June 2008 Archives

One of the coolest shows of all time is the '60s classic "The Prisoner," which starred Patrick McGoohan (who also created the series) as a secret agent who resigned his position and was promptly and summarily kidnapped and stranded in a bucolic prison known only as "The Village." There, he was renamed "No. 6" and he and his interrogators - were they from his own government or an enemy's? - played ingenious cat-and-mouse games of mind-control. Eventually, he prevailed - or did he? - well, at least he got out of the Village. "The Prisoner" made all sorts of trippy points about freedom and free will and conformity and how spiffy black jackets with white piping on the lapels are.

And now, AMC - which clearly, after the success of "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," is feeling its oats - will be remaking "The Prisoner" as a six-part miniseries slated to air in 2009. Jim Caviezel will star as No. 6, with Ian McKellen playing No. 2, the sinister head of The Village. (In the original series, there were a series of No. 2's; the job had a fearsome attrition rate; the only contemporary job with such little job security is that of print journalist. Also, the identity of No. 1 was an ongoing mystery that was resolved, sort of, with a literary device rarely used in television called "symbolism.")

This is a project that has seemingly been in a perpetual state of development, until now. Given how we've only become more paranoid and querulous over issues of security and privacy in recent years, the time seems indeed ripe for a re-imagining of the series. From the press release:

"While the original series, which debuted in 1967, was a riff on Cold War politics, AMC's reinterpretation will reflect 21st Century concerns and anxieties, such as liberty, security, and surveillance, yet also showcase the same key elements of paranoia, tense action and socio-political commentary seen in McGoohan's enigmatic original."

McKellen in the press release, declares that the "new version of 'The Prisoner' is an enthralling commentary on modern culture. It is witty, intelligent and disturbing. I am very excited to be involved." And he wouldn't lie about something like that, would he?

This is a story you'd expect to be a throwaway laugh in "Children of Men," but Variety reports today that the average age of a viewer on one of the broadcast networks is 50. Twisting the knife further, Variety's Michael Schneider adds, "If they were a person, they wouldn't even be a part of TV's target demo anymore." Ouch - in Hollywood, about the meanest thing you can say about someone is that they're old.

Kids today, we all know, spend all their time text-messaging and playing games on their cell phones and creating MySpace pages on the Internets and therefore are far too busy to watch television. Well, and the population itself is getting older (not that it's ever going to get younger).

CBS lived up to its reputation as the oldest-skewing network, with an audience with a median age of 54, followed by ABC (50), NBC (49), Fox (44) and The CW (34), which is at the high end of its target demo, 18-34. The median age in American households is 38.

Some older-skewing shows: CBS's "60 Minutes" with a viewer median age of 60, "Monk" on NBC at 58 (taken off the schedule and returned to USA), ABC's "Women's Murder Club" at 57 (cancelled) and Fox's "Canterbury's Law" at 55 (cancelled).

But not all old people go to bed early, as is their stereotype. Jay Leno's audience's average age is 54, David Letterman's is 53, "Nightline's" is 52, Jimmy Kimmel's is 50 and Conan O'Brien's is 46.

Fox News Channel has the oldest viewers of them all, with 65 the median age. No wonder they're always so cranky.

A month or so after Seth MacFarlane signed that sweet, $100-million deal with Fox, he's signed another lucrative contract to create animated shorts online for Google. If this was Stewie Griffin and not MacFarlane we're talking about here, I'd be sensing a fiendish scheme bent on global domination.

The creator of "Family Guy" will be creating 50 2-minute clips under the umbrella title "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy." They'll be even naughtier than what you see on "Family Guy." And, per the New York Times, if your online track record has cyberly profiled you as a "Family Guy" fan, you won't be able to avoid these clips once they go live:

"The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane's target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a 'Cavalcade' video clip. ...

"Every time someone clicks on one of the syndicated videos, the associated advertiser pays a fee, with shares going to Mr. MacFarlane, Media Rights [Capital], Google and the Web site that generated the click."

MacFarlane gets a percentage in the ad revenue, more money from a subsequent DVD release of the material and even more money to help create some animated advertising. He'll get yet even more money for allowing the rest of us to remain on the planet after he owns the whole thing. As Alex Borstein, who voices "Family Guy's" long-suffing Lois, said at a benefit performance about six weeks back: "It's Seth's world; we're just breathing the air."

But it does bring up the question of whether Seth may be spreading himself too thin. He'll have three shows on Fox next season - "Family Guy," "American Dad" and the new "The Cleveland Show" - and is ostensibly working on a "Family Guy" theatrical release, as well. Throw this into the mix, and that's an awful lot of comedy (and animation) for one guy to manufacture. And for fans to watch, for that matter.

"Well-deserved. Now, could I have just a taste of your untold wealth, since you obviously stole my name and adorability for your little blockbuster movie? Then, I could get my own place in Malibu and get away from my cheapskate owner. C'mon - it'd be a shame if something happened to that little robot of yours. You don't want to see me when I'm angry. (Yeah, they stole that one from me, too.)"

Darin Strauss' new book, "More Than It Hurts You," has been earning rave reviews. It's about a couple whose infant is rushed to the hospital and almost dies, and the doctor who is suspicious of the reasons the child took ill. Once Child Protective Services takes custody of the baby, a media firestorm is unleashed, targeting the doctor, who has the bad luck of being African-American, somewhat imperious and a single mother.

Its deft blend of wit and an acute exploration of social issues has won it numerous comparisons to Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections." Franzen, notoriously, dissed Oprah Winfrey when she named his book for her show's book club, thinking his book was too good for Oprah's viewers (he didn't, however, turn down all the money that came from her fans' buying his book and driving it up the bestseller lists).

Strauss, on the other hand, has no such airs.

When I spoke to him earlier this week, he said, "Someone asked me, 'What is it that you wouldn't do to get Oprah?' And I said, 'There's nothing I wouldn't do. I'd give her a foot massage every day for 20 years.'"

Of Franzen's behavior, Strauss said, "That was so classless. If you don't want to do it, just say no. Don't accept the millions and crap all over her. Also, it was so weird - why are you writing books if you don't want don't want to reach as many people as possible? To say, 'Those aren't the kind of readers I want' just seems ridiculous. Why would you turn away readers, especially in this day and age, when there aren't that many readers to choose from?

"I think she has better taste than most outlets like that. It's pretty great for her to choose 'The Road' or 'Anna Karenina' and give it to 20 million housewives, or 'The Corrections.' I think she's pushed the envelope as far as she can. He should've been honored. If his book is as great as he thinks it is, he'd be doing those people a service, too: Bringing good literature to people who don't ordinarily read great literature is nothing to be sneered at, but to be championed. I'm not saying this just because I want to get on the show; I think she does a real service to people who never would have read Tolstoy or Cormac McCarthy. Millions of people read great books that they wouldn't have, so how can you as a writer not like that idea?"

The interview with Strauss will be in Sunday's Daily News. Oprah, the ball's in your court...

Since no one can stop spoilers from getting out these days, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences just decided to offer up their own spoiler alert, and announced the 10 finalists in the two top categories. Five of these shows will be your Best drama nominees:

* "Boston Legal" (ABC)

* "Damages" (FX)

* "Dexter" (Showtime)

* "Friday Night Lights" (NBC)

* "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC)

* "House" (Fox)

* "Lost" (ABC)

* "Mad Men" (AMC)

* "The Tudors" (Showtime)

* "The Wire" (HBO)

Showtime and basic cable have more finalists than HBO: That's indicative of, well, something. (Basic cable never gets nominated in this category.) I'm not going to predict which of these will actually wind up being nominated (though "Grey's Anatomy" is clearly a recipient of a lockstep mentality - it's been there in the past, even if everyone (even the show's own Katherine Heigl) admits that it slipped this year), but were I a voter, I'd go with (in alphabetical order) "Damages," "Dexter," "House," "Mad Men" and "The Wire." Of course, were those to actually end up the nominees, I wouldn't have a clue as who to root for.

Who would you like to see nominated?

In the Best Comedy category, our finalists are:

* "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO)

* "Entourage" (HBO)

* "Family Guy" (Fox)

* "Flight of the Conchords" (HBO)

* "The Office" (NBC)

* "Pushing Daisies" (ABC)

* "30 Rock" (NBC)

* "Two and a Half Men" (CBS)

* "Ugly Betty" (ABC)

* "Weeds" (Showtime)

Well, HBO has three nominees here. That's more like it. I'll go with (again, alphabetically) "Family Guy," "Flight of the Conchords," "The Office," "Pushing Daisies" and "30 Rock." And you?

"He was a real @sshole. That's on the record, if you want."

That's Darin Strauss, whom I interviewed recently about his new book "More Than It Hurts You" which is getting rave reviews (he also wrote the great conjoined-twin bestseller "Chang & Eng"). The book is a fascinating story about a Long Island couple whose infant is rushed to the hospital with a bizarre illness, the doctor who suspects the mother may be abusing the child and the media firestorm that ensues when the case is made public.

As part of his research into how cable news talking heads become absolutely barking lunatics, Strauss had to do no more than to watch as his wife, Newsweek reporter Susannah Meadows, traversed the media landscape as a reporter covering the Duke lacrosse scandal:

"She had to go on those shows, and she always went on as a reporter, not an advocate," Strauss recalls. "And a lot of the Fox shows would say, 'Did they do it or not?' And she'd say, 'I don't know - I'm just a reporter. I'm just reporting the facts as they come out.' And she went on Tucker Carlson on MSNBC before he was fired, and he started yelling at her.

"It was totally fake," he continues. "It was really eye-opening. I went to the green room with her because I thought it would be fun to see; I'd never been there. Before the show, they were just bantering, friendly, and he said, 'Thanks for coming on,' and then the cameras started rolling and he started screaming at her.

"It was complete theater. He said, 'You're calling these Duke lacrosse guys privileged, and you're saying they're guilty before the trial,' and she said, 'What are you talking about? I don't know if they're guilty or not. I'm just reporting the news.' He wanted to get into a fight. They always want an advocate; they don't want a reporter. So that was interesting to watch. He was a real @sshole. That's on the record, if you want."

Strauss has far kinder words for Oprah Winfrey, which we'll post later.

(The doctors of Johns Hopkins are more proficient than those pictured.)

Eight summers ago, ABC ran a documentary miniseries, "Hopkins 24/7," about life in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Boston. It was an intelligent spin on reality programming, examining doctors, patients and medical traumas and dramas. It got great reviews, ran its course and then, poof, just disappeared.

Until now. Apparently, some ABC executives were looking at those ratings from eight years ago and, in this scary new viewer-depleted world, thought, "Well, if we could replicate those numbers today, that'd be really good, compared to our celebrity auto-racing crap."

And so, "Hopkins" (no 24/7; apparently, the camera people are getting nights and weekends off this time around). And again, some nice human drama, some dedicated doctors, some gripping and agonizing moments.

Tonight, we meet Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinjosa, who snuck into the country and worked as an illegal migrant farm worker before turning his life around and becoming an esteemed brain surgeon. He's driven to be the best, and this evening must deal with Mike, a good-ole-boy whose wife and kids abandoned him, who has a brain tumor; whether it's benign or malignant won't be clear until the doctor operates and navigates a tricky part of the brain.

We're also introduced to Brian Bethea, a friendly, low-key heart-and-lung doctor whose devotion to his job has grievously damaged his marriage. As opposed to some of the other doctors, Bethea allows ABC to follow him home while his marriage (to a woman he's known since grade school) is breaking up, as he's preparing to move into an apartment. All his brilliance and sensitive bedside manner, and his reward is a crummy apartment. (Bethea's plight is examined in subsequent installments, and resolved - for the time being, at least - in episode three).

The medical stories in tonight's episode aren't exactly pulse-pounding, though subsequent episodes feature races against the clock to deliver transplant organs. Executive producer Terence Wrong doesn't seem to trust his audience much - every time we return to Quinones-Hinjosa, he has to repeat the story of his ascendance from humble roots; every time we return to Bethea, he must re-summarize his family problems (did he mention he's known her since sixth grade? Yes, he has). And the series really could've done with a lot less of the emo music.

We meet more doctors in future episodes, but tonight also introduces viewers to Dr. Karen Boyle, Johns Hopkins' first female urologist. Fair enough, there are plenty of male gynecologists, and she reports that her husband is cool with her job and even curious about her daily routine, but you can just imagine how "Swingtown" would manage a plotline like this, and there are a couple of amusingly awkward scenes when she asks patients to drop trou (though mainly funny thanks to the tortured angles from which the cameras capture the moment).

"When someone pulls down their pants, I act like it's an everyday thing, because it is," Dr. Boyle says reasonably. But there are so many unanswered questions, such as: When she starts examining her patients' tackle, are there any problems with, um, tumescence?

Anyway, Boyle's job in tonight's installment is to reverse a man's vasectomy. As with Quinones-Hinjosa's operation, there are moments of mild drama played a little bigger than technically necessary, but in the end, there are happy endings. No, not that kind of happy ending.

- "Hopkins:" 10 tonight (9 Central); ABC (Channel 7).

Tonight's genre-busting transgressions on "Swingtown" include: Marijuana use, skinny-dipping, teen binge-drinking, breaking and entering (no, not what you're thinking; just a house), a student hot for teacher (an ongoing storyline) and endangering the passengers of an entire plane for a little nookie.

Plus, playing Twister while stoned.

Tonight's cold opening aspires to being hot: Tom (Grant Show) is piloting his plane, chattering away to the passengers about how he's about to take the Tokyo route, and a woman appears in the cockpit - it's his wife Trina (Lana Parrilla), which makes this mild for this show, but Tom snaps on the Auto-Pilot and they get busy.

Fly the friendly skies, indeed. They're putting the you-know-what in "cockpit." I got a million of 'em. No, actually, just those two - let's move on.

So Susan (Molly Parker) and Bruce (Jack Davenport) were planning a weekend getaway to their cabin with Roger (Josh Hopkins) and Janet (Miriam Shor), but this whole swinging thing has really come between them, so Janet cancels their weekend trip together because Roger feigns illness ("What do the four of us have in common, anyway?" he asks bitterly). On the spur of the moment Susan invites Tom and Trina to join them, and of course they do. But what about all that swinging that Bruce and Susan are still coming to terms with? "Let's not overthink it," Susan suggests.

Meanwhile, Bruce and Susan's daughter Laurie (Shanna Collins) is working on getting some action of her own, inviting her summer-school teacher to her place while her parents are gone. Son B.J. (Aaron Christian Howles), who's sweet on his neighbor Samantha (Britt Robertson), allows her to lead him astray, too. (All this swinging business may be harmless, but it certainly hasn't done wonders for the Millers' parenting skills.)

Up at the cabin, it's time for a little friskiness: The four are preparing to shower together (how big is that shower in that modest little cabin, anyway?) and, whattaya know, Janet and Roger had a change of heart and show up. Well, this is awkward, but not so awkward that Janet can't make it just a smidgen worse by asking/declaring: "I don't suppose anyone took the time to wipe down the kitchen."

See, and there's the difference between this show being on CBS and it being on, say, Showtime: Here, it's just a tease. On Showtime, they would've had that fourway-shower orgy and then Janet and Roger would've shown up and that would've been so much more awkward.

So it's adding up to a very awkward weekend, only Trina sprinkles some marijuana into Janet's brownie mix, which enlivens what becomes a downer of a dinner, with Tom and Trina/Roger and Janet bickering incessantly. So, nothing better to do while stoned than play Twister and giggle like idiots. But will Janet respect herself in the morning? Or is she on that slippery slope to swingerdom?

Kind of an average if not bad episode, even if the show's delayed gratification is definitely not in keeping with its '70s gestalt. But this continues the show's producers' trying to have it both ways - "Swingtown" wants to be taken seriously as some sort of sociological treatise even while it camps it up, a tightrope you'd think few would want to tread.

- "Swingtown:" 10 tonight (9 Central); CBS (Channel 2).

This one makes me sad. Here is my sad face:

So, there was this couple on this (need I say it? "reality") show, "The Real Housewives of Orange County," and apparently they didn't get along so well. In fact, they didn't get along so well so well that Bravo is bringing them back to not get along some more!

"Date My Ex: Jo & Slade" is a "reality competition" series featuring Slade Smiley trying to find some dud(e) who'll put up with Jo De La Rosa. It'll debut next month, and in the meantime, Bravo has announced a fundraiser before the show premieres in which "men and women can 'recycle' their ex by auctioning them off for a date with someone new." Yes, now that the relationship is over, the final indignity: Treating one's ex as chattel.

Given how depressing the forced jollity of this whole enterprise sounds, no wonder the press release trumpets, as the principal selling point aside from the auction itself, "a VIP open bar for the crowd of 350 ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, ex-wives and husbands, ex-lovers and partners."

In a way, this kind of sounds like wife-swapping without actual spouses, people bartering their exes like kids would baseball cards. It'd be something to behold, if only to see if some long-buried bitter recriminations will surface.

Speaking of which, join us tomorrow as we take a look at the new episode of "Swingtown," featuring that potent combination of pot brownies and Twister!

This is so true I can't believe mankind's luck: On Monday at 9 p.m., History will present the two-hour documentary, "ALL ABOUT DUNG."© Yes, two solid, sometimes mushy, occasionally watery hours about waste.

(Apples poop?)

From the press release:

"The history of human and animal waste provides a surprising window into where we came from and where we are today. It is a tool used by historians to reveal secrets from our past and also an important natural resource that cultures have used throughout history to survive. Dung can reveal everything from diet to technology to the environment."

Indeed, some of the shocking revelations in this documentary include the fact that the Eiffel Tower is actually constructed from weapons-grade elephant dung, members of a remote tribe in the South American rain forest actually poop their own weight in waste on a daily basis, "According to Jim" is not shot on film or videotape but on a rare, emulsified excrement manufactured by hand in Canada and that a small, 4.8-oz. dropping from the silk-furred marmoset could have done a better job running the United States for the past seven years than the guy in charge.

What's even more impressive is how host Monty Halls got someone to foot the bill so he could traverse the planet to look at excrement. Call it the Crappy World Tour:

"On an unusual safari, Monty travels to Oregon, where a 14,000-year-old deposit of human dung reveals that the first people in North America may have arrived 1,300 years earlier than once thought. And to India, where batteries are made from dung and housewarming rituals include using sacred cow dumps as good luck. We watch as Monty treads (carefully) through a 100-foot-tall mountain of bat guano teeming with insect life in Borneo."

Why didn't he travel to Scotland in search of that toilet in the movie "Trainspotting?"

Finally, the press release triumphantly enthuses:

"In this epic odyssey through natural and human history, our aversion to poop just might turn into an understanding of how miraculous and essential the stuff really is."

How miraculous can it be if babies can manufacture the stuff without even trying? And if it had proven inessential? Then what? It's not like we can outlaw it or anything.

(I really should receive some sort of commendation or medal for the heroic restraint employed in choosing the images accompanying this post (not to mention the puns I avoided -- not that you should feel similarly constrained when leaving comments). It's very fortunate I haven't eaten today, because some of what I saw in my Google Images search ... well, enough said.)

- "ALL ABOUT DUNG"©: 9 p.m. Monday, History.

I actually posted this a while back, but since the show's airing tonight, I offer it again:

"Baby Borrowers" is the show that dares to ask the provocative question: Are today's teenagers psychologically capable of the demands of parenthood? Really, NBC? Really? This is your idea of primetime broadcast entertainment?

NBC must have asked itself that same question: The show was originally scheduled to premiere today (Feb. 18); instead, the even less-promising-sounding "My Dad is Better than Your Dad" will debut instead.

"Baby Borrowers" follows five teenage couples (all over 18, so they're legal, lest you cavil over underage booty calls; some couples in the British version were under 18, however) as they experience, utterly unprepared, the rigors of parenthood. So basically, the show will expose to America the only people who might be worse parents than Britney Spears.

The show begins with the requisite hyperbolic narration: "On this quiet cul de sac in a small American town, a groundbreaking experiment is about to take place, one that will change the lives of its participants - forever."

That "small American town" was in Idaho, which has lax child-labor laws. (Like the New Mexico legislature, which got duped by "Kid Nation," Idaho is considering making their laws more stringent.) Additionally, NBC didn't pay anyone, so, hence, no "labor." So they can keep children on camera for longer than ordinary labor laws for TV productions. What kind of idiot would allow NBC to make money off of their efforts (or their putting their child in harm's way) for free?

First, the couples deal with infants 6 months old or so, then toddlers, then pre-teens and their siblings, then teenagers just like themselves. None of it seems particularly well-conceived in terms of being a "groundbreaking experiment," but having teens try to parent teens is particularly idiotic: By the times a parent is dealing with a teen, s/he'll simply by aging have a lot more wisdom and understanding and won't be mistaken for a peer to bully.

"And," the narration continues, "just when they think their experiment is at an end, they'll have to take care of the elderly." Is America ready to accept the changing of adult diapers as entertainment?

Of course, most of the couples selected have at least one drama queen in place to make it all about themselves and not the kids. Kelly, who's dating Austin, melts down before the kids even arrive - the women are asked to wear devices that simulate pregnancy, and Austin laughs as she puts it on. "How can you laugh at me?" she demands petulantly. "Don't touch me!" Uh, Kelly, did it occur to you that maybe he was just laughing at the contraption, or the idea of the contraption, or laughing in a more meta sense at the nature of what this show considers drama or verisimilitude?

Run, Austin! Run! As far as you can get!

Alicea, of the beloved duo Cory and Alicea, gets all p!ssy when the mother of the baby she's caring for comes to explain to her that you don't just try to feed a baby for a few minutes then give up when it doesn't cooperate. "I'm not going to take care of it anymore, because of the mom," she kvetches. "I don't want to have anything to do with it." "It."

Run, Cory! Run! As far as your feet can take you!

Then there's Sean of Sean and Kelsey; she wants children but he's not so sure. But he demonstrates a working knowledge of the Machiavellian machinations of reality TV when he reveals that he's only doing the show because he thinks it'll convince his g.f. that babies are a blight upon society.

Run, Kelsey! Run! As far as your fertile womb can go! But then, Kelsey is bewildered when the baby responds to bad-dad Sean more than to her.

The rest of the first episode is given over to the usual reality-show tedium: That big shopping-for-baby-food expedition, the crying-baby montage, the generic conflicts.

Run, Viewer! Run! There must be a "Law & Order" rerun on somewhere!

- "Baby Borrowers:" 8 tonight (7 Central); NBC (Channel 4).

The nice thing about HDNet Movies' Sneak Preview series, which presents independent films before they debut in (a few) theaters, is that it allows you to avoid the rush. For example, tonight you can tune out of "Finding Amanda" two days before everyone else ignores it in the theater.

"Finding Amanda," written and directed by Peter Tolan (co-creator, with Denis Leary, of "Rescue Me" and "The Job"), is a black comedy without much comedy. Matthew Broderick stars as Taylor, a once-promising writer now lucky to be working on a crummy sitcom, who has beaten back addictions to drugs and alcohol but still has a serious gambling jones. His shrewish, disapproving wife (Maura Tierney in a thankless role that usually goes to someone you've never heard of) tells him his niece Amanda (Brittany Snow, that sweet little clean-cut girl on "American Dreams") is working as a prostitute and hanging out with a scuzzy element in general in Vegas. Taylor opts to head to Vegas - to rescue his niece, mind you, not to gamble, but, well, if there's time for gambling, and, well, if some booze is available...

Taylor wants to put Amanda in rehab, see when he needs it just as badly. And the milquetoast Taylor is hardly the guy to be going up against the elements Amanda's hanging out with these days. (A running joke has Taylor repeatedly incapable of convincing anyone that Amanda is his niece, not his escort for the evening.)

Broderick isn't the guy you want in a comedy that's misfiring - he's already in his default uncomfortable mode, so it looks like he's cringing at the material (and maybe he is). Snow is actually quite winningly kooky as an incongruously cheerful hooker, but the role is pretty insulting. Remember, though, Tolan helps write all those deep female roles on "Rescue Me."

- "Finding Amanda:" 5:15 and 9 p.m., HDNet Movies.

NBC will broadcast the first episode ever of "Saturday Night Live" this Saturday, which was hosted by George Carlin.

In making the announcement, "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels said, "You never forget the people who were there at the beginning. George Carlin helped give 'Saturday Night Live' its start as our first host. He was gracious, fearless, and most important of all, funny."

Want to be really depressed? Remember how young you were when you watched that first episode? Of those who appeared in it - regular cast members Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Larraine Newman and Gilda Radner and guests Carlin, Janis Ian, Billy Preston and Andy Kaufman - 45% are now dead.

- "Saturday Night Live:" 11:30 p.m. Saturday (10:30 p.m. Central), NBC (Channel 4).

If there's anything Hollywood does better than Keeping The Magic Alive, it's extravagantly expensive and salacious show trials. Art Buchwald v. Paramount Pictures, The People v. O.J. Simpson/Robert Blake/Phil Spector, Denise Richards v. Charlie Sheen, Decent Human Beings Everywhere v. Anthony Pellicano - all examples of the legal system re-imagined as performance art, of judicial history re-written as tragedy and farce simultaneously.

To which we will soon be able to add: Wally v. "Wall-E."

"Wall-E," of course, is Pixar's latest masterpiece, about a lone robot standed on Earth after all human life has vamoosed, tasked with mopping up the mountains of garbage that have been left behind. Wally, perhaps not-so-of-course-ly, is my dog. He's suing for copyright infringement (even he understands it's all about protecting the brand) and defamation of character.

Exhibit A: "Wall-E:"

Exhibit B: Wally:

Immediately, the similarities are plain: The same soulful eyes, the same stocky barrel-chest, the same daily existential grind plodded through in silence, the same philosophical disconnect with blinkered, obese and capricious consumers of material goods, the same inability to solve a Rubik's Cube.

The differences, however, are worrisome and constitute an attack on my dog's good name: Wally would never befriend a cockroach, as "Wall-E" does; he would chase it down and give a stern staring-at. And anyone who knows Wally would tell you that he's hardly an obedient automaton: Were he to be left alone for any period of time, the last thing he would do would be to tidy up. Also: not so much on the movie musicals.

So what if it's a frivolous lawsuit? Pixar has deep pockets, which should get deeper with this movie, which is one of the year's best and may be one of their most profound and heartfelt to date (which, of course, is saying something, though the question is how kids will respond to the film - it's quite possible their parents will love it while they'll only like it, rather than vice versa). Why not give Wally a taste of those riches?

At any rate, at this point the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences should just officially change the name of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film to the "Pixar."

Everyone's getting on the "Mad Men" bandwagon these days. (We were on from the beginning as this lengthy explication and this even lengthier chat-up prove). After recent cover stories in Emmy and Entertainment Weekly magazines and getting a scad of nominations in the Television Critics Association's TCA Awards, comes this New York Times article about the gathering hoopla surrounding the show as it prepares to return July 27 (the first season will be released on DVD next Tuesday).

And I'm OK with this, I think. But shows can become the victim of their own success and that self-satisfaction can wind up like an irritant onscreen (think "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," "My Name is Earl" and "Scrubs," to name a few), and though creator Matthew Weiner is too smart to let that happen, it's something that can take you out of the proceedings, something that can make a great show merely good and a good show unwatchable.

Some of the bandwagoning, per the Times:

* An advertising supplement in Advertising Age, art-directed to look the way the magazine did in 1960, with Sterling Cooper's Don Draper ruminating on the art of making people buy stuff they don't need.

* Zippo lighters with the "Mad Men" logo (which is also the packaging for the DVD set).

* "Mad Men"-themed window displays in Bloomingdale's.

* A CD of songs from the show (inevitable, these days, but shouldn't they release it on vinyl?) and a 2009 calendar with stills from the series.

All well and good, but they're missing some good bets. To wit:

* Marlboro cigarettes ads featuring Don Draper's charismatic visage puffing away, with the copy reading: "Who cares if they'll kill you? We want you to smoke cigarettes!"

* Chivas Regal Scotch ads with the legend: "Scotch. The original Rohypnol."

* Victoria's Secret hawking big, fat padded bras, "For the woman whose figure is fuller than her emancipation!"

* Retro merchandise such as fedoras, electric typewriters and the Kodak Carousel slide projector, with marketing promising, "Only a Mad Man would want this stuff!"

Despite hemorrhaging viewers, the broadcast networks sure did well selling off their ad time. ABC was even able increase their rates for commercial time on the strength of a strong fall 2007 and wishful-thinking ignoring its collapse this past spring. Fox, meanwhile, continued strong, and its "Remote-Free TV" concept seems to have paid off: Advertisers were happy to spend 35-40% more to get their ads in the highly buzzed new shows "Fringe" and "Dollhouse," both of which will boast fewer commercials per hour.

NBC even did better than it did last year, though it filled its ad time by dropping its rates. (And as good as the broadcast networks did, cable did even better, with the Turner channels (TNT, TBS and truTV) among those raking in the dough.)

Meanwhile, that other old-media dinosaur, print journalism, is having similar problems with subscribers but is paying far more dearly for it: "After an 8% decline in advertising revenue last year, newspapers are seeing an additional 12% drop so far this year, and financial reports issued by some recently would suggest a 14-15% decline in May."

No; wait, that doesn't seem appropriate:

That's more like it.

George Carlin, who taught the world all the dirty words it needs to know and littered his material with trenchant social insights, died Sunday of heart failure.

Carlin began his career as a more conventional comic in suit and tie and sans beard and ponytail, but discovered he had more in common with the kids protesting over the Vietnam war than their parents, for whom he was performing, so reinvented himself as a counter-culture comedian (albeit not without some peril - he lost gigs and had his life threatened when he re-emerged with his new persona), and the rest is history.

Here's Carlin with a typically acerbic yet philosophical take on "saving the planet:"

If Carlin doesn't get into heaven, it may be because of this clip, in which he deconstructs/eviscerates the 10 Commandments:

Is it just me, or are celebrities dropping these days at a kind of fearsome rate?

It's hard to think when your brain's melting, so I'll leave you this week with Comedy Central's cut-downs of the entire week of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report." Interestingly, both offered respectful send-offs to Tim Russert. But, you know, with these cut-downs available, what's the point in wasting four hours a week watching entire episodes?

Here's Jon:

Here's Stephen:

Here's to the temperature slipping under 90 degrees sometime soon.

Can't take the heat? Here's what I did: I changed the location on the Weather widgit on my MacBook's Dashboard from Los Angeles (96 degrees) to Vancouver (66 degrees). Much better.

For those who can't live in an alternate reality, here are the five steps of coping with heat, as set forth in Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' book, "On Heat and Melting."

Denial: It can't be this hot - Republicans say that global warming is a myth!

Anger: G@ddammit, it's blistering! I can't work in a f@%&ing sauna! Who can live like this? (Add your own Al Swearengen riff here.)

Bargaining: Please, God, just knock off five degrees. Five degrees, and at least I won't be sitting in such a big puddle of my own sweat.

Depression: I'm never going to accomplish anything today and then I'm going to lose my job and then I won't even have the shade provided by the roof over my head. I'm panting more than my dog - what's the point of going on?

Acceptance: Ah, well, at least I'm losing some weight, so at least I'll leave a slender dehydrated corpse.

Check to see how many of these headlines accompany reviews of "Get Smart" when it opens tomorrow:

Sorry about that, moviegoers

Where's a Cone of Silence when you really need one?

(Yes, I know it's not the Cone of Silence, but it looks silly, and that's more important.)

86 Agent 86

Get Bent

Variety's review of "Get Smart," obviously written by a fan of the old TV show, quibbles with tweaks in tone and characterization, but kind of buries the lede (that's journalism jargon, not a misspelling, honest): It's just not funny. Now, the show hasn't aged all that well, but a serviceable remake would've been entirely possible had they, say, bothered to write some jokes instead of try to find places in which to not-too-awkwardly shoehorn in the show's sundry catch-phrases.

No blaming the cast - Steve Carell as Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, Anne Hathaway as Agent 99, Dwayne Johnson as Agent 23 (whose early amusing moments only underscore how much he's wasted otherwise) and Alan Arkin as The Chief - who do what they can and obviously would shine together in a competent production. But the script and direction are as inept as Max himself - there's scarcely any point in explaining the plot, aside from bad guys/good guys/turgid intrigue/goofy stunts/listless CGI (there's a skydiving sequence that I'm sure the filmmakers consider an homage to the one in "The Spy Who Loved Me" but pretty much just comes off as grand theft).

But what the film is really noteworthy for is its acid-drenched depiction of downtown Los Angeles' topography. The climactic chase sequence centers around a bomb planted at Disney Hall, and in the universe "Get Smart" inhabits (I suppose we should be grateful it's not ours), the surrounding downtown L.A. has an airport (!), what appears to be an oil refinery (!!) and, in some shots, few if any skyscrapers (!!!). It's that detailed attention to verisimilitude that makes "Get Smart" the half-@ssed hackery that it is.

Run, Steve and Anne! Run as far from this movie as your feet can take you!

Since "MVP" pretends that the whole world is caught up with the fortunes of a pro-hockey team that can't even afford a city name, yes, it must be and in fact is a Canadian production imported, for some reason, to America.

Over images of female busts, legs and butts getting tarted up while men in tight close-up don jerseys and skates (no faces are seen, perhaps subliminally admitting that the characters here are interchangeable or unimportant, only their physical attributes are noteworthy), the angry (in a polite, Canadian kind of way) song "Who Taught You to Live Like That?" by Sloan plays. For this show, a more appropriate question for the writers would be "Who taught you to write like that?"

The series opens tonight at a party at a palatial mansion, thrown by a veteran player's wife who tells those in attendance, "No one's to go home hungry, sober or alone, or else I'll be highly insulted." While team members ogle the nearby eye candy, her husband's off snorting cocaine and her daughter's off getting busy with one of the players, resulting in this immortal exchange:

"My name's Eddie."

"Whatever."

Histrionic tragedy ensues, as histrionic tragedy must in melodramas, which serves to show just how little loyalty the team has to its players and their families (this particular insight into the sports world is shocking!). But at least that clears room in the team's salary cap to draft small-town, trailer-park-dwelling phenom Trevor (you can tell he's a hockey star in the making because he wears a jersey that reads, simply, "Hockey"), the very embodiment of innocence even if his scheming and skanky girlfriend Tabbi isn't.

Meanwhile, Gabe, the team captain - conveniently enough, the coach's son - turns his attentions to Connie, the one virgin in this unnamed town (one of her friends asks her, "How long are you going to hang onto your virginity, anyway?", like it's a personal affront). She's resistant for some reason, and for some other reason mortified when the local paper runs a front-page story about the fact that a photographer took pictures of Gabe and her looking at one another, nothing more. (Where is this unnamed town? Despite its unhealthy obsession with the private lives of its hockey team, I think I want to go there, because the newspapers are obviously thriving if they can afford to send a photographer out to tail a hockey player for days on end looking for dirt.) When Gabe presses her as to why she can't deign to date a studly hockey superstar, she sputters, "I have a degree in romantic poetry!"

Oh, and there's the player who maintains a rather sizable collection of videotapes of all the women he's been caught high-sticking; each is inscribed with a descriptor, such as: "Funeral Chick." (Judging from the size of his collection, he's pretty much worked his way through Townsville, or whatever it may be called; dude needs to get traded to a bigger city.)

So anyway, the show juxtaposes innocence and decadence in the most ham-handed of ways. It has this slippery way of dealing with time - things that should take a while to develop happen very quickly while things that should occur immediately take their sweet time. Given that the show is produced for what would amount to Ben Silverman's pocket change, they can't actually show any hockey action, just people pretending to watch and react. (SOAPnet is inexplicably giving this a considerable marketing push, odd for such a cheap and cheesy show.)

So yes, "MVP" is fairly terrible, almost terrible enough to be entertaining but not quite. Its writers should be sent to the penalty box.

- "MVP:" 11 tonight, SOAPnet.

EDITOR'S NOTE: CBS, in offering its screener of its fall 2008 pilots, noted that the episodes were "not for review." So let me make this as clear as I possibly can:

This is not a review. It's an impressionistic stroll through three random hours of my life, like "Howl" maybe, only if a TV critic had written it.

OK; now, that out of the way:

CBS got all avant-garde with us last year, with their musical-that-made-"Springtime-for-Hitler"-look-palatable "Viva Laughlin" and their children-as-indentured-servants-reality-atrocity "Kid Nation" and their naughty, naughty "Swingtown" (which got consigned to the summer and is in fact on tonight and is probably worth watching if you have nothing better to do and probably even if you do have something better to do). "Viva Laughlin" and "Kid Nation" tanked, of course, and then the network got nervous about "Swingtown" and so by dumping it in the summer set it up for failure but failed at that, as it did pretty well in its premiere, but that doesn't mean they'll be renewing it anytime soon even though Showtime should and should've had it all along.

So anyway, for the 2008 season, CBS has decided to play it safe. Which means:

* Another Jerry Bruckheimer production.

* Another crime procedural, only this one breaks all the rules because, you see, it's not produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

* A sitcom about a likable divorced guy trying to negotiate that wacky, wacky singles world. (Aside: I was chatting with a friend in the industry recently, who told me she had lately been inundated with pitches that pretty much were this show with minor tweaks. She was sick sick sick, I tell you, of these pitches. But this trend does give us a pretty good idea of how Hollywood marriages are going these days.)

* A romantic comedy scheduled for Friday nights and aimed at all the women who don't have dates on Friday and therefore are stranded alone with their pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey, even though NBC and ABC have tried this in the past with "Miss Match" and "Men in Trees," respectively, with not much if any success, so apparently more women are getting dates on Friday night than the broadcast networks are assuming. (So maybe it's the men who aren't getting dates on Fridays...)

* Oh, and some other stuff.

No point in discussing "Eleventh Hour" (the Bruckheimer production) or midseason series "Harper's Island," because they were only available in trailer form. But allow us to take a "sneak peek," if you will (and even if you won't), at the other four new CBS series, and prepare to have your breath taken away, if not by the shows, if not by our thoughts on said shows, but maybe by the guy sneaking up behind you to punch you in the gut. Made you look, didn't we? (And at least give CBS credit for giving us a look at its upcoming shows; none of the other networks have bothered to do so.)

* "Project Gary:" Jay Mohr is Gary, a recently divorced guy with a shrewish ex-wife (Paula Marshall), the requisite kids and a budding relationship with a younger paramour named Vanessa (Jaime King). Clearly, the creators really truly sincerely understand women, which is why they have his crank of a bitter ex engaged, generously unmotivatedly, to their much-older former marriage counselor (Larry Miller, learning that roles for veteran comic actors are few and far between these days), and why they have Vanessa engage in a narratively necessary but logically unfathomable meltdown when she learns Gary has kids. Some one-liners boast the requisite zing. Some induce the expected groan. Hooking Gary up in the pilot with a vaguely empathetic character would seem to cut the show off at the knees as far as future potential comic incidents are concerned. Fine work all around!

* "Worst Week:" An engaged (and secretly pregnant) couple are about to reveal all to her disapproving parents but the guy is a(n ostensibly) lovable lout who can't help but to stumble into humiliating situations that only underscore the wisdom of her parents' disapproval. Based on a British series, "The Worst Week of My Life," that was actually funny (and didn't feature the pre-wedding pregnancy, which came in season two after the marriage and so is an odd addition here), only it lasted seven episodes a season and had each episode cover a day's time, which this show clearly won't, so what's up with the title? Why not "Worst Month?" Or "Worst Year?" Or "Worst Show?" Shot in single camera, which wouldn't be so bad except there are four-camera-sitcom-style punchlines that really need that four-camera-sitcom-style canned laughter, and when those chuckles don't come, my God do those jokes fall flat.

* "The Ex List:" Elizabeth Reaser stars as Bella, a too-pointedly named thirtysomething woman whom any reasonable person would be happy to hang out with - she's funny, something resembling funky, attractive, wears clothes nicely and seems to have a level head on her shoulders. Oh, wait, that's until she meets with a psychic who tells her that if she doesn't get married within the upcoming year, she'll die a spinster, and that her soul mate is actually someone she has already dated - and she believes it. So, really, she's stupid and easily manipulated, and any reasonable person would want to stay the hell away from her. The interaction between Bella and her friends is loose and fun, but the show's premise, well, ensures at the least that not many men will be watching.

* "The Mentalist:" Even though this is nearly a thoroughgoing steal from "Psych," it's CBS's most promising new show of the fall. Simon Baker may have finally found his star-making vehicle as Patrick Jane, a guy who once passed himself off as a celebrity psychic but who in reality is just really, really good at paying attention to and accurately interpreting details and body language and the like and so now he helps the cops solve crimes. And, yeah, a guy who just happens to be really observant is hardly much of a heroic figure, but as in "Psych," they have fun with the conceit, but unlike "Psych," they weigh Jane down with all sorts of psychic baggage, which, you know, whatever, and maybe there'll be a little frisson with his boss (Robin Tunney). Besides, it's in a prime position, Tuesday nights couched between "NCIS" and "Without a Trace," which CBS moved from its cushy Thursday night timeslot to try to revive its deadly fortunes at 10 p.m. Tuesdays, and they'll probably succeed at least a little, though its audience won't be nearly as big which means the network's weekly viewership numbers may actually drop a little even though they've revived a moribund timeslot, but that's not the type of inside baseball you come here for, is it.

So I'll stop now and tease upcoming posts: SOAPnet's crapfest "MVP," the theatrical crapfest "Get Smart" and something that is not a crapfest at all: Fox's new and pretty much unseen J.J. Abrams thriller, "Fringe."

A while back, Stephen Colbert asked viewers with too a whole lot of free time to take John McCain's speech on the night Barack Obama secured the Democratic Presidential nomination and, using the green screen McCain himself thoughtfully provided, work their low-tech magic. Here are a few of their contributions. Don't worry - they're all short.

Hey, I didn't know McCain was in "Deliverance," did you?

And, inevitably, given who's best with this technology, "Star Wars:"

And "Pulp Fiction," too! Man, he's everywhere, like "Forrest Gump."

McCain's even done a little Bollywood:

Given all his film appearances, it's no wonder he won an Oscar, though his acceptance speech is kind of a downer:

Speaking of "Forrest Gump," in this one, McCain is inserted, "Gump"-like, in other historical speeches:

Another one emphasizing McCain's old-timey-ness:

McCain bores kittens:

Here, McCain's given appropriate musical accompaniment while he presents his laundry list of the nation's ills:

This one, albeit somewhat clumsily, juxtaposes McCain's walking slowly away from President Bush in his speech with a "Meet the Press" appearance where he gave Bush's policies a nice big bear-hug:

That's more than enough, don't you think?

TCM, as it is wont to do, is taking the recent death of a beloved movie star and making lemonade, or something like that. To commemorate the Hollywood career of dancer Cyd Charisse, who had leg, leg and more leg, TCM will present three of her best-known films on Friday, June 27. The schedule (on the West Coast, that is):

5 p.m. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952): Pretty much the most famous movie musical comedy ever made, about the transition from film's silent era into the talkies, co-starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor.

7 p.m. "The Band Wagon" (1953): Comic mishaps behind-the-scenes of a seemingly doomed Broadway musical, co-starring Fred Astaire, Oscar Levant and Jack Buchanan.

9 p.m. "Silk Stockings" (1957): Musical remake of "Ninotchka," co-starring Fred Astaire, Janis Paige and Peter Lorre.

Alas, TCM's giving a pass to her turn in "Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood" and her 1979 "Love Boat" appearance.

Quite the busy afternoon - a couple of interviews, searching down a lot of dead links to that rumored "Fringe" pilot online (more on that later) and, of course, preparing an artful commentary on CBS's new fall shows.

But first, a lamentation on the death of originality in the broadcast networks' programming. It's not that a bunch of new shows are derivative - it's that they're all Americanizations of successful overseas TV shows or books. Is this the networks' payback for the writers strike - not allowing writers to come up with original ideas but instead simply retool old ones?

Herewith, a complete collection of upcoming shows and their source material, and this isn't even counting NBC's "My Own Worst Enemy," which is "Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde" meets "True Stories," or CBS's "The Mentalist," which is a more serious version of USA's "Psych." They may not be entirely original but at least the writers stole the ideas honestly instead of just buying the rights to some other show. The shows below signal an industry throwing its hands up as one and saying, "That's it - we're out of ideas."

NBC (85% of new scripted series from another source)
"Office Spinoff:" "The Office," itself based on the British series.
"Kath and Kim:" Australian sitcom.
"Crusoe:" Daniel Defoe novel.
"Knight Rider:" '80s NBC show.
"Merlin:" Arthurian legend.
"Kings:" David and Goliath story from the Bible.

ABC (50% of new scripted series from another source)
"Life on Mars:" British show.
"In the Motherhood:" An online series.

CBS (60% of new scripted series from another source)
"Worst Week:" British sitcom.
"Eleventh Hour:" British drama.
"The Ex-List:" Israeli show.

Fox (33% of new scripted series from another source)
"Sit Down, Shut Up:" Animated version of live-action British show.
"The Cleveland Show:" "Family Guy" spinoff.

The CW (50% of new scripted series from another source)
"Surviving the Filthy Rich:" Book by Zoey Dean, "How To Teach Filthy Rich Girls." Does the new title really represent an improvement?

It's not shaping up to be a particularly auspicious fall TV season: Usually by this time, we have received screeners of all new broadcast network shows. This year, only CBS has come through (and we'll discuss their lineup later). NBC (which ordered many of its series without producing pilots), ABC (which has only one new scripted show premiering in the fall, "Life on Mars," which is going through a period of anxiously recasting several roles), Fox (which has the most promising new lineup) and The CW (which should consider itself lucky to still be in business) - have all saved on postage by keeping their screeners out of critics' hands.

But according to this report, if I went on a forensic search of the Internets, I could probably find J.J. Abrams' pilot for Fox's highly anticipated "Fringe" out there somewhere:

"Fox was very careful with this expensive pilot, opting for private industry screenings rather than mailing out DVD screeners. The network is trying to sell the show to advertisers at a premium in exchange for episodes running with fewer ads. Once on BitTorrent, halting a file's distribution is pretty much impossible, though 'Fringe' studio Warner Bros. is one of more aggressive and schooled companies on such matters."

For what it's worth, BitTorrent currently seems to claim no knowledge of "Fringe" - which stars Anna Torv and Lance Reddick as Feds and Joshua Jackson as the son of an institutionalized scientist investigating paranormal activity and really gross stuff. After some random noodling online until I got bored, I found a couple of sites that seemed to have it but weren't particularly forthcoming with the goods (hey, but I found a site where I could've watched "The Incredible Hulk" with Japanese subtitles as shot from the far left side of a movie theater!).

Nonetheless, online reviews suggest the show is living up to its hype - it's favorably compared to "Lost" and "The X-Files;" there's even whispers that the pilot was intentionally leaked in order to boost the buzz further.

According to the link above, "Fringe" has one Fed seeming to crib, then invert, a catch phrase from "The X-Files:" "The truth ... the truth is ... we're irrelevant."

And so are TV critics once everyone gets so paranoid about spoilers that they eventually don't even allow the show to be aired because they don't want anyone knowing what happens.

CBS News' Lara Logan, tonight on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:" "If I watched the news on American TV, I would blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts."

Gee, Laura, tell us what you really think.

Not that she's wrong. Logan has been covering the war in Iraq for CBS. She has some pretty harsh words for American news outlets that have buried the war, the Pentagon's censorship practices and for Americans who have grown weary of the coverage, leaving soldiers feeling forgotten in the midst of such complacency. Even Stewart seemed slightly taken aback at the vociferousness of her criticism, unsure of how to respond.

Sci Fi Channel came out with a blitheringly idiotic list the other day, which they tip with the title: SCI FI's Visions For Tomorrow "Top Things To Read, Watch, And Do To Save The World."

TOP 10 BOOKS TO READ

1984 by George Orwell
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
The Stand by Stephen King
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

TOP 10 TELEVISION SHOWS TO WATCH

Firefly
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
The X-Files
Heroes
Stargate: SG-1
Doctor Who
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Babylon 5
Star Trek
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

TOP 10 FILMS TO WATCH

Blade Runner (1982)
The Matrix (1999)
The Terminator (1984)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Children of Men (2006)
Armageddon (1998)

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO

Read.
Recycle.
Register to vote! Cast your ballot in November.
Eat healthier.
Be kind.
Empower children and yourself through education.
Protect wildlife.
Conserve energy by switching to compact fluorescent light (CFLs).
Plant a tree and print less paper.
Give blood.

Not sure how watching "Star Gate SG-1" or "Armageddon" will help save the world, but have at it. It's a lot easier than to "Be kind:" That's so vague - to whom? Polluters? Blackwater executives?

But congratulations - by reading this blog, you are actually helping to save the world.

Even someone who can only aspire to the job title of burglar knows that even when the lights are on that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone's home. Likewise, TV viewers understand that just because the broadcast networks are insisting their lights are still on by touting original summer programming, that doesn't mean it's anything to stay home for.

Mediaweek reports that the networks' summer reality programming isn't exactly cutting it. Well, "Hell's Kitchen" and "So You Think You Can Dance" is doing all right on Fox, and "Million-Dollar Password" is doing OK for CBS. But CBS's scripted show "Swingtown" is one of the most popular summer series so far, suggesting that not all viewers simply snap off their brains at the summer equinox.

The networks feel they have to trot out torpid nonsense like "Celebrity Circus," "Baby Borrowers" (debuting next week) and "Greatest American Dog" (coming July 10) because scripted shows don't repeat nearly as well as they used to. But look at last night: The highest-rated shows were repeats of "House," "Bones," "Two and a Half Men" and "CSI: Miami," while NBC's "American Gladiators" and "Nashville Star" and ABC's "Bachelorette" were pretty underwhelming, while "The Mole" absolutely tanked - more people watched Nickelodeon's "iCarly Saves TV" last Friday, a night with far fewer viewers available, than "The Mole."

And next month, cable really uncorks its arsenal of original scripted series, which will really drain viewers away from the broadcast networks. Here's a list of some of the programs:

Tuesday, July 1: "Secret Life of the American Teenager" (ABC Family)
Thursday, July 10: "Burn Notice" (USA)

Sunday, July 13: "Generation Kill" (HBO)
Monday, July 14: "The Closer"/"Saving Grace" (TNT)
Tuesday, July 15: "The Cleaner" (A&E)
Friday, July 18: "Monk"/"Psyche" (USA)
Sunday, July 27: "Mad Men" (AMC)

Among the broadcast networks, during that time only CBS will present a new scripted show, "Flashpoint," on Friday, July 11. I haven't seen "Secret Life of the American Teenager" (not to be confused, I hope, with Showtime's "Secret Diary of a Call Girl") or "The Cleaner" yet, but all of those other shows are as good as if not better than anything the broadcast networks offer.

In recent years, the broadcast networks have lost a sizable chunk of audience from fall to fall as more viewers venture out and dip a toe into the cable waters, like what they see and not feel the need to return. Network executives insist that airing dreck like CBS's upcoming reality competition "Jingles" (in which contestants write tunes for commercials - that'll be thrilling TV) does, in fact, constitute something more than simply airing test patterns, but audiences are clearly not buying their argument, so these executives are clearly just whistling past the graveyard as they load their summer schedules with shows determined to drive away their viewers and hoping for the best come fall.

What's wrong with putting some decent TV on during the summer? As media analyst John Rash put it, "Individual program costs need to be weighed. But the price paid in eroding audiences also has to be considered."

If that "CBS Evening News" thing doesn't pan out, Katie Couric has a pretty modest Plan B: posting videos on YouTube.

Couric has created her own channel at YouTube, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of Couric as she steps out on the town or appears on other programs, such as the "Today" show or "Larry King Live." Per the L.A. Times, these clips "display the mischievous and often hammy personality that the newscaster doesn't get to show in her current post," but that seems a euphemism for "wallows in cutesy self-indulgence that breaks the first rule of journalism - never make yourself the story."

"Hi, YouTube!" she greets viewers in one; later, she kind of pushes it by burbling, "Very exciting - we're in the elevator going up to Larry King." Yeah, elevator rides are a thrill a minute.

My favorite bit comes when she's wandering around backstage at the "Today" show and happens up Charlie Gibson in the green room. Charlie turns, sees the camera and when Katie explains it's for her YouTube channel, he turns away in something akin to disgust.

Well, it's nothing Gibson or Brian Williams would do; you decide if that's a good thing. But despite the star power, they're still home movies, and generally, people would do anything to get out of seeing others' home movies.

But you be the judge: Here's one of the most popular, in which Couric sings with Bette Midler at a benefit. She waves at us viewers a lot, and in the brief snippets, shows she can carry a tune if not boast a lot of stage presence. (She also does what Fox News Channel would call a "terrorist fist jab" with Midler - is Katie a terrorist?)

So, what do you make of it: Perky pastiche, or attention-grabbing waste of time?

John de Mol, the man who has blighted the world with "Big Brother" and "Deal or No Deal," wants to give back to you, the people, and so now he's created a website where anyone with a little free time on their hands can pitch an idea for a new reality show. If your idea gets picked up, you'll get paid cash-money (or maybe in gasoline, a far more valuable and rare commodity these days).

"If someone brings us the next 'Big Brother' or 'Deal or No Deal,' yes, it could mean millions," de Mol tells USA Today, although the website promises only $50,000, so maybe the millions just go to him.

(The video at the site seems to think people who have ideas for TV shows are pretty stupid. But who's to say that's not the case?)

So I'll bite: What about a reality show about people of average or better intelligence who aren't loud and obnoxious and all Type-A-y, who don't whoop when the host appears, who don't wildly gesticulate or deliver delusional, self-aggrandizing monologues, who don't create conflict for conflict's sake and who behave like the common man or woman on the street (assuming it's not L.A. and the average person on the street is homeless and in need of Haldol?) Oh, and they're tasked with creating a real zombie army.

Those kooks at LA.com have once again neglected to post today's reviews. (However, if you do visit LA.com's TV page, you can find nice stories about Bastille Day, the 2007 Lotus Festival, local casinos and a stripper, so go figure.) So here they are:

*

If at first you don't succeed, write a comic book. Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who has written for shows like "Lost," "Medium" and "Charmed," initially wrote "The Middleman" as a TV pilot; when it was rejected, he turned around and turned it into a comic-book series, which somehow found its way back to TV.

For which we should be grateful. "The Middleman" is a fun little romp of a show, a superhero action-comedy that's deadpan one moment and over-the-top silly the next. And stars Matt Keeslar and Natalie Morales provide the perfect wit and panache to possibly make this a surprise sleeper hit this summer.

Much of the story and dialogue in tonight's episode come airlifted intact from Grillo-Marxuach's comic book. We meet Wendy (Morales), an aspiring artist consigned to menial temp jobs, working for a DNA lab when she's attacked by a very cheesy-looking monster, the result of an experiment gone horribly awry. She's rescued by The Middleman (Keeslar), a superhero so staid he makes the Silver-Age Superman look like "Iron Man's" party-hearty alter-ego Tony Stark, who's impressed at how she responded to the peril with a cool, almost blasé, temperament ("Whatever, I'm a temp," she replies) and offers her a job as his assistant.

Together, they battle the sort of menaces that you might see in a Mad Magazine parody of "The X-Files." Tonight, they investigate an ape who's murdering mobsters. Confronting the evil genius behind the scheme, The Middleman declares, "If there's one thing I hate more than scientists trying to take over the world, it's scientists who twist innocent primates with computer-enhanced mind-control to live out their sick and perverted fantasies of criminal power."

"That's a very specific thing to hate," Wendy replies.

"The Middleman" is cheeky in almost every detail, down to the title cards that give out too much information, information often repeated in silly, expository dialogue. At times, the show goes almost giddy with its foolishness, such as a brief parody of the stylish '60s spy show "The Avengers."

But Keeslar and Morales make for a great team. Keeslar rattles off seemingly endless lines of technobabble with aplomb, and Morales is a terrific foil, responding to the lunacy surrounding her with dry whimsy - she (ital) refuses (end ital) to be nonplused.

Wendy may be incapable of being surprised, but viewers may be happily surprised at how charmingly goofy they find "The Middleman."

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Thanks to "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," a British import debuting tonight on Showtime, I now know many tricks of the prostitution racket, tricks I of course will never be able to implement. Such as: Wear men's deodorant and never perfume, so that the client doesn't go home smelling of a woman.

So you could justify watching "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" by arguing that it's educational, and the lasciviousness is just a bonus you're going to have to live with.

Oddly, however, the show isn't quite as sexy or saucy as one would imagine. Certainly, it's playful - Billie Piper, who stars as Belle (her professional name)/Hannah (her name outside her bed), directly addresses the camera as she glibly yet frankly explicates her life, her job and her sexuality - but there's also a melancholia surrounding the proceedings, as well, as the show just hints that her life isn't as fulfilling as she might suggest.

Episodes don't feel fully formed, probably because they don't adhere to the three-act formula. Each essentially follows Belle/Hannah as she prepares and services her john-of-the-week - an S&M client, a threesome, a foursome, a creep, a sleepover, etc. (In the first half of the eight-episode season, Belle commits a few professional breaches; in the second half, she receives comeuppance for other, unrelated reasons.)

A little of her personal life is sprinkled in. Her friend/former lover Ben (Iddo Goldberg) is engaged, but given that all we see of his fiancée is her torso as she paces before him while he's on the phone with Hannah, the writing's on the wall as far as that relationship goes.

Piper's performance is winningly pert, but outside of a couple of episodes, the sex is more inert than erotic. "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" is a tease that somehow never manages to follow through, either on its promise or simply with fully satisfying narratives.

Meanwhile, Showtime's pot dramedy "Weeds" returns for its fourth season with Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker), the show's lovable suburban pot dealer, in more dire straits than ever: At the end of last season, she torched her home in the middle of a California wildfire, and so now she and her sons and brother-in-law (Justin Kirk) are on the lam.

They land in a small town on the Mexico border, where she holes up with her disapproving former father-in-law (Albert Brooks), who's caring for his moribund mother when he's not at the racetrack. Nancy needs some cash quick, so she hooks up with the local bad element, while back in Majestic, Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) is arrested for Nancy's pot business. (The biggest laugh through the first three episodes is the prison makeover Celia receives at the hands of some Latina inmates.)

In the first three episodes of the season, not much happens except for a lot of narrative wheel-spinning, as if, having blown up the show's premise at the end of last season, the show's writers aren't sure where to go this year.

More worrisome is the fact that Parker, whose work has been so winning despite reported clashes with the show's producers, seems to be above it all now. Her attitude apparently mirrors Nancy's: Keep smiling, and this, too, shall pass, whatever the indignity may be (at one point, she's relegated to urinating in a plastic cup in her car during a traffic jam).

With luck, "Weeds" should eventually find its bearings as the season progresses. But at this point, you probably don't want whatever it is its writers are smoking.

- "The Middleman:" 8 tonight, ABC Family.
- "Weeds:" 10 tonight, Showtime.
- "The Secret Diary of a Call Girl:" 10:30 tonight, Showtime.

Discuss.

OK. First. Whoever did this:

... needs to be shot. Dana Carvey is not 25. He's 53. Contrary to popular opinion, there's nothing wrong with being older than 30.

But I wouldn't recommend having standup material that feels that old. Oh, yeah; Carvey has an HBO special. It's not very funny. Well, at least the bit I was able to sit through isn't. The title alone - "Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies" - gives you an idea of just how too hard he's trying.

On the other hand, it's no worse than his last two starring vehicles - the 2002 bomb "The Master of Disguise" and ABC's short-lived "Dana Carvey Show" - but, then, if it were, he might be looking at some serious prison time.

- "Dana Carvey: Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies:" 10 p.m. Saturday, HBO.

Hey, lookit: It's a drawing of Your Mayor, done by Chris Morris of the Las Vegas Sun that he did for the Hollywood Reporter today:

It accompanied this story in which a number of TV critics contemplated what deserves and will receive Emmy nominations (other critics, such as former Dallas Morning News TV critic Ed Bark, the Dean of American TV critics, appear in the full drawing). A confession: Had I known Chris would've done such a good job on his drawing, I would've spent more time hacking out formulating my opinions for the Reporter.

(By the way, I'm not really that portly, but Chris was working off the photo you see on this blog, one taken many years - and many pounds - ago. Scholars report that there is no known recent photographic evidence of my existence.)

TV News just got a lot less smart: Tim Russert, NBC News' Washington Bureau Chief, moderator of "Meet the Press" and one of the best political analysts on TV, died today of an apparent heart attack while at work. He had just returned from a vacation in Italy and had taped an episode of his MSNBC show this morning before his death.

Russert didn't engage in the usual soundbites of TV news but instead provided thoughtful analysis. He asked those who appeared on "Meet the Press" tough and thoughtful questions. It's a wonder they let him on TV.

Here's MSNBC's announcement of Russert's death:

And here's Russert from just a month ago, while he was dismantling Clinton campaign advisor Terry McAuliffe as the latter was insisting Hillary still had a chance of winning the Democratic Presidential nomination. McAuliffe made the mistake of suggesting Russert's dad, Big Russ (about whom Russert wrote lovingly in his two bestsellers), was dead. Tim drolly but firmly set the record straight:

Those scamps at Lifetime have cooked up yet another fin de siècle reality series (though for some reason, they prefer to refer to it as a "docudrama"), this one involving individuals who are willing to participate ... wait for it ...

... in an arranged marriage. In fact, the show is called "Arranged Marriage."

So, yeah, a reality show where you're guaranteed to get lucky, if you don't have performance anxiety when cameras are around, that is. And then, perhaps, incredibly unlucky.

And they're looking for participants right now! So hie thee over to this website and apply now!

David and Elizabeth Weinlick - themselves the product of an arranged marriage and who will serve as consultants on the show - appeared on the "Today" show to talk up the notion.

David said: "The traditional dating realm did not seem conducive to finding a long term life partnership that was healthy and successful and happy." Dude, in L.A., the dating world isn't even conducive to dating.

Elizabeth said: "I just recognized that dating in my experience always resulted in a relationship that just wasn't very fulfilling. So I thought maybe this will be a different way to have that fulfilling relationship." If you want a fulfilling relationship, get a dog. You date because you don't want to look like a loser sitting alone in restaurants and movie theaters. Oh, and other reasons, too, I'm told.

Producers of the show note that while half of all marriages end in divorce, 85% of couples in arranged marriages stay together. Now, I'm not a psychologist, but I'll play one for the purposes of this blog and suggest that this may be because if you're too passive to get actively involved in the selection of your life mate, you're probably not going to want to stir the waters with a divorce, no matter how miserable you are. Plus, maybe you figure belatedly that if you were silly enough to marry someone you don't know, you deserve whatever you get.

When you apply at the website, you're told, "If you are chosen, cameras will be a part of your life, off-and-on, for one year. ... (Y)ou will lead your life and we will be the fly on the wall.

"This will be a tremendous, exciting and, as in all relationships, sometimes difficult journey. ... (I)f you're ready to be part of something big - to take a leap, be a cultural pioneer and enter a lifetime partnership - then you might be one of the fantastic people we're looking for."

Plus, you get to be seen on the TeeVee yelling at your new spouse!

Because that's how reality shows work - if you actually get along, that's boring television that no one wants to see so there's no point in showing that. But scream and stomp and throw tantrums and you could become the new Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag!

So apply today! What do you have to lose? Except, of course, half your property in a bitter divorce settlement.

A press release that traversed my inbox:

Rock Paper Scissors "comes home" to Fox Sports Net (FSN) with deal to televise 2008 USA Rock Paper Scissors League Championship sponsored by [Beer Company stooping to new low for cheap publicity]. Champion to compete in Beijing.

Los Angeles - June 11, 2008 - The USARPS League (www.usarps.com) is proud to announce that the third annual USARPS League Championship Tournament sponsored by [Beer Company stooping to new low for cheap publicity] will be televised as a FSN's 'Best Damn Sports Show Period' special.

"FSN has always been on the cutting edge of programming - and we're thrilled to partner with them again on our largest tournament to date," said USA Rock Paper Scissors League Commissioner and Executive producer of the show, Matti Leshem. ...

Other pulse-pounding things soon to be on your TeeVee:

* Fox Sports: The International Playground Kickball semi-semi-finals, live from Akron, Ohio.

* WE tv: Kids playing jump-rope on a playground somewhere.

* Discovery HD: Reality show in which guys ask their doctors if their moles might be cancerous.

* GSN: Reality-competition series in which people play Spider Solitaire for Starbucks gift cards.

* Animal Planet: Live webcam feed from a dogsitting service.

* The N: Reality show of tweens texting one another.

* Speed: Helicopter footage of gridlock on the 405.

* C-SPAN: Round-table discussion show in which bloggers boast about what their blogs provide that people can't find anywhere else on the Internets.

* E!: Ill-informed friends with no sense of film history and suspicious aesthetic judgment discuss recent movie releases (oh, wait, they already show that).

* NBA TV: Real-time reality show in which casual fans watch NBA games on TV while discussing stats and their personal lives and eating chips and drinking beer.

* Sci Fi Channel: Ron Paul followers explain why he'd make a good President, or World Regent, or something.

* Fine Living: People packing suitcases, then remembering they can't afford a vacation this summer, then unpacking them.

If Brad Garrett is looking a little dismayed in that photo, it may be because he recently awakened from a bender to discover that he had signed a contract to star on an Internet reality show, "Dating Brad Garrett."

Really. It'll be 10 episodes; in each, Garrett'll go on a blind date. It'll be just like "The Bachelor," only instead of a dashing, successful guy, it'll be a guy who makes a living playing gormless sadsack behemoths. Garrett's ex-wife will be among those picking the women he goes out with from online submissions (they're accepting them starting today, so go for it, ladies!). Humanity will emit one more sigh of despair as creationists celebrate one more compelling debate point arguing against evolution.

Garrett must not've gotten the memo about Fox renewing his sitcom "'Til Death." This is the sort of grasping, sorry thing a celebrity does when they're desperate for work, not when they're gainfully employed. In a press release announcing the show, Garrett says he's "adverse to pain." Apparently not, given that I can't think of many things that'd be more painful that participating in this venture.

Tonight, on "The Bill Engvall Show:"

Oh, those cell phones and their seemingly capricious ability to receive and hold onto calls! And, Kids Today - they're lazy, tart-tongued and they love their gadgets! In my day ...

Next week, on "The Bill Engvall Show:"

Oh, Bill's friends and their dating woes! And, um ... Uh. You know, I couldn't really bring myself to watch the whole thing.

You can't fault Engvall, though. He's unapologetic about the fact that his show is a throwback, a cable show whose target viewers are people who liked TV better when cable didn't exist. Although one might question the wisdom of saturating TNT's NBA playoff coverage with the "Engvall" promos highlighting the smirky, jailbait-teenage-girl jokes, because that's not what the show is about and anyone who might tune in because of those spots is just going to get hacked off.

*

Meanwhile, "My Boys" is a bit of a throwback, too, but only to the '90s, which, come to think of it, was a pretty good decade for sitcoms. The show - about a female sportswriter named P.J. (Jordana Spiro) and her coterie of guy friends - seems to have found its voice as its second season commences. It's become a bit of a more clean-cut "Seinfeld Lite," with semi-dumb characters doing semi-dumb things with a few pretty clever punchlines strewn throughout.

Tonight, her putatively romantic vacation to Italy doesn't go as planned, while back in Chicago, the guys are banned from their favorite watering hole when one of them bags and bails on one of its waitresses. (C'mon, guys, it's Chicago - there's a bar on every corner; surely you could find another to your liking.)

Next week, P.J., in a fit of desperation, throws a dinner party for singles. That, too, doesn't go as planned. (Someone should just entitle a sitcom "Things Don't Go As Planned.") Nonetheless, the cast has an easygoing, appealing rapport and work the one-liners agreeably, which makes this a pleasant enough if modest program.

- "The Bill Engvall Show:" 9 tonight (8 Central); TBS.
- "My Boys:" 9:30 tonight (8:30 Central); TBS.

So I participated in a little series of round-table of interviews with the cast members of "My Boys," TBS's upcoming comedy about a female sportswriter and her guy buddies, and the show's star, Jordana Spiro...

(that's not overkill, is it?) ... was discussing the cast's cozy accommodations on their set on the Paramount lot, a common room with a pool table (she hopes) and so on, and said, "It's a nice little area where we can go hang out."

And at that point, co-star Jim Gaffigan, who with Conan O'Brien comprises the world's worst (or, at least, pastiest) crime-fighting duo Pale Force, added, "And give each other massages."

He then turned to me and declared, "I want to meet you up there later on. Me, you and a tub of goo."

Typical Hollywood snob. I haven't heard from him since.

And you may not hear from me for a while, either: I'm heading to a sweat lodge to reconnect with my inner spiritual manhood (Gaffigan, you could no doubt help with that!). That, or going to Amsterdam in search of enough heroin to kill a horse. That, or just sitting around my place, hoping someone might miss me.

If something really stupid happens, rest assured I'll reappear to discuss it. Otherwise, you'll have to enjoy whatever it is Hillary Clinton will do this week without my assistance.

From this clip from last night's "Daily Show with Jon Stewart," it's really hard to tell if Clinton spokesman Terry McAuliffe is just playing along or truly is a lunatic.

We've all seen children on playgrounds throw unseemly temper tantrums when things don't go their way, but Hillary's inability to be realistic or even remotely gracious in her contentiousness makes a kid rolling on the floor and holding his breath seem downright statesman-like. As Stewart says, the Clinton strategy seems to be, "If we act deranged enough, maybe they'll just give us the country."

By August, they'll be wiping pieces of the Democratic Party off the rafters of Denver's Pepsi Center. It'll look like the prom scene in "Carrie."

Today, I received my ballot for the Television Critics Association's annual TCA Awards, and it must be said, my colleagues (and I) did an exemplary job of picking nominees this year. We can vote for up to two nominees in each category, and there are several where even two doesn't seem generous enough.

Herewith, the nominee:

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

"John Adams" (HBO) 

"Lost" (ABC) 

"Mad Men" (AMC) 

"Ken Burns' The War" (PBS) 

"The Wire" (HBO)

As you will see, "Mad Men" is all over the place on this list, so that's what I'm going to predict will win. "The Wire" might squeak in because it was the show's final season and I don't believe that TCA had a much-better record in honoring the show than the Emmys (though it got more nominations from TCA, if memory serves), so, as they say, it's due. Despite a resurgent season, "Lost" may be a bit past its prime to win and both "John Adams" and "The War," good as they were, weren't absolute game-changers in their genres, which is usually what it'd take to win this top prize.

ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

"30 Rock" (NBC) 

"The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central)
"The Daily Show" (Comedy Central) 

"Flight of the Conchords" (HBO) 

"The Office" (NBC)

Well, here's one category "Mad Men" isn't in. It would be hard to declare a grave miscarriage of justice no matter who wins in this category, though everyone has their favorites.

ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

"Damages" (FX) 

"Friday Night Lights" (NBC) 

"Lost" (ABC) 

"Mad Men" (AMC) 

"The Wire" (HBO)

Again, a fairly unassailable list, although I kind of think the people who keep beating that "Friday Night Lights" drum should just let it go. That self-defense murder plotline that opened the season really soured it for me. And again, it's probably a toss-up between "Mad Men" and "The Wire."

ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES AND SPECIALS

"John Adams" (HBO) 

"Masterpiece: Cranford" (PBS)
"Masterpiece: Jane Austen Collection" (PBS)
"Ken Burns' The War" (PBS) 

"A Raisin in the Sun" (ABC)

Flip a coin between "John Adams" and "The War."

NEW PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

"Breaking Bad" (AMC) 

"Damages" (FX) 

"Flight of the Conchords" (HBO) 

"Mad Men" (AMC) 

"Pushing Daisies" (ABC)

And again, not a bum pick in the crowd. I voted for two, but if I could've voted for all five, I would have. (Of course, that really wouldn't have accomplished anything, now would it?)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

Christina Applegate ("Samantha, Who?")
Alec Baldwin ("30 Rock") 

Stephen Colbert ("The Colbert Report")
Tina Fey ("30 Rock") 

Ray Wise ("Reaper")

A bit of a surprise nominee, with Ray Wise getting a nod - he's hilarious as the Devil, but that show flew beneath most people's radar this past season. I'm going to guess that Fey and Baldwin will cannibalize each other (that'd make a good episode of that show, actually) and that Colbert will win for his ability to surf so deftly along the top of the Zeitgeist.

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights")
Glenn Close ("Damages") 

Paul Giamatti ("John Adams") 

Jon Hamm ("Mad Men") 

David Simon ("The Wire")

There are more categories, which I won't try to predict (or even bold-face their category titles):

Get ready for every blog on the planet to become its own personal TV network: The New York Times reports:

"By the fall, virtually every TV episode broadcast by the big four networks will be available for embedding in blogs, personal profiles and other Web pages. ...

"When a user can watch 'Heroes' or 'House' anywhere ­ not just on NBC.com or Fox.com ­ the show becomes more prominent and the network delivering that show becomes less prominent."

NB-what?

*

Add "The Simpsons" to cockroaches and Paris Hilton coverage on the list of things that will survive the impending apocalypse: The six vocal talents on the show (Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer) all signed four-year deals for $400K per episode.

Meaning, they'll make for roughly a couple of hours of work what ordinary working stiffs would take, oh, about eight years to earn. And to think, Fox is ponying up $2.4 million to the actors while bloggers will be able to add "Simpsons" episodes to their sites for free.

*

In order to tide "Rescue Me" fans over until the show returns next spring (its schedule was one of the big victims of the writers strike), FX will begin presenting five-minute-long "minisodes" of the show Tuesdays at 10 p.m. starting June 24. And, hey - they'll run commercial-free (how many commercials can you shoehorn into a five-minute show, anyway?).

Will fans actually tune in for five minutes of material, or is this a job for bloggers - to embed the minisodes everywhere online?

"30 Days," Morgan Spurlock's provocative reality/documentary series which plops participants in unfamiliar territory - often, territory contradictory to their own ideological beliefs - returns tomorrow to FX for its third season. This season's culture clashes include a hunter spending a month with vegan animal-rights activists, a woman who believes homosexuality is a sin and that gay people shouldn't be able to raise children in a household with same-sex parents and a woman who hates guns hanging out with gun enthusiasts and working in a gun store.

All well and good, but if Spurlock is thinking ahead to a fourth season, we have some suggestions for him:

* A suicidal individual spends a month with really cheerful people. Which only makes the person that much more suicidal.

* A Scientologist hangs out with followers of the UFO cult Raelian Movement, and each makes fun of the others' beliefs: "Really? You buy into that crap?"

* A producer of lame, cynical reality TV moves in for a month with people who gobble that stuff up. After which he is either shaken to his very core or vows to make the shows even dumber.

* Dick Cheney spends a month with a family against the war in Iraq. After the 30 days, he has everyone in the family placed on the national Terrorist Watch List.

* An "According to Jim" writer spends a month on the set of a sitcom that's actually funny, and discovers how "jokes" are created. Or, an "According to Jim" writer spends a month with a family of human beings and learns how human beings behave, as opposed to how the characters on "According to Jim" behave.

Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments. I'm told Morgan Spurlock checks this site every day for ideas, so you'd be doing him a big favor.