of-office-before-you-charge-Bush-with-war-crimes query today!

Anyway, here’s betting Alaska bomb-hurler Mike Gravel does really well with this format – his YouTube films elevate political theater to the level of creepy performance art.

Your Mayor has been the recent recipient of a desperate cry for help. No, it’s not to stop the genocide in Darfur (though if you want to help stop that, more power to you) or to stem the tumultuous tide of soulless drum machines in the recording of pop music: It’s to help “Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson achieve American citizenship. For some reason, the INS has withheld his bid for Americanization.

“Since your blog is called the ‘Mayor of Television,’ I thought you would get a kick out of the following,” the desperate plea read. “On tonight’s show, Craig is revealing two more letters from mayors offering honorary citizenship of their towns.”

(Quick, cheap, probably inaccurate background: Ferguson’s from Scotland, not Mexico, so Lou Dobbs shouldn’t hate him, but for some reason, Ferguson hasn’t achieved the citizenship he’s seeking).

Memo to Craig: Sharpen up on these references on your next citizenship quiz:

“John Brown at Harper’s Ferry.”

“Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club.”

“George W. Bush at LegoLand.”

More press release: “On Thursday, towns from Florida and Tennessee announced that they had named Ferguson an honorary citizen.” On Thursday night, Ferguson estimated there were 50,911 towns in America, and declared in his quest to become an American citizen, “I’ll do it town by town across America.”

(The Mayor of the Tennessee town even offered him the key to her town.) Additionally, Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and current Presidential candidate, told Ferguson, “I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy” who could grant him honorary citizenship of the entire state of Arkansas.

As far as The Mayor of Television is concerned, Mr. Ferguson is already a respected citizen of the land of Television; we’re hurt that he seeks to become a citizen of America, since it’s clearly so much more poorly run than Television is. If Keys to Communities are what Mr. Ferguson is after, then I’ll happily offer him one, since I have one on my keychain that, for the life of me, I can’t remember what it’s for. But if it will make him happy, we’d be happy to make him a member of the Cabinet of Television; his responsibility would be to bring chips and guacamole to the Cabinet’s Wednesday-night poker games.

In fact, in deference to Ferguson, we’d be willing to make those games dry. Because Your Mayor fares a whole lot better at these card games when he’s sober.

- "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," 12:35 a.m. weekdays, CBS Channel 2. So watch or get to sleep already.

Friday brings Bob Barker’s last episode of “The Price is Right,” an event that might just be, for a certain breed of TV viewer, just as epochal as Sunday’s series finale of “The Sopranos.” (Some people like to see goombahs getting whacked; others like to watch Plinko.)

You see the sense of history being made in the crowd, which can barely bring itself under control long enough for the contestants to play the games. You see it in the contestants, some of who are hysterical to the point of hyperventilation (one guy tumbles down the aisle on his way to Contestants’ Row; another takes a header while spinning the Big Wheel). They’re blitheringly inarticulate when gushing to Bob. (One contestant waited in line for five days to witness the final taping, and what does he get for his troubles? He may be the only contestant who had a chance to win a car but didn’t.)

Where you don’t see it is in Barker himself – ever the pro, he soldiers on, delivering his mild little quips amidst the hoopla, forwarding the momentum of the show when fan hysteria threatens to slow the pace. Even the farewell is snappily perfunctory – Bob thanks his fans for their longtime support in two sentences, then makes his usual plea for viewers to spay or neuter their pets, then waves, smiling, to the audience while credits roll for a seemingly interminable amount of time. The announcer gives Bob a hug, but none of Barker’s Beauties do.

Which may be telling – if you want to maintain a positive opinion of Barker, then by no means read this piece, which speculates that he may have been forced into retiring after a weary CBS saw one too many lawsuits filed against the show.

It’s one of those artfully concocted articles that mix solid quotes about peripheral topics with blind quotes, hearsay and speculation when addressing its core concern. You’d almost think the author had a vendetta against Barker after Bob got the guy’s puppy mill shut down.

If today’s news of the separation of producer Brian Grazer and author Gigi Levangie Grazer is just some sort of ambitious viral promotion for Gigi’s USA network miniseries “The Starter Wife,” starring Debra Messing as a woman of a certain age who gets dumped by her slimeball movie-executive husband, then it seems a little bit of overkill (then again, this is Hollywood).

Your Mayor chattered with Gigi a few weeks back about the production, and she spoke, for someone ostensibly happily married to a Hollywood power broker, fairly forcefully about the trauma of divorce:

"I don't want to keep it just to Hollywood wives. It's a very real thing that women can go through — being dependent on the man they're with, financially dependent, socially dependent. There's a very real fear. I see it in my own life with people I know. It's a terrible thing to have to live with."

I cut off the quote there for the story, but she went on to talk about herself and her own situation (my notes are currently locked in a comatose computer – any recommendations for a good local data-retrieval outfit in the comments section will be much appreciated), and mentioned pointedly that as she has her own career, she’d be able to fend for herself should any unspecified-but-we-all-know-what-we’re-talking-about-here thing happen.

But that was hardly the first time she contemplated a single life: Two years ago in the New York Times, she contemplated with a curious measure of sanguinity not being married to Brian Grazer:

“‘Well, if I lost everything,’ she said slowly, ‘I would have a house to live in with a backyard. I would have a car that works. I would have children still in school. My closest friends wouldn't change because they're not really of Hollywood. So then you kind of have to quantify what would I be missing. Brian. I wouldn't get to go to certain parties. I wouldn't be going to the Academy Awards.’ Her expression grew mischievous. ‘Unless I picked up the Thalberg, you know, posthumously for Brian. I would look fantastic. Anyway. In other words, would I miss it at certain points? Probably, but would it kill me? No.’”

Well, there are two ways to wrap this up: Either with a dryly wry observation that cracks like that aren’t the best way to maintain a happy marriage, or with a cynical heartfelt offer of a shoulder for Gigi not to cry too much upon. I will take these options under advisement and get back to you.

Fans of “Arrested Development” have likely already located and embraced “Clark and Michael,” an online-only show with some vague association with CBS.com but its own website. Michael Cera (the former George Michael Bluth) and Clark Duke (whose roles include the immortal “Frat Boy No. 1” on an episode of “CSI,” plus roles in the upcoming ABC Family series “Greek” and Seth Rogan’s upcoming “Superbad”) play, essentially, dumber versions of themselves, aspiring screenwriters who are terrible at pitching ideas to executives, terrible at coming up with ideas in the first place and, well, terrible at being adults (they bicker like children). They are good, however, like the rest of the industry, at being self-absorbed, so they’ve hired a documentary crew to follow what they consider to be their inevitable journey to the top.

It’s very funny stuff. The whole trying-to-make-it-in-Hollywood trope is beyond tired, but these guys have sort of managed to find a way to parody the industry satire. Except for the ridiculously perky opening-title sequence (in which they get waaay too enthused about spotting Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s star on the Walk of Fame), the whole thing has a sloppy, tossed-off quality that’s perfect for the Internet (when Tony Hale, "Arrested Development" creator Mitchell Hurwitz, Andy Richter and Adult Swim anarchist Eric Wareheim make brief appearances, the sudden burst of nominal professionalism is almost jarring). But I’m not sure why no one has picked it up for actual, real-honest-to-goodness TV yet – if IFC can find airtime for “Bronx Bunny,” they should be able to shoehorn in a few minutes for this.

“Clark and Michael” is sort of a the younger American cousin of HBO’s hilarious new “Flight of the Conchords,” itself the forgotten Kiwi nephew, to stretch a metaphor that didn’t make much sense in the first place to the breaking point, of Tenacious D’s short-lived HBO show. Jemaine Clement (who also stars in the new film “Eagle Vs. Shark”) and Bret McKenzie star as the most charisma-free pop act since The Shaggs, a New Zealand folk-pop duo looking to make it big in New York – if they can be bothered to land a gig, that is.

Clement and McKenzie are so deadpan they almost make Steven Wright look like a kid with ADD. They stumble through their days as if a modicum of effort might literally kill them. Their social lives are amongst the most joyless committed to film, their manager is just nominally more competent than Stephen Merchant’s uber-buffoon on “Extras” and their songs could serve as the soundtrack to our current Era of Lowered Expectations.

A full review will appear in Sunday’s paper, but suffice it to say you’ll expend more energy laughing than Clement and McKenzie appear to expend on creating the show itself.

For those who didn’t like David Chase’s ending for “The Sopranos,” this one’s the best alternative (so far) on YouTube.

(As someone, somewhere, said, I would accept Phil Leotardo's fate to erase "Don't Stop Believing" from my brainpan.)

The Ben Silverman era at NBC continues: “Heroes,” the network’s new hit series, is just a stone’s throw away from being renamed “The Nissan Motor Company’s Heroes Save the World from Villains who Drive Other Makes of Automobiles” and featuring a character who derives his powers from sitting in the driver’s seat of a brand new Nissan Maxima.

From the article:

“In the season premiere, the Nissan Rogue, the company’s new CUV, will be integrated into the episode and will be driven by one of the lead characters in the show. … In addition to on-air commercials, Nissan will also promote the Rogue in sponsorship of a Heroes music video.”

This may play havoc with the show’s multiple taglines next season: “Save the Murano, Save the World” and “Are You on the List to Purchase a Sporty Nissan Z at 2.9% APR Financing?” just don’t roll off the tongue the way the first-season slogans did.

Herewith, your bonus-DVD commentary, quotes that actually might be more fun than those that made it into today’s story about “Rescue Me’s” fourth-season premiere:

Star/co-creator Denis Leary on what FX will or won’t allow:

“John Landgraf (FX president) is an absolute joy to work with. He pushes us to places we wouldn’t go to. But for the middle of season four, I pitched the idea that in episode seven, our guys go into a fire, and they all die. And when you tune in the following week, there’s no episode eight. The guy I was pitching to said, ‘Are you out of your mind? We didn’t pay for half a fourth season.' That was the only thing they ever said no to. I really did believe that that would be an astounding moment in television. They didn’t agree.”

Leary’s collaborator Peter Tolan suggests that story may not be entirely true, which doesn’t make it any less a good story. He offers his own recollection of a creative battle with the network:

“I can’t remember them backing off anything. If anything, they’ll question the mention of a particular person, a real-life person. And then the legal department will say you really can’t do it.

“We had a great fight, a real battle with Fox standards and practices. I was writing very quickly, back toward the end of last season, about Sean (Steven Pasquale) and Maggie (Tatum O’Neal) getting married. I was writing jokes about people’s reactions – that’s she’s so crazy and he’s so stupid, what would their children would be like – 'It’ll be the Bush dynasty all over again.'

“It wasn’t a great joke, but I left it in and it went out and some people liked it. But then I got an Email from Fox – ‘We will not allow this.’ Keep in mind this is Fox. I replied, ‘We’ve done Bill Clinton blow-job references. What’s the difference with this?’ And they reply, ‘That’s historical fact. You’re putting forth personal opinion.’ And I said, ‘But what if it’s an opinion that's destined to become historical fact?’ On and on it went. We went at each other like cobra and mongoose via Email. But it was not that great a joke, so in the end we didn’t fight for it."

More, including Leary’s take on “American Idol” and Tolan's thoughts on his pilot getting rejected by NBC, after the jump.

A tale of two people whose observations aren’t incorrect, but who serve as particularly imperfect vessels for disseminating such insights:

Dan Rather threw his successor, Katie Couric, under the bus, telling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, “The mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience. … going to celebrity coverage rather than war coverage.”

Rather’s ignominious fall from CBS makes him an unlikely critic of his former network, but finds agreement from an even unlikelier source: O.J. Simpson.

In an interview with Editor & Publisher, the sage media critic slagged the nation’s press for being more interested in celebrities than explorations of outer space.

“‘When Paris Hilton was going to jail last week, more people knew about that than knew that we were sending people into space that day,’ Simpson said in a phone interview from Miami. ‘It has replaced what is real news. There was always a place for it, but it was [gossip writer] Rona Barrett. Now it is the equivalent of Edward R. Murrow reporting it today.
…’

“Simpson cited the recent story about him being asked to leave a Louisville, Ky. restaurant during Kentucky Derby week. He said the owner asked him to exit and he agreed, but was surprised it became a story anyway. ‘A guy pulls me aside at a restaurant, he is not a fan and he won't serve me,’ Simpson recalled. ‘I could make a big deal about it because it was illegal. But I said it was no problem, but it became a newspaper story.



“‘In this day and age, when someone not serving me in Kentucky, with no argument, is a story and we don't know that someone is going up in space and we know more about Paris Hilton going to jail, something is wrong,’ he added.”

O.J. – whose command of the day’s events is vaguely impressive (certainly, there’s nothing else of significance going on right about now other than a moon shot) – may be right about our misplaced obsessions, but he pretty much inspired the trend with his slow-speed chase following that little double-murder he was no doubt investigating at the Kentucky Derby. News outlets, realizing the insatiable appetite for such junky news, try to outdo one another by pouring it on when it comes to pointless coverage.

But at least each Mediathon (to borrow Frank Rich’s term) ends up giving us a glimpse into our nation’s psyche. O.J.’s saga burrowed into issues of race and celebrity justice. Anna Nicole Smith’s death-by-overdose offered sex, drugs, a culture of celebrity enablers and wealthy, withered octogenarians who pull better than the rest of us do. And the Paris Hilton ordeal, following Lindsay Lohan’s most recent meltdown(s), represents society at least trying, albeit in the most hapless manner imaginable, to push back against privileged black holes of self-entitlement whose sole contribution to Western Civilization is being able to walk in stiletto heels without falling over.

So maybe Simpson and Hilton ought to enter politics, so we can get our news and infotainment simultaneously. Heaven knows they own the world already as it is.

* UPDATE: After CBS COO Les Moonves called Rather’s assessment of Couric’s work as “tarting … up” the evening news “sexist,” Rather scurried over to the Fox News Channel to defend himself, accusing Moonves of “trying to … change the subject.”

“RATHER: … (H)e doesn't know about news. He said, at one point, we needed to have naked news. He said at one point that...

“DAVID ASMAN: Well, he was joking, no?

“RATHER: Well, was he? You tell me. But he said it.”

I’ll tell you, Dan: He was joking.

Alan Sepinwall of The Newark Star-Ledger is the guy most TV critics want to be today. Well, except for maybe the whole living-in-New-Jersey thing.

Actually, the living-in-New-Jersey thing helped Sepinwall score his coup today: The critic at Tony Soprano’s hometown newspaper got the exclusive exit interview with “The Sopranos”’ David Chase, who doesn’t care what you think.

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there," Chase tells Sepinwall. "No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God. We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people's minds, or thinking, 'Wow, this'll (tick) them off.' People get the impression that you're trying to (mess) with them and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them."

He adds, with what at least reads as a shrug, "I hear some people were very angry, and others were not, which is what I expected."

As for any “Sopranos” movie: Don’t hold your breath. Chase killed off so many characters he doesn’t feel he has enough to work with for a movie that’d advance the story, and if he set it in the past, so Christopher et al could return, there’d be little suspense as to the characters’ fates.

Well, Chase could team with Michael Bay and have Tony battle Optimus Prime in the first movie/TV crossover sequel.

Genius: David Chase went out with a bang by hardly going out with anything at all. Love it or hate it, no other ending could’ve brought about the debate that Episode 86, “Made in America,” inspired amongst “Sopranos” fans. HBO’s message boards abound with conspiracy theories – Tony was already dead before he walked into the diner, etc.

Though most reportage seems to emphasize the negative reaction from literal-minded fans (the flurry of postings whacked hbo.com and nj.com offline minutes after the show's end and, according to Yahoo!, its search engine was clogged with requests like "sopranos sucked," "sopranos finale sucked," and "sopranos ending sucked”), most of the comments I’ve read at a few sites in fact really liked the ending, or at least admired its chutzpah.

On the other hand, there’s this screed from Nikki Finke, who might’ve throttled David Chase had he been in the room with her while she was watching (and, seemingly, posted a half-hour before the episode concluded – so that’s how she manages those scoops – she opens a new blog entry then sits around and waits for something to happen and then, when she posts it, it looks like she beat everyone to the punch. Well played, Ms. Finke!):

“Chase clearly didn't give a damn about his fans. Instead, he crapped in their faces. This is why America hates Hollywood. Unlike some network series that end abruptly because broadcasters pull the plug without warning, ‘The Sopranos’ has been slated for years to go off the air tonight. But instead of carefully crafted, this finale looked like it had been concocted in a day or two. … Chase needed to exert himself to a concoct an artful denouement. But he took the lazy way out. The show we all loved deserved a decent burial. Instead, it went into a black hole.”

Geez, you’d think Chase had drowned her puppy or something.

On the other hand, here’s my friend Matt Seitz, who has written as much and as well on the show as anyone in the country:

“No gangster story has ever ended like this. The lack of resolution -- the absolute and deliberate failure, or more accurately, refusal, to end this thing -- was exactly right. It felt more violent, more disturbing, more unfair than even the most savage murders Chase has depicted over the course of six seasons, because the victim was us. He ended the series by whacking the viewer.

“This ending was so consistent with everything that came before -- consistent with the show's themes, its style, its cruel sense of humor, its belief in the utter finality of death as the only real ending, the sense that life goes on anyway, even without the incredibly important person known as You -- that it was the greatest Sopranos ending ever.”

There’re your two extremes – where do you come down on the issue? Would nothing less than a Vesuvian orgy of violence have sufficed as Tony’s come-uppance? Or was this one of the greatest – and deftly considered – mind-f#%&s in TV history? Or, maybe, both?

Oh, and maybe Phil’s skull might’ve held up better had it not already been ventilated.

Summer nears, and with it, the traditional controlled burn-off of great swatches of the CBS primetime schedule known as “Big Brother.” And whereas in the past those monitoring the online antics of the “houseguests” were prevented, thanks to discreet cutaways by the show’s producers, from witnessing any particularly graphic romantic liaisons that occurred within the BB house, this year, they’re putting them out there for all to see – all who subscribe to Showtime’s ShoToo network, that is.

“Big Brother: After Dark,” a spiritual heir no doubt to “Playboy After Dark,” will, per CBS’s press department, “feature a live feed from the ‘Big Brother’ house for three hours (12-3 a.m., ET/PT) seven days a week.”

This release, alas, is mum on the particulars. On the East Coast, those watching will see our West-Coast-based houseguests cavorting from 9 p.m. to midnight, when alcohol will start flowing and nookie will just start being initiated. On the West Coast, presumably, we’ll see the midnight-3 shift, when the participants should be appropriately sloshed and eager to wriggle out of their constricting clothing (or, just passing out). (Or, we could just get a repeat of the East Coast feed, though the press release doesn’t qualify the word “live” at all, and why would anyone want to stay up until 3 a.m. to see what happened three hours earlier when they can just visit the webcam?)

Which means the BB crew would be live on ShoToo six hours a day, 42 hours a week, 168 hours per month. Can you think of anyone who can manage to be remotely interesting for that long?

Of course not, so clearly CBS/Showtime are banking on the titillation factor (but does CBS really want an offshoot of its programming associated with such prurient activity? And, if so, will they be providing the nurse, French-maid and cheerleader costumes?). After all, what do pay-cable networks usually program in the wee hours? If the houseguests don’t start getting busy with one another, viewers will begin clamoring for ShoToo to bring back their softcore cheesefests. I just hope the “Big Brother” producers are stocking up on a hefty collection of lame ’70s jazz-funk to play over the sundry assignations.

Meanwhile, along the same lines, NBC has cooked up “Science of Love: A Modern Dating Experiment” for later this summer. Apparently, the show wants to make its viewers think: NBC’s press department insists the series will ask “a very compelling question: Is it possible to make better love connections through science, or can true love only spring from an initial attraction?”

Say what you will about NBC’s nature-v.-nurture, free-will-v.-predestination debate disguised as a dating show, what “Science of Love” really is, is a 60-minute advertisement for "Perfectmatch.com®, a leading online dating and relationship service. … Fully integrated into the show are Perfectmatch.com’s revolutionary Duet® Total Compatibility System (Duet®), Perfectmatch members and the company’s internationally renowned relationship expert, Dr. Pepper Schwartz. She is also a co-creator of Duet®, a leading-edge assessment and scientifically-based system that helps people find lasting love.”

The Ben Silverman era at NBC has arrived early.

Barbara Walters didn’t get the memo.

While the rest of the country is treating the Paris-goes-to-prison saga as a sick funhouse joke, Walters is presenting it as an American epic of tragedy and redemption.

Walters received a call from Hilton – collect, she noted, because prisoners must call collect to dial out of the big house. Walters apparently wants us to be impressed by the journalistic dedication required to accept charges on a call from Paris Hilton. Walters also can’t stop herself from placing herself in the story: “‘How are you different?’ I asked.” (It must’ve taken some great restraint to avoid adding the phrase, “concern welling in my heart.")

And Paris – in language that eerily mirrors the stock cadences of a publicist’s issued statement – replies, “I’m not the same person I was. I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who look up to me. … I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance. … My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail.” Paris even gratefully endured the indignity of not being able to watch the "Sopranos" finale last night.

Once sprung, Paris suggests she’ll do charity work, including getting “toy companies to build a kind of Paris Hilton playhouse, where sick children might come, and the toy companies could donate toys.” Wasn’t this once called Neverland?

“I’m not that superficial girl,” assures us. “I haven’t looked in the mirror since I got here.”

Certainly, not admiring oneself in the mirror for three whole days does suggest a spiritual awakening, if one of a particularly swift and not at all suspectly timed nature. Surely “The Simple Life: Calcutta” is soon to follow, as well as a cash-lubricated sainthood bequeathed from the Vatican.

Here’s the “Sopranos” story that’ll be in the paper tomorrow (warning: spoilers), along with some random final thoughts as I watch the episode a second time:

Well, technically, Tony Soprano survived the series finale of HBO’s classic series “The Sopranos,” which aired Sunday night.

But series creator David Chase ended the series with a Rorschach test for its fans: What happened in the seconds immediately following the final cut-to-black?

For the most part, the episode, entitled “Made in America,” played like a typical midseason episode, with many small, dawdling scenes of character interaction. Tony (James Gandolfini) was still in hiding after Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) ordered hits on two of his generals.

The feud was resolved when Phil was dispatched with extreme prejudice: Talking to his wife outside her SUV, he took a bullet to the back of the head. Panicked, his wife jumped out of her SUV, leaving it in drive, and a tire rolled over Phil’s noggin, pancaking it.

The final scene played suspensefully, perhaps due more to viewers’ expectations than anything else. Set in a diner, it had Tony engaging in small talk with Carmela (Edie Falco), then being joined by their son AJ (Robert Iler). At the same time AJ arrived, however, a man in a grey jacket entered; the camera paid this guy an ominous amount of attention.

Meanwhile, Meadow was having trouble finding a parking spot. The camera cut nervously to other diner patrons, and the jacketed man entering the men’s room. The final shot of the series featured Tony looking up, responding to – what? Meadow’s entrance? The stranger with a gun?

The show itself offered no answers, as it cut immediately to black. Several seconds later, the credits rolled – and for only the second times in the show’s history, no music played over them.

A possible hint as to Tony’s fate: The only other time no music played over the closing credits was in the season-two episode “Full Leather Jacket,” which ended with Christopher (Michael Imperioli) getting gunned down.

*

Actually, I think this was the perfect ending for the series. (It’s kind of the exact opposite of “Six Feet Under’s,” which was painstakingly literal about the final fates of all its cast members.) David Chase has always teased viewers’ expectations, and played mind games with his fans, and this season got progressively darker, so the simple, otherwise benign appearance of a diner patron was fraught with anxiety for viewers, if not for Tony. Chase was throwing in peripheral characters and creating new loose ends up to virtually the final second – most of the episode moved at its usual pace, with long, leisurely scenes with characters just chatting about family, work and so on. And since Chase couldn’t possibly create a climax that’d live up to everyone’s expectations, he decided to let you do it. Along with one final “Godfather” reference: The ominous guy, who may or may not have been a shooter gunning for Tony, heading into the restaurant bathroom.

“Made in America,” of course, is a double entendre, referencing made men in the mob. But it also reflects Chase’s darker thoughts on what America stands for these days – the shot of AJ watching MC Rove and Dancing Dubya (not far removed from footage of al-Qaeda soldiers) reminded me of the similar whistling-past-the-graveyard joke in “Sideways,” where Paul Giamatti sneaks in on the tubby couple working it while a press conference with Bush/Rumsfeld/Rice plays on their bedroom TV. What is our biggest export? Chase seems to think it’s murderous greed.

Phil’s death turned into a sick little joke? Almost too much. Almost.

But WTF was up with AJ’s story arc this season? He was all over the map – buffoonish lout, responsible fellow, suicidal loon, guy suddenly obsessed with world affairs, and so on.

And perhaps Chase’s best practical joke of all: A series that boasted really cool music at the end of virtually every episode ends its swan song with a monumentally crappy Journey ditty. “Don’t Stop Believing,” indeed.

But that’s just me: People in Washington, DC didn’t like it so much: "It was stupid. I couldn't believe it. . . . I was waiting for a big huge climax, and it didn't happen, so I was let down."

Likewise, the New York Times’ Allessandra Stanley was underwhelmed: “The abrupt finale last night was almost like a prank, a mischievous dig at viewers who had agonized over how television’s most addictive series would come to a close. The suspense of the final scene in the diner was almost cruel. And certainly that last bit of song — “Don’t Stop Believing,” by Journey — had to be a joke. … In that way at least “The Sopranos” delivered a perfectly imperfect finish.”

What do you think? Was this a fitting conclusion to what routinely gets called the Best TV Show in History? Or did David Chase toy with us too much?

The Feds are happy about Phil’s getting capped.

Tony and Carmela want AJ to ditch this whole Army idea and make a movie or something. They hand him a script.

Tony’s lawyer tells him he’ll likely be indicted. Tony takes his frustrations out on a ketchup bottle.

Tony visits Sil in the hospital. Steven Van Zandt is, for once, not overacting. Tony watches “Little Miss Sunshine” while he sits next to his comatose friend.

Paulie Walnuts turns down Tony’s new assignment. Tony’s not happy about this. Paulie is obsessed with the fact that the cat’s still obsessed with Christopher’s photo. Paulie’s found God or something. Tony sweet-talks Paulie into the new job, but Paulie doesn’t look that happy about it. A cat strolls down the sidewalk and sits next to Paulie, but he’s oblivious. Symbolism or something.

AJ’s now driving a Bimmer – he’s abandoned worrying about his carbon footprint, apparently.

AJ’s watching Karl Rove do that “MC Rove” thing and George W. dance with that African troupe that visited the White House. He chuckles, emptily.

Tony looks in on Uncle Junior. He wants the money UJ has lost and forgotten its whereabouts, wants it for Bobby’s kids.

Tony jogs his memory, a smidgen, reminding him that UJ and Tony’s pop “ran North Jersey.” “We did?” UJ replies. “That’s nice.”

And so, the final scene:

Tony, Carmela and Meadow Visiting with her attorney fiancé and his parents. She may be getting a job at his law firm.

The safe-house cat, at the Bada Bing, gazes fondly at a photo of Christopher. Maybe that’s why Paulie doesn’t like him.

Tony offers Paulie a job, and is disappointed that he’s not enthusiastic about it.

Tony spies AJ jogging along a road; tells him to get into his SUV. AJ tells him, “I’m gonna join the Army.” “Are you nuts? You wanna be shipped to Iraq?” AJ thinks his training will eventually get him a gig as a private chopper pilot for Donald Trump or something.

Tony and Carmela visit AJ’s therapist. Carmela says AJ’s learning Arabic. Tony scoffs: “Shish-ka-bob, what else do you need to know?” He tells the story of his mother to the therapist, gets a little misty eyed.

Tony still wants Meadow to pursue medicine rather than law: “The world is a sad, f#$&ed-up place.” She says she decided to become a lawyer after seeing Tony get abuse from the Feds.

And we have a whacking!

Tony visits Janice. They chatter about family.

The Fed gives Tony some info about where Phil might be. He’s having an angry, dysfunctional affair with a colleague.

While listening to Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and making out with his new girlfriend in his SUV, the car catches fire and explodes. Close, but no cigar on the body-count thing.

Tony, naturally, is livid. Meadow, thinking Tony’s being too hard on AJ, calls Tony “Mr. Fat Mouth” and leaves. (Meadow seems to serve only to walk out of scenes this episode.) AJ says, “We have to break our dependence on foreign oil.”

A meeting is convened. An uneasy peace is being brokered, dammit. Phil’s thug: “We agree: It’s gone too far. Phil’s gone too far. We promise we’ll back off.” He hints that perhaps they wouldn’t be broken up if Phil got whacked.

Paulie Walnuts doesn’t like cats.

Janice visits Uncle Junior, who’s mad as a hatter. “Bobby’s dead,” Janice tells him; “Ambassador Hotel,” Uncle Junior replies, Kennedy’s assassination being old news.

AJ’s with a therapist. “I feel, like, cleansed or something,” he says of losing his SUV.

30 minutes in: No body count. Paulie’s alone at the Bada Bing, so that may be ominous.

As a fed told Tony last week: “End times.” Last episode’s whackfest promised an explosive conclusion, as Tony and Phil Leotardo set on one another’s families with a vengeance, and Phil’s got the upper hand. Dr. Melfi’s dumped Tony as a patient, but that’s not that pressing a concern right now since he and his family are on the run, AJ’s nearing meltdown mode and Tony’s thoroughly sick of his son.

So let’s kick back and enjoy the carnage, shall we?

This episode features: Graphic Violence! Nudity! Adult Content! Adult Language!

It opens with Tony’s portly mug sleeping, being awakened. He was sleeping next to that machine gun the late Bobby Bacala gave him earlier in the season.

Now Tony and Paulie Walnuts are outside the airport, in the bitter cold. Tony meets his Fed contact and gives him a droplet of information about potential terrorists, and asks if he knows where Phil might be. “You’re overreaching,” he’s told.

Tony visits Carmela at her safe house. “Are you being careful?” she asks him. AJ’s girlfriend was staying over – just asking, if your boyfriend is being tracked by mobsters, would you stay over at his place? She’s a junior in high school.

Bobby’s funeral, we're told, is Thursday. AJ can’t believe they’re going to appear in public with contracts on their heads. The funeral gets all of 8 seconds of screen time.

Paulie’s hitting on Bobby’s niece at the funeral reception. AJ’s appalled at the small talk, then refers to Yeats as “Yeets.”

Tony, Paulie and their bodyguard are in a dingy, poorly lit dump of a safe hourse watching an old “Twilight Zone” show in which a TV producer proclaims networks are "preoccupied with quality.”

15 minutes in: No body count. Even Phil Leotardo is bummed: “F#%&in’ A, I’m disappointed."

Reviews are all over the map for HBO’s new David Milch it’s-not-“Deadwood” series “John from Cincinnati,” though it seems those who hate it are hacked off that Milch has forced them to consider philosophies off their radar.

Make that, waaay off their radar. Herewith, the transcript of the January press conference with Milch and his cast members; much of this may just play, as it did with the TV critics scratching their heads after this session, as mind-numbing mental masturbation. Others may plow through this and be amazed: These precepts have been turned into a TV show? Which means “John from Cincinnati” will emerge as either the most profound program in the history of TV or the most idiotically obfuscating. You make the call, after the jump.

At the request of management, I’ll be live-blogging the “Sopranos” finale Sunday at 6 p.m., so if you don’t have access to HBO’s East Coast network and don’t want to know what happens to Tony and his family until you see it yourself, steer clear of this site around that time.

But, honestly, with the blunt-force-trauma surprises they have in store – Carmella frets over what facial cream to use; they’re replacing A3’s “Woke Up This Morning” with the Andrea True Connection’s “More More More” for the theme song; Christopher’s movie “Cleaver” become prophetic when Christopher transforms into a zombie and kills Tony – you’ll probably want to use revelations here as a buffer between you and the ugly truth.

I was working on something like this, but, dammit, these guys beat me to it:

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Screaming and crying, Irve 'Scooter' Libby was escorted out of a courtroom and back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that he must serve out his entire 30-month sentence behind bars rather than in his home.

“'It’s not right!' shouted the weeping Libby, who was convicted of four felonies in a reckless spy-outing case. 'Mom!' he called out to Dick Cheney in the audience."

Also, since I’ve been dragged back into the whole Paris mess, if you haven’t seen this clip yet, you’ll want to. It’s short, and it’s exquisite.

Watching the media frenzy and the attendant attention everyone’s been paying to this and such overwrought reactions has really made me question this whole notion of humans “evolving.” On the other hand, I’m sure creationists must feel the same way, respecting God too much to believe that anyone involved in this whole thing – from Paris to the reporters to her fans – was created in His image.

NBC’s new head, Ben Silverman, is reportedly saying he’ll do “anything” to land Rosie O’Donnell for either a daytime gig or a prime-time game show. Here’s hoping O’Donnell will be very creative in determining what that “anything” that Silverman will have to do will be: a hit on Elisabeth Hasselbeck, perhaps?

*

New Yorker media analyst Ken Auletta will chat with CBS COO Les Moonves in a public forum Tuesday in New York, and another media analyst, Jon Friedman, has done Auletta’s heavy lifting for him. He has created a list of questions to grill Moonves over the Katie Couric situation.

Friedman says he has been accused by one CBS executive of being “obsessed” with Couric’s struggles in the evening news anchor’s chair. (Friedman responds, “For the record, I’m not,” though I haven’t seen anyone else write about it as much as he has.)

Anyway, here are some of the questions he’d like to see Moonves answer:

* What can you do to improve the evening-news show?

* What specifically has gone wrong with Katie Couric's "CBS Evening News?"

* Is her job safe -- and for how long? Any thoughts of asking her to move, for instance, to "The Early Show?"

* What would have to happen for you to consider replacing Couric?

* If Couric-related debacles like the infamous Photoshopping snafu and the plagiarism scandal weren't her fault, how much responsibility should we assign to you, CBS news chief Sean McManus and the corporation?

* Considering the higher ratings consistently enjoyed by Charles Gibson and Brian Williams, Couric's two old-school counterparts, do you now regret thinking that CBS needed to blow up the traditional evening-news format?

* What has surprised you about this story? For instance, did you expect America to react so indifferently or the media to give her such a hard time?

* Why can't CBS do better against "Today" and "Good Morning America?"

*

Last week, “National Bingo Night” managed a mere 5 million viewers, and I detect faint whiffs of potential scandal surrounding it. Somewhere out there on the Internets, someone who actually watched the show complained about the cards the viewer had downloaded. (Those playing at home can win cash.)

Well, people lose at Bingo all the time, but the whiner may have a point: The show is taped ahead of time, so ABC knows what the winning numbers are, so who’s to say they don’t tamper with their cards to limit the number of winners? Forget “fleeting expletives:” This is the sort of bad-faith not-serving-the-public’s-best-interest thing that the FCC should be crawling all over. (If only just to get Bingo off TV once and for all – after all, we all know cribbage is a much more TV-friendly game.)

As luck would have it, I watched HBO’s new series, “John from Cincinnati” from auteur David Milch, on the same day the analyses of the cable network’s new power structure was being dissected. Bill Nelson was named Chief Executive Officer; he formerly served as the network’s Chief Operating Officer, meaning he basically kept his eyes on the pursestrings.

And I think it’s fairly safe to say that “John from Cincinnati,” with its evocative portrait of the surfing subculture and its quixotic examination of Zen precepts, is not a show aimed at bean-counters.

Word of Paris Hilton’s premature release from jail rocked the planet today, as angry mobs stormed Parker Center downtown… no, I can’t. I just can’t care about this anymore.

No, but here’s what I can do: Direct you to bid on one of Bob Barker’s microphones from “The Price is Right.” Barker’s last episode is June 15, and that’s when bidding ends on this item, which will come with a personal note of authentication from Bob himself. All proceeds go to animal rights charity. Bidding began Tuesday afternoon at a mere $5.55; as this posts, it’s up to $6,800.

There; I feel so much cleaner now.

It’s hard to find anyone – outside of Dina Lohan herself, that is – who think it’s a good, or even less than contemptuous, idea for Lohan to star in a projected E! reality series, “Mom-ager” (boy, that just rolls off the tongue, no? even "Momzilla" would work better), in which she bullies her young progeny into becoming stars just like their older sister, Lindsay.

Well, except maybe for the whole flashing one’s privates and entering rehab at age 20 part.

E!, of course, also enabled Anna Nicole Smith, as it presented her frolicking about clearly blotzed on her own train wreck of a reality show. Given the bang-up job Dina’s done raising Lindsay, one can only imagine the fresh horrors awaiting 14-year-old Ali and 11-year-old Cody as Mommy coaches them on proper casting-couch etiquette and hoovering cocaine.

Slate reports that even some E! employees have been siezed with a belated conscience: “(T)his planned show is too much for some E! insiders. ‘People feel like [Lindsay] is going to die—and we're not helping,’ one said.” And appearing on reality shows seems to have done wonders for Tom Sizemore and Danny Bonaduce.

Before dismissing this cynical programming innovation as tawdry and disgusting, however, let’s try to focus on the upside: Hmmm.

You got anything? Me, neither.

Oh, wait; it could save Cody and Ali’s lives: “Mom-ager” will essentially serve as Exhibit A in Child Protective Services’ custody case against Dina. And the backlash against it could also put a definitive end to this dispiritng brand of reality television, and, perhaps, E! in general. And it would allow Keith Olbermann to retire his “Worst Person in the World” trophy, bequeathing the title forever to Dina.

Otherwise, yeah, I guess it is a pretty bad idea.

The Television Critics Association announced its nominees for the ultra-prestigious 2007 TCA Awards, and, well, hmm. It’s a list, to be sure. Doesn’t strike me as all that adventurous (and I voted in the thing), so where do critics get off complaining about the Emmys?

The biggest category, PROGRAM OF THE YEAR:
“American Idol” (Fox) “Friday Night Lights” (NBC) “Heroes” (NBC) “Planet Earth” (Discovery)
“The Wire” (HBO) “When the Levees Broke” (HBO)

Program of the Year is an interesting hybrid category – it’s supposed to honor the best, Zeitgeisty show of the year, but “best” and “Zeitgeisty” don’t always line up together. (The closest example of this amidst the nominees is “Heroes.”) Some critics apparently just think it means Most Popular Program; hence, the appearance of “American Idol” amongst the nominees. Other critics ignore the notion of the show having some sort of seismic pop-culture influence; hence, the appearance of “Friday Night Lights” on the list. Others (myself included) take it to refer to a production’s quality combined with social impact, real or imagined, so there’re your “Wire” and “Levees” nominations. And “Planet Earth” was a big, splashy, ambitious project, so that makes some sense.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY:
“30 Rock” (NBC) “The Daily Show” (Comedy Central) “Entourage” (HBO) “The Office” (NBC) “Ugly Betty” (ABC)

All worthy shows, but there’re a couple of funnier if less mainstream things snubbed here (e.g., “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) that you’d think critics, being critics, would want to champion over such obvious choices.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA:
“Friday Night Lights” (NBC) “Heroes” (NBC) “Lost” (ABC) “The Sopranos” (HBO) “The Wire” (HBO)

Discovery Times Channel declares it has unearthed more audio evidence that’ll make Robert Kennedy’s assassination as confusing and enticing to conspiracy theorists as JFK’s, and they’ll present it tonight, on “Conspiracy Test: The RFK Assassination” at 9 p.m. EST (6 PCT).

Apparently, esteemed lunatic Sirhan Sirhan just happened to be around when the fatal bullets were plugged into Bobby, irrevocably veering the course of history toward the sorry state we’re in right now.

From the press release:

“Key to the theory of a second shooter is an audiotape recorded by a freelance journalist at the scene that went unnoticed in an archive for decades. (Interesting how these matters key to national security go “unnoticed in an archive for decades:” By this standard, the truth behind the war with Iraq will be unearthed in 2050.)

“It is the only known recording in the world on which the gunshots can clearly be heard. CONSPIRACY TEST: THE RFK ASSASSINATION presents two tests of the recording. ... The shocking results may shed new light on the events of Kennedy’s assassination.”

Oh, Jeez, this is where I came in: I worked at a newspaper in Dallas back when Oliver Stone was shooting “JFK” and immersed myself in the sundry conspiracies, and almost never re-emerged on the other side of sanity, there’s so many people who probably pulled the kill switch who weren’t named Lee Harvey Oswald that you could just open a 1963 Dallas phone book to a random page, poke your finger down and come within something resembling the truth as assiduously as the Warren Commission did. To be sure, there was something sinister going on there, but if no principal player has emerged and proffered a plausible scenario, then people, it’s probably time to let it go and move on to matters more pressing that we have equally little hope of changing, such as the 2000 Presidential election controversy.

But Bobby? Bobby wasn’t even President yet when he got iced on June 5, 1968, and if this investigation made it all the way to the airwaves of the very-little-seen Discovery-Times Channel, then you know they’re onto something!

Such high-profile efforts to save fan-favorite shows such as “Deadwood,” “Gilmore Girls,” “According to Jim” and “Veronica Mars” may have been unsuccessful, but a relatively beneath-the-radar campaign has apparently resurrected “Jericho,” CBS’s nuclear-conflagration drama starring Skeet Ulrich.

Fans assaulted CBS with bags of peanuts (you had to have watched the show to understand, and I didn’t see the requisite episode(s)) – which, one supposes, is better than mailing in actual nuclear weapons – and now, a few weeks after CBS announced a 2007-08 season free of the specter of total annihilation, the network has relented and will bring back the series for eight episodes: Not just to give viewers closure, “Jericho” producers say, but with a hope to keep the series an ongoing concern. All well and good, but here’s a little piece of advice: Understand you’re on the bubble going in and this time, don’t end your season with a big, splashy cliffhanger. Wrap things up a little, OK?

I wouldn’t think the sentence “‘The Black Donnellys’ are back” would require an exclamation point – a period would suffice, or, perhaps to indicate one’s incomprehension at the notion, a question mark. Nonetheless, it’s an exclamation point on the press release announcing the joyous news that “The Black Donnellys” – the indifferently reviewed and ratings-challenged NBC drama from Paul Haggis – will be available to those who get HDNet.

According to the press release, “‘The Black Donnellys’ quickly became a fan favorite on NBC.” So that explains why it got a quick hook after only six episodes. (I’m starting to doubt the credibility of these press releases…)

Anyway, HDNet head Mark Cuban no doubt figures that the people who loved the show comprise a larger audience than its show "Young Women in Bikinis Riding Around in Nature on Scooters and Giggling" that I saw about five minutes of once might get, so why not? And they’re gonna show the seven episodes that never aired on NBC, so there’s that, too. It’ll resurface Wednesday June 13 at 5, 8 and 11 p.m. PCT.

When a show holds an event as part of a push for Emmy nominations, they usually don’t let plebes from the general population get involved. But that's not the way "Battlestar Galactica" rolls. The Sci Fi Channel, ingeniously figuring if Emmy voters saw how rabid yet serious “Battlestar Galactica’s” fans were about the show, they might be more inclined to consider the show for Emmys on its merits, rather than dismiss it outright due to its genre. (On the other hand, should people come dressed as their favorite characters, Emmy voters would likely flee in terror.)

Hence, the “Battlestar Galactica” All-Access Event, 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset. Follow the link and it’ll tell you how you might be able to squeeze yourself into the event, where cast members and creators will discuss the show and offer a sneak peek at its upcoming (and final) season. Given how dedicated fans are, the screening’s likely already closed, but good luck with it anyway.

Well, m@%#*^#@*&!

On Monday, a court said the FCC couldn’t fine broadcast networks that inadvertently air “fleeting expletives” on live shows like awards programs or sporting events.

What made this particularly amusing is the court cited the fact that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been known to fling the occasional obscene epithet (Mr. Cheney, from the austere floor of the Senate) so in effect, it was folly to hold, say, Bono or Nicole Richie to a higher standard. (To be fair, Bono’s description of winning a Golden Globe as “f@%&ing brilliant” employed the profanity in a nonsexual context, whereas Mr. Cheney’s entreaty to Sen. Patrick Leahy to “Go f@%& yourself” suggests a sexual context, a sticking point in the ruling.)

For some time now, the FCC has been under fire for its draconian, confusing and inconsistent rulings. PBS is worried that Ken Burns’ upcoming epic documentary on World War II will have to be censored simply because it features soldiers speaking like soldiers will when bullets are whizzing past them and bombs are going off around them. They should feel a little better knowing that the FCC found the swearing in “Saving Private Ryan” acceptable, so if fictitious soldiers can cuss, real-life heroes deserve the chance to filth-up the airwaves, as well.

Nonetheless, FCC chairman Kevin Martin, whose policies have muddied the waters, was f@%&ing p!ssed about the ruling, so much that he took to gutter language himself:

(a real quote) "I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that 'sh!t' and 'f@c&' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience. The court even says the commission is 'divorced from reality.' It is the New York court, not the commission, that is divorced from reality in concluding that the word 'f@c&' does not invoke a sexual connotation."

Kevin, Kevin: Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

GSN is offering yet another ripped-from-the-headlines game, “The Prison Life: Paris.” Given the gallows-humor possibilities, It’s lamentably inoffensive – you just help Ms. Hilton stamp license plates (most are vanity plates no doubt for future additions to her fleet of vehicles with which she can look forward to many more happy hours of being pulled over by the local constabulary). But be careful – don’t stamp Tinkerbell!

Yesterday, Hilton issued a statement that read in part: “In the future, I plan on taking more of an active role in the decisions I make.” Only Paris could contrive to not actually participate in the decisions she personally makes. Unless, of course, she was speaking of the Imperial “I,” which she no doubt was.

Chatting recently with someone who left the TV industry for saner pastures and hasn’t looked back since, I mentioned Ben Silverman’s ascendancy last week at NBC and was greeted with a shocked, if not quite aghast, face. “He is?” (is in charge of NBC, that is) my fellow banterer gasped. Rallying, the individual proffered, “It figures.”

Turns out this person had worked for Silverman; that response gives you some idea of Silverman's former colleague’s opinion of NBC's latest uber-lord.

Sundry news sites have recovered, as well, and responded with think-pieces/Silverman profiles/proclamations that the Apocalypse may well be nigh.

Broadcasting and Cable offers the traditional “Can Silverman turn NBC around?” approach, albeit saving its juiciest material for harsh accusations that Jeff Zucker threw ousted NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly under the bus:

Perhaps inadvertently, the New York Post came up with a reason you might consider watching Katie Couric’s “CBS Evening News” over the competition that’s currently steamrollering her: You’re worth more to her as a viewer.

Using quantum mathematics or perhaps an abacus, the Post’s Don Kaplan calculated that a viewer of “NBC Nightly News” costs the network about 55 cents, an “ABC World News” audience members sets the network back 89 cents and someone watching Katie comes at the first-class premium of $2.51.

These prices are based solely on the ratio of viewers to anchor salary: Couric makes $15 million per annum and draws 5.9 million viewers per night, as compared to ABC’s Charlie Gibson ($7 million; 7.78 million viewers) and NBC’s Brian Williams ($4 million; 7.27 million). Of course, this doesn’t even figure in the cost of running the entire network news divisions; it’s more a pure-and-simple popularity contest. Twisting the knife a little further, Kaplan pointed out that Couric has lost more viewers from her debut than Dan Rather averaged before he left the air (he averaged 7 million; she’s seen 7.7 million viewers abdicate from her premiere week).

So: Which would you rather be: A dime-store 55-cent NBC patron, or a tony $2.51 Couric connoisseur?

Fresh from his pseudo-triumph at the MTV Movie Awards, Borat (or at least a guy eager to profit off of his popularity) is entering the world of, to use a term that may not wholly apply, fine art. A Canadian artist, Oli Goldsmith, has launched “999 Borats,” “an experimental project in pop-art idiocy,” in which he hopes to create 999 portraits of everyone’s favorite fictitious Kazakhstani. And you can buy an original for a mere Benjamin Franklin.

The works – the first 125 are now available, meaning Goldsmith’ll be finished about the time the “Borat” DVD hits the remainder bin – range from fairly artful silk screens to childish scrawls that parents would think twice about before affixing to their refrigerator door. But the opportunity to be a part of some renegade performance art at prices cheaper than those Banksy is cadging these days – plus, for the noxiously prurient amongst us, a whole lot of them feature Borat in that celebrated green thong – should prove nigh irresistible to the art patron/U S & A booster in each of us.

Hmm. Gerard Butler was nominated for Best Performance. Because, you know, “300” was all about the acting. Johnny Depp won, though, for “Pirates of the Caribbean: At Least the Second One Didn’t Suck as Much as the Final One Does.”

Depp must be schizophrenic: He’s wearing a very dapper suit jacket and vest, with a striped V-neck T-shirt – OK, that’s fine – with an old sweater tied around his waist. Excerpts from Depp’s stirring speech: “I’m not very good at this. Hey man. Thanks for voting. It was such an amazing group of people to be nominated with. Thanks very much.”

Best Picture honors went to “Pirates of the Caribbean: If We Mention the Subtitle Really Quickly, Maybe People Will be Duped Into Thinking It’s the Steaming Doggie Dropping in Theaters Now.” If, by “Best,” you mean “Not Best,” then OK.

Silverman kind of disappeared in the second half, which is unfortunate, since she should pretty much host every awards show. She even managed a subtle shout-out to her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel: Her closing line, "We're out of time; apologies to Matt Damon" was a running joke on Kimmel's talk show.

Mike Myers, receiving the “MTV Generation Award” (apparently a lifetime achievement award for people who haven’t actually gone to the trouble of living their entire lifetime), gave the first acceptance speech in the history of awards shows to turn into a commercial for a car. But product placement in acceptance speeches is actually a pretty brilliant idea. Imagine the possibilities: Clint Eastwood, accepting the Best Director Oscar for his upcoming “The Changeling,” says: “None of this would’ve been possible without the support of Alan Horn at Warner Bros. and, especially, the support of Levitra.”

Since Lindsay Lohan wasn’t able to appear as scheduled, Amy Winehouse is on hand to perform her ditty “Rehab.”

The guy who made “United 300” won for Best Movie Spoof and in his acceptance speech, which was at least as coherent as Jack Nicholson's, pronounced the word “tyranny” tie-ranny and gave shout-outs to people we care about even less than the people celebrities give shout-outs to in their acceptance speeches.

I have the sound down during the commercials – they seem to be making up for that first half-hour ostensibly going “commercial-free,” in spades – but it appears in one that some guy’s iPod controls satellites orbiting Earth, which seems chillingly plausible these days.

Did I call it, or what? Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet: “Transformers.”

Sasha Baron Cohen did manage to co-win Best Kiss, for puckering up with Will Ferrell in “Talladega Nights.” Cohen got snippy with Ferrell for not calling him after the film wrapped: “You kissed me five times - you call that acting? ... You’ve got a wife? You kissed me five times. You’re a total bitch.” Then Cohen slapped him. Then kissed it all better. Soon, they were rolling on the floor in a passionate clinch. Still, not as eyeball-searing as his roundelay with Ken Davitian in “Borat.”

Cohen also won for Best Comedic Performance. He apologized that Borat couldn't attend because he, naturally, was in rehab, after crashing his horse and cart under the influence of fermented horse urine.

Second fan-made movie parody: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Rehab.” Not as bad. But “United 300” – a mashup of “United 93” and “300” – was actually hilarious. (See? You can already picture it in your head, even the Spartan soldier trying to fit his shield in the overhead bin. Pure genius.)

Hey, that’s not fair: Jaden Smith didn’t even have to show to win the award for Breakthrough Performance for “The Pursuit of Happyness.” He appeared via cheesy home movie. (How did this not go to "Little Miss Sunshine's" Abigail Breslin?)

Dane Cook announces: “Paris was so offended by Sarah Silverman’s joke that she checked herself into jail early.” Cut to Hilton: She found her little inscrutable smile again.

Sasha Baron Cohen actually looked surprised not to win Best Fight. And to be fair, he was robbed. “300” won.

Seems like everyone’s anxious to get bleeped.

They should do the thing they do at the Oscars and give a little resume of the winners; to wit: “This is Robert De Niro’s second bucket of golden popcorn in five nominations. In 1992, he won the Best Kiss award for 'Cape Fear' with a chunk of Illeana Douglas’ cheek.”

First really bad idea of the night (well, second, after snubbing “Borat” in the Best Fight category): The fan-made movie parodies. The first, “Quentin Tarantino’s Little Miss Squirtgun,” was fairly excruciating. And we have two more of those to go? Shoot me now.

Oh, and Sarah Silverman got extremely close to kissing Jessica Biel. So any guy who doesn't get the East Coast feed is now making solid plans to tune in at 8.

Now, enough of the MTV Movie Awards pre-game show drivel; onto the MTV Movie Awards show drivel:

Sarah Silverman’s opening monologue had a moment that emerged an instant classic – not entirely of her making, but she gets the kudos:

When she announced Paris Hilton was going to jail, the crowd cheered wildly. The director cut to Hilton for a reaction, and she had that thin smile pasted on her face.

Continuing, Silverman spoke of the preferential treatment Paris would get in prison: “The guards are going to paint the bars to look like penises,” Sarah said; “I just worry that she’s going to break her teeth on them.” Cut to Paris: That thin smile is hilariously gone.

Other punchlines:

On the film “300:” “They got the name by measuring how gay it was on a scale from one to 10.”

Saying hello to people in the crowd, including – huh? – Jack Nicholson. Who seems to be there just so she can uncork this one: “You have literally been in every single one of my favorite actresses.” (Actually, Nicholson showed to pick up the Best Villain award for “The Departed.”)

On Lindsay Lohan: “What happened to that sweet little freckle-faced girl who had only been to rehab once?”

Sarah then sang a song that allowed the censors to wear out the button on their bleep sound effect.

More MTV Movie Awards show pre-game drivel:

Shia LeBeouf, speaking about – what else? “Transformers” – demonstrates that he doesn’t have a whole lot of insight into how the movie industry works by mentioning that the studio is really enthusiastic about the movie, which he takes to be a good sign. Uh, Shia, studios are enthusiastic (or at least pretend to be in front of their stars) about all their movies.

Paris Hilton allows an interview: “I’m obviously a little scared right now. … I’m scared but I’m being strong.” She says – I think I got this straight – that by doing her jail time, she hopes to be a role model for other young people.

“I’ve gotten thousands of letters from around the world,” she shares. They’re “so supportive.” Apparently she didn’t see mine.

She’s spent the past few weeks “reflecting” about herself. Weeks? That’s a five-second job, tops. And, of course, she has pondered “what’s important in life.” And concluded that strolling the Red Carpet for a fake awards show two days before hitting the slammer fills the bill.

The pre-game show for the MTV Movie Awards has begun, and no sooner than we’re promised it will be “commercial-free” do they segue into a huge promotion for the movie “Transformers.” (The program is sub-titled “A Night of Transformations,” and virtually every sentence uttered by an MTV host includes some variation of the word "transform.") Then Jessica Alba plugs her upcoming “Fantastic Four” movie and Mandy Moore’s new CD.

Nope, no commercials here.

"Transformers" is one of the nominees in the category Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet (or, in my case, Will Never See). Any bets that it's a shoo-in to win?

Paris Hilton, two days before she hits the pokey, strides the red carpet. And, keeping with the theme of scandal, a montage of Lindsay Lohan red-carpet appearances, concluding with one of those photos of her passed out in an SUV. Lohan was supposed to appear at the Awards show – remind me never to stand MTV up.

The Daily News has it in for Your Mayor. First, I had to watch “House of Payne.” Now, I have been entreated to live-blog the MTV Movie Awards, which are being presented live today at the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios. It’s not easy to deconstruct an event that so resolutely refuses to take itself seriously, but we’ll see what we can do.

Sarah Silverman will serve as host this year. Here’s a little biographical information on Ms. Silverman, courtesy Wikipedia:

Sarah Silverman, 1st Baron Sarah of Plassey, KB (29 September 1725 - 22 November 1774), also known as Sarah of India, was the soldier of fortune and commander who established the military supremacy of the East India Company in Southern India and Bengal. She is widely regarded as a key figure in the establishment of British India.

Her conduct during the Siege of Arcot made Sarah famous back home in Europe. The Prime Minister Pitt the Elder described Sarah as a "heaven-born general", endorsing the generous appreciation of her early commander, Major Lawrence. The Court of Directors of the East India Company voted her a sword worth £700 which she refused to receive unless Lawrence was similarly honored.

During war in Calcutta with the Nawab, along with Admiral Watson, Governor Drake and Mr. Watts, Sarah made a treaty in which it was agreed to give the office of viceroy of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to Jafar Ali Khan (also known as Mir Jafar), who was to pay a million sterling to the Company for its losses in Calcutta and the cost of its troops, half a million to the British inhabitants of Calcutta, £200,000 to the native inhabitants, and £70,000 to its Armenian merchants.

Sarah employed Umichand, a rich Bengali trader, as an agent between Mir Jafar and the British officials. Umichand threatened betrayal unless he was guaranteed, in the treaty, £300,000. To dupe him, a second fictitious treaty was shown him with a clause to this effect. Admiral Watson refused to sign this. Sarah deposed to the House of Commons that, "to the best of her remembrance, she gave the gentleman who carried it leave to sign his name upon it; her ladyship never made any secret of it; she thinks it warrantable in such a case, and would do it again a hundred times; she had no interested motive in doing it, and did it with a design of disappointing the expectations of a rapacious man." It is nevertheless cited as an example of Sarah’s unscrupulousness.

Also, I hear she’s pretty funny.

And, as we have noted here before, she’s in a life-and-death dysfunctional struggle for relationship supremacy with Jimmy Kimmel.

Moreover (and this part is true), she’s terrorizing a receptionist for Horizon Health Sales & Development in Lewisville, Texas via a phone number in ads for the event. Page Six reports people have been calling 1-800-SARAH07 (Horizon Health's number) instead of 1-877-SARAH07 (the MTV hotline). "I have been answering calls for this number for four days…many callers have stayed on long enough to express their anger that I am not Sarah Silverman," the receptionist groused to MTV.

One last tidbit from Yank.com (which may or may not be true): “MTV honchos are at wit's end trying to prevent any conflict between Cameron Diaz and Jessica Biel at their upcoming movie awards show (both are presenters).

"To say the two dislike each other is putting it mildly, after a well publicized cat fight during last year's Golden Globes, the girls have vowed to scratch each others eyes out if they ever are forced to share the stage again.” All this over Justin Timberlake, if you can imagine.

So maybe it’ll be interesting, after all. In the meantime, let’s predict a big night for Sasha Baron Cohen and “Borat.”

- MTV Movie Awards: 8 tonight (5 if you have an East Coast feed), MTV.

Now that “Knocked Up” is in theaters, I invite you to revisit my lament at how badly Television mistreated Judd Apatow, and a look at his loyalty toward his inspired cast of repertoire players, which was transformed into a bona fide story in today’s Daily News. Then go out and see the movie.

Just one thing, though: Despite its feel-good finale, will anyone really expect Ben and Alison to stick it out? My prediction: A particularly nasty split during a hellish trip to the new Nickelodeon Marriott resort.