November 2008 Archives

It may not surprise longtime readers of this blog to discover that I'm not a huge fan of holiday episodes of ongoing series, albeit for reasons they may not expect: Said episodes force shows to indulge in a sentimentality and spirit of uplift that they may not otherwise ordinarily truck in, making it all seem all the more forced and phony.

Additionally, I don't watch "Psych" all that often these days, though I will watch whenever a screener traverses my doorstep, and generally I'll be entertained.

But then, sometimes there's an episode like this one - the holiday episode, surprise surprise.

We'll make this one quick - a scam artist masquerading as Santa Claus and targeting holiday revelers is unnerved when his partner is killed. Shawn (James Roday) is unnerved when Gus's (Dulé Hill) sister Joy (Faune Chambers) comes to visit for the holidays, because they're hot for one another and that would threaten the user-friendly gay subtext within Shawn and Gus's camaraderie.

(Shawn doesn't want to hit that - perhaps he's seen her turns in "White Chicks" and "Epic Movie.")

Gus's parents - who figured into last season's Christmas episode - are unnerved because they're withholding big secrets from one another than could put a decisive end to the seasonal cheer. And I'm unnerved because I have to watch this through to the conclusion.

Actually, "Psych's" holiday episode this year is a smidgen better than "Monk's." Neither, however, is up to the shows' usual standards unless you've been hitting the eggnog and brandy with a vengeance.

- "Psych:" 10 p.m. Friday, USA Network.

It may not surprise longtime readers of this blog to discover that I'm not a huge fan of holiday episodes of ongoing series, albeit for reasons they may not expect: Said episodes force shows to indulge in a sentimentality and spirit of uplift that they may not otherwise ordinarily truck in, making it all seem all the more forced and phony.

Additionally, I don't watch "Monk" all that often these days, though I will watch whenever a screener traverses my doorstep, and generally I'll be entertained.

But then, sometimes there's an episode like this one - the holiday episode, surprise surprise.

It opens with a trio of fairly clean-cut homeless guys visited by a panicky friend who screams that someone's out to kill him. Being drunk in that adorable TV-way of being drunk, they laugh merrily at him, and then next morning they find him dead in an abandoned refrigerator.

Cut to: Monk (Tony Shalhoub), fastidiously setting up a cardboard Christmas tree. The colorful homeless guys show up at his home; Monk predictably freaks out as their germs invade his house. It's not terribly funny. The next scene, in which he examines the crime scene from afar and yells at them as they yell at him and neither can really hear the other though they're not all that far from one another, isn't very amusing, either. Monk refers to them as "ne'er-do-wells," which is kind of funny, though probably for the wrong reasons.

Natalie (Traylor Howard) invites the "ne'er-do-wells" to Christmas dinner at Monk's. That scene falls surprisingly flat, as well, but at least we're relieved of the bum jokes for a while.

So now let's consider Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), who, as Lt. Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) puts it, is "in a bad place right now." Stottlemeyer is depressed, divorced, dateless and suffering from a bad back - or, as we put it at Mayor of Television Headquarters, a typical day. He receives a message sending him to a fountain at a monastery, where a bunch of people claim to have been cured by drinking its waters. He does, he is, and suddenly this curmudgeon is pursuing a righteous path as a monk, not a Monk.

The two storylines dovetail into one another, albeit not very convincingly, and really, this could've been an ordinary episode of "Monk" without the holiday hopefulness shoehorned in. There's a scene at the monastery where Monk is repeatedly shushed by another monk which is either really embarrassing or ultimately becomes funny because they keep doing the same joke over and over again, sort of like the Mr. Creosote gag in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life."

(The use of the word "gag" in that last sentence was meant literally.)

Shalhoub has a couple of inspired line readings ("Two years? That's almost three years!" is a lot funnier in context), and a bit with Disher trying to grow a mustache earns its laughs, as well. But this Christmas episode doesn't exactly have me waiting with baited breath for "Monk's" "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" episode.

- "Monk:" 9 p.m. Friday, USA Network.

I've sort of drifted away from FX's biker drama "Sons of Anarchy" (hey, it's the rebel in me), but the show wraps up its first season tomorrow, so I thought I'd check in with the gang and see what they're up to.

(Uneasy riders.)

They're been wriggling in and out of messes all season, but last week's may turn out to be a deal-breaker as far as gang loyalty is concerned: Clay (Ron Perlman) put out a hit on Opie (Ryan Hurst), But Tig (Kim Coates) killed Opie's wife Donna (Sprague Grayden) by accident. He did make it look like another gang did it in retaliation for their season-long beefs, though, but even the cops in this stupid little backwater have already figured out who really done it.

Oh, and Gemma (Katey Sagal) is deciding that Clay's not bad-@ss enough for her tastes. Geez, lady, just cozy up to Dick Cheney and be done with it.

("Sorry, but I like my men more cruel and brutish than you.")

Oh, and Opie's dad Piney (William Lucking), who thinks that other gang killed his daughter-in-law, is out for blood and using the n-word like a gangsta rapper until Jax (Charlie Hunnam) threatens to replace his oxygen tank with one filled with liquid nitrogen.

Oh, and Jax has the lady problems again. Wendy (Drea de Matea) wants to win him back which he doesn't want, and Tara (Maggie Siff), feeling that breaking the hearts of two guys in two TV seasons is good for the resume (as Rachel, Siff undid Don Draper in "Mad Men" last year), is ready to pack up and go back to Chicago, which Jax really doesn't want. Jax tells her he's slept with "hundreds" of women (dude, you live in a small town - that suggests you've been raiding retirement homes or something), but he only sees her face when he's with those other women (which explains how he gets through those nights with the ladies from the retirement homes).

Oh, and Jax has some suspicions about who killed Donna, and he breaks up a SAMCRO raid on a safe house and leaves his and Tig's blood all over the place so the Feds won't have a case ... oh, wait.

(Next season: A special "Sons of Anarchy"/"Oz" crossover.)

Oh, and next season will see a battle for the soul of SAMCRO.

Dumbest scene in the episode is the kissy-face moment that inappropriately interrupts Donna's funeral, though I'm not sure how you can appropriately interrupt a funeral with a kissy-face moment.

- "Sons of Anarchy:" 10 p.m. Wednesday, FX. (The episode's more than an hour long even without commercials, so TiVo accordingly.)

As you can see, Stephen Colbert is feeling lighter than air now that he's heard that his terrifically funny "A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!" was the most-watched program on all of basic cable Sunday night, with 2.3 million viewers, and now you can own a nominal part of basic-cable history by bidding on the spectacularly ugly pair of boots he wore on the special. Bidding's already up to $1,325, so I hope Stephen sprayed some Desenex in them after wearing them under those hot TV lights.

All proceeds benefit Feeding America. If you can't pony up that kind of cash, you can still donate to Feeding America at Colbert's MySpace site and maybe you'll win a comfy sweater or one of his Christmas stockings, which hopefully he didn't go putting his feet in.

(Sissy Spacek is unable to scrub away the shock and shame at having become part of The CW's programming lineup.)

We foresaw the complete and utter failure of The CW's new Sunday-night programming initiative, entitled "Let Some Other Guys Do It," but even we didn't think its collapse would be so swift and decisive that the gambit would go away before that hot new sitcom "Surviving Suburbia" even made it to the airwaves.

As we noted back in May, the network's loglines for its new shows offered absolutely no information about any of the show's characters, and the hallmark of any decent show is its characterizations. Sure enough, the stuff felt rote, almost like a cheap Korean factory knock-off of an American TV show.

(OMFG, indeed - have you seen The CW's ratings on Sunday?)

So, how are they going to fix their Sunday night schedule? Uh, with repeats. Which won't help the ratings any, but'll certainly be cheap, which in these budget-conscious times is practically the only consideration going these days.

Starting Sunday, current CW shows "Everybody Hates Chris" and "The Game" will air at 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., respectively, followed by an hour of "The Drew Carey Show," because, you know, you certainly can't find enough of that sort of thing in syndication in prime-time fringe hours. Then, at 7 p.m., comes "Jericho," the show so popular it got cancelled twice (and no doubt a cheap pickup as it was produced by CBS, The CW's bigger sister).

(Right sentiment, wrong night of CW programming.)

At 8 p.m., old movies. You know, like the kind your local independent station airs weekday afternoons or late at night to keep the lights on, only The CW is putatively a broadcast network.

This Sunday's offering is "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course." Future flicks include "The Cutting Edge," "Revenge of the Pink Panther," "Trail of the Pink Panther," "Spaceballs," "Carrie," "Throw Momma From The Train," "Mr. Mom," "Anti-Trust," "Three Amigos!" and "Teen Wolf." That's right - they couldn't spring for any movie from the past couple of decades, just movies where the girls have really teased coifs and shoulder pads the size of football players'.

It should be noted that I called this as their stopgap programming measure more than a month ago, though I did get the first movie wrong: I predicted it would be "License to Drive." But I was in the right schlocky ballpark.

This year, it seems the brain trust at "House" has tasked themselves with seeing how many jump-the-shark moments they can inflict upon the show ... and still have it be watchable.

They began the season with Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) leaving the hospital, even though they had done the same thing the season before with a passel of regulars and it was no secret that Wilson wasn't going anywhere. Then they floated the House/Cuddy (Hugh Laurie/Lisa Edelstein) romance, an almost-certain way of inflicting terminal acute ick upon the proceedings.

And now, on Tuesday they uncork the requisite hostage-situation-in-the-hospital storyline, something done to death (doesn't "ER" dust this plot off every three years or so?) by medical dramas in search of a Very Special Episode. And "House's" is so special that Fox is letting the episode run 8 minutes long (so make sure your TiVo is advised of the scheduling difference).

(You'd be crotchety, too, if you had to limp through a crazed-gunman storyline on a medical show.)

Still, the character of House is so sturdy and acerbic that he can withstand just about anything - just throw a few acid jokes in the way of the narrative, and a lot of sins are forgiven.

Zeljko Ivanek (an Emmy-winner for "Damages") has a perfect wormy, can't-be-trusted look and demeanor about him, so he gets the nod to play a gravely ailing man who has gotten the runaround from the medical community and so brandishes a gun so he can commandeer Cuddy's office with a number of hostages, including House and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde). "I'm sick and I want to know why - I want the best doctor in this hospital now, or I'm going to start killing people," he declares as expositorily as he can.

House replies, "Do you really think re-enacting 'Dog Day Afternoon' is going to get you diagnosed?"

One of the hostages tremulously interrupts: "Excuse me - my wife is sick to her stomach."

"Next time, pack some heat - maybe we'll look into it," House responds. Since House is the last guy you'd want presiding over a hostage situation, that makes him the perfect guy for the task, hackneyed though it may be.

Anyway, the show proceeds apace with its usual cocktail of mix-and-match symptoms and diagnoses and test treatments - except the gunman is so paranoid he insists that someone sample each medication first, and since Thirteen, who has Huntington's, has what appears to be a death wish, she plays guinea pig, endangering her kidneys. And the episode has a twist that's stretching House's determination to get to the truth even by his standards.

Yet and again, Laurie makes the show compulsively watchable no matter where the writers take him. I suppose you have to applaud the writers for trying to invigorate what's a pretty formulaic show, but if they have House contemplating adopting a baby, I'll burn every "House" DVD I own.

(Next on "House:" House takes a group of sick kids to an amusement park, then tries to injure them on the bumper cars.)

- "House:" 8 p.m. Tuesday, Fox Channel 11.

The justice meted out to the corrupt cops in Tuesday night's series finale of "The Shield" could've gone, by my reckoning, one of four ways:

* Someone (or everyone) gets away clean.

* Someone (not likely everyone) gets killed.

* Someone (not likely everyone) gets imprisoned.

* Someone (or everyone) receives an ironic comeuppance that, in its own rarefied way, is kind of worse than any of the other scenarios.

(Well, that could've worked out better.)

In Tuesday night's finale, three of those four scenarios are played out and in a most satisfying fashion. If you've ever watched "The Shield," you'll be entertained and sated by its finale.

The world has been closing in on Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins) and Ronnie Gardocki (David Rees Snell): It's become increasingly difficult to cover up Strike Force's multitude of sins, Shane's gone rogue, and the gig is up. But to the end, Vic thinks he can still game the system.

Last week, he accepted Agent Murray's (Laurie Holden) immunity deal, effectively betraying Gardocki. When Murray began her debriefing of Vic's testimony of his epic bad behavior with Strike Force, he asked of her tape recorder, "How much memory does that thing got?"

Shane provides the short version of the story when he offers, "We made each other into something worse than our individual selves."

Captain Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder), on the other hand, nearly lost her mind over the thought that Vic would be eluding justice. She even blew up at Dutch (Jay Karnes), her confidante and closest ally. Tonight's episode allows them one final moment of grace, as the show's most resonant relationship approaches closure.

But then, while watching, you get the definite sense that some of the characters are saying good-bye to one another in their typically halting ways. All except Vic, of course, who would probably keep fighting to survive 10 minutes after he's dead.

Fittingly, Vic's fate is the most inspired of all. There's a sound cue that provides the best comment on the "No Exit" nature of Vic's new life; when I asked series creator Shawn Ryan about it, he said, "You fixed on the one thing I obsessed on."

Obviously, he obsessed on a few other things, as well. Ryan gave huge props to Chiklis' performances in the final days: "I have sat in editing rooms and seen Michale on film so much, but in the last two episodes, he shows not just one, but four, five, six different sides of Vic I hadn't seen before."

That's not just hyperbole: Chiklis (and the rest of the cast, including OutKast's Andre Benjamin guest-starring as a mayoral candidate whose equal parts snake-oil salesman and guy with a legitimate gripe) do great work to the end. And we'll tempt the fates and maybe hack off FX and reveal one little spoiler: Dutch just might get lucky in the end. The actress who plays the attorney who pesters Dutch in the finale is Karnes' wife, Julia Campbell.

"We've seen Dutch screw up so many first dates," Ryan said. "So in casting his wife here, we're suggesting that maybe it'll end up all right for him."

- "The Shield:" 10 p.m. Tuesday, FX.

You probably don't actually want to watch this video, as the carefully crafted headline above tells you precisely what transpires here. Otherwise, have at it, you betcha.

After posting its worst ratings to date last night (fewer than 5 million viewers), "Pushing Daisies" was dispatched to that Big Pie Hole in the Sky, where not even Ned's magical touch can resurrect it.

(Oh, go ahead and touch her, Ned. Like it matters anymore.)

E! Online also reports that "Dirty Sexy Money" (5.6 million viewers last night) and "Eli Stone" (6.9 million viewers on Tuesday, which is almost good by ABC standards these days) got their pink slips, as well.

"PD" creator Bryan Fuller confirmed his show's demise, stating that the final episode to be shot was a cliffhanger, but maybe he'll get to finish the story in a movie (I'm guessing not) or a comic book.

Here's an idea - if you're show is low-rated and could be cancelled at any minute, how about not doing cliffhanger episodes?

Typealyzer, a new website, puts blogs on the couch and analyzes their personalities. So, in the interest of science, I offered this one up for its perusal, and this is what came up:

The Doers

"The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

"The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time."

Hmm. Clearly, this Typealyzer has no idea what it's talking about. Outside of walking my dog, all I do is sit on my can and type up this mirth-inducing prose for your benefit.

I decided to give it another chance, though, and typed in the Permalink for the previous entry in this blog, the "nice paranoid rant" (per a commenter) on "The World's Closing In On Me TV," and this was the response:

The Thinkers

"The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

"They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about."

Now we're getting somewhere. I entered my account of my hellish night on the red carpet at the "Twilight" premiere, and got this:

The Performers

"The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don't like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

"They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

Again, hmm. Clearly, this blog is schizophrenic.

Finally, I offered up my "History of Television" series (as seen in the Tag Cloud), my ill-fated attempt to weasel my way into PBS's upcoming documentary on TeeVee or at least to write the companion coffee-table book. An expansive, sweeping narrative, it actually contained a fact or two. Typealyzer came back with this:

The Visionaries

"The charming and trend savvy type. They are especially attuned to the big picture and anticipate trends. They often have sophisticated language skills and come across as witty and social. At the end of the day, however, they are pragmatic decision makers and have a good analytical ability.

"They enjoy work that lets them use their cleverness, great communication skills and knack for new exciting ventures. They have to look out not to become quitters, since they easily get bored when the creative exciting start-up phase is over."

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

Perhaps it's a function of years being enslaved by the unrelenting disasters of the Bush Administration, which has produced a meager 17% of the populace that still believes the country is headed in the right direction (if the End of Days as foretold by the Book of Revelation can be considered the "right direction"), but TV creators have tapped into the anxiety floating in the Zeitgeist and responded with a relatively new genre of television: The World's Closing In On Me TV.

(Heckuva job, Bushie! TV creators have to struggle mightily to imagine worse worlds than the one you created.)

In the new Paranoid Drama, shows' protagonists are besieged from all directions by outside forces; they usually have a hand in creating their predicaments, but the dangers presented by their actions can be out of proportion to their misdeeds. (Or, at least, since we're purportedly on these characters' sides, we're rooting for them to escape their dire fates.) Escape routes are at a minimum; despair and desperation are these shows' currency.

And, barring some sort of really loopy plot contrivance, endgame can only be achieved with the characters better off dead. Their future lives bear no resemblance to contentment.

Fox's "24" tapped into this apprehension first, as its first season was early in production when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 occurred, but each season ended with something approximating an escape from disaster. Series created since then rarely offer viewers such relief; they conclude with ominous season finales promising greater perils in the future.

Developed before the events of 9/11, HBO's "The Sopranos" and FX's "The Shield" didn't begin their lives as Paranoid Dramas - their protagonists positively swaggered while luxuriating in their bad behavior in their early seasons - but, as they proceeded and the characters' wrong-doings encircled them, the sense of desperation escalated.

(Yet another mission accomplished: No one but a-holes will want to wear these shades in the future.)

Tony Soprano was left in a state of limbo, trapped in his self-made hell - alive, but for how long? On Tuesday, corrupt cop Vic Mackey's ever-rickety house of cards finally threatens to collapse upon him - and hard, with the force of bricks, not playing cards - when "The Shield" wraps up its impressive run.

FX, Showtime and AMC are the networks specializing in the Paranoid Drama (remember, as the old trope has it, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.) Hell, even Showtime's comedies truck in encroaching doomsday scenarios: "Weeds"' Nancy Botwin is perpetually on the verge of getting busted or worse, while "Californication's" Hank Moody eternally threatens to spiral out of control. But, since they're comedies, a dim light of respite still shines, either in the form of a toke or sexing up another lovely lady.

Showtime's "Dexter" is, for the moment at least, the rare show that trapped its serial-killer-with-a-cause protagonist from every angle, then figured out a way for him to ingeniously wriggle free, and now, this season, allows him some social latitude and even success. I wouldn't bank on that continuing for much longer, though.

But FX plumbed the genre first, best and most often. After "The Shield," along came "Rescue Me," in which the characters were literally haunted by the ghosts of 9/11. Tommy Gavin just barely held himself together while plunging into pills and booze; his colleagues weren't as thoroughly damned, but they didn't have many happy options open to them, either. "Damages" began its run with a young attorney framed for murdering her fiancé; the pit-bull protagonist Patty Hewes' rabid quest for "justice" had her repeatedly breaching ethical and legal boundaries which will continue to dog her for the series' duration. "Sons of Anarchy" focuses on a biker group in a never-ending turf war and perpetually skittering around the law.

("When I am through with you/there won't be anything left." And that's just "Damages"' chipper opening theme song.)

AMC's series approach the genre from a more rarefied angle. "Mad Men" is the first series to chart its characters' spiritual drowning, as this past season Don Draper came unmoored, losing his bearings and even - gasp - his cavalier way with women. While he was never in any real physical danger, you sensed he was losing something far more valuable.

And "Breaking Bad" may have been the ultimate expression of the exasperation of the Bush years. Its anti-hero, Walter White, is a former brilliant chemist laid so low he's reduced to teaching in an Albuquerque public high school when he's diagnosed with terminal cancer. The era's morality index has so flatlined that he has no problem whatsoever with cooking up crystal meth in order to support his family - to hell with ruthless druglords and his brother-in-law with the DEA. Walter's death sentence has already been written, and by God he has no compunction against taking others down to protect his own.

(Never underestimate a man in underpants.)

Naturally, a genre this nihilistic has its, shall we say, limitations. Even when your life really sucks, there must be something that keeps you going, but some showrunners seem to forget this.

FX's "The Riches," about a family of conmen, lost its bearings in its second season - and was subsequently cancelled - as the family patriarch was perpetually in a state of trying to wriggle free; he had lost all joy for what Donald Trump no doubt calls The Art of the Scam. And Showtime's "Brotherhood" - which offers up a pretty artificial dichotomy between two brothers, one a corrupt thug and the other an equally corrupt politician - hasn't generated much in the way of ingenious crookedness, just a lugubrious series of cynical behaviors bedeviled by boring watchdogs.

We're all feeling the pinch - or, more likely, stranglehold - these days: Our jobs hang by a thread; our 401K's have imploded; our chances for meaningfully improving our lives in the short term are as likely as our winning "American Idol." These TV shows feel our pain, and have been successful for doing so. So at least someone's profiting off our doom and gloom.

(Be sure to get a good seat for the Apocalypse!)

Variety reports that Animal Planet's new hit-by-cable-standards reality series "Whale Wars," about Paul Watson (AKA the Jack Bauer of environmentists) and his efforts to stop Japanese whalers in the Arctic, may be fudging the facts.

I know, right? A reality show that manufactures its narrative? Absolutely shocking.

(No, this isn't the crew from "Deadliest Catch," though I can see how one might make that mistake.)

Per Variety:

"In one faceoff with a Japanese vessel in the Antarctic, the SSCS' leader, renegade environmentalist Paul Watson, appeared to have been shot. In response, Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research issued a press release denying that any shots were fired and debunking in detail what it termed an 'elaborate fake incident.'

"'Animal Planet is treating its viewers, advertisers and financial backers like fools,' said Institute director Minoru Morimoto."

Watson's methodology - which includes stink-bombing whaling ships as well as forcibly boarding them - has also come under fire. Watson's antics got him booted out of Greenpeace, which isn't exactly known for its equanimity in dealing with environmental foes.

Here are some of the other extreme methods Watson has resorted to that has whalers crying in their ambergris:

* Photoshopping the faces of whaling ship captains on the bodies of strung-out American Apparel models and posting the images online.

* Dumping onto whaling ships Pontiac Aztecs, Kansas City Chiefs season tickets and DVDs of "According to Jim."

* Signing them up as volunteers for Palin 2012.

* Forcing them to cover the red carpet at the premiere of "Twilight."

Add your own in the comments section!

The L.A. Times floats a breathtakingly stupid theory - that our lousy economy is turning viewers off of reality TV. "As the Dow continues to spiral down and jobs dry up, viewers may have decided that their everyday lives already contain more reality than they can bear," the piece concludes.

Well, you have to write about something, I suppose. And so I'll write about this.

("It is easier for a couple of morons to pass through the eye of a needle than for a reality program to enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 19:4)

First: Who in the world at this late date mistakes reality TV for reality? Even putting aside the heightened, overheated behavior on these programs, the fact so many of the shows offering rich purses for the winners of competitions would tend to nudge them towards fantasy, anyway.

Second: Even the Times admit they're discussing shows that have been on for a while and/or overexposed and, therefore, shows one would expect to lose some steam in the ratings. But the article in particular wrings its hands over the sorry fate of Fox's "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?", without bothering to mention the fact that the show has been moved from Thursdays to Fridays this season, when far fewer people are watching TV.

Third: The notion that only scripted shows on the broadcast networks have seen an uptick in ratings - and only a slight one at that - has nothing to do with the argument and can be explained away by other things, such as most of the improved shows are relatively young, or Tina Fey's higher profile this fall elevating "30 Rock" or the hellacious marketing campaign lavished upon "Gossip Girl."

(And anyway, who says that "Gossip Girl" doesn't reflect reality? Oh, that's right - everybody.)

Fourth: It's yet another broadcast-network-centric story that while acknowledging that broadcast numbers are down in general, ignores the full TV spectrum. But maybe because that would torpedo the premise: Reality programs on, say, Bravo and Sci Fi (reality on Sci Fi? I'm still trying to get my head around that notion) are enjoying their highest ratings to date.

So, Mr. L.A. Times, sorry, but I don't see any evidence of a cause/effect between our cratering economy and a few reality programs suffering. Though, honestly, I'd be happy if anything could kill them off.

UPDATE: A subhead from today's Daily Variety: "ABC, NBC see boost in reality fare"

Last night's episode of "The Mentalist" (which drew 15.83 million viewers) was the one they were shooting when I did a set visit to do a story on the show.

(Generic production photo.)

When you're visiting a production, you're looking for an extemporaneous moment that produces an anecdote that a) unveils part of the show's creative process, b) reveals the stars' on-set chemistry (or lack thereof), or c) offers a glimpse into the actors' off-the-cuff wit or cleverness. Alas, the day I visited the set, they were shooting scenes in the interrogation room, a cramped space where you can't exactly play a fly on the wall, so I was too far from the action between takes to assess any of those aforementioned goals.

I did, however, witness one vaguely amusing vignette and, in any other line of business, a potential sexual harassment suit. They were blocking and lighting a scene without the actual actors, in which a potential perpetrator (who turned out not to be the murderer) was, after being interrogated, meeting and embracing his sister (who in fact turned out to be the killer, though at this point in the story no one knew that - except, of course, for her).

The show's script supervisor was standing in for the sister and some random crew member was standing in for the brother. The guy wrapped his arms around the script supervisor ... uh, and wasn't letting go. Maybe he was just unleashing his inner Thespian and living in the moment; maybe not.

Anyway, he was finally told (words to this effect), "Um, you can let her go now." To his credit, he did. The relief on the script supervisor's face was palpable. You almost wanted to give her a hug and let her know you felt her pain - except she had been through enough already.

The piercing cries were deafening, agonizing, unrelenting. The human toll, too horrible to comprehend. My faith in goodness in this universe has been shaken to its core.

So I covered the red carpet of the "Twilight" premiere Monday night. (Why? Because God hates me, that's why.) I've been to plenty of premieres in the past, but always as someone who actually got to see the movie, who simply and happily passed by the chaos on the red carpet, not as someone who had to stand on the red carpet and be pummeled by hours of incessant shrieking. Greg Hernandez, who usually does this for the Daily News but is on vacation, apparently enjoys this. Go figure.

(Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart share an intimate moment in front of thousands of shrieking fans in which she advises him to invest in an iron.)

I'm deaf as I write this; were that I had been deaf before the event. For the uninitiated, "Twilight" is based on a book for tweens and their moms by Stephenie Meyer about a gentlemanly vampire and his human girlfriend. Girls (and women) love this stuff, so much so that they'll camp out a day or more before the premiere in order to be able to share a special moment with their idols during which they scream at them at the top of their lungs.

The event was aired live on a local radio station. I can only imagine that listening to that was even more excruciating than actually being there, because listeners couldn't see the stars; they could only hear the blood-curdling screeches of those in attendance (it probably sounded like "Saw IV" on the radio) interspersed with ungodly insipid interviews with a DJ whose energy level was so extravagantly elevated that the country of Colombia's GNP is no doubt very healthy.

So on the radio, you heard cast member Justin Chon confide, "I'm good, I'm good; I'm really good. I'm feeling great." You heard the DJ - who clearly thought this was a really clever observation - repeatedly tell cast members that he had a theory that "Twilight" wasn't just a book and a movie, but was somehow real. And he asked Kristin Stewart, who stars as the young romantic protagonist Bella, if she ever got confused and thought she really was Bella. "No," Stewart responded, reasonably.

So here's the inside skinny on how to get a job in radio - don't be remotely intelligent; just be loud and obnoxious.

("Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer is being looked upon favorably by Mr. Noodle.)

But if you really want obnoxious, spend some time with the photographers who cover these things on a routine basis. They rabidly bark at stars traversing the red carpet, ordering them to look directly into their camera lens. "Publicist, get out of the picture!" one bellowed incessantly and menacingly. The cast members spent a lot of time signing autographs for fans, meaning they had the temerity to turn their backs on the paparazzi, resulting in one photographer actually roaring, "Forget the little guys!"

(I'm happy to report that the Daily News photographer covering the event with me never so much as raised his voice. I'm also happy to report that his photos turned out much better than those accompanying this account, which I took on my iPhone.)

(Me, having the time of my life. I've heard from a number of people that I should change the photo accompanying this blog since it doesn't really look like me anymore. What do you say - should I replace it with this one?)

NBC's Green Initiative - in which reporters visit ecologically delicate environments with huge camera and satellite crews and tromp around and litter and show viewers places they'll never be able to afford to visit - has really stuck it to "Today's" Ann Curry: While Matt Lauer's sunning in Belize and Meredith Vieira is taking in the opera in Sydney, Curry's struggling to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Curry, who is 52, had precious little time to train for the ascent.

(Curry, just before being attacked by rabid wombats.)

"To be honest with you, I'm not sure I'm going to make it to the top," Curry tells the Associated Press, adding, "I miss my family. And also warm showers. And I could really use a stiff drink."

If Curry survives this assignment, NBC will give her a week off, then dispatch her to traverse the Sarhara in flip-flops and a bikini. After that, Al Roker better make sure his affairs are in order.

"Philogelos: The Laugh Addict" combines ancient humor with cutting-edge technology: William Berg has translated a fourth-century Greek text and has organized the whole thing into an online book with videos featuring stand-up routines of the material. Berg found that a lot of the jokes are still being recycled today. (Writers on "According to Jim" and "Gary Unmarried" are advised to get their copies today!)

In fact, Berg suggests that he may have discovered the first incarnation of the famous Monty Python "Dead Parrot Sketch" (you know the one, where the shopkeeper tries to convince his customer that the parrot isn't really dead even as he's bonking it on the counter), cooked up 1,600 years ago (the phrase "student dunce," used below, was apparently a way of getting around being politically incorrect, used, say, instead of "Pollock" or "Kentuckian"):

"A man goes up to a student dunce and says, 'The slave you sold me died.' 'By the gods,' counters the dunce, 'when he was with me, he never did any such thing!'"

There's a lot more where that came from. P.S.: Here are some free highlights from the book.

Ricky Gervais' HBO special is on tomorrow, and his appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" won't air until January, but here's a little taste of both. Ricky turns a question from James Lipton to do a bit of his comedy routine.

(Warning: The word "penis" is used, a lot.)

And you know what? This is some of his tamest material on the HBO special.

- "Ricky Gervais: Out of England - the Stand-Up Special:" 10 p.m. and 12:45 a.m. Saturday, HBO.

(Which Toni Collette will accept her Emmy?)

Last night, Showtime offered a sneak peak of "The United States of Tara," a new dark comedy premiering in January written by Oscar winner Diablo Cody ("Juno") based on an idea by, of all people, Steven Spielberg.

In the show, Tara suffers from dissociative identity disorder - multiple personalities, to us laymen - and is played by Toni Collette, who has a track record of burying herself into her characters and therefore being pretty much the perfect person for this role. As the science around this phenomenon tends toward the murky, Cody and Collette have fun with Tara's malady - her disparate personalities are played for laughs.

The most inspired plot gambit is that her family (John Corbett as her husband, Brie Larson as her promiscuous teen daughter and Keir Gilchrist as her nebbishy, precocious son) are all pretty OK with her condition. They've learned to live with it, work around it, even embrace it in all its freakish glory. (Most shows would have either Tara or her family frantically trying to conceal her condition from the outside world.)

As we're more than two months from the show's premiere and we don't like to truck in spoilers, we'll just say that Collette's a likely lock for any acting awards that anyone wants to throw in her direction, and that the show has huge water-cooler-buzz potential: Once you see an episode, you'll be compelled to talk about it; it's that memorably off-the-wall.

You'll also wonder: Which Steven Spielberg personality directed "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Exploding Refrigerators?"

Breaking news from the Onion News Network:

YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video

Enter today!

Hard to say which is the worse news for NBC: the fact that it has canceled "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Lipstick Jungle" for lousy ratings, or the fact that it has given full-season pickups to "Knight Rider," "Life" and "Kath & Kim" despite lousy ratings. "Crusoe" shouldn't be feeling too good about itself at this point (though, since it's a British co-production, NBC's not paying as much for its lousy ratings), and it's not like "Friday Night Lights" will punch up the network's fortunes when it returns mid-season.

(NBC has hired Diogenes to search for an honest-to-goodness hit show.)

And an informal AOL poll (is there any other kind of online poll aside from informal?) finds that if Tina Fey's not going to be reaming Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live," then viewers aren't going to be showing up, either: 50% said they're outtathere. A quarter said they'd still watch (pity those squalid, miserable lives) and another quarter said, "Eh, maybe."

Sad thing is, "SNL's" Palin parodies were pulling way more viewers than just about anything on NBC's primetime schedule.

*

Tomorrow on "Good Morning America," ABC's Chris Cuomo will interview William Ayers, the former member of the '60s radical group the Weatherman that Sarah Palin would have you believe has not changed one whit from those days and is still skulking about free in Chicago just waiting for his good pal Barack Obama to pop by so they can go lobbing bombs at "the real America." They'll discuss why he didn't try to hog a lot of camera time during the campaign like Joe the Plumber.

(What kind of photo of Bill Ayers is this? This isn't going to scare anyone!)

(That's more like it!)

"The FCC is asleep at the wheel. And it is your family who's being hurt."

That's MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who yesterday unleashed an F-bomb live on air. Heretofore, Joe didn't like the filthscape that television had become, railing repeatedly against the Super Bowl halftime show's Nipplegate and Bono's "fleeting expletive" during an awards show.

(Warning: Spoiler alert: Joe says a very dirty word in the clip above and doesn't even realize it until later, when he apologizes and anticipates the clean, cold taste of soap in his mouth.)

So MSNBC has instituted a seven-second delay for "Morning Joe," standard practice for live events on TV but usually not newscasts. The FCC holds no sway over cable, so MSNBC's not going to face a fine or anything, but it would be poetic justice of a sort if Scarborough's mouth - presumably the same one with which he kisses his mother - got him in trouble after he used it to kvetch about other's naughty jabbering.

A couple of articles today take the networks to task for being so unforthcoming with, well, shows we'd like to watch.

USA Today's Robert Bianco offers the networks some no doubt unwanted advice. A lot of it's stuff we've been saying here, but it bears repeating:

* Come up with your own shows, and quit swiping ideas from overseas ("This willingness to base U.S. schedules on foreign ratings reflects both a laziness and a lack of confidence among network executives," Bianco notes).

* Would it kill you to cook up a funny comedy?

* And developing shows on the fly clearly doesn't work (as "My Own Worst Enemy" - four million viewers last night - and "Kath & Kim" demonstrate).

Meanwhile, David Bianculli waxes nostalgic for the days when a sweeps month (such as this one) once meant some genuinely interesting, eye-popping programming from the broadcast networks, not just a guest appearance by Whoopi Goldberg on "Life on Mars."

By his reckoning, there are three pieces of event-like programming coming our way this month: Fox's "24: Redemption" (Nov. 23), HBO's Ricky Gervais stand-up special (this Saturday) and FX's series finale of "The Shield." Sounds about right to me, though he may be forgetting Fine Living Nework's Sunday-after-Thanksgiving mini-marathon of "Whatever, Martha!"

Two of those, Bianculli points out, are on cable, not the broadcast networks. It's like they've just given up.

This is probably not the episode "House" fans were clamoring for. I mean, we like our House cranky, right; the strong, sardonic type? We don't want him even vaguely moony - remember what a debacle that story arc with Sela Ward was?

("OK, so you've cost the hospital millions in lawsuits - just never get romantically involved in a storyline again, and I'll consider us even, all right?")

Last week, in an emotionally vulnerable moment, Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) swapped spit with House (Hugh Laurie). This week, they're still mulling over that moment: "Anytime you want to stop kissing, I'm there for you," House tells her in his characteristically lousy-bedside-manner-(or-anywhere-near-a-bed) sort of way.

Leave it to Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to poke his nose into this situation, and to offer advice even worse than "Just keep it down to three Vicodin and Scotches per night, and you'll be fine." Cuddy, at least, understanding the dynamics of the show, insists, "Everybody will be better off if House and I are not dating."

Now, House has had carnal thoughts about Cuddy - end of last season, in fact - but naughty fantasies don't necessarily translate into deeper, more resonant feelings, unless of course you're a character on a TV show, even one as good as "House."

(Hubba hubba.)

(We said, hubba hubba.)

(Taken out of context, this shot is really smutty. It wasn't terribly clean-cut in context, either.)

And the episode ends with a montage played over an emo song, just like hundreds of other episodes of dozens of other shows. The storytelling gods really should put an end to that sort of thing if they want us to keep believing in them.

Oh, and there's a patient, too, and complications, as well, and further snags in fixing the guy up. But then, this is "House;" you already knew that.

Seriously: Do not let House have mushy feelings. A "House" united cannot stand.

- "House:" 8 tonight, Fox (Channel 11).

We didn't discuss Prop 8 here in the run-up to the election, because our friend Greg Hernandez owned the debate on his Daily News blog (and, truth be told, we kind of thought - stupidly, in retrospect - No on 8 was a slam dunk).

But Keith Olbermann did such a nice job eviscerating the proposition Monday evening - and not in his shouty-shout, "Bring-me-the-head-of-George-Bush-on-a-pike" voice, but in a brand new "We're-not-mad-at-you,-California;-we're-just-really-really-disappointed" voice. His sentiments, actually, are quite lovely and powerful:

Still: He doesn't have any close gay friends and he's a member of the media elite? I thought gay friends were an essential accessory of the media elite; that's why I have several! (Including a longtime couple who exchanged their vows near the La Brea tar pits, symbolically underscoring the end of such Neanderthal thinking that had prevented them from doing so in the past.)

And Olbermann's anguished tone about how awful life is without love and how horribly difficult it can be to find love these days - well, it kind of sounds like a guy whose girlfriend dumped him over the weekend, and he's trying to win her back. (Or it sounds like me, back when I thought winning someone over was a remote possibility.)

I kid, of course. Olbermann's eloquence and passionate righteousness trump his delivery. But still, did his girlfriend dump him over the weekend?

Like you, my friends read this blog. Like some of you, they don't leave comments in the comments section, but they do send me private Emails with their thoughts and questions, apparently unaware that my editors don't count private Emails I receive with the same interest with which they count the comments this blog amasses.

Like you, when my friends Email me, I Email them back. So when I wrote that NBC had picked up 13 more episodes of Barack Obama's infomercial to patch up the many holes in its weary schedule, and one friend wondered what future episodes of the show would be like, I responded:

"Episode three of 'Barack The President' is a Very Special Episode in which Barack has to save the world from thermonuclear meltdown while at the same time find his wife the perfect anniversary gift so he gets out of the doghouse for making a joke about her @ss during his State of the Union address."

(Fun fact: Barack Obama is based on Jimmy Smits' character on "The West Wing.")

And when we discussed Sarah Palin's potential future as a TeeVee personality, another friend wondered how she would fare, to which I responded with this hypothetical interview:

PALIN: My guest today is Barack Hussein Osama - er, Obama. Do you mind if I call you Hussein?

OBAMA: 'Mr. President' is fine.

("And now, here's your host - a woman who can find the nation of Africa on a Wasilla road map - Sarrrr-aaaahh Paaaaaa-linnnnn!")

PALIN: Mr. President, can you explain how your plan to, quote, "spread the wealth around" is not socialism?

OBAMA: Certainly. You wouldn't call taxation in general socialism, would you? And its essential purpose is to spread the wealth around - your tax dollars go to paving roads in Mississippi, or to schools in Wyoming. If that's socialism, then the United States have been a socialist country long before I arrived on the scene. Do you even know what socialism is?

PALIN: Uh, well, yeah, you betcha. Uh, Mr. President, could you explain how you will curb your desire to pal around with terrorists while in the White House?

*

My friend suggested I should turn the above into a blog entry. And I do anything for my friends.

Now that "Heroes" has canned a couple of its executive producers, Entertainment Weekly is suggesting that Bryan Fuller - who helped make the show's first season its only really popular one - may return to the fold. The bad news is, that's contingent on ABC canceling "Pushing Daisies," which increasingly looks like a done deal.

(Go ahead and kiss. At least you'll both die happy.)

Last week, a "Dancing with the Stars" results show lured 9 million more viewers to the timeslot than "Pushing Daisies" has managed; the week before, the show got pummeled by the premiere of the infomercial pilot of a new show called "Barack the President."

Fuller - who can't catch a break; his other shows, "Wonderfalls" and "Dead Like Me" were critically acclaimed and short-lived, as well - tells EW, "I am exclusive to 'Daisies' through the delivery of the 13th episode of our 13-episode order, which will be mid-January. If 'Daisies' isn't picked up by then, I will definitely be going back to play with my friends at 'Heroes.'"

(This is what has happened to "Heroes"' characters over the past couple of seasons.)

Reaction to this news at EW's site was pretty much an echo of this comment: "My husband and I stopped watching 'Heroes' this year because it was just such a waste of time. In contrast, 'Pushing Daisies' is the only show we've kept watching this year and that's kept us delighted. I'm SO SICK OF TV for just this reason. Shows never get a chance and anytime I watch a new show it gets cancelled. I think I just need to stop watching TV entirely. Thanks, networks!"

ABC will probably replace "Daisies" with a "Dancing with the Stars" results show with contestants responding to the fallout of its Tuesday "DWTS" results show. And repeat, as needed, in other struggling timeslots.

I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to say that the People's Choice Awards are really kind of the Moron's Choice Awards. What other conclusion can be reached when the nominees for Favorite Action Movie are the same as the nominees for Favorite Movie?

For the record, they're "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Realm of the Nuked Refrigerator." Don't get me wrong - I really liked "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man;" I just wonder whether maybe there were some other good movies out there, too?

Anyway, my point is, after the Moron's Choice Awards folks have gone to such Draconian extents to cull the herd among the movie nominees, TV is treated like a veritable Special Olympics. Here are the nominees for Favorite New TV Drama:

"90210," "Crusoe," "Easy Money," "Eleventh Hour," "Fringe," "Knight Rider," "Life on Mars," "The Mentalist," "My Own Worst Enemy," "Privileged"

That's right, all of them - all that are on the broadcast networks, at least. There's no "True Blood" or "Raising the Bar" or any other cable show among any TV nominees (Sci Fi Channel can't even rate a nominee in the Favorite Sci Fi Show category).

And here are the Favorite New TV Comedy nominees:

"Gary Unmarried," "Kath & Kim," "Valentine," "Worst Week"

Again, all the new shows from the broadcast networks (with the exception of "Do Not Disturb," which has already been cancelled - it'd be a little embarrassing, I suppose, if a cancelled show was named the new Favorite).

How is "Valentine" a comedy? (And hasn't it been cancelled, as well? And if it's considered a comedy, why isn't "Privileged," which is mildly more amusing?) Come to think about it, how are any of those considered comedies? Aren't comedies supposed to make you laugh? "90210" has more inadvertent laughs than any of those shows' intentional laughs.

I say: Let's stuff the ballot box for The CW's "Easy Money," a show so great that production has already been halted (and the show reportedly cancelled) because only about 650,000 out of a nation of 300 million bothers to watch it, and half of those only because they can't get their friggin' remotes to work. Cast your votes here!

(And the winner is ... Well, in the category "This can't possibly be a real ad, can it? It looks even cheaper than the show itself!")

Fox is, as usual, tearing up its schedule and starting over come the new year, when it has "American Idol" and "24" to bolster what probably could've been a stronger fall. (The Phillies/Rays World Series didn't help.)

In a way, Fox seems to have an embarrassment of riches, so much so that they're airing the highly anticipated Joss Whedon show "Dollhouse" (starring Eliza Dushku as someone genetically designed to eternally suffer from short-term memory loss so she can be dispatched on all sorts of tricky/sexy/violent assignations) on Fridays, where the network traditionally sucks wind. (More bad news for "Dollhouse:" It's following "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which was picked up for the full season despite fairly moribund ratings.)

("I'd be really hacked off that Fox gave me such a crappy timeslot, but it's already slipped my mind.")

Can't imagine that Whedon - who got jerked around by Fox a few years back on his short-lived show "Firefly" - is pleased to have his new series dumped on a night where 5 million viewers is shruggingly considered acceptable. And "Dollhouse" was one of Fox's "Remote-Free TV" shows, where advertisers were to pay a premium to appear in a program with not so much commercial clutter - can't imagine people paying a premium to appear on Fox Fridays.

Fox's other new show, "Lie to Me," stars Tim Roth as Fox's answer to Simon Baker's "The Mentalist" and has the bad luck to debut opposite the season premiere of ABC's "Lost."

Also, Fox has already pushed the "Family Guy" spinoff, "The Cleveland Show," to next season (but have already given it a full-season pickup) and the other new animated series, "Shut Up, Sit Down," has yet to find a spot on the schedule (though obviously they'll shoehorn it in on Sunday somewhere, sometime).

Fox 2009

Monday
8 p.m. "House" (Jan. 19)
9 p.m. "24" (returns with two two-hour installments on Jan. 11/12)

Tuesday
8 p.m. "American Idol" (two-hour premiere Jan. 13)
9 p.m. "Fringe"

Wednesday
8 p.m. "American Idol" (two-hour premiere Jan. 14)
9 p.m. "Lie To Me" (Jan. 21)

Thursday
8 p.m. "Bones" (Jan. 15)
9 p.m. "Hell's Kitchen" (Jan. 29)

Friday
8 p.m. "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (Feb. 13)
9 p.m. "Dollhouse" (Feb. 13)

Saturday - still "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted," forever and ever, amen

Sunday - still "Simpsons," "King of the Hill," "Family Guy" and "American Dad," but also:
7 p.m. "Hole in the Wall" (Jan. 18)

The guys at "South Park" reveal what this election was really about:

She thought Africa was a country. Well, close: "Continent" has many of the same letters.

What would McCain have done had he won? Sent her hunting with Cheney and hoped for the best?

A press release I received:

"Janeane Garofolo, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Carlos Bernard and Carly Pope of FOX's Emmy Award-winning '24' are scheduled to perform scripts written by students participating in the Young Storytellers Foundation's unique mentoring program at Superior Elementary School in Chatsworth, CA on Thursday, Nov. 6 at 5:00 PM."

The headline, however, was "'24' Cast Members Perform with YSF." So imagine the glee horror with which I envisioned Jack Bauer torturing and blowing up the youngsters because they would destroy America/held secrets vital to our national security, and then imagine the disappointment relief I felt when I realized the actual scenario was much more benign if not downright mundane.

(He's coming for you, kids.)

With Joe The Plumber and the Hockey Mom meme, the 2008 Presidential election was constantly in danger of devolving into a grand, stupid children's show. CNN plunged the narrative further in that direction with their idiotic moronic asinine ill-advised hologram interviews last night.

And this delightful clip comes from BBC America's coverage: Gore Vidal manages to look simultaneously arrogant and buffoonish.

There are a bunch of stories out today about people who were addicted to the campaign coverage and how they're going to have to come down from their info-huffing and have a life again. Personally, I'm just glad it's over. I'm exhausted.

Of course, ominously enough, after Obama's acceptance speech, Wally got skunked. The skunk must've been in the tank for McCain.

Leonard Cohen, 15 years after the fact, remains relevant: Great song; so-so video.

Ricky Gervais, having conquered America with - uh, "Ghost Town?" - (no, wait, he has a stand-up special on HBO on the 15th) is floating his name to host our American awards specials. He tells TV Guide (on newsstands Thursday) that he'd be happy to host the Emmys (with Steve Carell and maybe Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert) - given that his appearance during the last Emmycast was one of the few notable moments in that whole godforsaken evening, maybe that's not such a bad idea - and that the Oscars are in play, as well:

"It's mainly a rumor. But apparently my agents did get a few calls asking if I'd be interested. As far as I can make out, I'm on the list. ... I'd seriously think about it. The Oscars is obviously the biggest world stage, isn't it? So, it's a double-edged sword: First, I'd be absolutely flattered. Then, I'd also have to consider whether I was the best person for the job. Because what I don't want to be is The Worst Host Ever."

(Ricky Gervais will absolve the entertainment industry of its sins.)

Adult Swim is looking for someone to play Carl in an upcoming live-action episode of its cartoon "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." To be a credible Carl, you must be portly, hairy everywhere except on the top of your head and a shameless, vulgar lech. I imagine the competition will be fierce.

Download your video audition at the link above.

(Are you as gross as this guy? If so, I hope you're not proud of the fact.)

Finally, on Friday KCRW will present Van Morrison's first live concert webcast during his performance at the Hollywood Bowl. They'll present the first set; Morrison's second set will feature his classic album "Astral Weeks," which is now 40 years old (but is still telling everyone it's only 39), in its entirety for future release as a CD/DVD.

KCRW warns that it will not archive this performance, so you'll have to drop everything and catch it live at the link above.

(Van the Man, in all his effervescent grumpiness.)

Entertainment Weekly reports that producers two of "Heroes"' writer/producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander are leaving the three-year-old series. (Variety says they were fired.) Not a good sign, given the show's ratings tumble this season (though a sizable number are watching it online instead), and given viewers' complaints about the show this year.

But perhaps worse news, if not for NBC then for the rest of us, is that the network has picked up "Kath & Kim" for the full season, even though a recent episode didn't even garner 5 million viewers. (It's produced by NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman's former production company.) It's "a show we love and believe in," an executive burbled. "We have incredible confidence in the creative auspices of this show and we believe it's a perfect fit with our Thursday-night comedies." I didn't even realize the show had "creative auspices." Also, this suggests that that previously announced "Office" non-spin-off spin-off starring Amy Poehler might be dead in the water, since "Kath & Kim's" timeslot is where it would've turned up.

And this, from Conan O'Brien: "On NBC, the Barack Obama infomercial pre-empted the new show 'Knight Rider.' So Obama is not even president yet and he's already making America a better place."