September 2007 Archives

Yes, of course Edie’s apparent suicide at the end of last season was a cheat.

Sometimes it seems as though the “Desperate Housewives” plot generator is a simple wheel that the writing staff spins, and a wheel with a rather limited number of options, at that:

* A husband is a jerk;
* Adulterous proclivities;
* Getting divorced;
* Miserable about being divorced;
* Meeting a new guy;
* A hitch in meeting the new guy;
* Getting tight with the new guy;
* Getting remarried (repeat from top);

And, when those get tiresome:

* Pregnancy scare/Kids are a problem;
* Potentially life-threatening incident;
* Mysterious new neighbor moves in.

When they’re really feeling adventurous, a writer may wander off this rather cramped reservation, but mainly, they seem to stick with the tried-and-true.

Most of the above figure into tonight’s fourth-season premiere of TV’s one-time primary water-cooler show, regardless of whether there’s any proper character motivation or not. And though there is much incident tonight, there’s nothing here that really grabs you.

Edie (Nicolette Sheridan) faked her suicide merely to sink her claws into Carlos (Richard Chavira), who wanted to run away with Gaby (Eva Longoria), who discovered her new husband Victor (John Slattery) is merely exploiting her role as his wife for political gain. But Carlos hacks off Gaby by sticking with Edie during her recuperation; despite her ostensibly weakened state, Edie’s soon channeling some nifty “Fatal Attraction” manipulations to lure Carlos deeper into her trap.

Meanwhile, Lynette (Felicity Huffman) doesn’t want to tell anyone she has cancer, which complicates several situations. Bree (Marcia Cross), who for some reason is faking a pregnancy with Orson (Kyle MacLachlan), has a couple of really stupid close calls in which her deception is almost discovered. Susan (Teri Hatcher) is already worried that her marriage to Mike (James Denton) isn’t absolutely perfect, repeatedly and blitheringly complaining, “We’re doomed.” (Note to Susan: Look up the phrase “self-fulfilling prophecy.”)

But the big news is that Wisteria Lane has a new resident – Katherine (Dana Delany), who moved away a dozen years ago and returns with a new husband and a daughter, Dylan (Lyndsy Fonseca), who doesn’t remember anything about her childhood there, but has a recurring nightmare that obviously will manifest itself over the course of the upcoming season. Katherine proves herself adept at making friends by insisting that Bree, the first time they meet, cut down a pine tree in her yard so its shade won’t block Katherine’s “prize-winning” vegetable garden.

Huh, and double-huh? Bree declares said pine tree one of her proudest possessions – I don’t watch this show regularly, but I don’t recall this tree even having been mentioned in any episode I have seen. (Bree has so many prized possessions.) And: Does the sun only come from one direction throughout the day on Wisteria Lane? Does it not arc across the sky so that said tree would only block this garden for a relatively short period of time? I mean, really: Is cutting down a tree going to become a plot point this season? If so, I’m looking forward to “Family Guy’s” gritty realism in the same timeslot.

At episode’s end, Katherine’s husband asks her: “Did we make a mistake coming back here?” She responds, “Did we have a choice?”

This exchange sounds like nothing less than a roundelay from the writers’ room:

Writer 1: “Did we make a mistake revisiting the disastrous Alfre Woodard subplot from season two?”

Writer 2: “We’re out of ideas – do we have a choice?”

- “Desperate Housewives:” 9 tonight; ABC Channel 7 (outside L.A.; check local listings).

Under Ben Silverman’s visionary guidance, NBC has embarked upon a bold new initiative: Signaling defeat by raising the white flags of uninspired remakes of dubious old programs.

Quite a while back, NBC announced its intentions to resurrect “American Gladiators” (which will only work if they bring back the guy in this clip, with the same hair but ideally with a huge beer gut). Here’s guessing they’ll ramp up the “extreme” elements and incorporate, WWE-style, leather-clad, evil gladiators to fully bring the moronic concept into the 21st century (not realizing that simply by being a moronic concept, it’ll fit into the 21st century just fine).

This past week, NBC announced it would be remaking “Knight Rider,” the old Hasselhoff humiliation about a guy with a talking car. Only not really – in the OnStar Age, talking cars are a dime a dozen (well, actually more like $278,388.86 a dozen, but you get the point), and since buying the rights to the “Transformers” franchise would’ve been too costly, they’re calling it “Knight Rider” and having the cars able to morph into different things in a fashion that NBC hopes will be just different enough to keep the intellectual-property-rights lawyers at bay. No doubt this re-imagining will strive more for cool than campy, like this year’s “Bionic Woman” redux.

Yes, this is the sort of thing that NBC, whose motto was once upon a time “The Quality Shows,” is trotting out for viewers these days. They couldn’t be any more pointed in their attitude toward their viewers if they just aired something called “The Bird,” a frenetically edited hour of extended middle fingers bursting from your TV screen.

And so, in that spirit, I offer yet another updated remake for NBC: “The Gong Show,” Chuck Barris’s ritualistic mortification of a talent show, but with an exciting new component in keeping with our times that will truly measure how desperate people are to get on Television.

It will still feature the same sort of bizarro-world performers, but instead of a gong, the judges will have a newer, high-tech means of putting an end to an abysmal act. Even over-zealous law-enforcement officers have embraced this new method of stopping people whose act has grown tiresome, and viewers seem to enjoy watching this means of tough-love dispensed. Hence, I present you with NBC’s new hit show: “Taser the Talent.”

Ben, give me a call. We can have this puppy on the air by January.

Your Mayor was powering his way through four hours of Showtime’s “Dexter” Wednesday when news of a mistrial in the Phil Spector case came down. Which made me think: Too bad “Dexter’s” not one of those ripped-from-the-headlines sort of shows, because Dexter’s all about taking care of those who elude the traditional criminal-justice system so Phil Spector is totally the sort of guy that Dexter would be leaving bits of at the bottom of the ocean.

And Dexter works out of Miami, so how is it that O.J.’s still around to rough up memorabilia collectors?

Last year at this time, ABC was seriously challenging CBS for dominance on Thursdays, one of the most competitive nights of the week, given that advertising rates are at their highest due to all the movie studios angling to sell their movies opening the next day and everyone else is hoping to lure viewers into massive paroxysms of consumption over the impending weekend.

This year, ABC’s backed off a bit. CBS is squarely in the driver’s seat, with “Survivor,” “CSI” and “Without a Trace” all dominant.

Part of the problem is the viewer attrition ABC’s Thursday shows have suffered – both “Ugly Betty” and “Grey’s Anatomy” hemorrhaged 5 million viewers from their season premieres last year. “Betty” still had 11 million viewers, and “Grey’s” 20.5m, so they’re hardly out of the running, but they clearly have already peaked and are now just playing out the remainder of their runs.

Worse, “Big Shots,” the only new show to debut last night, managed to hold onto just over half of the audience ceded it by “Grey’s Anatomy.” Worser, it didn’t even manage the premiere audience that the quickly cancelled “Six Degrees” managed in the same time slot last year. Worsest, a whopping three million viewers decided they had seen enough a half-hour in and snapped off their set or resigned themselves to watching yet another episode of “ER” or just killed themselves in anguish.

NBC had a smidgen of good news: “The Office,” moved to the most competitive timeslot in all of TV, had the highest ratings in the lusted-after 18-49 demographic in its history. And Jim and Pam are totally doing it!

ABC’s not sending out screeners of “Cavemen,” and since the original pilot sent out in the spring has been retooled, critics won’t be able to review the show next Tuesday off of that. While containing your incredulity, pick your own favorite excuse for said oversight:

* Still fine-tuning the premiere episode.
* Production delays due to recasting and reshoots.
* Not sending out screeners worked so well for “Kid Nation.”
* Oh, who are we fooling: Creating and sending out screeners for a show that jumps the shark in its first frame and will likely end up on the season’s scrapheap by November sweeps is just throwing bad money after good.

Late arrival to the doorstep: Tonight’s episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” in which Dee (Kaitlin Olson) discovers that the biggest loser from her high-school class has transformed, which makes Dee herself the biggest loser from her high-school class, followed by the gang going nuclear against a competing Korean bar and grill.

In the former, the gang starts a sweat shop creating hideous dresses and Dennis (Glenn Howerton) – who was considered a cool kid in high school – forever disabuses anyone of that notion ever again. In the latter, the competing bar’s androgenous owner bears a striking resemblance to Kim Jung-Il, Charlie (Charlie Day) dodges felony charges (but just barely) and there’s a pretty tired “American Idol” parody, with Dee sitting in as the soused Paula Abdul (and that’s not even the most abject thing that happens to her tonight).

Line of the night: “You smell like dogfight.”

- “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: 10 and 10:30 tonight, FX.

The astonishing thing about Bill O’Reilly’s latest case of foot-in-mouth disease is, he genuinely doesn’t understand what the problem is regarding his comments about how surprised he was to find a Harlem restaurant to actually be civilized.

This is a guy who is paid to have opinions; to have opinions worth airing, it generally helps if one is a little educated in the ways of the world. Instead, O’Reilly’s comments suggests that everything he knows about black culture has come from rap videos and ’70s blaxploitation flicks, that it was something of an act of courage for him to venture into Sylvia’s that night for he truly feared that he wasn’t going to exit the joint without a cap in his @ss.

"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City," Billo declared on his radio show last week. "It was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship. It was the same. And that's really what this society is really all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference."

For good measure, he added, "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'MF-er, I want some more ice tea.' It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there ordering and having fun and there wasn't any craziness at all."

Multi-culturalism is not Bill’s strong suit, but O’Reilly insists that anyone who doesn’t see his words as progressive and inclusive is stupid:

"If you listened to the full hour, it was a criticism of racism on the part of white Americans who are ignorant of the fact that there is no difference between white and black anymore," he told the AP. "Circumstances may be different in their lives but we're all Americans. Anyone who would be offended by that conversation would have to be looking to be offended."

How many Americans does Falafel Guy think don’t realize that black America isn’t some unhinged society defined solely by Thunderbird and dog-fighting, anyway? Does Bill think he ventured boldly into the belly of the beast and emerged with a bulletin – Hey, black people are just like you and me! – that would amaze the country and result in a Kum-ba-yah moment between the races?

OK, let’s try this in a way O’Reilly might understand:

I absolutely cannot believe how refreshing Bill O’Reilly is in his take on African-Americans! Unlike all those other rich, white middle-aged guys, Bill O’Reilly doesn’t make a show of waving around nooses or Confederate flags or eyeing black people with an unmistakable fear welling in his eyes! Yes, Bill may have called those stranded in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina “drug-addicted” “thugs,” but all the other wealthy, middle-aged white guys would’ve called them f@cking drug-addicted thugs, and would’ve personally gone down to the Big Easy to shoot them! Unlike all the other rich, middle-aged white guys, Bill O’Reilly has never personally lynched a black man!

There’s hope for the white race yet if a fine and decent, open-minded soul like Bill O’Reilly, as opposed to all the other rich, white middle-aged men, doesn’t want to systematically exterminate the black race!

See, Bill? It wasn’t that you reported that Sylvia’s offers a pleasant dining experience. It was that you sounded like you were pretty much expecting patrons to be unruly and constantly shout out, “MF-er, I want some more iced tea.”

At least he didn’t expect the patrons to say, “MF-er, get me another 40.”

Last I checked, “Ugly Betty” was a comedy. Of course, last time I checked, characters weren’t the targets of senseless violence or falling into comas following graphic car accidents or wondering who their biological parents were or having their hearts broken by weasels who may have impregnated other women.

All of which is occurring as season two gets under way. Sure, they can make time enough for Betty (Emmy winner America Ferrera) to clomp her way into another glass door, and they can put Amanda (Becki Newton) in a whimsical fat suit and they can further perpetuate Justin’s (Mark Indelicato) latent homosexuality. But they’re also milking the tragedy of Hilda’s (Ana Ortiz) fiance’s murder and still running Wilhelmina’s (Vanessa Williams) obsession with controlling Mode magazine into the ground with ever-grasping plot mechanics that viewers – and even Wilhelmina herself – can see through.

Betty’s dad Ignacio (Tony Plana) remains stranded in Mexico, thereby appearing via rote phone conversations. Daniel’s (Eric Mabius) still mopey about the car accident – really, does anyone really buy Daniel in soulful mode? And Alexis (Rebecca Romijn) awakens from her coma with a plot spoiler so mehhh it’s not worth spoiling.

Honestly: “Ugly Betty” is in danger of forgetting its joie de vivre, its appealing charm, in favor of the overheated melodrama of the telenovelas it parodies. There’s only one good laugh, and it comes in the middle of a heavy-handed scene:

Mode’s shooting a fashion spread of women who have survived natural disasters; Sheila (Illeana Douglas) mistakes Betty for one of the victims. Betty launches into an earnest tirade, declaring, “These women have lost everything and there is not enough styling gel to change that.”

Deadpan, Sheila replies, “She’s right – we don’t have enough styling gel.”

C’mon, “Ugly Betty,” lighten up, or you won’t get to compete in the comedy categories at next year’s Emmys.

- “Ugly Betty:” 8 tonight, ABC Channel 7.

Finally, a couple of new shows had ratings that won’t have the networks flop-sweating and dry-heaving the season away. ABC’s “Private Practice’s” success was a foregone conclusion, and “Bionic Woman” was considered NBC’s best chance at a hit, and neither disappointed.

ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” continues to be the juggernaut of the new season, pulling down 16.62 million viewers Wednesday.

That sent the new shows reeling: “Kid Nation" was down 1.75 million viewers, to 7.6m. CBS was hoping to cash in on the controversy, but this is an Adult Nation that has tuned out the avalanche of scandal emanating from Washington; skirting child-labor laws is small potatoes. Fox’s “Back to You” suffered even greater viewer attrition, losing nearly 2 million viewers, down to 7.5 million – less, even, than “Kid Nation.” “’Til Death’s” renewal is looking ever more dubious: 6.2m sat through the slapsticky basketball stylings of Brad Garrett. Someone want to give the four-camera sitcom a decent Viking funeral?

The real showdown came at 9 p.m., with everyone except Fox and The CW able to cheer. “Private Practice,” the “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff, won the hour, of course, with 14.24 viewers, but “Bionic Woman” proved to be sturdier than some people expected – it was close behind with 13.6 million sets of eyeballs, human or bio-engineered, and actually had a higher rating in the advertiser friendly viewers-aged-18-49 category.

Mandy Patinkin took a sizable chunk of viewers with him when he left CBS’s “Criminal Minds,” but it still managed 12.7 million fans of perversion.

The CW’s “Gossip Girl” is proving to be the surprise disappointment of the season: A mere 2.55m viewers, off nearly a third of the viewers who tuned in last week and retention of only about half of its lead-in. Sure, network executives and industry analysts looked at the show and said, spoiled rich teenagers having sex and going on the Internets and getting wasted and text-messaging on their cell phones and smoking bud – it can’t miss. But every once in a while, teens have a pretty good horsesh!t detector and so it seems to have gone here (also, the fact that it can be hard to tell the kids from the parents probably didn’t help; it may have in fact alienated young viewers that they didn’t actually see themselves in those characters).

Fox’s “Kitchen Nightmares” isn’t turning up the heat much: 5.4m viewers. I guess the nation’s restaurants will continue to be filthy, germ-infested toilets, as Gordon Ramsay’s mission to clean them up appears to have a rather short shelf life.

Things get tricky at 10 p.m. “CSI: New York” had the most viewers, 12.7m, but the third-place show, NBC’s barely-promoted “Life,” was No. 1 in the 18-49 demo. Which leaves ABC’s heavily-hyped “Dirty Sexy Money” the nominal disappointment – despite a more lurid premise and a much more high-profile cast, it barely had 300,000 more viewers than “Life,” and most of them were apparently Donald Sutherland-aged fogies who don’t buy things from advertisers.

On the other hand, “Dirty Sexy Money” had less viewer tune-out over the course of its hour than “Life” did. They both started out with 10.8m viewers, but “DSM” ended with 10.04m, while “Life” dropped to 9.5m.

I told you it was tricky.

This season, “My Name is Earl,” due to its storyline, has been renamed “My Name is Inmate 28301-016.”

Yes, Earl’s (Jason Lee) still in the slammer as the season begins, put there after confessing to ex-wife Joy’s (Jaime Pressly) crimes in last May’s season finale. Things aren’t going well for poor Earl: When his cellmate escapes, he’s treated to the obligatory beating from the guards. Early explains prison life thusly: “The only thing that alleviates the boredom is when one prisoner tries to kill another one.”

Hey, but you know what? In tonight’s hourlong episode, Earl’s storyline is pretty uninteresting and Joy’s – in which she brings Earl “a straight version of one of those AIDS quilts,” including a scene of her cheating on him, and offers to take care of Randy (Ethan Suplee), who gets, impressively, dumber by the episode (tonight, he’s clueless as to how to set his digital clock and forgets to look in any direction before crossing the street) – is the entertaining one.

(It makes you wonder how Randy got by when Earl was married to Joy and therefore not on hand to help him cross every street, but that’s clearly nit-picking.)

And Earl? Earl’s helping a fellow inmate earn some Scout badges. What dreary whimsy.

No wonder Pressly has the Emmy.

- “My Name is Earl:” 8 tonight; NBC Channel 4.

We called this, though it was pretty much a no-brainer: Fox’s “Nashville” is the first casualty of the new season, getting yanked before most of the new shows even got a chance to debut.

Fox jokes that it’ll be back, maybe in October. Ha, ha: Good one, Fox guys.

Spencer Green, co-creator of the delightfully vulgar “Bukowsical!”, which hammered audiences at last month’s International Fringe Festival in New York, and sometime TV writer, assiduously crafts a Fall-TV schedule every year that tells you pretty much all you need to know about what the networks have cooked up for you in order to justify kicking your plasma screen to the curb.

He has thoughtfully shared this with me and, now, I with you. I, not Mr. Green, tidied up the language with little obscen-icons, for the children, which as you know are our future and thanks to efforts like mine and the Parents Television Council, this next generation will be the first to grow up in a world without profanity.

2007 FALL TV SCHEDULE by Spencer Green

MONDAY

8-9

ABC - Cleaning Adult Store Video Booths With the Stars
CBS - Okay, I Liked "Let's Go To The Mall"; Geeks Sure Are Awkward Around the Ladies, Am I Right?
NBC - Geeks Sure Know a Lot About Computers, Am I Right?
FOX - Shiv-o-Rama
PBS - Ken Burns' Wonderful World of Talking Heads and Slow Dissolves
CW - At Least It Keeps Chris Rock From Making Movies; Muslim Knows Best
VH1 - Teaching Men How to Become the @ssholes Who Appear On Shows Like This
Bravo - My Favorite Curse Word Is "Doodypants"
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

ABC - Here's the Pitch: Amnesia Bitch!
CBS - So I'm Guessing Denise Richards Won't Be Dropping By As a Guest; Against the Laws of God and Nature, David Spade Still Gets Work
NBC - Geek Conundrum: Watch This or Wait In Line To Buy Halo 3?
FOX - George Bush Hates TV Shows About Black People
CW - No One Cares; No One Will Ever Care
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

ABC - Let's Send Feminism Back to the Paleolithic Era
CBS - CSI: Souplantation
NBC - Time's Up
Showtime - Dave's Not Here, Man; Self-Absorbed, Self-Pitying L.A. Writer? Wait Until I Tell My Therapist!
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

TUESDAY

8-9

ABC - The Tidy Bowl Man/Guy Who Says "That's a Spicy Meatball" Show; Four Guys Who Like Buttered Squash
CBS - When This Runs Longer Than "JAG," Let Me Know So I Can Buy a Cake
NBC - Give Them All Stomach Staples And Be Done With It
FOX - Just F@ck Each Other Already
PBS - Ken Burns' Wonderful World of Soothing Voice-Overs
CW - If One of the Beauties Sucks Off a Geek While Dressed as a Green Orion Slave Woman, Then I'll Tune In
HDNet - Dan Rather Bumps Into Walls and Mutters Salty Texas Colloquialisms Under His Breath
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

ABC - Cleaning Adult Store Video Booths With the Stars, in Slow-Motion
CBS - Heh, Heh…Unit
NBC - And TV Execs Wonder Why No One Watches the Big Three Anymore
FOX - I Bet He Fakes His Injuries to Get Respect, Like Don Caballero
CW - Captain Howdy, That Isn't Very Nice
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

ABC - Steven Bochco Can't Get a Show On TV and This Is Still Running?
CBS - "Dallas" With Plantains
NBC - Law & Order: Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Men's Bathroom Unit
Current TV - If Al Gore Wins a Grammy and a Tony, He'll Get Both Showcases Plus Ten Percent Off at Any Lenscrafters
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

WEDNESDAY

8-9

ABC - See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Kill Me
CBS - Any Show Where Kids Drink Bleach Is Okay By Me
NBC - Ah, For the Days of "Card Sharks"
FOX - The Return of Good Old-Fashioned Multi-Camera Sitcoms For the Three People Who Give a Sh!t; Joely Fisher's T!ts Detach and Fight Crime
PBS - Say What You Want But Their Generation Really Does Make Us Look Like the Candy-@sses That We Are
CW - Bulimia Squad--In Color!
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

ABC - S-P-I-N-O-F-F, That's How We Spell Ratings Death!
CBS - Apparently On TV, the Only Jobs Available Are Detectives and Profilers
NBC - Manimal 3.0
FOX - Take One @sshole Chef, Mix With Hapless Restaurant Owners, Stir, Then Cancel
CW - America Loves Rich @sshole Teens More Than Life Itself
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

ABC - Loathsome Repellent Scumbags, AKA Marking Time Until "Lost" Returns
CBS - CSI: Marienbad
NBC - Word on the Street Is Three Weeks
Bravo - But, Can They Make Hasenpfeffer?
BET - Remember: These Criminals Will Not Be Glorified, I Repeat These Criminals Will Not Be Glorified
Comedy Central - Have They Done an Anti-Zoroastrianism Episode Yet?; She's Post-Modern, Hip-Ironic, Faux-Jew-Nihilistic, Quasi-Pseudo-Anti-Pro-Feminist…Oh, We Give Up
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

THURSDAY

8-9

ABC - Dios De Mio! Es Todavía En Televisión!
CBS - Survivor: Fraggle Rock
NBC - #254 On List: Try To Be Funny Once In a While; Apparently I'm the Only One Who Thinks Tracy Morgan Has Less Talent Than Hand Soap
FOX - Are You Lazier Than a Network Executive?
CW - It's Been Seven Years--Does He Work for "The Daily Planet" Yet?
Sundance Channel - Celebrities Gaze Deeply Into Each Other's Eyes
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

ABC - If Anyone Resembling a Doctor On This Show Ever Got Near Me, I Would Gladly Perform My Own Colonoscopy
CBS - CSI: Guernica
NBC - Jenna Fischer's Single and She's Mine, Do You Hear Me? Mine!; Flatline
FOX - I Said, Are You Lazier Than a Network Executive?
CW - They're Coming For You, Barbara! They're Coming For You!
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

ABC - Guys Doing Guy Things (With Guys)
CBS - Maybe They Can Find My Career
NBC - It's Dead, Jim
AMC - You Mean, Ad Execs Aren't Nice? I, For One, Am Shocked
USA - Law & Order: Sh!tty Cable Slot
Bravo - Why the Whole World Thinks We're Gay
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

FRIDAY

8-9

ABC - 20/20: Watch John Stossel Get Miffed About…Well, Something
CBS - Go Into the Light, I Beg You
NBC - Ah, For the Days of "You're In The Picture"
FOX - Reality Show + Wannabe Bands = My Soul Withering
CW - At Least It's Not the "X Games"
Country Music Television - Gimme a "T!" Gimme an "A!"; Customize Your Noose Collection **
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

ABC - They Fight Crime…And They're Chicks!
CBS - This Sucks Literally, Figuratively, and Spectacularly
NBC - Oh Yes, Putting It On At This Hour Will Definitely Increase Ratings
FOX - Reality Show + Country Music = My Colon Exploding
Lifetime - For Those Who Miss Uri Geller
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

ABC - I Forget--Is Anne Heche Gay Again, Or Is She Just Nuts?
CBS - We Ran Out of Actual Serial Killers In This Country About Two Seasons Ago
NBC - Call Me Sentimental But I Always Like to See Tom Selleck Get Work
Sci-Fi - Stargate Hyannis Port
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

SATURDAY

8-9

ABC - Christening Our Future Overpaid Steroid Abusers Today
CBS - Crimetime Saturday: The First Time I Laid Eyes on Terry Lennox He Was Drunk In a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Outside the Terrace of the Dancers
NBC - Dateline NBC: Second Word, Third Syllable, Sounds Like "Ear"
FOX - We Run Out of Toothless Vagrants and Start Setting Houses on Fire
PBS - Allo, Guv'nah!; Knickers and Crumpets, Eh?
CW - Movie: "The Snuggler" (1979, Jill Clayburgh, Steve Railsback, Dennis Christopher)
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

FOX - You're Home On Saturday Night? You Deserve This
PBS - Something Even the CHUBB Group Couldn't Fund
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

CBS - 48 Hours Mystery: When Will Katie Couric Replace Julie Chen on "Big Brother"?
FOX - Occasionally, I Still Get a Residual Check From This So God Bless
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

SUNDAY

8-9

ABC - Advanced Tear Milking
CBS - What Happens in Laughlin Should Most Definitely Stay in Laughlin
NBC - Barely Disguised Homoeroticism for Middle America
FOX - Ralph Wiggum: Male Prostitute; Monsignor Martinez Should Get His Own Movie
CW - Bored Free
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

9 - 10

ABC - The Last Person Who Watched This Killed Herself When "Weekly World News" Folded
CBS - Let's Combine Every Criminal Procedural Into One Super Show So We Can Have More Room for Reality Shows About Teens
FOX - Please Tell Me There Will Be No Movie From This; Same Thing
CW - We Repeat Our Fine Programming In Case You Didn't Ignore It the First Time Around
Showtime - People…People Who Kill People…
VH1 - Casting Our Net Into the Bottomless Sinkhole of Pop Culture and Seeing What Sticks
We - Let's Send Feminism Back to --Wait, What Comes Before the Paleolithic Era?
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

10 - 11

ABC - They Put the "Please Shut the F@ck Up" In "Dysfunctional"
CBS - James Woods Reads the Phonebook, Figuratively Speaking
VH1 - Hangin' with Jeremy Gelbwaks
HBO - Maybe You Didn't Hear--"The Sopranos" Is Gone

** Jena 6! No Justice, No Peace!

As it is in the Red Sox and Yankee locker rooms, Champagne remains on ice at the networks as they’re hoping to celebrate the first solid hit of the new season; “underwhelming" continues to be the word to describe the fall season. The only thing doing spectacularly well thusfar is “Dancing with the Stars.”

CBS is trumpeting the fact that “Cane” had the highest ratings the network has had 10 p.m. on Tuesdays since 1999. True, but that was still only 120,000 more people than watched the premiere of “Smith” last season, and “Smith” was done after three episodes. “Cane” lost 950,000 viewers from its first half hour to its second, not the most encouraging of signs.

Results were mixed for The CW’s “Reaper:” 3.2 million tuned in, which is actually less than what “Veronica Mars” lured last season but more than its wan lead-in, “Beauty and the Geek.” “VM” never improved on its lead-in – heck, it never retained its lead-in audience. If “Reaper” had a stronger show in front of it, it no doubt would do much better. So: First pickup for the entire season? Given how The CW is doing elsewhere, why not?

Other returning shows are shedding viewers as ratings fell from last fall. Even with “Dancing” as a lead-in, “Boston Legal” had 1 million fewer viewers than last year. “The Unit” and “House” also lost a million fans, though “House” still had 18.13m and “The Unit” only 10.7m. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” lost nearly 2.5m, with 12.1m still watching.

“NCIS” and “Bones” had ratings similar to their debuts last year.

The networks have asked me to extend the following message to you: Watch more television, eh? You think they’re making these monumentally expensive programs out of the goodness of their hearts?

If you’re looking for diversity in programming this season, look no further than ABC (Always Be Caucasian). The network has a flurry of shows appealing to the vast socioeconomic divide represented in its executive ranks, from the appallingly privileged to pampered, overpaid white men to affluent females.

Just take a gander at the panoply of messages sent out by the network’s fall roster:

“Desperate Housewives:” “We’re all beautiful and pampered and vapid. But we can complain too.”

“Brothers & Sisters:” “It’s hard being rich and fabulous.”

“Dancing with the Stars:” “Just because we’re wealthy and washed-up doesn’t mean we can’t have dreams, too.”

“Carpoolers:” “Sure, our lives are comfortable, but that doesn’t mean we’re not utter, thoroughgoing boobs.”

“Boston Legal:” “Lawyers are people, too. OK, well, not technically, but if you do tissue samples, you’ll find we’re very similar to humans.”

“Private Practice:” “California beachfront property doesn’t pay for itself! It’s hard being rich and fabulous!”

“Dirty Sexy Money:” “Haven’t you watched ‘Brothers & Sisters’ or ‘Private Practice?’ It’s f@&#ing hard being rich and fabulous!”

“Ugly Betty:” “Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful. Don’t hate us because we earn more than our IQ’s would suggest we deserve. Don’t hate us because we’re blitheringly superficial – look, just don’t hate us, period, OK?”

“Grey’s Anatomy:” “Just because it seems like we shouldn’t have any problems doesn’t mean we can’t whine incessantly.”

“Big Shots:” “So we’re white men. So we run the planet. In our minds, that just gives us more license to whine about how tough our lives are.”

“Men in Trees:” “Everyone knows that wildly successful self-help gurus are amongst the emotionally neediest people on the planet, so just deal already, OK?”

“Cashmere Mafia” (coming in November): “Yes, we’re women who shattered the glass ceiling. But we still have needs, dammit, and one of those needs is to whine about the one or two things our lives are still lacking that would make them perfect!”

We interrupt this week’s regularly scheduled Valentine to “Mad Men” with some actual news: AMC has renewed the series for a second season, and the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of TV and Radio) will be honoring the show on Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. with a program entitled “Smoke and Sympathy: A Toast to ‘Mad Men.’” Creator Matthew Weiner and most of the cast will be there to accept your accolades. Tickets $25 at 310-786-1091.

And now, back to our regular fawning.

This week, Don (Jon Hamm) proves not to be so bullet-proof after all: He loses the Dr. Scholl’s contract to rival firm Leo Burnett, as Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) – who really needs to tone down the Schadenfreude or Don’s gonna clock him – almost giddily informs him.

“The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them,” Roger (John Slattery) tells Don philosophically. Then, to cheer him up: “Let’s go fire someone.”

And because Joan (Christina Hendricks) turned down his offer of a weekend in Cuba, Roger takes Don out to drown his sorrows. Which, if you know Roger, you understand what that will entail. “When God closes a door, he opens a dress,” Roger, clearly hoping to gain entry into Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, thoughtfully muses.

So Roger picks a pair of twin models out of a casting call for an aluminum-siding ad and is angling for a threesome; suffice it to say, things don’t go as planned. The episode, as usual, ends with a wickedly dark and funny moment as Roger proves once again he’s the manliest pathetic guy on all of Television.

Elsewhere, Joan’s getting busy her own self.

You sort of have to wonder what HBO was thinking when they let this show get away: The pilot script was what got Weiner hired by David Chase to work on “The Sopranos,” so executives there had it just sitting around for six years and did nothing with it. Instead, they went with (among other things) the naughtier and whinier “Tell Me You Love Me which, for all its nudity and graphically staged sex, hasn’t pulled (so to speak) the audience or the acclaim that “Mad Men” has. “Mad Men” even manages to examine dysfunctional relationships as acutely as “TMYLM” does, but it has fun while doing so instead of going so morose about it. “Mad Men” also manages to do so much more with so much more verve, whereas “TMYLM” pretty much just pushes that one mopey button over and over.

Were it on HBO, it would be a much bigger hit, but kudos to AMC for realizing what a gem it has on its hands.

- “Mad Men:” 10 p.m. Thursday, AMC.

Your Mayor has received a number of calls in recent days regarding his coverage of the Ken Burns’ docu-epic “The War,” all of them responding to the sidebar story on the controversy over Burns’ not interviewing Latino soldiers for the 15-hour film until an outcry arose.

Three of them came early Sunday morning from one individual, who just kept calling and pretty much saying the same thing over and over: “What is the guy, an idiot or what? Sh!t. … Ah, man, what an @sshole. … I ain’t gonna watch it.”

Fair enough, but then said caller implied that I had something to do with the film, and started insulting me. “That oughta get you a little upset, won’t it? You probably won’t even respond. … @sshole.”

A few minutes later, he called back: “I’m sure you had some input. … What are you? Daily Breeze? L.A. Times?”

Well, you’re right, sir; I won’t respond, but mainly because you never left your name and couldn’t bother to confirm what news outlet I did the story for.

He may not have watched, but an estimated 15.5 million did on Sunday, with a total of 18.7 million when viewership of the repeat immediately after the premiere is figured in. That beat everything else on Sunday, except of course for football.

You’d expect something like “Prison Break” to feature storylines deeply suspicious of the government, but with “The Unit,” CBS’s heroic bad-asses united in a Delta Force-type band of uber-soldiers, you might hope for a vaguely patriotic bent, the notion that these guys are working outside the law in service of a greater good.

Nope. Even their own government sold them out at the end of last season, and now as season three opens, they’re scattered around the world, on the lam in lieu of being tried, ludicrously, for war crimes.

“The Unit” has always sort of ignored coherent plotting in deference to the nice moment, be it a well-turned epigram emanating from the sonorous Jonas Blain (Dennis Haysbert) or a spectacular action sequence.

And so it goes as the show returns tonight. “The Unit” stampedes into a genuinely dark place – where the government will sell out its best soldiers for p.r. purposes – though it’s not quite a thoroughly convincing storyline.

A foreign leader is blown to bits by a car bomb in downtown Washington, D.C. and the incident is ostensibly ignored by the mainstream media. Shuttering the Unit is vaguely credited to “big oil” or “big politics.” The conspiracy “goes beyond the Oval Office.” Col. Ryan’s (Robert Patrick) estranged wife Charlotte (Rebecca Pidgeon) sold out the Unit to advance her own career. Decomposed corpses tying into some conspiracy or another are resting on the ocean bottom. One Unit member (heh-heh – I said both “Unit” and “member”) is Gitmo-ized. And don’t forget the plucky, sexy Latina agent with her guns a-blazing down in Panama.

Despite this unhinged muddle, it’s serviceably exciting stuff. Somehow, the government forgot that these guys were assigned to an elite fighting force for a reason. It’s a battle, Jonas notes, fated to come down to “suicide by dogma – whoever we’re fighting cares about winning as much as we do.” These guys are so unflappably superior to everyone around them that they tamp down this latest threat to our republic in just two episodes, mopping up the conspiracy next week. Let’s see the “Prison Break” guys manage that.

Plus, it’s always fun to listen for the lines that were rewritten – or inspired – by David Mamet.

- “The Unit:” 9 tonight; CBS Channel 2.

Like inveterate Midwesterners who only know how to do the stoic, stolid thing, viewers greeting the new TV season last night swarmed for the comfort food of familiar programming, eschewing the more exotic fare offered by the new shows.

Is that a simile, or what?

ABC won the evening, thanks to “Dancing with the Stars” disrupting the actual programming by usurping 21.2 million viewers from the scripted shows. “The Bachelor,” on the other hand, looks to be running on fumes; it retained a mere 9.6m of its “Dancing” lead-in. The network should’ve considered scheduling one of its new shows after the first few weeks of “Dancing” rather than squandering such a lead-in on the geriatric “Bachelor.” (The sitcom “Samantha Who?” debuts at 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 15.)

NBC had so-so results – second-place in each timeslot, but third-place overall (it’s complicated, but “CSI: Miami” tilted the evening’s overall second-place ratings to CBS). “Chuck” took second place at 8 p.m. with 9.28m viewers. “Heroes” improved just slightly on its premiere last season with 14.12m. “Journeyman” logged 9.48m, not bad but not great (“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” fared a lot better last season in its debut and look where it is today), with more than a million viewers tuning out from the first half-hour to the second.

CBS used to own Monday nights. No longer. If “How I Met Your Mother” can only manage 8.3 million to open the night, we’ll never get around to meeting the mother. Its lame performance makes “The Big Bang Theory’s” improvement to 9.6m at 8:30 all the more impressive.

“2.5 Men,” which dominated its timeslot last season, finished in a wan third-place, with 13.4m. 12.08m ossified souls stuck around for “Rules of Engagement.” “CSI: Miami” won its timeslot with an audience of 14.84m, but, like other CBS shows that have debuted this season, lost a sizable chunk of its audience from last year –almost 3 million.

Fox is hurting: 7.3 million patient people watched “Prison Break” (as opposed to the 9 or 10 million who’d watch last season); with actual competition to contend with, “K-Ville” lost nearly 30 percent of its premiere audience from last week: Only 6.17m tuned into its second episode.

The nicest thing you can say about this is: Well, that could’ve gone better.

“Bones” has been, for the past two years, an agreeable enough crime procedural with a droll sense of humor and nice chemistry between its two leads, Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz).

And then this season begins. With a skull tumbling into a car windshield hurtling down a highway, which isn’t all that odd for this show, but what follows goes kind of crazy – and threatens to take up a sizable chunk of the season with it.

Said skull belonged to a young violin prodigy (his little finger was insured for $10 million) who was having an affair with the wife of the deputy director of the Secret Service, whose husband not only knew of their trysts but was filming them for his own jollies. And that’s just a little red herring of a subplot that’s quickly dispatched for the weirdness to come.

Brennan [SPOILERS TO COME, LIKE, IMMEDIATELY] discovers markings on the skull suggesting it had been cannibalized. She and Booth locate an abandoned vault with a bizarre shrine including, amongst other things, a silver skeleton.

And so this spirals into a conspiracy of some sort involving the Illuminati, a serial-killing team of cannibals (one of which graciously informs us, “Babies taste a little like fish” before he sacrifices himself) and goodness knows what else before this thing is done.

Let’s see how they keep it light and frothy while all this is going on.

- “Bones:” 8 tonight; Fox Channel 11.

Maybe it’s better for beauty-pageant contestants to shut up: Miss USA, Rachel Smith, dissed Katie Couric: "I just don't want to end up like Katie Couric. I want people to take me seriously."

Of course, she also said, "I always wanted to be a reporter — maybe some TV. Who knows? Some serious news — but some modeling, too." Because nothing gets people to take a reporter seriously like a little stroll on the catwalk.

Even Couric's spokesperson couldn’t let this one go, issuing a statement: "If she continues to offer such profound insight, she will not have to worry about anyone taking her seriously."

*

Meanwhile, Chris Crocker has entered his 16th minute of fame. Mr. “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!” informed the AP, “I'm the key to world peace.”

Incredibly, Crocker’s interviewer was so taken aback by such a humbly blithering statement that she couldn’t manage a follow-up, such as, “Oh, yeah? How do you figure?” So we don’t know if he has any proof of that or not.

Crocker seems to think he and Spears are some sort of soul mates, as they’re both Southerners, “entertainers” (depends on how you define the word, I guess) and “easy targets.” Crocker, a Sagittarian, was wary of being queried by the AP’s Capricorn, which, were any more proof necessary, explains the “easy target” thing.

As does this: “I always say Britney's been my mom ... Britney's been there for me when my parents haven't.” So, what – Britney’s fed him Cheetos for breakfast and sat him in her lap as she’s tooled down the PCH?

A few ratings – well, it’s hard to call them highlights – from the past weekend:

If Fox’s reality show “Nashville” isn’t the first cancellation of the young season, Terry Bradshaw must have something on his bosses at the network and is forcing them to keep his spoiled daughter on the air. It debuted to a lousy 2.7 million viewers, and dropped to 2.19 million on Friday.

On Sunday, The CW reached what could be historic lows ratings-wise, and that’s saying something. It may have seemed like a good idea to put pop-culture magazine shows on Sundays – they’re cheap and require next-to-no effort to produce – but it turns out that teenagers don’t need yet another outlet to tell them what to buy and to watch, no matter how superficially and condescending they may be. They have cell phones for that.

“CW Now” had a mere hair over 1 million viewers; “Online Nation” had even fewer, 994,000. To put this into perspective – less than 1/300th of the country tuned into a “broadcast” network’s launch of its fall programming. HBO’s “Tell Me You Love Me” got a similar viewership when it premiered, in a quarter as many TV homes, and that was considered a major disappointment. These were the lowest ratings for any programming in the hour in the history of The CW and The WB (UPN was dark on Sundays).

A repeat of “Gossip Girl” that followed at 8 p.m. drew an equally wan 1.16 million viewers, with a repeat of “America’s Next Top Model” perking up – but just barely – with 1.9 million at 9 p.m.

This bodes ill for when “Life is Wild” debuts on Oct. 7. If The CW hasn’t figured out a fix or two, that show, too, could arrive DOA.

On CBS, “Cold Case” had 12.3 million viewers and “Shark” had 11.5 million, which isn’t bad unless you note that “Cold Case” was down nearly 4 million viewers from last season’s premiere and that “Shark” was down more than 3 million (and that last year, “Without a Trace” debuted in the same timeslot with 17.5 million).

The news wasn’t all terrible: Fox’s cartoons performed similarly to last season’s debuts, with “The Simpsons” with 9.4m, “King of the Hill” with 7.74 and “Family Guy’s” “Star Wars parody drawing a strong 10.86m. All three shows did quite well in the sought-after 18-49 demographic.

Football, of course, won the night with 16.87 million viewers.

Needless to say, not an auspicious start to the season for the networks. They’re not needed quite yet, but life-support machines should be kept at the ready just in case.

You know how Television works: When a show becomes hugely successful, the self-satisfaction felt by the creators and stars somehow manages to show up onscreen, and the show itself becomes incrementally less fun to watch.

It’s happened on “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” to name but two recent examples.

I’ve often feared that it will happen to “House,” as well and, indeed, there’s the occasional scene that smacks of an inside joke or something that the producers wouldn’t’ve done were they not feeling so bullet-proof. But entering its fourth season, the only thing about “House” that’s truly self-regarding is House himself.

Last season concluded with House’s staff getting fired or quitting, so we begin this season with House (Hugh Laurie) a man alone. Lisa Edelstein and Robert Sean Leonard get some rare and gratifying quality screen time, as Cuddy and Wilson are pressing him to hire a new team. Wilson even “kidnaps” his guitar, threatening to hold it until House has colleagues to bounce ideas off of. (The stealing-the-guitar thing is one of those indulgences mentioned above, but Leonard has some very droll moments in this subplot, so I’ll let it pass.)

Instead, House recruits a janitor for advice: “What about lupus?” he asks (another running joke: Lupus seems to get mentioned as a potential malady in every other episode).

So tonight’s episode boasts an interesting twist, which leads to next week’s episode, in which House transforms his recruiting process into something akin to “Survivor: House,” bringing in 40 candidates to work beneath him.

I know, I know: It sounded gimmicky to me initially, too. But the “Survivor: House” competition is actually a pretty great idea, because the writers have gone to the trouble of giving the cutthroat doctors competing for his jobs some interesting personalities (trouble is, you have a fair idea of who’s at least in the running to get hired based on the amount of effort put into developing their characters).

Wilson warns House that since he’s feeling burned by the departure of his last team, he’ll make bad decisions hiring his new team: He won’t hire the best people, he’ll choose people he doesn’t like so if they leave, no hard feelings.

Oh, and Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), Foreman (Omar Epps) and Chase (Jesse Spencer) start wending their ways back into the series.

Hence, a clever way of reinvigorating a franchise that didn’t necessarily need it. But the fact that they did demonstrates their dedication to keeping “House” the best network primetime show going.

- “House:” 9 p.m. Tuesday, Fox Channel 11.

It can be entertaining to watch an actor enjoy preening (it can also be excruciating), and James Woods struts like no other. “Shark” is a pretty foursquare legal drama, elevated by Woods’ charismatic self-regard.

Season two commences Sunday, and they get their splashy special effect out of the way pretty quickly – a bus blows up outside Parker Center downtown, containing a witness who weaseled out on a murder case Stark (Woods) was working.

A few scenes of requisite exposition later, and we have a sinister new supervillain, a Russian mob boss who kills indiscriminantly but not so indiscriminantly that the police can seem to do anything about it. (Lotsa plot holes in this one, most involving glossed-over dereliction of duty on behalf of the cops and one involving misplaced drama over witness protection when one aspect of the crime would seem to invite the Feds to get involved and be able to offer it.)

And we have a new member of Stark’s team – Danny Reyes (Kevin Alejandro), who's hellbent on nailing aforementioned mob boss, whose drive rivals Stark’s and who has some secrets in his past that will no doubt dribble out over the course of the season.

Season two seems to want to take some of the burden of the show off Woods’ shoulders, for which he is no doubt grateful, and give Jeri Ryan more to do, for which she is no doubt grateful: Her character, Jessica Devlin, lost the D.A.’s election (to a wormy guy played by Kevin Pollak), so she joins Stark’s team.

Here’s hoping they wrap up the Russian mob boss thing pretty quickly: He’s one of those smoothly unflappable guys who tips his espresso cup to Stark because he knows he’s such an evil genius who’ll never get caught and his banter is of that sort of oh-so-civilized manufactured pomposity that really wears on my nerves.

- “Shark:” 10 p.m. Sunday, CBS Channel 2.

Dan Rather wept.

That was the vivid image at last year's summer TV press tour – Rather, there to tout his impending newsmagazine show on Mark Cuban’s HDNet, choked with emotion when asked about his legacy and damning the corporate mentality’s influence on network news.

It’s obviously still gnawing away at the guy, as he has just filed a $70-million lawsuit against CBS for wrongful termination, kowtowing to the Bush Administration, torpedoing his own reputation and giving conspiracy theorists everywhere more grist for their paranoid mills.

There’re three avenues of thought in this sorry turn of affairs: 1) Dan’s lost it; 2) Dan has a case; 3) some combination of 1) and 2).

Rather was ignominiously bounced from the “CBS Evening News”’ anchor chair (for Katie Couric, whose ratings are even lower than Dan’s were, so that’s worked out well) after a 2004 “60 Minutes II: The Reckoning” story on just what George W. Bush may have been up to during the Vietnam war included a forged document as part of its reportage. The right argued that this proved the entire story was bunk rather than debate it on its merits; CBS held back another story critical of Bush until after that year’s Presidential election and now Bush is sitting in the White House, blatantly ignoring public sentiment and threatening to hold his breath and turn blue until Congress gives him everything he wants to maintain the quagmire that is Iraq.

CBS ordered an internal investigation that should’ve pleased no one: It exonerated CBS News of everything but being “zealous” in its reporting and utterly neglected to look into whether or not Rather’s report was true or not. Heads rolled, including Dan’s.

So Dan, in some last-ditch effort to restore his nominally good, if fairly eccentric, name, is suing CBS. CBS is responding by rolling its corporate eyes and saying, “See? This is what we had to put up with.”

Rather told the Washington Post, "I'm surprised someone in government hasn't said, 'We have a wartime president whose military records are missing, can't be found. Let's use the power of government to find out exactly what happened.'"

Fair point; can’t argue with that. But Rather’s also backpeddling from the amount of research he personally put into the story and, more bewilderingly, if amusingly so, the Post adds:

“Rather wades deep into the weeds, talking about how a private investigator he hired dug up information on a ‘mystery man’ – an ex-FBI agent retained by CBS to look into the story once it came under fire. Rather said the network ignored this consultant's allegedly supportive findings and more recently, accused the former anchor of ‘harassing’ the man.”

Needless to say, this behavior isn’t exactly winning Rather any new fans. MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman takes CBS’s side:

“I always suspected CBS was showing Rather respect by letting him continue to preside over a show that had apparently outlived its usefulness. Rather had too many wacky episodes to recount....

“When I contemplate Rather's lawsuit, I think of what he might've said if he were reporting on the story: … ‘It's as thin as turtle soup! It's shakier than Jell-O ... what the plaintiff needs at this point is the equivalent of Tom Brady coming off the bench to rescue him... I know you'd rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit than consider the possibility that this lawsuit is a mistake... This lawsuit would give an aspirin a headache.’”

Mary Mapes, the producer of the notorious piece (she was thrown under the bus far faster than Rather), seems like she’d like to wish the whole incident away but supports Dan.

She argues the main problem with the story is it aired a couple of years too early, that given what we know now, fewer wingnuts would’ve jumped at the chance to defend the President:

“Imagine that a report emerged today saying that President Bush and his enablers had unusual problems finding the most basic records, that key documents had disappeared from official files, that he and his supporters dissembled when asked direct questions. Yawn. The country wouldn't bat a collective eye. No one would be attacked for reporting that. That stuff is old hat now.”

Rather’s suit argues that CBS scapegoated him in order to make nice with the White House, with which it had had a rather (can’t decide if the pun is intended or not) contentious relationship. And around that time, CBS COO Les Moonves (who gets Rather in a lather, he hates him so much) got in a little hot water for rubbing elbows with Fidel Castro in Havana, so Moonves sort of needed to redirect his reputation as a commie-pinko Chief Operating Officer of a major corporation, so ameliorating this bit of unpleasantness with his Republican friends was a step in that direction.

Does Dan have any proof of such a conspiracy?

“Well, I'd like to gather more evidence. . . . One way to find out is to put people under oath,” Rather told the Post. Sounds like that would be a “No.”

Mapes thinks frivolous lawsuits are a good way of prying sinister secrets out of an internecine White House hellbent to cover up everything from why Alberto Gonzales was allowed into public service to why it lied for so long about Pat Tillman’s death (one of those scandals that just sort of went away because two or three new ones replaced it).

“A lawsuit also gives him that delicious power of discovery,” she writes. “Who knows what might shake loose?”

Yeah, if Congress can get nowhere with the White House Iron Curtain of concealment, Dan’ll finally reach the truth by suing CBS. To parrot Friedman, as Rather might say, that ride’s gonna be bumpier than a bullfrog on a rodeo steer.

Fox’s cartoons return Sunday, so the fall season is officially here, so quit going outside and enjoying the fresh air and start watching Television again, dammit! The beleaguered network executives are depending on you!

“The Simpsons”

“I will not wait 20 years to make another movie,” Bart writes on the chalkboard during the opening title sequence as the 38th season of “The Simpsons” begins Sunday on Fox.

How does one write about “The Simpsons” anymore? For years, the conventional wisdom has been that it may be true that it’s no longer as brilliant as it once was but it’s still plenty entertaining, or perhaps we’re just taking it for granted (I opt for the former); whatever the case, if you’re channel-surfing and you come upon it and you watch, you’re hardly ever disappointed.

So, the plot: Mr. Burns takes Homer for a ride in his private jet; Homer gets depressed knowing he will never live as high on the hog (his “summer love,” per the title sequence) again. Flying “Commercial is for losers and terrorists,” he opines. “It’s the difference between Champagne and carbonated pee.”

The guest voices: Lionel Richie, onflight entertainment on Burns’ jet; Stephen Colbert as a charlatan life coach who tries to motivate Homer (and good luck with that).

“King of the Hill”

Fox keeps trying to kill “King of the Hill” (a couple of its cast members told me that it wasn’t coming back two seasons ago), but you can’t keep down a man as stoic and enduring as Hank Hill. After all these years, it’s still sort of impressive that one of primetime TV’s most quietly nuanced character studies is on a cartoon.

So anyhoo, as Hank’d say, Sunday finds Hank over the moon about the fact that Bobby’s showing an interest in football. He tries to encourage that interest by taking his son to a Texas Longhorns game, where he soon learns just how costly the toll of fandom really is.

I’m not sure I’ve really laughed out loud at an episode of “King of the Hill” in years, but its steady, laconic look at one ordinary Texan (if there is such a thing) trying to make sense of a world that is passing him by still seems fresh.

“Family Guy”

Here’s a thermonuclear detonation of sheer geek joy: “Family Guy’s” authorized parody of “Star Wars.” Featuring Stewie as Darth Vader, Chris as Luke, Lois as Princess Vader, Brian as Chewbacca and, playing well against type, Peter as Han Solo (blink and you’ll miss Meg), it’s an oddly affectionate affair by “Family Guy” standards, omitting (no doubt in deference to George Lucas) the sort of snarky, anarchic humor of the rest of the series. And there’s a loving attention to detail in the animation, as the sundry space cruisers are depicted with a fanboy obsession to accuracy.

Still, it has its funny moments. An imperial cruiser wafts through the cosmos with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on its tail, light sabers also double as bug zappers and the elevator on the Death Star plays a Muzak version of the “Star Wars” theme.

It concludes with Chris and Peter arguing whether or not the fact that Adult Swim’s “Robot Chicken” did its own “Star Wars” parody episode over the summer steals from “Family Guy’s” thunder. Peter dumps on “Robot Chicken,” dismissing it as barely meeting the requirements of a real TV show. The joke, of course, is that Chris is voiced by Seth Green, “Robot Chicken’s” creator.

- “The Simpsons:” 8 p.m. Sunday, Fox Channel 11.
- “King of the Hill:” 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Fox Channel 11.
- “Family Guy:” 9 p.m. Sunday, Fox – oh, you know.

Veteran sitcom stars Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton gave the kids of “Kid Nation” a spanking last night. Fox’s new sitcom “Back To You” had a good opening, with 9.5 million viewers, opposite CBS’s much-hyped “Kid Nation,” which had just over 9 million viewers. (By contrast, “Jericho” had 11.6 million viewers in the same timeslot when it premiered last season. So now we know what “Kid Nation” was lacking: a good nuclear explosion.)

At 9 p.m., things get a little trickier. Fox’s “Kitchen Nightmares” came in fourth in total viewers, with a mere 6.6 million, but was first in the target demographic of viewers aged 18-49. A repeat of “Criminal Minds” took the hour with 8.6 million viewers, with the “Last Comic Standing” finale coming in second and a promotional doodad on “Private Practice” landing in third.

But the evening’s big disappointment was the debut of “Gossip Girl,” which everyone expected would elevate The CW’s fortunes this season. Eh, not so much first time out: It had 3.65 million viewers, which is a pretty average number for The CW, but the bad news is it only held on to 71 percent of the audience of its lead-in, “America’s Next Top Model.” The shows were considered highly compatible (both target teen girls filled with Schadenfreude), so “Gossip Girl’s” inability to lure more fans into its lurid world must be considered a bit worrisome over at The CW.

“I think I’m going to die out here because there’s nothing,” says Jimmy, 8, one of the “Kid Nation” participants, early on in the show’s debut this evening. He doesn’t seem too upset about it, which leads you to wonder about his home life, until, at episode’s end, Jimmy decides home is preferable to the “Survivor Lite” antics of CBS’s show that's so incapable of living up to the hype that it had to be suppressed from critics.

It opened with host Jonathan Karsh introducing “Bonanza,” which he declares a ghost town but is really just a movie set in New Mexico (“Silverado” and “All the Pretty Horses” were shot here). A prop rattlesnake shakes its tale on the dirt road (and is never seen again). A prop tumbleweed rolls down the street (and is never seen again). Karsh dramatically intones: “No parents, no teachers – anywhere.”

(Yes, well, but CBS has since divulged in the wake of the child-labor-law uproar that there was plenty of adult supervision.)

But what’s most disappointing about this is just how closely it hews to “Survivor” without putting a couple of royalty checks in Mark Burnett’s bank account (like he needs the money anyway). Sundry kids bitch upfront about others not pulling their weight, like on “Survivor.” There are elaborate, milieu-specific, prop-heavy physical challenges designed to reward the participants, like on “Survivor.” Melodramatic lines that seemed coaxed from the throats of the participants by producers are uttered, like on “Survivor” (and every other reality show in the history of TV, for that matter).

Ten-year-old Taylor, one of the town council leaders, proved herself capable with the soundbites. “Here in a kid’s world,” she declared, “there’s no President Bush, there’s nothing.” Sign me up!

And beauty pageants may be in Taylor’s future, as this bon mot carried a faint echo of Miss Teen South Carolina’s map-challenged America: “I’d bring world peace to Africa … especially Iraq; Iraq really needs world peace.”

With 40 kids and frenetic, hyperventilating editing that made virtually every scene suspect in its relationship to reality, it proved fairly difficult for the episode to offer much in the way of character development. The best they could do were a handful of thumbnail sketches:

* Sniffly Jimmy, already gone;

*11-year-old Mike, another town-council leader, who seems somewhat tremulous but willing to be forged by this experience;

*15-year-old Greg, the town bully (he tags the town with chalk and shoves Mike, who refuses to back down – he knew those adults really were around to prevent this sort of thing – prompting Greg to later ominously vow, “You haven’t seen me upset”);

*14-year-old Michael, the voice of sanity;

*14-year-old Sophia, wise and bitchy and calculating beyond her years.

How manipulative is she? The kids are assigned jobs, paying between a dime and a dollar a day (yet more evidence of CBS’s child-slavery practices!), and Sophia’s relegated to a mere dime a day. But she has her eye on a $3 bike in one of Bonanza’s shops, so she earns extra money working the streets as a dancer and in no time is riding that bike proudly. (And who do you think filled her jar with coins? Little girls?) Even more impressively, at a town council meeting, she alone complains about the leaders, yet they turn around and award her a “gold star,” worth $20,000.

Maybe they just wanted to shut her up. Or maybe …

Oh, CBS; brazen, mad CBS: You’re teaching our children lessons of a subversive nature that haven’t been seen since Richard Hatch used subterfuge and calumny to win the first-ever “Survivor.”

It’s easy to see why CBS didn’t bother sending screeners to critics – the premiere episode was merely a distended version of the four-and-a-half minute trailer we saw, a Cuisinart of ostensibly cute/ostensibly moving/ostensibly inspirational scenes. Every future episode will no doubt be exactly the same.

Also: Tonight, the kids won a prize and were given the choice between a TV and seven more outhouses (as the show begins, there’s only one for the 40 children, and the production assistants are probably hogging it because that’s the only place they can empty the contents of their flasks without their employers noticing). There’s a joke about six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other in there somewhere, particularly if the TV was airing “Kid Nation.”

If only the LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! guy would leave the rest of us the f@ck alone, but no: Variety reports (threatens?) that 44 Blue Productions, the Großdeutsches Reich of reality television, is actually considering doing a reality series with Chris Crocker, whose p!ssy meltdown defending drug-addled trailer trash managed to divert our attention last week from the space-alien invasion of Peru (what? You didn’t hear about that? Proves my point).

“It's going to pretty much be the 'Chris Crocker experience,’” Osama bin Laden, a consultant for 44 Blue, told Daily Variety. “We consider him a rebel character that people will find interesting. He's going to be a TV star.

“And then,” he added with an ominious cackle, “the terrorists will have won.”

What kind of idiots are these people – if “people” is the right word – at 44 Blue, anyway? (And doesn’t “44 Blue” sound like a football play or a military strategy or something that will invariably end in violence?) A two-minute hysterical, get-this-guy-some-Methotrimeprazine-STAT screed – no matter how amusing it is upon first viewing – is hardly the basis for an ongoing TV show.

I mean, what other tricks does this guy have in his bag? How many other beleaguered celebrities are there for him to come to their defense in a delightfully unhinged fashion that makes him look in worse shape than those he’s championing? Let’s see:

Leave Phil Spector alone! He was just sticking a gun in some woman’s mouth!

Leave Elmo alone! He’s just ticklish, OK?

Hmm. Guy might have a career ahead of him, after all.

Last season, “’Til Death’s” c