December 2007 Archives

Hey, so damn this holiday week with me trying to take some time off and the news refusing to cooperate.

Turns out 2008 will see some new, original scripted programming aside from midseason replacement series after all: The Writers Guild and David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants reached a deal that will return writers for his show and Craig Ferguson’s beginning on Wednesday.

So this could be interesting: Letterman was riding high in late-night after defecting to CBS until the summer of ’95, when Jay Leno landed Hugh Grant as a guest a few days after the actor got busted with a prostitute; Leno’s performance that night convinced people to migrate back to his show. Now, with Leno/O’Brien/Stewart/Colbert/Kimmel busking and Letterman not only boasting scripted comedy material but likely getting the best guests, as well, as actors won’t be crossing picket lines to appear on his show, will we witness a new epoch in the late-night wars?

Rob Burnett, who serves as the head of Letterman’s Pants, sent the wrong message Friday when he said in a statement, “We'll be ready Wednesday, even if it takes a few more days after that to get up to speed.” Actually, Letterman needs to hit the ground running faster and harder than Devin Hester, proving decisively on Wednesday’s telecast that his show is so clearly superior to his competition’s pretenders that no one’d consider watching anything else. And, since the strike still has no end in sight, Letterman could pile up a lot of goodwill among fans and casual viewers and reclaim the late-night mantle.

The WGA seemed to be sensing this in its statement on the agreement with Letterman, which fairly baldly called for Leno to remain competitive: “It’s time for NBC-Universal to step up to the plate and negotiate a company-wide deal that will put Jay Leno, who has supported our cause from the beginning, back on the air with his writers.” It’s unlikely NBC will acknowledge the WGA’s invitation/threat/taunt, unless the skinflint uberlords of the AMPTP have seriously underestimated the resolve of those under their umbrella. (Still, you have to admit that blowing off AMPTP can be awfully tempting: If you’re CBS and you sign an interim deal with the WGA, putting your shows back into production, suddenly you’re kicking your competition’s hindquarters something bloody. Besides, someone somewhere understands that the writers deserve those pennies per download.)

Meanwhile, the return of the late-night hosts begs the question: What actually constitutes “writing?” An idea that leads up to a possible joke? Also, how long will viewers accept athletes, authors and D-listers as viable talk-show guests?

And the AMPTP declared Friday that the strike has officially cost writers more than they hoped to make off any new idea – $150 million, and counting. Sure, but the idea of the strike was to make sure that said money got into the hands of the right people. Nonetheless, it’d be more instructive if one of those rapidly spinning counters on AMPTP’s website showed how much money the producers were losing off this strike, since it’s clear they don’t really care how much anyone else is losing except for propaganda reasons. (If they really cared about IATSE crews, wouldn’t they be covering their losses?)

So anyway, I and my Security Detail (Wally the schipperke) are currently at an undisclosed location, but we will disclose this much: If Southern California got this much rain, the drought would be over (my Security Detail is not so thrilled with this fact, though he did sort of seem to dig taking a leak on redwood trees 175 times his age). Also, we met a guy who ran a really cool record store who had some great out-of-school Bob Dylan stories.

The Hollywood Reporter suggests that the Golden Globes ceremony may not be televised. What this means is celebrities could attend and collect their trophies with impunity, which wouldn’t happen were the pageant to be aired, as actors would be loathe to cross the picket line. If it’s not on TV, no picket lines to cross – problem solved.

Except, of course, that NBC wouldn’t reap the advertising dollars (not that they’d get much with a celebrity-free extravaganza) and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association won’t collect its annual windfall.

Plus, there’s that old conundrum: If a celebrity wins an award but there’s no TV audience to see it, does it make a sound?

HDNet will re-air Dan Rather’s interview with Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation and who was considered Pakistan’s best hope for real democracy and, as a result, was assassinated Thursday in Pakistan. You can catch it at crappy hours: today at 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 6 a.m. (West coast times).

Rather interviewed Bhutto in August as she was preparing to return to Pakistan. (When she arrived in Pakistan in October, she narrowly escaped another attempt on her life that killed 130 people. She had a bulls-eye on her back like few people.) Her murder is bad news for America, worse, of course, for Pakistan; not since Ahmad Shah Massoud was killed by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001 (his murder was plotted in tandem to the attacks of Sept. 11) has such an esteemed and avowed enemy of Islamic extremism been assassinated.

For those who can handle the brutal realities of Earth circa 2007, here’s a devastating series of photographs of the assassination aftermath that the mainstream media has thoughtfully prevented you from seeing, lest it not settle well alongside your figgy pudding. Because it all sucks right now and until someone realizes that, it will continue to suck. Just sayin'.

For the rest of us, here’s a silly gross-out holiday yarn from New Zealand.

Looking for some last-minute Christmas gifts? You are? Boy, good luck to you; you’re in trouble. Navigating a mall is like trying to get on that last chopper out of Saigon.

It was a rhetorical question, but if you’re really hard-pressed, let me recommend “Rescue Me Uncensored: The Official Companion” (Newmarket, $19.95), a bathroom read nonpareil – short, quick bursts of really funny dialogue, lots of pictures, a few of the poignant soliloquies. Essentially, it’s the best of the show, with all the weaker parts taken out. And of course there’s the requisite episode guide, a fairly just-the-facts-ma’am thing that seems out of character with the rest of the book, but those things amount to, like a whole bunch of paragraphs in a row without a break or a photo so you won’t likely be reading them.

Series creators Denis Leary and Peter Tolan tag-team on the preface, in which Leary explains how the two met and how the show came about, etc. etc., while Tolan provides a droll DVD-style commentary via footnotes. This one stood out: Leary’s discussing the day they met, and how he offered Tolan some pages of a script he had written for his perusal; Tolan interjects, “An actor with pages is like a four-year-old with a Glock: Nothing good can come of it.”

OK, so that’s one. Another, for anyone you know who might care about politics and what’s happening in and to the United States, is Keith Olbermann’s “Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration’s War on American Values” (Random House, $24.95). Yeah, the title kind of seems just this side of hyperbolic, but read the essays – taken from Olbermann’s MSNBC show “Countdown;” these are what helped the show absolutely explode in the ratings over the past two years – and the title seems, if anything, a little muted.

These essays are finely tuned bursts of righteous anger, connecting the dots of assorted Adminstration scandals in a way that few mainstream journalists have done. Olbermann introduces each of the Special Comments by explaining what was going on and what inspired him to sit down and write them. Once they took off, network brass encouraged him to do even more, but he rightfully balked because he didn’t want them to become an act (though he has been allowed to slip more opinion – some would say, “even more opinion,” but that’s a discussion for another day; we’re discussing Christmas presents here – into the show’s news reports of late, which I’m not convinced is an altogether good thing, since it might dilute the impact of these commentaries).

One quibble: As nicely as these things read, you haven’t really experienced them until you’ve seen Olbermann deliver them. And, given the price for what’s a pretty slender volume and given how cheap it is to produce a DVD these days, it might’ve been nice if they had included a disk of some of the comments as an added bonus. Still, if you’ve wondered why everyone seems so complacent about the direction of the country, this assures you that others are of like mind. And if you know anyone who reads Ann Coulter or listens to Rush Limbaugh, this is the perfect gift, if you’re the sort of person who likes to see steam come out of people’s ears.

And if these items don’t float your boat, there’s always this. Or this.

Happy holidays; we’ll chat next year.

Joining the other late-night hosts, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will return on Jan. 7 to "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," respectively.

The difference: Their shows are even more highly dependent upon their writers than Leno/Letterman/Kimmel/O'Brien/Ferguson, whose shows have a couple of comedy bits per hour but are mainly interviews. Also: Stewart and Colbert's shows are smarter and tougher than the others. How can these guys possibly do all this on their own?

We'll find out, but a couple of guesses: A lot more artfully edited clips from news reports, longer interviews and, if anything, more pointed political commentary. In their favor, they have two whole months of political hypocrisy, chicanery and incompetence to work with. Also: Authors of political books, not being actors, face fewer repercussions in crossing picket lines, and both Stewart and Colbert are excellent at extemporaneous humor, so the interviews can be longer and still plenty entertaining.

Stewart and Colbert issued a joint statement, underscoring their solidarity with their writing staffs: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

Let it never be said that WE tv doesn’t understand what critics like.

A holiday gift package from the fine folks at WE tv arrived today; inside were four airline-size bottles of vodka in assorted flavors. Because nothing celebrates the reason for the season more than getting hammered.

I made a joke yesterday about a reality show about Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy, but, as usual, whenever you jest about Hollywood cynicism, you’re not far from the truth.

Turns out I just had the medium wrong: OK! Magazine has shelled out $1 million for the first photos of mom and baby, and for that, she and her mother-of-the-year candidate mom (who had to shelve a book on raising children in light of this – but not, apparently, in light of all of Britney’s antics) granted the publication an exclusive interview.

(Don’t rule out that reality show, though.)

And now Nickelodeon, mired in a public relations disaster, is considering something that really seems inevitable and necessary: a Linda Ellerbee Nick News special on teen sex and love:

“Rather than focus strictly on Spears, Ellerbee said she's considering producing a broad discussion about how people know they're in love, when is the right time to have sex and what are the value systems of their parents and friends. It could air as soon as next month.”

Meanwhile, the future of Spears’ show, “Zoey 101,” is up in the air. The current season ends early January with a cliffhanger (one far more prosaic than Zoey learning she’s pregnant, naturally), but it seems it’d be difficult for the network with the squeaky-clean image to continue the show under such circumstances.

Looks like David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants production company just might get that special dispensation to bring its writers back on Jan. 2 after all.

The Hollywood Reporter, well, reports that the WGA and Letterman’s company will discuss an interim agreement on Friday.

Meanwhile, producers of the People’s Choice Awards are going to let the general public work as unpaid scabs: They’re inviting fans to ask celebrities questions for pretaped acceptance-speech clips that will be aired in lieu of the usual live ceremony.

No point in voting for your favorites: Extra is reporting that the People’s Choice Awards has been cancelled, but that something or other that will approximate an awards show ceremony will still appear on CBS Jan. 8; it’s just that the press won’t be allowed to cover it and there’ll be no red carpet so pretty much all interest in it will be dissipated. Hey, it’s the People’s Choice Awards; who’s gonna get upset about this?

* UPDATE: CBS doesn't exactly dispute the report, releasing this enigmatic statement:

"The show will go on. The People’s Choice tradition on CBS will continue and we plan to introduce some new ideas in the process."

Other random strike-related doodads:

* $2.5 billion. That’s how much the strike could cost the L.A. economy. Of course, it could be as little as $380 million, but that’s hardly peanuts, as well. To put that in perspective, that could pay for nine days of the war in Iraq.

* The WGA will indeed picket the Golden Globes, which means probably next to zero celebrity attendance and that Dick Clark Productions doesn’t have much of a chance of cajoling that sought-after waver from the Guild. Hey, it’s the Golden Globes; who’s gonna get upset about this?

(Well, any media outlet that covers the event, for one, as they have to shell out hundreds of dollars for temporary phone and DSL lines from which to transmit their stories and photos, which of course won’t be worth much now since, you know, no glamorous shots of celebs to hang stories upon.)

* NBC’ll bring “Monk” and “Psych” over from sister network USA, a move expected even before the strike began.

* A fierce bidding war has arisen over rights to a reality show about Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy. OK, I don’t have any proof of this – in fact, I just made it up – but what do you want to bet this idea is being floated in some boardroom somewhere?

The subject header to the Email was nothing short of explosive:

Bob Schieffer: Is the End Near?

By the thundering sword of Zeus, you think: Is the guy sick? Is he forecasting the demise of CBS News? Or is he going stark-raving Nostradamus on us and is warning us we’re all doomed?

Nah, nothing that interesting. The former “CBS Evening News” anchor and “Face the Nation” moderator just floats the notion to TV Guide that maybe he’ll retire after the 2008 election:

“Quite frankly, I don't know what I'm going to do after that. I'll have some sort of relationship with CBS. But I think Inauguration Day is probably going to be my last in the role I have now.”

Given that the guy’s in his 70s, that’s hardly earth-shattering news. Thanks for the bulletin, TV Guide.

Be a part of the only awards show sanctioned by the Writers Guild of America! The Screen Actors Guild is offering up a pile of SAG-Award-related items in order to benefit BookPALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools), including a SAG Awards VIP Package that includes a backstage tour during rehearsals, a walk down the Red Carpet, tickets to the show and passes to the Post-Awards Gala.

There’re also red-carpet bleacher seats, hats, posters, tote bags, some of Lisa Rinna’s wardrobe (lips not included) and what I’m sure will be a hotly contested item, a 6-month subscription to the L.A. Daily News.

The auctions begin tomorrow at the above link.

The Writers Guild of America may have just shot itself not just in the foot, but into a deep vein from which the bleeding can’t be stanched. With every late-night talk show preparing to return to work come Jan. 2 save “Late Show with David Letterman” and “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” which are offering interim agreements to which the WGA is, bizarrely enough, not responding, they’re forcing Letterman’s shows to return without writers, to present the same sort of inferior product as their competitors, and leading some to question the WGA’s good will, not to mention its strategy.

If Letterman and Ferguson can return with the WGA’s blessing, that’d bolster the writers’ cause and underscore the need for the sort of union-approved material required to appropriately amuse somnolent Americans, as viewers could compare/contrast the quality of Letterman’s writer-sanctioned show vs. Leno’s expected foundering.

On the other hand, if Dave, who has clearly thrown in with the writers, is forced to muddle through with the same sort of half-assed, writerless shows that his competition will muster, then clearly no one wins.

Meanwhile, it looks as though the Directors Guild of America, flummoxed by the WGA’s klutzy efforts at engaging AMPTP, may try to play through and reach some sort of agreement as early as next month.

In the past, the WGA has assailed the trades (such as Variety, whose story is linked above) as being in the pockets of the producers, albeit with precious little evidence with which to back such claims. This latest report does seem particularly anti-WGA, but, then, there’s not much happening these days to encourage a whole-hearted championing of WGA strategy. Particularly since at this point there seems to be no WGA strategy outside of: Let’s p!ss Everyone off.

With not so much TV to talk about these days, thanks to the writers strike, let’s get all eggheady and talk about books, because those require writers, too!

Or, rather, let’s talk about a lack of books: The new New Yorker decides to get all gloomy-Gus on us this holiday season, with an essay about how fewer of us are reading books (or, even, newspapers), not reading as much makes us dumber, in that we lose some capability in divining nuances, and soon we’ll all be the gibbering idiots of “Idiocracy” if global warming doesn’t get us first:

“(S)ome sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special ‘reading class,’ much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy, in the second half of the nineteenth century. They warn that it probably won’t regain the prestige of exclusivity; it may just become ‘an increasingly arcane hobby.’”

Then it goes off into that trademark New Yorker ephemera, shuffling and dealing out a deck of highfalutin quotes, wandering off the trail for a while for a loosely related personal reverie, going far deeper into the history of reading than is technically necessary (cuneiforms and hieroglyphs – to be honest, I scrolled past a lot of this). Then, a delicate paean to reading: “The secret at the heart of reading… (is) the time it frees for the brain to have thoughts deeper than those that came before” and to read is “to receive a communication with another way of thinking, all the while remaining alone, that is, while continuing to enjoy the intellectual power that one has in solitude and that conversation dissipates immediately.” And an aside that’ll be good news to student perverts everywhere: “Even visits to pornography Web sites improved academic performance.”

Finally, a point: we read to get multiple points of view; if we don’t read, we may in fact reach the point where we avoid multiple points of view:

“It can be amusing to read a magazine whose principles you despise, but it is almost unbearable to watch such a television show. And so, in a culture of secondary orality, we may be less likely to spend time with ideas we disagree with.”

So: An essay on reading ultimately ends up explaining the Fox News Channel.

I came to a similar conclusion a few years back in a series of articles exploring the effects that the waning of a water-cooler or consensus culture would have – how the niche-ification of popular culture would mean that people in general would have fewer things in common to talk about, and how that could result in, well, the sort of divisiveness we see in American culture today. But the New Yorker says that this’ll be the result of people not reading, so there you go.

Meanwhile, another reason to avoid books instead prompts heartening news: Karl Rove’s memoir hasn’t exactly inspired a bidding war; “It's very, very slow,” says one publishing executive. Part of the problem, according to this article, is that conservative true-believers, no doubt disheartened by our current reality’s liberal bias, aren’t buying as many political books these days.

Another reason, no doubt, is that many publishers are unsure whether Rove’s book should be classified as fiction or nonfiction.

It’s early, but the folks at the Paley Center for Media want you to know just how hip they are when it comes to programming the 25th annual William S. Paley Television Festival next March. The first three evenings announced honor “Pushing Daisies,” “Gossip Girl” and Judd Apatow.

It’ll be interesting to see how the writers strike (if, God forbid, it’s still ongoing next March) will affect the heat on “Pushing Daisies” (though its ratings have faltered in recent outings), or whether there’ll ever be heat on “Gossip Girl,” which regardless of whatever Entertainment Weekly may gush, hasn’t turned out to be the guilty pleasure people expected.

As far as Apatow: Consider this his “I told you so” moment. After spending a decade banging his head against the wall of TV indifference (he co-created, wrote for and produced the quickly cancelled but fondly remembered “Ben Stiller Show,” “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared” and also spent some time on “The Larry Sanders Show,” where he got his first directing assignment), he’s now Entertainment Weekly’s Smartest Man in Hollywood (which seems a bit of a reverse putdown, but that’s just me), thanks to his string of box-office comedy blockbusters. Not sure a guy who’s so utterly successful these days would want to relive his years of struggle, but that evening will no doubt be the hottest ticket on the whole Paley Festival schedule (which will be announced in its entirety in February).

Add Jimmy Kimmel to the list of late-night talk-show hosts returning without writers:

“Though it makes me sick to do so without my writers, there are more than a hundred people whose financial well-being depends on our show,” Kimmel said in a statement. “It is time to go back to work. I support my colleagues and friends in the WGA completely and hope this ends both fairly and soon.”

Like Leno and Conan, he’ll be back Jan. 2. Unlike the other shows, Kimmel’s is live (on the East Coast, at least), so if writers attempt a stunt like they did with Carson Daly on Kimmel’s show, all America will see it (well, those on the East Coast will see it live; after ABC edits the West Coast feed, the rest of us will see it on YouTube).

The lowest paid of the late-night hosts, Kimmel was paying his staff’s salary during the strike but reportedly flirting with his own financial ruin. His show actually did well in repeats during the strike, as people who had been watching the other shows sampled his; we’ll see if he won over some new fans, resulting in better ratings for his new shows, and then if the lack of writers results in lower ratings. Circle of life time, folks.

Hardball-playing WGA has declined to grant waivers to the Golden Globes and Oscar extravaganzas this year, meaning – gasp – none of that excruciating banter between celebrity presenters.

Of course, it could also mean that precious few nominees will be on hand to accept their trophies, as well, as actors may not want to cross picket lines. (The WGA may not actually picket the ceremonies, meaning celebrities could attend in good conscience, but I wouldn’t hold my breath awaiting that decision. Also, the strike could be over by Oscar night’s Feb. 24, though not likely by the Globes’ Jan. 13 airdate.)

Dick Clark Productions, which mounts the annual Globes drunk-and-disorderly, will try the David Letterman end-around with the WGA – asking for a waiver as an independent production company. But that hasn’t even proven successful for Letterman yet, as the WGA seems to be dragging its feet on deciding whether his writers can return to work.

The solution to this is so obvious it’s in the list of grievances the WGA has with AMPTP: Transform the awards ceremonies into reality shows.

Nominees not wishing to cross picket lines (or be otherwise humiliated) could send their personal assistants to the ceremonies, where they could engage in competitions to see who will win the coveted trophies. For example, best-supporting-actress nominees could race to climb ladders and try to break through glass ceilings. Nominated editors could battle one another in scissor fights, and compressed air canisters and straight razors could figure into competitions in any category in which "No Country For Old Men" and “Sweeney Todd,” respectively, are nominated.

Or Simon, Paula and Randy could berate the nominees:

“Kiera Knightly, you’re a very lovely young woman, but would it kill you to eat a hamburger?”

“Nikki Blonsky,” you’re a very lovely young woman, but would it kill you to pass up on a hamburger?”

“George Clooney, you were very good in ‘Michael Clayton,’ but enough already with those ‘Ocean’ movies.”

“Michael C. Hall, you made that role your own, but you want America to idolize you and they won’t idolize a serial killer – c’mon, now, think.”

“Cate Blanchett, I don’t think you even belong in this category – you’re playing a man. You’re a very confused young woman.”

“Javier Bardem, very chilling, but the goofy haircut thing is so Sanjaya.”

The Email subject header read: JOE FRANCIS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS FROM JAIL

Yes, that Joe Francis: The American entrepreneur whose cynical combination of college co-eds freed from the shackles of their parents, ubiquitously flowing alcohol and video cameras turned into a hundred-million-dollar “Girls Gone Wild” industry. The same guy who got arrested – and sued – for taping underaged teens getting nekkid, exacerbated the situation by flouting the law, bringing pills to jail with him and calling Florida authorities “Nazis” and “cockroaches,” got some contempt of court citations thrown into the mix, assaulted a female Los Angeles Times reporter, was filmed bound and semi-nude against his will in his own home by an extortionist, paid for a New York gossip columnist’s bachelor party in exchange for some sympathetic press and has spent the past eight months or so in jail. That Joe Francis.

“Francis is presently sitting in a Reno Jail and refuses to post bail as a means to avoid returning to Panama City,” the Email reads. “Earlier this year, officials in Panama City constructed a list of false charges in order to punish Francis for producing Girls Gone Wild on their public beach.”

Had Francis seen an episode or two of “My Name is Earl,” he’d realize that this is simply a case of karma coming to bite him in the ass. Instead, he’s talking to anyone who’ll listen in order to spin his story in a direction that’s more favorable to a soft-porn kingpin with a sense of entitlement.

At least while he’s been out of circulation, those tiresome TV spots for “Girls Gone Wild” seem to have disappeared. Oh, wait – I haven’t been watching “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report” since the strike began. So maybe they’re still out there, outside my purview. Haven’t seen any “Mind of Mencia” promos, either. Life’s been sweet.

As the New York Times noted yesterday, “(S)tuck in jail in Reno, Mr. Francis is now desperately trying to drum up public sympathy, if not win release, to expose how unfairly he believes authorities have treated him. For the last two and a half months, he has taken out ads, sent out news releases, appeared on dozens of radio and TV talk shows and used a Web site … to relate his convoluted story while his lawyers file motions charging prosecutorial misconduct and ask for investigations.”

So while it might be amusing in a train-wreck sort of way to hear Francis froth over the plague of injustices life has rained down upon him, I fear most of any sort of discussion would be taken up with this sort of self-aggrandizing illogic, posted on his website:

“‘Girls Gone Wild’ exploits women the way Steven Spielberg exploits actors. We love women. We celebrate them.”

Spielberg, huh? You had to go there? You had to compare yourself to an Oscar-winning director who actually pays his actors and whose films actually feature narratives and production values?

Guess I’ll have to pass on the interview. Unless you can find a cheerful holiday angle from which to approach it.

Yet another shocker: 47% of those who can find their way onto the Internets have at some point grown so bored (or so self-involved) that they’ve Googled themselves.

You’d think that percentage would be higher – certainly, a researcher who conducted the poll did: “(I)t's still the case that there's a big chunk of Internet users who have never done this simple act of plugging their name with search engines. Certainly awareness has increased, but I don't know it's necessarily kept pace with the amount of content we post about ourselves or what others post about us.''

Maybe people have names too common for Google to dig up any dirt on them. Or maybe people were too embarrassed to admit they did it.

Also, “women were slightly more likely (than men) to look up information about someone they are dating.” So I guess that in order to impress their girlfriends, guys ought to post a bunch of flattering stories online about how they rescued a stray puppy from terrorists and do lawn work for the elderly and how that incident with the Bakersfield Sheriff’s Department was just a complete misunderstanding, honest.

… and the National Geographic Channel proves Spinal Tap’s epigram with its upcoming show, “Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr: Undercover Hippo.”

No, seriously. From the press release:

“NGC’s intrepid herpetologist Dr. Brady Bar attempts to infiltrate the largest population of wild hippos on earth. The goal: to extract a sample of wild hippo ‘super sweat’ and analyze its protective agents. Armed with a specially designed, lifelike 200-pound Kevlar hippo suit that is covered in hippo dung and mud, Dr. Barr goes on a mission to get within arm’s reach of hippos without harming them or injuring himself.”

That the special isn’t entitled “Hungry Hungry Hippos” suggests that Barr returns from his quixotic mission relatively intact. But if he wanted a sample of hippo sweat, couldn’t he have just asked? I know it didn’t work out so well for Major League Baseball, but then, the natural sciences class I took said that hippos are less obstinate than baseball players.

Networks may soon begin cutting costs by dumping production deals under the force majeure clauses in their contracts, the Wall Street Journal reports:

“(I)n the past few days some writer-producers as well as showrunners quietly have been told of studios' plans to send out force majeure letters soon, according to two NBC producers who received these notifications. The force majeure clause in many production deals goes into effect six weeks into a labor action, enabling studios to cancel those deals. The studios have many such deals on the books, and the chance to wipe out deals that weren't yielding hit shows was thought to be one appealing aspect to the studios of a protracted strike.”

Once the networks drop that deadwood from their books, do you think they might be happy to start renegotiating?

The story also discusses what we mentioned over the weekend – that David Letterman may be returning, writing team intact, by negotiating an interim deal through his independent production company. (Letterman’s deal would also include “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson;” NBC announced today that Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien would return to the air on Jan. 2, albeit without their writing staffs.) The Journal drops this scud, however:

“People close to the guild said there was some disagreement among members over whether the guild should make way for late shows to return, with some primetime showrunners – writer-producers responsible for the day-to-day operation of TV series – arguing against it.”

If the primetime folks get their way, then the writers strike will have officially run off the rails, because it will then be obvious to all concerned that it’s about personal pettiness (the primetime guys don’t want the late-night guys to be doing something they’re not) rather than good-faith negotiations and fair deals.

The Journal also says (wow, they got a whole bunch of stuff in one story) that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert may return sans writers by Jan. 7. Stewart wants to arrange a deal like Letterman's, but since Comedy Central owns the show, that might not be as easy to swing as it might be for Dave. And as funny as Stewart and Colbert are, watching them busk without material for a half-hour each night might just underscore just how important the shows’ writers are.

Meanwhile, a few in the WGA are apparently coming around to a notion I’ve championed from the outset of the strike: Abandoning the fight to control reality TV.

The L.A. Times doesn’t think that issue will remain on the bargaining table much longer. Writers opine that those working on reality shows, editing sequences together out of context to make the participants look even stupider than they already are, are engaging in forming a narrative and therefore should be members of the Guild. Producers of course disagree – if they had to pay these people writers’ salaries, they argue, then they might as well go ahead and make something halfway decent and not this reality crap.

Reality-TV has become America’s version of a Jakarta shoe factory – young people being paid sh!t money for impossibly long hours. Given that most reality shows tank these days, it’s the sheer cheapness of these shows that make them look good to producers and networks.

As altruistic as the WGA may appear in wanting to take over reality and clean up its labor practices, this is probably a broader social issue, as suggested in the story:

“(S)tate Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), chairwoman of the Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, has scheduled hearings for Feb. 1 on the reality-TV labor law issue. ‘We intend to monitor this situation closely to ensure that reality-TV story producers and other reality-TV employees are paid in accordance to California labor laws,’ Migden said in a statement.”

And SAG president Alan Rosenberg sent a letter to the WGA: “Your fight is our fight. … (P)lease be assured, Screen Actors Guild will stand with you for as long as it takes.”

So far, they could call the strike from both sides “Sound and fury signifying nothing.”

My God, the Washington Post has hit upon a stunning revelation: Christmas TV is mainly bullsh!t, aimed primarily at getting people to buy even more junk. And kids are savvier than their parents, who wallow in a nostalgia for something that never really existed. And now in a cable universe of hundreds of stations, each airing their own arid, staid, generic holiday entertainments, it’s hard to unite people around facile homilies celebrating family and sentimentality and anything resembling meaning.

Is this the same Washington Post that brought down Nixon? Because if it is, I hear there’s another corrupt regime that’s dragging us into disastrous wars and justifying torture and shredding the Constitution and maybe we should be a smidgen concerned about all that.

On the other hand, maybe we should send the Post’s reporters’ kids in to investigate these rumors. Because, after all, they’re savvier than their parents and they’re the ones who’ll have to deal with this in the end.

David Letterman’s late-night show may be returning soon – with his writers in tow.

Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien may be returning, as well – as soon as Jan. 2 – but they wouldn’t have the benefit of their writers making them funny.

So why might Dave have an upper hand? Because his production company is independently owned (by him, it turns out), not part of the studios or networks, and he could work out an interim deal with the WGA. “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” are owned by NBC, part of the Hydra that is the AMPTP. (Letterman’s been out in front of this strike from the beginning, being the first of the late-night hosts to pay not only his staff and crew out of his own pocket, but that of Craig Ferguson’s “The Late Late Show,” as well.)

Meanwhile, the WGA may declare on Monday that they have opted to negotiate with each studio and network production arm individually, which could really confuse things, though apparently the hope is that certain groups would come to terms with them, resulting in a trickle of new production. Needless to say, AMPTP is not happy about this gambit, any more than it has been about every other thing the WGA has tried.

In fact, even though Letterman’s deal helps CBS a great deal, CBS has to act like it’s not all that thrilled with the arrangement. It even issued a statement pledging solidarity with AMPTP: “(T)his development should not confuse the fact that CBS remains unified with the AMPTP, and committed to working with the member companies to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with the WGA that positions everyone in our industry for success in a rapidly changing marketplace.”

Meanwhile, if you’d like a souvenir of the strike that has wrought havoc with your own financial situation this holiday season, the WGA is offering T-shirts here.

Well, in eight months, that is. But tickets for the stand-up show featuring the Emmy-winning co-creator and star of “The Office” and “Extras” – which ends forever tomorrow on HBO – go on sale Tuesday, so act fast.

DVDs of a couple of Gervais’s previous stand-up shows are available locally occasionally – at Amoeba, for one – but you have to have a foreign-born DVD player to make sense of them. Now, you don’t have to bother with all that – you just have to have a really reliable high-speed connection or be really lucky on the telephone.

Gervais – who also boasts hosting the world’s most popular podcast – has announced but one performance at the Kodak Theatre on July 12 (Given that he’ll be performing in New York two days later, chances are he’ll be able to add a performance or two on either side of the 12th). Tickets ($56-$31) go on sale Tuesday at 10 a.m. at ticketmaster.com, although apparently good friends of, shall we say, Ticketmaster’s utterly uncorrupt uberlords can start scooping up tickets as soon as Sunday.

So good luck, and here’s hoping the strike’ll end soon enough that you can afford scalped tickets to his show.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The spokespresidents for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America – Nick Counter and Patric Verrone, respectively – have agreed today to settle their differences in a winner-take-all duel with pistols.

The event will take place at high noon on Jan. 1, 2008 on the trolley tracks by the fountain at the Grove, at Third and Fairfax. As per the agreement, the surviving executive will then announce that all of his side’s requests have been summarily accepted by the other, newly leaderless bargaining party.

Both sides issued statements late this afternoon announcing the arrangement.

AMPTP’s release read, “The child-abducting crackheads of the Writers Guild of America have agreed, once and for all, to settle its differences with the God-fearing patriots of AMPTP in a winner-takes-all grudge match involving dueling pistols which will be selected by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and held at a neutral site guarded by the private protection agency Wackenhut. Once the desiccated, abhorrent corpse of Mr. Verrone is removed by CDC officials in Hazmat suits and Mr. Counter performs the victory lap so obviously due him, writers will return to work, where they will be chained to their laptops until they manage to produce something that will prove worthy of the generous earnings the AMPTP has always granted them.”

WGA countered (so to speak), “Eight-time Olympic biathlon gold medalist Patric Verrone will engage in mortal combat with Nick Counter, a portly, short-of-breath windbag with an eye-dominance problem, for the good of all mankind. After Verrone’s inevitable triumph, the shackles will fall from the extremities of writers and creators of uplifting and inspirational content everywhere; producers will rend their garments and curse the day they became obscenely wealthy and all right-thinking people will once again turn on their televisions and queue up at the multiplexes, secure in the knowledge that they are being treated to the finest scripted entertainment the world has to offer.”

Together, AMPTP and the WGA issued a joint statement: “We anticipate moving forward to reach an agreement in a spirit of gritted-teeth unity and tense and awkward silence.”

The duel will be available on Pay-Per-View; proceeds will be evenly divided between the Les Moonves/Ronald McDonald Home for Impoverished Producers and The WGA Private Gym and Healthy Food Fund for Emaciated Writers.

* -- Wilco

The latest preciously outraged missive from our friends at the Parents Television Council will no doubt be met with cries of, “Huh. Is that still on?”

Yes, now we know who’s watching NBC’s “Las Vegas:” the PTC, so they can get hacked off by the show’s searing verisimilitude in acknowledging that there are indeed strippers in Sin City. And, apparently, strippers engage in various forms of disrobing. And, apparently, there are boorish men out there who will say the word “nipples” in front of a TV camera. Consider the PTC’s mind (but nothing else) duly blown.

“NBC brazenly thumbed its nose at the broadcast decency law with the November 30 episode of ‘Las Vegas’ yada yada yada yada yada,” read the statement. “This season all of the broadcast networks have upped the ante by introducing increasingly outrageous, explicit and indecent sexual yada yada yada yada yada.”

The PTC even managed to time their free publicity fairly well, issuing its latest screed today, hours before the show will air again. Although NBC probably wishes they would’ve stepped up sooner, before the show went into repeats.

“The executives and writers at NBC continually barrel past the line of common sense decency in creating storylines for ‘Las Vegas’ and yet this episode managed to reach a new low yada yada yada yada,” the statement said. Had they said “barrel past the line of common sense” and left it at that, they might’ve been on to something.

Your Mayor would like to clarify a couple of things in the previous post. For one, I’m not dead. Yes, violence on the “American Gladiators”’ Pyramid was involved, but I was not attacked by Justice (had I been, I probably would be dead).

(The post before that, however, featuring excerpts from the legal waiver exonerating NBC from any responsibility should any journalist experience death or dismemberment, was completely true).

Here’s what really happened:

*

Assorted press were invited to interview “American Gladiators”’ co-hosts, Laila Ali and Hulk Hogan, as well as the new Gladiators themselves, before taking on the Gladiators (were you courageous/foolish enough to opt to) in the Pyramid and Joust combats.

Ali, who of course is the daughter of the boxing legend Muhammad Ali, said that she hadn’t yet had an opportunity to participate in any of the games, but that one she definitely did not want to try was the Pyramid: “That looks dangerous,” she explained.

Hogan offered this as the best way to survive the Pyramid: “Make sure you put your mouthpiece in and your helmet on. If they throw you down the Pyramid, don’t be flailing; stay tight. If (contestants) went down flailing, they’d hyperextend something.”

This was sounding less promising by the minute.

*

During their interviews, some of the Gladiators mentioned colleagues who frightened them. “Wolf’s just a mean bastard,” Siren offered helpfully. Militia (who, by the way, really is a former Marine who performed in Cirque du Soleil’s “Zoomanity;” at least that last entry got that much right) shuddered of Justice, “At six-six and 290 pounds, he just looks like he’s going to kill someone. Mayhem, noting Justice’s 7-foot wingspan, called him a “pteradactyl.”

Before the Cavalcade of Humiliation that would pit spindly, out-of-shape journalists against imposing specimens with chiseled physiques in the competitions, I asked Venom, “I’m doing the Pyramid later – any advice? Pray?”

“Pray,” she considered, then suggested, “be aggressive.”

I replied, “I was thinking of rolling into the fetal position.”

“That’ll work.”

*

The Pyramid is constructed of great chunks of spongy foam rubber, about 10 steps, each two and a half feet high. The Gladiator stands on the fifth step; the contestant must somehow get past the Gladiator and get to the top.

The first contestant worked for some TV outlet, so his performance was captured for YouTube immortality. He was pitted against Justice, that pterodactyl who looks like he’s going to kill somebody. Tentative at first, he then attempted to spring up the thing close to the wall. Justice folded himself around the guy then tossed him down the thing. At one point, the guy almost got past him; Justice clung to his shoe, ripping it from his foot, then caught up to him and, grabbing him by an arm and a leg, tossed him back down again.

I was up next. I turned to the publicist: “Can I get a girl?”

And, honest, I was joking, but the publicist made it so.

Instead of Justice, I was pitted against the actually more imposingly named Crush. (To ratchet up my mortification further, here’s a far less intimidating photo of Crush, but, in my defense, she is a Muay Thai boxer and a Mixed Martial Arts fighter with an undefeated record, while me, well, I watch TV for a living.)

I was outfitted with a helmet, a neck brace and elbow- and kneepads. Standing at the bottom of the Pyramid, I tried some strategy – not doing anything, in the hopes that she’d come after me and maybe I could sneak past her. That didn’t work, so I started my way up the Pyramid – which is so spongy that it’s extremely difficult to maintain one’s balance. After assorted juking and jiving, I tried to get past Crush, getting up to about the fifth step.

She grabbed me from behind, wrapped her legs around me and twisted, sending us both spiraling all the way down the Pyramid to its base, bouncing off each step along the way (the Pyramid’s sponginess may make it hard to traverse, but then, it makes tumbling down it a relatively painless experience). Tried it again; she tossed me down a couple of steps. She was behind me momentarily, so, sensing an opening, I lurched up a step. Crush was upon me immediately and, again grabbing me from behind, sent us both careening to the base. It was the most physical contact I had had ... no. I won't go there.

Time was up. I had been vanquished. Easily.

Before I had even caught my breath, Crush had already knocked a couple of guys off their perches in the Jousting competition.

But I can stand proud, knowing that I will go down in “American Gladiator” history as the first (and, no doubt, only) 46-year-old man who got his ass handed to him by a woman.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – David Kronke, the self-proclaimed “Mayor of Television,” was killed today during a bloody coup on Stage 30 of the Sony Lot during an event unveiling the combatants for NBC’s new incarnation of “American Gladiators.” A Gladiator going by the name of Militia, a Cuban exile who served six years in the U.S. Marines before performing five years in Cirque du Soleil’s “Zoomanity” in Las Vegas, declared himself Acting Czar-for-Life of Television.

Details remain sketchy due to the fact that most journalists were more interested in and busy covering former Senator George Mitchell’s report on rampant steroid use amongst Major League Baseball’s biggest superstars. Moreover, the fact that under The Mayor of Television’s regime, Television had become a blighted landscape riven by corruption, incompetence and reality-TV series, coupled with the ongoing writers strike, has only served in recent days to further weaken Television’s standing in the global gestalt.

Nonetheless, reports from unreliable witnesses on the scene suggest that Kronke, while attempting during one challenge to scramble up the foam-rubber Pyramid, was pounced upon by Justice, a 6’-6,” 290-pound Gladiator with a 7-foot wingspan. Accounts vary as to what happened next, but each witness shuddered queasily while attempting to describe the mayhem.

Further reports will be issued as developments warrant. MSNBC was rumored to be sending an intern to the site to see if the story was interesting enough to include on its newscrawl at the bottom of the screen.

There’s an “American Gladiators” press event Your Mayor is covering today, so there won’t be any blogging for much of the day. In fact, there may never be any blogging ever again.

You see, part of the event will be given over to allowing those in attendance to participate in some of the combat games the show trucks in with actual Gladiators who have no reason to trust or like the media (no one else does these days) and, to that end, NBC has cooked up a six-page legal agreement absolving them of any blame in the case of – well, anything. Take a look:

“The EVENTS and/or RELEASING PARTY’s (note: In legalese, I’m the “RELEASING PARTY”) presence in or upon the premises or facilities where said EVENTS are or will be taking place involve inherent and unavoidable risks, including the risk of death and serious personal injury …

“RELEASED PARTIES (that would be NBC and the show’s producers) make no warranty, representation, or guarantee as to the qualifications or credentials of the medical professionals performing any medical treatment or procedures relating to the EVENTS, or their ability to diagnose medical conditions that may affect RELEASING PARTY. … (In other words, if I read this correctly, another way NBC might’ve scaled back on production costs is to have hired chimps to serve as paramedics.)

“RELEASING PARTY also expressly acknowledges and accepts that INJURIES RECEIVED MAY BE CAUSED OR COMPOUNDED BY NEGLIGENT RESCUE OPERATIONS OR PROCEDURES OF RELEASED PARTIES or others. … (Yes, it appears that I read that last part correctly.)

“RELEASING PARTY ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT AFTER THE EXECUTION OF THIS AGREEMENT, RELEASING PARTY MAY DISCOVER FACTS OR SUFFER CLAIMS THAT WERE UNKNOWN OR UNSUSPECTED AT THE TIME RELEASING PARTY EXECUTED THIS AGREEMENT, AND WHICH, IF KNOWN BY RELEASING PARTY AT THAT TIME, MAY HAVE MATERIALLY AFFECTED RELEASING PARTY’S DECISION TO EXECUTE THIS AGREEMENT. TO WHICH WE SAY, TOUGH SH!T.”

Well, that last sentence isn’t precisely part of the waiver, but it does nicely distill the three paragraphs that follow the convolutions of the previous sentence. I will spare you the precise details because I’m sure your head’s already spinning from the impenetrable legalese.

So I’m pretty sure that what all this means is, after I and any other participating media people sign this and turn it over to the fine folks at NBC, they can throw us all in a cage and set wild rabid Bengal tigers upon us with impunity. By contrast, were I to appear at this event and ask them to sign such a form, I’d likely end up spending my Christmas alongside Keifer Sutherland, in a cell in county lockup.

I’d just like to point out that I’m older than Danny Glover was when he first muttered, “I’m getting too old for this sh!t” in the first “Lethal Weapon” movie, so you can imagine how much I’m looking forward to tangling with buffed and well indemnified twentysomethings who were hired not only for their looks and their six packs but their bloodlust, as well.

The writers strike has already lightened my burden by scrapping January’s TV Press Tour; now, it threatens to make the month of May a far more placid and less social occasion for me.

The networks have long been trolling for ways to save money in the same way my dog, while I’m walking him, trolls for leftover scraps as if the entire neighborhood is the buffet at the Sizzler. And though these particular savings have long been mulled, next year the enduring effects of the strike may finally put an end to the annual glitzy dog-and-pony show known as the upfronts.

Held in New York City, the upfronts generally come the second or third week in May. Each network throws something of an extravaganza/party for advertisers and industry media. It’s a costly affair – the networks fly out all the stars of their new (and often returning) shows just so they can saunter across a stage and tell the audience just how excited and proud they are to be working for [insert network here] and get buttonholed by an inebriated advertising underling at the after-party. Usually, a splashy production number or two is thrown in – The Who, the casts of “The Jersey Boys” and “Avenue Q” have performed for sundry networks; in recent years, ABC has had its sundry stars and showrunners and executives perform elaborate Broadway-style numbers. (Occasionally, these things go on for way too long and actually bore and even hack off advertisers.) Then, after introducing clips from upcoming shows and beholding how generally unpromising most of them look, everyone hits the bar and drinks themselves silly.

The thing is, though hundreds of people attend the events (with many more, also being if not wined then at least dined, watching on satellite feeds across the country), upfronts are actually only aimed by the handful of powerful advertising executives who actually make the decision to open their purse strings to the networks and buy ad time. So, a lot of money is plunged – rather unnecessarily, the networks are increasingly deciding – down a deep hole, with not nearly enough to show for it.

And, consider that, depending on how long the writers strike persists, the networks may not have a whole lot of concrete entertainment to present to the world come May – a few more exploitative reality shows, maybe; a political newsmagazine show that’ll ignore the issues in the upcoming Presidential election in favor of overanalyzing the horse race – and there’s zero reason to flush that kind of money away.

At NBC’s press lunch this Monday, co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff spoke of how they were seriously considering simply dispatching sales reps and executives on personal visits to ad agencies to unveil their wares. (Though that lunch was off the record, I’m guessing I can reveal this since Jeff Zucker is quoted on the record saying the same sort of thing in the above-linked New York Times story.)

For people such as myself who serve The People Who Watch Television, the upfronts, bloated leviathans that they may be, have a purpose: They give us an early glimpse at the new shows and allow us to make a kneejerk response as to what news shows will and won’t be any good. (Truth be told, those kneejerk reactions are correct far more often than not.) But the networks should be able to post clips online for us to manage the same quick-trigger judgments.

So even though I’ll miss having to file stories on the networks’ new fall schedules on excruciatingly insanely tight deadlines, I imagine upfronts are something I, like the rest of the industry, will be able to live without.

I’m not exactly sure at whom the billboards around town for “Alvin and the Chipmunks” are aimed. For the uninitiated, here’s an amusingly dry description of the characters courtesy Wikipedia:

“Alvin and the Chipmunks is a five-time Grammy Award-winning animated music group, created by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. in 1958. The group consists of three singing chipmunks: Alvin, the mischievous troublemaker, who quickly became the star of the group, Simon, the tall bespectacled intellectual, and Theodore, the chubby, impressionable sweetheart. The trio is ‘managed’ by their human ‘father’ and confidant, David Seville. … After first being brought to life in Bagdasarian's 1950s novelty recordings … the singing Chipmunks and their manager were given life in several animated cartoon series and motion pictures.”

Wow. If religious leaders today assail Teletubbies and SpongeBob SquarePants for ostensibly being gay, what they must make of a human “father” and “confidant” to talking chipmunks (including a “tall, bespectacled intellectual” – we can just guess what the religious right considers that code for) is too disturbing to dwell on for very long.

But please: Feel free to do so.

*

Done? Good. Let’s move along.

Anyway, “Alvin and the Chipmunks” have been given the requisite frantic live-action-and-CGI updating, with “My Name is Earl’s” Jason Lee playing long-suffering David Seville. (David Cross, one of the funniest comics working today, co-stars, though it’s unlikely his fan base will be clamoring to see a movie like this.)

So, the billboards: One just reads, in big, bold letters: “ALVIN!!!” Which is what Mr. Seville frequently found himself bellowing; Alvin, you see, being something of a rambunctious sociopath. This is the ad that seeks to appeal to nostalgic parents, but it seems to me that most people who might retain any fond memories of the cartoon probably have children too old to drag to such a movie.

Then, there’s the one that tries to be cool, showing Alvin and his posse in their updated gear, hoodies, floppy hats and sunglasses, looking like rappers (and hip-hop culture still threatens some people?), with the tagline: “The original entourage.” Not sure that kids in the target audience will appreciate the reference to an HBO show that airs past their bedtime about a self-satisfied movie star and his retinue who spend their days mounting the comely young lasses who traverse their paths, but it does make you wonder just what kind of high jinks Alvin et al get up to in this movie.

Lastly, there’s one that reads: “GET MUNK’D.” Took me a second (after my wholesome thought process first took me into a wildly different and unsettlingly unsavory direction) to figure out that this was a play on “Punk’d” (which is apparently still on the air: who knew?), which, again, seems a bit outré for the intended audience. (Though it’s not hard to make the leap that moviegoers will be punk’d when paying to sit through this.)

Ah, well, apparently there’s a poo-eating joke in the trailer. That’ll bring ’em in. See, that’s why Disney and Warner Bros. assiduously maintains ownership of their animated creations, so you’ll never see Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny eating poo.

It’s safe to say by now that no one at the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers has a sense of humor. Today, they issued this edict:

“By now you know that those in charge at the WGA have injected substantial new doses of vitriol into the important and continuing debate on our industry’s future. On Monday, in a letter to members of the WGA East, the president of that organization wrote: ‘They lie. And then they lie again. And then they lie some more.’”

Interjection: AMPTP knows whereof it speaks when discussing “substantial new doses of vitriol.” Late last week, it cut off talks with this scud:

“Quite frankly, we’re puzzled and disheartened by an ongoing WGA negotiating strategy that seems designed to delay or derail talks. … WGA organizers demand … money that doesn’t exist, restrictions that are legally dubious, and control over people who have refused to join their union. … (T)he WGA organizers are on an ideological mission far removed from the interests of their members. Their Quixotic pursuit of radical demands led them to begin this strike, and now has caused this breakdown in negotiations. … (This) strike … is causing so much distress for so many people in our industry and community.”

Back to our regularly scheduled issued statement.

“Then, someone from the WGA offices happily distributed the link to a hijacked parody website that even many rank-and-file WGA members felt was over-the-top. All of this is happening right along with the WGA's continuing series of concerts, rallies, mock exorcisms, pencil-drops and Star Trek-themed gatherings.

“Amidst this alternating mix of personal attacks and picket line frivolity …”

Another interjection: Wow, it sounds like the AMPTP is nostalgic for those serious strikes, like when railroad workers got gunned down by government employees or autoworkers got their heads clubbed in. AMPTP sounds like a bully who’s getting taunted by a smaller, smart-alecky kid but knows he can’t do anything about it because a teacher’s watching.

Back to the statement:

“… we must not forget that this WGA strike is beginning to cause serious economic damage to many people in the entertainment business. While the WGA’s world-class health care benefits remain secure, tens of thousands of below-the-line workers are seeing their health insurance jeopardized by the continuing strike.”

Well, because AMPTP and its members are laying people off, not the writers.

“In addition, our entire Southern California community is beginning to feel the effects of the grinding shutdown of an industry that is the lifeblood of the region's economy.”

Which, last I checked, was the point of a strike: To underscore the necessity of an aggrieved group that feels it is being underappreciated for its contributions to the overall economy.

“We believe that the best way to end this economic harm is for everyone to understand, in detail, the significant issues involved in this dispute. That is why we will continue to explain our position at every opportunity and promptly refute, with facts, the mistaken assertions made by the WGA’s spokespeople. We will also continue to emphasize what we believe: writers should be compensated from the revenues created by new media and we have backed this up with several new proposals in this area.”

Which is to say: The best way to end this economic harm is to obstinately stand pat, ignoring the WGA’s assertions by stating our assertions with an even louder voice. That should clear things up.

“In addition, we believe everyone impacted by this strike should know that negotiations have broken down over the WGA’s jurisdictional demands -- demands which have everything to do with increasing the union organizers’ clout, but very little to do with the real needs of working writers. We also want to make clear our determination to do what is right for this industry by making a fair deal that allows us to compete successfully in a rapidly changing marketplace. We recognize the importance to your employees and shareholders in creating a modern economic system that works for all of us. That is our paramount goal -- a goal we will continue to work for until it is achieved.”

Or, until everyone but the producers are in the poorhouse.

That said, there are a few things the writers should just take off the table immediately. Such as their insistence on oversight of reality TV – what this would do, in effect, would be to kill off reality TV (not an ignoble goal, really), because it would become more expensive and therefore less desirable to produce. But, again: Look at reality TV, writers – do you really want to be associated with that sort of thing?

Anyway, since we’re in a drought, maybe eventually both sides will become too dehydrated to keep p!ssing on one another and this sort of sniping will blessedly come to an end.

Tragedy struck yesterday when striking writers interrupted a taping of “Last Call with Carson Daly,” preventing America to be adequately informed about former football great Jerry Rice’s feelings on his appearance on “Dancing with the Stars:”

“(A) writer pretending to be an audience member heckled Daly, claiming he ‘needed a writer’ to ask better questions. … After reintroducing Rice to the audience, who replicated their cheers, another incognito writer stood up and loudly declared: ‘I feel so bad for the striking writers! Can I please leave?’ The scribe also pointed out Daly's use of cue cards, plaintively asking who was writing the show now. … (An NBC employee) advised ‘any other striking writers’ in the crowd to ‘leave now.’ Over twenty people scattered throughout the stands rose and dutifully shuffled out. The audience gasped at this. Daly visibly paled.”

I’m sure this was far more interesting than anything that otherwise would’ve occurred on Daly’s show. In fact, this might be a reasonable way to get other late-night talk shows back on the air – Conan O’Brien could invite writers to infiltrate his audience then take the show hostage; David Letterman could have writers as his guests, explaining their side of the story and why everyone dependent on sucking on the entertainment-industrial complex’s teat must suffer until they get a fair settlement. It would be like reality TV, only realer. Which is to say, actually real.

Has anyone seen a Christmas TV movie about a workaholic who’s too busy to spend much quality time with his/her kids/family and then something kind of quirky happens and so the workaholic goes through some antic misadventures but finally realizes what’s important in life -- the, if you will, reason for the season? Because something like that would really put me the holiday mood. If only someone could come up with something like that…

NBC co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff treated local journalists covering the TV beat to a lunch Monday at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, which sort of suggests the poverty producers are claiming during this writers strike may be somewhat overstated (on the other hand, the penne with rock shrimp featured fewer shrimp than usual, so there's that). (Oh, who are we kidding: The food was delicious.)

Given that NBC was the first to pull out of January's TV Press Tour, which subsequently led to scrapping the whole thing (see previous entry), it seemed a little odd that Silverman and Graboff agreed to a confab in which they were pretty mercilessly honest about a whole host of topics, including their own programming (particularly given that the other networks don't offer a similar holiday-season state-of-the-industry event for journalists, or, at least, me). One thing, though: The whole shebang was off-the-record.

Which means I, as a putative professional, cannot tell you:

* The exact day and hour the writers strike will come to an end (as divined via AMPTP's contract with the Illuminati), or which cultish deities will lord over the industry after the strike is resolved.

* Whether or not the next cycle of "The Biggest Loser" will eschew chubbies looking to shed pounds in favor of people who are, in general, just big losers. (And a contractual agreement forces me to refrain from mentioning whether or not I was personally invited to be a competitor if that was the case.)

* Whether viewers should expect the return of their favorite late-night hosts anytime soon, and the progress NBC has made in its development of a fully animatronic Jay Leno.

* How "Scrubs" will find closure despite the writers strike by using "Dawson's Creek's" series finale script, looking five years into the future with J.D. (Zach Braff) a successful filmmaker and Eliot (Sarah Chalke) suddenly and tragically dying.

* How many network reality shows would involve puppies playfully rolling over one another or reality contestants virulently lambasting one another would be aired in the coming months, and what that said as to whether puppies or humans should be in charge of the U.S. Government.

* Who Jeff Zucker keeps forever ensconced with peacock-emblazoned ball gags in GE-sanctioned S&M chambers.

* What Ben Silverman has in mind next for his competition after telling Esquire magazine that ABC's Stephen McPherson was "a moron" and Fox's Kevin O'Reilly (whom he replaced at NBC) "shockingly lacking grace," except to advise those living in Pacific Palisades to wear Hazmat suits on Dec. 17.

The ongoing writers strike has claimed yet another victim: The opportunity for TV critics from around the country to spend some of arctic January in sunny Southern California.

Dave Walker, president of the Television Critics Association, declared that the tour is a no-go regardless of whether the strike was resolved by early January, issuing a statement that read in part:

“Because both January and July TV Tours remain valuable newsgathering opportunities for TCA members and their news organizations, this is a difficult decision. The TCA would prefer, and has steadily advocated for, a full January tour whether the strike is still on or not. Many members have expressed to me that the value of a strike tour would actually be greater than a typical January.

“The networks disagreed.”

All sorts of other things figured into this, as well, including mundane things like promising the host hotel enough participants and network-sponsored events to make it worth their while.

It is ironic that the first press tour in years that might actually have inspired some genuinely serious journalism from all attending has been forestalled, but then, the networks have never really seen Press Tour as endemic to journalism, just publicity, and the publicity that would’ve resulted probably wouldn’t’ve been all that great.

I kind of figured this might happen three weeks ago, and while I call “wussies” on the networks, this is what canceling the press tour means to me:

* Lots of money saved on dogsitters. (And even more saved on home repairs after two weeks of leaving him alone for 14 hours a day - though he only weighs an otherwise placid 25 pounds, he's a veritable Hannibal Lechter when left alone to his own devices; after two weeks, there'd be no home to come home to.)

* Don’t have to get up at 6 a.m. for two-weeks straight to arrive on-site on time (see, I’m a night person, as anyone who’s ever seen me ask a question at a TCA press conference before noon can probably attest).

Who’d ever guessed I’d benefit from the writers strike? Not me.

More worrisome to many, however, is the notion that the networks have kind of wanted to kill of the January Press Tour for a while (it costs them a lot to promote not so much), and now they’ve been given precedent. So I’m willing to forego my own personal gold mine here for the greater good and suggest the networks and the TCA figure something out – several networks have been high on phone press conferences, for example, usually for shows no one has any interest in. Just about everyone’s interested in hearing from the network executives, and they won’t have to buy one rubber-chicken breast or a glass of cheap cabernet with a fancy label for anyone. Man up, networks.

A&E, proud home of the most brazenly exploitative reality show of all time, “Intervention,” today announced, equally proudly, the premiere of what just may be the most staggeringly tedious reality show of all time.

“Parking Wars,” coming in January, is set in the rough-and-tumble world of … the meter maids and parking-enforcement officers who patrol Philadelphia’s Mean Streets.

From the press release:

“They tuck tickets under our windshields and clamp yellow boots to our car wheels.” (Boy those’ll be arresting visuals to take in week-in, week-out. Continuing:)

“They are called every name in the book. Some try to run from them. Others try to run them over. They are the people we love to hate, but never before have they been so fascinating. A&E’s new real-life series PARKING WARS … is a behind the scenes ride with the men and women of the Philadelphia Parking Authority as they manage the chaos that is every driver’s greatest nightmare.... parking!”

I never really considered a parking ticket “chaos,” but suppose they have to sell this thing some way. Still, unless a loved one is a featured player on the show, can anyone explain how this qualifies as entertainment or something one would remotely want to watch? Give me repeats of “Men in Trees,” for heaven’s sake.

Idea for A&E’s next big reality smash: Drivers drive about busy neighborhoods in a vain search for a parking place.

Spent the week up north, where a friend (who only watches TV online) noted that the last two episodes of "Dexter" were already available via the Internets. In case you haven't seen them, I have (thoroughly legitimately, I assure you), and will now attempt to explicate this season's finales without much in the way of spoilers.

"Dexter's" had an exemplary second season, by my estimation, as the relatively moral serial killer has watched his entire world implode around him as an investigation into his many crimes has served to tighten a noose around his neck. The question the whole way through the season was: Would the writers be able to reasonably escape from the corner they spent the entire season exquisitely painting themselves into?

Let's recap the deep sh!t encircling Dex (Michael C. Hall) at this point, shall we?

* The bodies of all the people he murdered were discovered; he got labeled the "Bay Harbor Butcher" and got a crack FBI team investigating his ass, led by Special Agent Lundy (Keith Carradine), who subsequently cozied up to Dexter's sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter).

* As if that's not enough (and it is), Sgt. Doakes (Erik King), who's never trusted Dexter, kept at it, and in fact did discover his terrible secret, forcing Dex to cage him up and decide whether or not he should off him, too.

* And as if all that's not enough, Dex got involved with a really hot Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, Lila (Jaime Murray), who, it turned out, was quite capable of matching him in the crazy department, and assiduously went about proving it when he spurned her.

So, tonight, when Lila's in the hospital, accusing Dexter's friend Angel (David Zayas) of raping her, she tells him, "I'm your real soul mate. ... I see you inside. I'm the only one."

Dexter replies, "Look where it's gotten you."

Good point. And Lila makes a better point next week, when she tell Dexter, "I've always been afraid of you - from the first time I saw you I could see how hopelessly consumed you were by your need." Crazy as Lila may be, I stand by my earlier observation that not only would addicts everywhere be happy to put up with her lunacy, but that if there were any evidence that Narcotics Anonymous had any sponsors like her, drug use in America would skyrocket.

Anyway, suffice it to say, it doesn't end well for a number of characters, but - yes - the writers eked out a plausible enough plot device to ensure that Dexter, sure enough, will wreak havoc once more in season three.

And on that note, let's allow Jarvis Cocker to play us out with a nice little song:

"Don't believe me if I claim to be your friend/Cos given half the chance I know that I will kill again/I will kill again."

- "Dexter:" 9 and 10 tonight; 10 p.m. Monday, 9 p.m. Tuesday, 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and so on and so forth. Season final next week, same time.