December 2008 Archives

Years from now, portions of the 2008 Presidential election will seem like some satirical sci-fi conspiracy thriller (or, if Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" wins the day in the predicting-the-future sweepstakes, will simply be commonplace). The most inspired TV creation of 2008 was the governor of a state known more for its meth labs than for its progressive governance who won America's heart with a few snarky quips, who was at her best dodging questions because she wasn't too good at actually answering them, who didn't seem to have had a lot of book-learnin' (and if she had, it hadn't took), who spoke to her constituency like they were children, who had a preternatural sense of self-assurance despite her apparent lack of interest in foreign policy and American political history ... and who almost became our Vice President.

Herewith, some of her greatest hits:

Had the economy not cratered, she very well might be heading to Washington. So, does that make the horrific economy, uh, a good thing?

In a year filled with reprehensible individuals, Bernard Madoff is quickly rising to the top of the crapheap. Madoff, of course, is the duplicitous guy who made off with some $50 billion in others' investment money, nearly wiping out a lot of charities, and even some Hollywood sorts, such as Steven Spielberg, "The Closer" star Kyra Sedgwick and her husband Kevin Bacon.

(After losing money to Bernard Madoff's cynically sinister plot, Bacon and Sedgwick have to dress like hoboes.)

"Forrest Gump" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" screenwriter Eric Roth is even suing his financial advisor for being a dupe and flushing Roth's money down Madoff's toilet. (Don't forget to check out our list of curious narrative coincidences between "Gump" and "Button.")

Look for this line in Roth's next movie: Life is like a box of Ponzi scheme investment spread sheets: You never know what you're going to get.

Here's why TV critics love the Washington Post's columnist Lisa de Moraes: her ability to stick a shiv in network executives' backs so gracefully, as she does in today's column, which basically recaps the past few years of NBC's woes, culminating in its recent decision to throw up its hands in defeat and decide not to try to be too competitive Monday through Friday at 10 p.m. beginning next season with Jay Leno's new show:

"NBC, meanwhile, has rolled up its sleeves and started doing what it does best. No, silly, not developing the high-quality, must-see TV programs that once made it the crown jewel of broadcast television -- that's so 1990.

"What NBC does best these days is turn its failures into The New Broadcast TV Paradigm."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

It was the worst of times. Not even a cockeyed optimist like Charles Dickens (who wrote so drolly about the indentured servitude of children) would suggest there was a "best of times" aspect to 2008.

So, what better way to commemorate a year of misery, contentious bickering, moral failings, budgetary disasters and abject pettiness (and that was just "Bad Girls Club!") than to hold our noses and look back at it. After all, those who forget history, etc., etc.

January 2008: The writers strike enters its third month, forcing the networks to throw all sorts of crummy reality programming on the air. Ratings plummet, but the networks don't really learn much from this, as they will continue to throw all sorts of crummy reality programming on the air throughout the year, just to really stick it to the writers (and, they realized too late, themselves).

(Wally the dog found himself, apropos of nothing, on the picket line at NBC. His glum expression reflects an understanding of the economic hardships facing not just the industry but the city in general that apparently not many members of SAG even recognize.)

February 2008: NBC, in a brilliant response to the writers strike, schedules "quarterlife," a show that originated online about navel-gazing twentysomethings, for its air. The experiment is so successful (three million viewers! Less than good cable shows!) that NBC cancels it after one episode. NBC-Universal CEO Jeff Zucker turns the ongoing Death of All Media story into a p!ssing match, insisting, "The thing [reporters] want is for the [TV-news] business to die faster [than the newspaper business], because that's what makes them feel better." Because we all know nothing makes people feel better in abject economic times than human suffering. Fortunately, the strike comes to a merciful end, but part of its fallout means that the networks will be hiring fewer writers in the coming months to earn those extra dimes for online content.

March 2008: A symposium dedicated to "The Future of Television" is held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Apparently, the Future of Television doesn't involve televisions at all, just little Funny-or-Die videos playing on your computer screen. Oh, and lots of buzzwords and jargon and Carson Daly.

April 2008: George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the Greatest Country in the World, appears on "Deal or No Deal," oft-considered one of the dumbest game shows in the history of dumb game shows. My blog entry on this particular event in retrospect proves disturbingly prescient, given how he eventually captained the economy into an iceberg: "He will thank host Howie Mandel for his service to our country. He will then select Briefcase #17 and, with Laura screaming at him to make a deal, refuse to make a deal. He goes home with $50."

Oh, and one of those crummy reality shows cobbled together during the writers strike, CBS's "Secret Talents of the Stars," is cancelled after a single airing, and NBC, in a mad scramble to appear as though they have a plan, announces an ambitious 18-month schedule, much of which has already been scrapped. At least Ben Silverman has his career in poetry to fall back on.

May 2008: The other networks besides NBC present their fall schedules and the annual upfronts, and suspiciously missing are many new shows, let alone promising new shows. Jeff Zucker opens his mouth again, saying, "(W)e're not going to knee-jerk change schedules just because the ratings aren't what somebody else expected them to be. It's really not just about the ratings anymore." Of course, come the fall, NBC's "My Own Worst Enemy" will be yanked after four episodes due to, yes, low ratings.

June 2008: The summer doldrums have never been so doldrummy: History Channel airs a documentary about crap, "All About Dung," while NBC airs a show that's pure crap, "Baby Borrowers," while other crap reality shows are planned - focusing on arranged marriages and busted-up couples trying to pawn their sloppy seconds off on unsuspecting dating-show contestants. Tim Russert and George Carlin react to the withering television landscape the way any reasonably sentient being would, by dying. Oh, and I outdo the cable-news prognosticators by declaring victory for Simon Baker and "The Mentalist" early - June 19.

July 2008: "Mad Men" returns for a second season, almost single-handedly saving the TV year from utter despair." But then, a particularly dispiriting TV Press Tour turns up little to get enthusiastic about and much of the same old desultory network-executive blandishments and we're back in our existential-malaise funk again, exacerbated by the fact that cable network G4, not to be outdone by History's cinematic ode to poop, announces a new show dedicated to puke, entitled "Hurl!"

August 2008: The Chinese government, apparently worried that its Olympics opening-night extravaganza isn't going to be quite spectacular enough, opt to fix some of the special effects in post, while MSNBC offers up some fireworks of its own, presenting a breathtaking array of anchors bickering with one another on-air when they're not exulting Barack Obama as the Second Coming.

September 2008: Sarah Palin, proving that, yes, indeed, anyone can run for one of the highest offices in the land, becomes America's Sweetheart - for a couple of weeks, at least, until Tina Fey wrests the title from her with her excoriatingly hilariously satirical impersonation of the Vice Presidential nominee. Then the economy craters and voters are reminded that it's not the worst idea in the world to have someone who knows what they're doing in charge. Oh, and "Mad Men" and "30 Rock" clean up at the Emmys in a train wreck of a ceremony and the fall-TV season is purported to begin, but everyone's basically too busy sifting through the wreckage of their 401(K)'s to notice.

October 2008: "The Barack Obama Show" temporarily revives the variety genre with boffo ratings until Rosie O'Donnell's effort the following month kills it off again. And putting new shows on the shelf for nine months turns out not to be such a good idea, as NBC's "Chuck" and "Life" and ABC's "Pushing Daisies," "Private Practice" and "Dirty Sexy Money" all crater in the ratings. With "Sarah Palin's" Q-Scores plummeting, John McCain introduces a new lovable character to America: Joe the Plummer!

November 2008: Obama wins the best TV reality show ever, but Sarah Palin won't let go of the spotlight, even acceding to a cheerful interview in front of turkeys getting slaughtered. Speaking of getting slaughtered, The CW reminds us it still exists by managing an Epic Fail impressive even by its standards: Its Sunday-night lineup, outsourced to some outfit in Bangalore or somewhere, is abruptly cancelled and replaced by old movies you'd only otherwise see late at night on independent TV stations.

December 2008: With ratings down for every broadcast network (while many cable channels are enjoying record high viewerships on an almost monthly basis), NBC is the first broadcast network to essentially throw in the towel in its quest for ratings dominance by announcing that Jay Leno won't be competing against Conan O'Brien in late-night anytime soon, but more than likely he won't be doing much competing against ABC and CBS's primetime scripted dramas in the 10 p.m. hour, either. But Jay's Monday-through-Friday series will be a cheap show to produce, and it will keep food off the table for stars/writers/crew members of five prime-time dramas NBC won't have to invest in, suggesting that maybe 2009 will be just as much fun for the industry as 2008 was. Happy New Year ... ???

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is one of those obligatory Oscar-bait movies, a big, sprawling thing (two hours and 45 minutes!) about the ephemeral, magical moments that make life worth living for movie characters that inspire voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to feel good about giving it a bunch of trophies.

At least, that's how it turned out back when it was called "Forrest Gump."

As I was sitting through a recent advance screening, I kept thinking that "Gump" screenwriter Eric Roth should sue those responsible for "Button's" script for bald plagiarism. Then the end credits rolled, and turns out "Button" was written by ... Eric Roth. No point in suing yourself, I suppose.

Both films concern characters with comically twee names whose stories are related in a series of flashbacks, who lead globe-trotting, ostensibly romantically sweeping lives filled with adventure and eccentricity and who both learn through sappy epigrams that life is both unpredictable and rich with incident. Both were based on stories written by others ("Gump," Winston Groom; "Button," F. Scott Fitzgerald) that were drastically altered by Mr. Roth, though not so drastically altered from one another in their film incarnations. Here are a few more curious similarities.

Tough yet rich upbringing hobbled by physical maladies eventually overcome

"Forest Gump:" Forrest (Tom Hanks) is slow-witted and must wear leg braces and walk about with the use of canes as a child. Eventually, he's strong enough to become a long-distance runner.

"Benjamin Button:" Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is born an old man and ages in reverse. He spends his earliest years confined to a wheelchair, then gets strong enough to walk with the use of canes in his childhood. Eventually, he's a strapping and dashing fellow.

Epic tormented romance

"Forrest Gump:" Forrest meets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn) in his youth and is immediately smitten, but his love for her goes largely unrequited through a series of missed connections and Jenny's own searching spirit, for reasons that only make the story more resonant.

"Benjamin Button:" Benjamin meets Daisy (Cate Blanchett) in his elderly youth and is immediately smitten, but acting on such an infatuation would be, well, creepy. (Not to mention illegal.) They meet later, when the age difference isn't so icky, but still, Benjamin rejects Daisy's advances (for reasons that will forever go bewilderingly un-understood.) They finally hook up, until they don't, for reasons that only make the story more resonant.

A mighty storm at sea

"Forrest Gump:" Forrest, in a shrimping boat, survives a hurricane.

"Benjamin Button:" Benjamin, in a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, survives a hurricane.

In which the characters learn that war is bad

"Forrest Gump:" Forrest loses his best friend in Vietnam; his other best friend loses his legs.

"Benjamin Button:" Benjamin loses his mentor/captain during a surprise attack in World War II.

A shout-out to the Red States

"Forrest Gump:" After serving in Vietnam, Forrest reunites with Jenny, but abandons her after being put off by her free-wheeling ways with her Berkeley hippie friends.

"Benjamin Button:" After serving in World War II, Benjamin reunites with Daisy, but abandons her after being put off by her free-wheeling ways with her New-York-theater bohemian friends.

Cloying symbol of, well, something

"Forrest Gump:" A feather that appears in key moments of the film, cascading downward lightly, spritely, representing the uplifting vicissitudes of survival and existence.

"Benjamin Button:" A hummingbird that appears in key moments of the film, madly flapping its wings, representing the uplifting vicissitudes of survival and existence.

MAYOR OF TELEVISION: Hello, and welcome to the annual Mayor of Television Christmas special! It's been an eventful year, to say the least, so it's a wonderful and particularly timely time to reverently celebrate the reason for the season!

Unfortunately, a lot of my friends have lost their jobs in the past year, so there's not a lot under the tree - heck, there's not even a tree this year due to budgetary constraints! My guests are Scarlett Johansson, Rod Blagojevich, David Spade and Bea Arthur ... oh, wait, more budgetary constraints. But that doesn't mean we can't have a lovely, festive celebration! So join me, won't you?

(Sits, turns on NBA games on his TV and watches glumly while playing Spider Solitaire online for several hours. Wally, The Mayor's dog, chews forlornly on furniture with impunity. Holly wafts listlessly; the mistletoe withers.)

MAYOR OF TELEVISION: Well, unfortunately, that's all the time we have tonight! Join me again next year for another holiday spectacular, won't you?

NBC.com is throwing a little contest for you and your ilk: They want you to design a T-shirt for "The Office," and they're willing to pay you big for it.

If, by big, we mean "peanuts."

(Your hard work could almost pay off!)

If your design wins, here's what you get:

Your design will be sold exclusively through The NBC Store!
10 free T-shirts (when produced)
Choice of any three t-shirts from NBCstore.com
Dunderize Your Cube
DM Shot Glass (four pack)
Lunch Bag
Exclusive Dwight Bobblehead Golf Balls (3)
Star Mug Set

So NBC will make money off of your efforts, and you'll get a fistful of T-shirts for your trouble. But, hey! Should the economy continue in the direction it's heading, perhaps T-shirts will be worth more than actual money! And you can use the shot glasses to drown your sorrows, and you can use the golf balls to bean the heads of the very wealthy and, while they're unconscious, steal their Bentleys.

Good luck!

Macrovision has sold the TV Guide network for $300 million. $300 million! Basically, it's just an endless scroll of listings of what you could be watching on other channels if you were smarter, which seems a nice enough service except for the fact that your cable or satellite operator provides a much nicer and more interactive service that allows you to find exactly what you're looking for far more quickly.

So TV Guide network also shows (in a little picture at the top of the screen) an endless loop of breathtakingly banal celebrity interviews and red-carpet claptrap - it's like "Entertainment Tonight" 24/7, and if that idea isn't enough for you to want to put out your eyes, nothing is. And, the new owners say that eventually they'll phase out the TV listings, so that even the people who don't know how to use the interactive listings service will have no reason to watch. $300 million! And they thought Bernard Madoff swindled people.

It's like dinosaurs investing in tar pits.

*

Friend to Your Mayor Alan Sepinwall offers a eulogy of sorts for NBC in the wake of the Jay Leno deal - he chillingly reckons that next fall, NBC may have only six hours of original scripted programming on its air, putting it not too far off from, say, TNT or FX. And he offers this sad but wonderful metaphor:

"(T)he networks are Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff. So long as they pump their legs and assume there's solid ground beneath their feet, they get to keep moving. But as soon as one of them gives up and looks at where it is, as NBC has with the Jay Leno deal, there's nowhere to go but way, way down."

Her Christmas memory is particularly moving, a magical evocation of holiday cheer we can all celebrate.

My inexorable trek toward film-critic respectability proceeds apace, with my review of the award-winning French film "The Class" as well as my take on a film that won't win anything, at any time, but is still intermittently amusing, "My Name is Bruce."

Enjoy and be edified.

Jeremy Piven, who has won three Emmys for his acutely observed performances as a thoroughgoing @sshole on HBO's "Entourage," has ducked out on his similar role in a Hollywood satire on Broadway, David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow," two and a half months before his scheduled departure.

Variety reports, "Piven has informed the producers that he hasn't been feeling well and that the condition is attributable to a high mercury count."

And that may be true, but there seems to be a measure of doubt, perhaps (or particularly) given that his behavior is a favorite target for derision at defamer.com.

Even Mamet was unmoved by Piven's explanation, telling Variety, "My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer."

"Speed-the-Plow" has emerged as the rare Broadway hit in this beleaguered economy. Which is kind of interesting, given that back in the '80s, it was only successful in the brief run in which Madonna appeared as the story's idealistic and/or manipulative narrative fulcrum.

Once she left, she was replaced by a far more accomplished actress, Felicity Huffman (currently seen weekly on "Desperate Housewives"), and the show went away somewhat quickly. I saw the production when Huffman was in the cast (so was Bob Balaban, if memory serves). It wasn't that good. So the notion that Piven had somehow managed to elevate a fairly mediocre production into hit status without Madonna is pretty impressive, until, of course, he bailed.

Pamela Anderson displayed her fame-bags to a live audience sitting dutifully through a taping of Fox's upcoming variety hour featuring Ozzy Osbourne and his dysfunctional clan.

(Oops, she did it again.)

Per the report:

"The buxom blonde accidentally flashed her breasts to an entire studio audience during a taping yesterday of 'Osbournes: Reloaded,' a new upcoming variety show hosted by Sharon, Ozzy, Kelly and Jack Osbourne."

Details are added by someone who was in the audience:

"The Osbournes blindfold themselves and ask the guest questions to guess who they are."

You're kidding, right? That's the set-up? For a prime-time broadcast network TV show? (And anyway, wouldn't her squeak-a-mouse voice give her away pretty quickly - to Jack, at least?)

The audience member continues:

"Pam was sprawled on the stage, but when she got up, the top half of her dress completely flopped forward exposing everything."

OK, again, wait. The Osbournes are blindfolded, but yet she has to writhe around onstage like a stripper? As my operative who sent me the link to this story put it: "Unintentional - right!"

SCARLETT JOHANSSON ('THE SPIRIT') RAISES MONEY FOR USA HARVEST BY BLOWING HER NOSE ON NBC'S 'THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO'

So that's how they're going to revive the economy: with celebrity snot.

"The Flight of the Conchords," in my (and, hopefully, your) estimation, took too long to return to HBO. They'll be coming back, soon-ish, but in the meantime, here's a glimpse at their next season. And not just a glimpse, but pretty much the entire first episode of the new season. My, you're lucky to get to see this this soon, and almost exclusively (unless you frequently visit FunnyOrDie.com:

By the way, the semi-profane song at the end of the episode about angels doing it was something Jemaine and Bret were doing on tour back in May. And did you know you could score a CD-set of their six-part British radio series? Well, you can, and even though it's pretty much a lot like the HBO series that followed, if you're a geeky fan, you'll still want to get it.

Not that I'm outing myself, or anything. I'm just terribly well informed about this sort of thing.

Hey, so Your Mayor has been assigned another title, the Vice-Deputy Mayor of Film or some such. (Long story. Or, if you've been following the saga of print journalism, not such a long story.) Anyway, I weigh in today with my first film review in a while (I used to do this full-time in the '80s and '90s), with a review of the acclaimed (though not quite as much here) film "The Wrestler." Enjoy.

Unless you obsessively frequent the remainder bin at your local video store, you may not have been aware that Mickey Rourke has actually been pretty busy over the past 15 years, appearing mainly in straight-to-video claptrap, with an occasional fifth- or sixth-billed appearance in a movie that actually does manage to reach the screen.

With "The Wrestler," Rourke's story mirrors that of his character's: A burned-out entertainer with one last shot at glory. Rourke's personal narrative - he's already been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Independent Spirit Award - is a cinch to be more gratifying than what awaits his character, Randy "The Ram" Robinson.

The Ram, a golden-tressed galoot (think a more dissolute Hulk Hogan), is staring down the end of a hardscrabble career as a pro wrestler. Consigned to playing grubby venues with cinderblock walls, folding chairs and processed-wood tables serving as ticket counters, The Ram moonlights at a grocery store and spends his rent money on steroids and drinks at a dive where he's sweet on the proverbial stripper with a heart of gold, Cassidy (Marissa Tomei).

After a particularly brutal match which finds him picking out shards of broken glass from his torso, The Ram collapses. He awakens in a hospital where the doctor warns him that his career is over, sending him to seek out his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), and touchingly attempts to insinuate himself back into her life.

Oh, and there's that one final match that could result in the handsome payday he's been aching for, if it doesn't kill him...

"The Wrestler" is directed by Darren Aranofsky, creator of such trippy success d'estimes as "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream," and is his most conventional film to date. In fact, as written by Robert Siegel, former editor of the hilarious online fake-news site "The Onion," "The Wrestler" is crushingly conventional, a string of underdog-flick clichés given surprising life by some fiercely committed performances.

Easily the best scenes in the film are the confrontations between the contrite Ram and the justifiably bitter Stephanie. Rourke and Wood tear into these scenes with a heartbreaking rawness that elevates the melodramatic material.

But then, Rourke's good and often great throughout. For long swatches of the film, Aranofsky's camera tracks him from behind, as the weary Ram traverses his dreary world - not until he appears before his adoring fans does he rouse himself into full battle bravado, strutting his stuff like a completely different man (which, essentially, he becomes).

"The Wrestler" is also noteworthy in that it refrains from condescending to pro wrestling. That it's a sham is a given, but that fact isn't played for too much of a joke. There's an affection for its practitioners, a fraternity of muscle-bound hulks filled with so much bonhomie that the avowed foes amiably chat with one another during their ostensible grudge matches.

Had there been more neat touches like that and maybe an unforeseen plot twist or two, "The Wrestler" might've been a more entertaining movie. As is, bravura performances make this a lot more involving than it probably deserves.

*

Feel free to let me know what you think, but I thought I slipped back into the role of cineaste fairly well and diplomatically, particularly given how skeevy I had always found Mickey Rourke (particularly since I had to review "Wild Orchid" back in the day).

I'll add more to the esteemed oeuvre of cinematic literature on Friday, with reviews of the cheese-fest "My Name is Bruce" but also this year's Cannes Palme d'Or winner, "The Class." How did I score a chance to review such a masterpiece? Particularly given that I have no dirt with which to extort our resident film expert, Bob Strauss?

CBS CEO Les Moonves has been talking a pretty good game about how his network will crush Jay Leno - "I will bet anybody who would like to bet that 'CSI: Miami' on Monday night at 10 o'clock will beat Jay by a lot. Remember that: By a lot" - but in case Leno does make some ratings inroads, the network seems to have cooked up an inspired, if sinister, Plan B.

Customs officials in Houston last month intercepted a container of props for the network's recently wrapped "Suvivor: Gabon" shipped from West Africa. Per a report:

(Reality show contestants or stooges for an international militarized-virus smuggling plot masterminded by Les Moonves?)

"The freight contained several animal skulls and hides ... and various bones, Yolanda Choates, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told the Houston Chronicle. ... Some were infested with termites, while other artifacts potentially carried microbes linked to Ebola and other viruses. ... CBS may be subject to fines, which will be assessed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture."

Honestly: Sneaking the Ebola virus into the country just to maintain ratings dominance at 10 p.m. is going a little overboard, Les. But then, he's always been a competitive guy. He probably would've personally tried to slip the microbes into one of Jay's vintage cars.

TVNewser got a copy of the memo NBC sent to its affiliates about Jay Leno's new show that'll strip across the 10 p.m. hour of primetime next season. It suggests Leno will be subject to less TiVo-ing than a scripted show, but kind of glosses over the fact that he may not be bringing much of a lead-in to the local stations' 11 p.m. news, which is where many stations get to charge their highest ad rates if they're performing solidly in the time slot.

So naturally, a lot of affiliates are concerned how this will affect their bottom line: The consensus seems to be that while it may be a good, money-saving move for NBC, it's less than good and potentially disastrous for local channels. "It's not like they'll cancel it if it's not working," one station owner opines. "So they've just built a box that's very hard to get out of."

But then, that's what I've been saying since they made the announcement.

I sat down on Monday with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanaugh, two stars from NBC's heydays who will soon be starring on TNT's upcoming series "Trust Me," which is a show you'd think NBC executives would kill their young to have on its air today.

McCormack won an Emmy for his long-running hit show "Will & Grace;" Cavanaugh was the critically acclaimed titular star of "Ed." Those shows aired back when NBC had loads of good shows. I asked them what they made of the network's fortunes these days. They didn't directly address the fact that NBC will soon be airing a talk show starring Jay Leno in five hours of prime time soon, but, well, you got the sense of sorrow for a network's former greatness.

Cavanaugh: I have to be careful, because the reason I'm on this show is because I was on NBC. My profile, you know, the fact that I have any profile at all is because I did 'Ed' on NBC. And so, they've given me so much. While I was there, they were the undisputed rock and roll kings. It's difficult to watch what's going on there now. At the same time, everything's cyclical. The best thing to answer that is to say is, it's great to be on TNT. (goes on to say lovely things about TNT which aren't just B.S., including:) Their plan seems like a simple business model: We're going to pick some shows that we think are good, we're going to shoot those pilots, and if we're right, we're going to pick up a few of them and try to see them through.

McCormack: It was a wonderful place to be. With 'Will & Grace,' we were automatically Must-See TV, we were surrounded by greatness. And they were great to me. And it is sad to see that it's changed so much, but not just for NBC, but for all of (the broadcast networks). It's a very different game for them. They're having to play a different game now.

Cavanaugh: "Having." They're "having?"

McCormack: I don't know. I remember when we were a couple of years into "Grace," and (NBC-Universal top dog) Jeff Zucker was the last guy who wanted to do reality. And we were all, like, proud of him that he held back and then one day he had to give in because reality was what everyone seemed to want. We all thought reality would go away within two years - it hasn't, it's become bigger than ever. And now, NBC is doing more reality than anyone.

This information traversed my Email box today, and so I pass it along to you. TV producer Scott Sternberg - who's currently working on "Shatner's Raw Nerve" on the Bio Channel and has done AMC's "Shootout," Fox Reality's "The Academy" and, um, Bravo's "Hey Paula" - has cooked up a little list that combines the holiday spirit with derision, always a good thing.

He came up with a list of the worst holiday TV specials of all time. Take it away, Scott:

"The Star Wars Holiday Special" (1978 - CBS)
On the planet of Kashyyk, Chewie's family anxiously await the return of Han Solo and Chewie for the celebration of 'Life Day'. The duo must battle their way through Imperial forces to join the party. Key moment: Princess Leia performing the 'Life Day' theme song to the tune of the original Star Wars' score.

(We would've called Bea Arthur's appearance a key moment, but it's Scott's list.)

"He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special" (1985)
Two children unwittingly get caught up in the battle between good and evil when Skeletor believes that the spread of their Christmas Spirit is the only thing that can stop Horde Prime's total domination of the Universe. Key moment: Skeletor shooting down Horde Prime's ship and saving the two children after being overtaken by the Christmas Spirit.

"Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special" (1988)
A number of celebrities drop-by Pee Wee's festive playhouse to teach Pee Wee the lessons of Christmas and Hanukkah. Appearances by Oprah Winfrey, Cher, Joan Rivers and Magic Johnson give the special some celebrity wattage. Key moment: The classic double entendres featured throughout - such as the bottled "Eau de Pee-Wee" perfume that smells like PeeWee and the shirtless men who build Pee-Wee his 'Fruitcake house'.

"Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (2000)
Jake strives to help his Mum and Dad protect their family store from takeover, but in the confusion it turns out Grandma has gone missing and was involved in a very unusual hit and run accident. Key moment: Santa's 'hit and run' note and Grandma's Christmas cakes being spiked by 'reindeer-nip'.

Sternberg also names his top picks for this year's Holiday themed programming:

"A Charlie Brown Christmas"
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas"
"Shrek The Halls"
"The George W Bush Xmas and Shoes Special"

Hey, it's his joke, not mine.

What do you think? What holiday specials left you cringing or gulping down the eggnog in a desperate attempt to erase those awful sounds and images from your cerebral cortex?

Kudos on your win, and on your ensuring every kid I meet thinks I was named after you, even though I'm 10 years old. And congratulations on stealing my fire when it comes to tenderly resting my paw on my beloved.

Soulful eyes, stocky chest, propensity for cleaning up humanity's remains (by licking up random detritus on my walks through sundry neighborhoods): You've stolen my soul, and you'll be hearing from my attorneys soon.

Advertising agency Rubin Postaer & Associates has weighed in on Jay Leno's motoring to prime time. Noting the sundry pluses this represents for NBC, it adds some major caveats:

"Through the week before Thanksgiving, compared to NBC's current Monday through Friday, 10 to 11 p.m. lineup (warts and all), Leno, on average, is delivering half the lineup's rating points among major adult demographics. ...

"Even assuming Leno does better in primetime than in late night, he will need to grow his major adult audiences by 50% just to equal what the network now delivers to its local affiliates as a lead-in to their newscasts."

Yeah, that 18-49 demographic is going to be a bitch for Jay and NBC, the network that introduced that very concept. As Syracuse TV professor Bob Thompson told me today, "My students would sooner be tied to railroad tracks than watch an episode of Leno."

Rubin Postaer notes that only Steve Allen successfully transitioned from late-night to primetime, back in the '50s (of course, "successfully" has a different standard nowadays), and add, "Since the advent of VCRs, and now with DVRs, virtually anyone so equipped can time-shift Leno for more convenient viewing, so it's difficult to see where the growth in his audience might come from."

And they think the unthinkable (for NBC): "(W)hat if Leno flops in primetime? And/or the affiliates, already in tough shape in the current economy, rebel over the lower lead-in?"

Given how low that bar has been set at NBC, the notion of Leno tanking may be a tough sell, but it's possible: Certainly, given how ubiquitous he'll be on the schedule, the show won't exactly be considered (as NBC once, long ago, dubbed itself) "Must-See TV." And Jay's going to have significantly tougher competition at 10 p.m. - he's not going to be up against other talk shows and reruns and infomercials.

If Leno and NBC's primetime experiment does fail spectacularly, the network is going to be in for a world of hurt - given that they ceded so much primetime territory to Jay, they'll not have developed as much programming and therefore will have little, if anything, with which to replace his show.

As for the affiliate question, we noted last year that NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker gave a speech in which, while discussing the way viewers will see NBC's shows, neglected to mention: on TV, on the network's affiliates. Cable networks don't have to worry about pleasing local affiliates, and it seemed that that was the model Zucker may have been envisioning when he gave the speech.

Unfortunately, affiliates see it far differently - the 11 p.m. newscast is one of their most profitable programs, earning them among their highest ad rates. If Leno's show hurts their 11 p.m. ratings and there's widespread affiliate backlash - if some crunch the numbers and discover they could make more money as independent stations, say, which in a cable universe could occur - there could be, as Rubin Postaer puts it, "a hefty price to pay to avoid the potential embarrassment of having prematurely forced Leno out."

(Men of the hour, only the hours are now 10 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.)

And now, Jay on his big news at his taping of tonight's show:

"Before we get started, I wanted to tell the stagehands something. Hey, guys? Guys, leave those boxes. I'm not going anywhere. You know, we're staying.

"As a matter of fact, we're going to be on at 10:00 p.m. Well, you know, it's interesting. A lot of people were shocked when they heard. Not that I was moving to prime time, but that NBC still had a prime time.

"We're going to be doing a new show in the fall. We'll start at 10:00 p.m. right after the last hour of 'The Today Show.'

"See, the way they're gonna reschedule, it's going to be all talk. Oh, man. Well, as you may have heard, there were rumblings that I was leaving NBC and going to ABC. Let me tell you something. Those were nothing but rumors started by a disgruntled employee: me.

"Another thing, and I say this quite seriously, you know, I didn't know I was going to stay with NBC, but I remembered something my parents always told me. They said, 'Whatever you do in life, always try to come in fourth.' And that's where NBC is. We've been in fourth place for so long, by golly, we want to stay there. I'll tell you how sneaky show business is. Do you know what CBS announced today? Did you year about this? They're moving 'Letterman' to 9:59. I couldn't believe it. ...

"I should explain what went on today. We made a deal to stay on here at NBC. I'm very excited about that. We're going to go -- we're going to do a show at ten o'clock. It won't be 'The Tonight Show.' 'The Tonight Show' will be Conan's. It will be similar. I'll be 20 pounds lighter. Kevin will have hair. It's going to be a little different, but we're going to be prime time. We've got to clean it up a little. ... And we thought it would be interesting. This is kind of new, uncharted territory. Nobody's done a show similar to this at ten o'clock. People say -- I asked NBC, 'Do some research.' And they said, 'Yeah, people would like to see something like this earlier.' We're going to try it. If it works, great. If it doesn't, we've had a hell of a ride. For the last 17 years, it's been a privilege to say, 'Please stay tuned for Conan.' And I'm glad I'll be able to do that again because people think, you know - Conan is a great guy. Conan will do a wonderful job on 'The Tonight Show' as well. And I think it will be fun to say, 'Stay tuned for Conan coming up right after the news.'"

(Conan hair gags over the years.)

While I was speaking to Bob Thompson for the story you can find just below this entry, he said, "Even Conan has to begrudgingly like this - this is good news for 'The Tonight Show.' Even though this was an insult to Conan - he's still following Jay. He's still getting Jay's cast-offs. It's like the child who's always overshadowed by the older sibling and when the other sibling finally goes to college, the parents adopt another kid."

Yeah, and Conan is moving to L.A. - NBC's building him a nice new set on a soundstage on the Universal lot - which means it's going to be just that much harder for him to book guests, given that the biggest names will want to appear with Jay in primetime. On the other hand, Jay won't be going to another network and handing Conan's @ss to him in a ratings war. (Conan's got trouble enough right now with Craig Ferguson.)

But Conan's taking it like a gentleman. Taping tonight's show this afternoon, O'Brien had this to say:

"Let's talk about this on a serious note for just one moment. I've had many people calling me today saying, 'What is all this? "What's happening?' Jay Leno is going to be going in at 10:00 on NBC. I wanted to make something very clear here on the show this evening. I've known about this for a while. I've talked a lot about this with Jay. I am thrilled. I am absolutely thrilled that Jay is staying at NBC. He has been my lead-in on this program for 16 seasons. He is a fantastic lead-in. He is a huge part of my success. I am indebted to Jay Leno. And I love the idea that that relationship is going to continue. He is going to be my lead-in continuing, I hope, for a long, long time. So congratulations to Jay Leno. This is a happy ending. It's very nice. We're thrilled for him and we're thrilled for everybody at the 'Tonight Show.' Also I've talked it over with my producer and that means I can keep doing my Jay Leno impression."

This'll be in tomorrow's paper:

When Bob Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, heard that NBC was moving Jay Leno to prime time next season, he had two immediate responses.

"My first thought was, what an incredibly clever idea - it solves about nine problems for NBC," says Thompson. "My second thought was: This is a really, really bad day in the history of television."

In announcing that Leno will host a program very similar to his current "Tonight Show," only in the 10 p.m. hour of primetime beginning next fall, NBC resolved the quandary of what to do with its longtime host once Conan O'Brien takes over "Tonight" in June 2009. O'Brien had been promised the position five years ago in contract negotiations that kept him with NBC, but Leno's enduring popularity had executives worried that he would go to ABC or Fox and crush O'Brien in the ratings.

Moreover, NBC has suffered slumping primetime ratings for years, and has been looking for ways to cut costs. Leno's show is far less expensive to produce than an hour of scripted programming, and with it now responsible for nearly a quarter of NBC's primetime schedule, the network can focus on developing and producing fewer programs and cherry-pick the highest quality projects.

"If NBC was in better shape, I'd say they were out of their minds," Mediaweek ratings analyst Marc Berman says. "But they have so many holes and so many weaknesses that it's not such a terrible idea. It's risky, but maybe it's a risk worth taking."

For his part, Leno is happy to stay with his longtime employer after spending the past five years mulling life after NBC.

"Yeah, I could've gone other places," Leno said at a press conference Tuesday morning. "But I tend to leave the dance with the person I came with. I'm still on my first wife."

Because the show is so inexpensive to produce (outside of Leno's hefty salary, expected to be about $40 million), it won't need - nor should it expect - blockbuster ratings. On the other hand, 10 p.m. shows drive viewers into local newscasts, which are hugely profitable for local affiliates. Outside of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," NBC has had precious few solid performers in the 10 p.m. hour in recent years. Local affiliates may wish for a stronger lead-in for their 11 p.m. newscasts, but may be happy that NBC seems to have found a way to stanch its hemorrhaging ratings.

Mediaweek's Berman estimates that the show will draw between 6.5 and 10 million viewers an evening, the high end of which would be a big hit by NBC's currently anemic standards. But, he adds, "It's a show that will skew older. It's not going to get the viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 that they look for. NBC was the first network to say, 'We're not interested in viewers, we're interested in demographics.' They're going to have to change their tune real quick." Berman estimates that between two and three million viewers a night will lie within the 18-to-49 demo.

Berman believes the move offers savvy counter-programming to the dramas ABC and CBS will air at 10 p.m. "It it's 10 o'clock and you don't want to commit to drama, you don't want to put your thinking cap on, you have the choice of Jay Leno doing what he does best," he says.

But it certainly represents a major sea change among the major broadcast networks, a signal of retreat to Thompson's mind.

"Think back over the last 25 years what has played at 10 p.m. on NBC - 'Hill Street Blues,' 'West Wing,' 'Law & Order,' 'St. Elsewhere,' 'ER' - some of the best television, and shows of a quality that stimulated HBO's renaissance," Thompson says. "They're sending a signal about their commitment to quality adult drama. What this announces is, 'We're making a concerted effort to get out of this business.'"

Here's a definition for the word "hospital" you won't find in the dictionary, and we're more the poorer for it: "a place for smart people who take care of people who aren't smart enough to keep themselves healthy."

It's also, according to "Children's Hospital," a place where doctors go at it like ferrets, even in front of their youthful patients, and where every manner of TV cliché is lived out to its fullest, to hilarious results.

"Children's Hospital," a new online series from former "Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry - who eviscerates "Patch Adams" and then some in playing a doctor in clown makeup and bloody hospital blues - debuted Monday on TheWB.com.

Jokes come from every direction - they're downright tasteless (infants receive breast enhancements and minority groups and midgets are insulted with impunity); they're meta-TV gags (crap treacle like "Grey's Anatomy" is violated in violently intimate ways, and Very Special Episodes and Series Finales are skewered in inspired fashion); and, occasionally, there's just a really funny one-liner or surreal non-sequitur (one doctor fears a broken arm might be hiding AIDS; another defends his cavalier attitude because he has "really good malpractice insurance").

In short, "Children's Hospital" is probably the first online series that merits your attention from start-to-back since SuperDeluxe's hilarious "Maria Bamford Show."

Even the first episode begins with a montage introduced with the sonorous preface, "Previously on 'Children's Hospital.'" It features Dr. Cat Black (Lake Bell) ruminating so imbecilically on the nature of love and life ("I wish there was another word for life when it's over," and, also, "Sometimes we make it our jobs to find meaning in our lives," then, impressing herself with her callow blather, adding, "I should do my own podcast") that Shonda Rhimes will no doubt want to hire Corddry as a writer for "Grey's Anatomy" when she sees this.

Doctors hump crazedly in front of their young patients, but also behind them (they have some measure of decorum).

Cat rooms (because, you know, doctors can't afford their own places) with Dr. Lola Spratt (Erinn Hays). They make breaking up with their boyfriends a hot trend (one episode is consumed with nothing but Cat breaking up with people, some repeatedly, once in the middle of giving a hand-job), leading, almost, to some lethargic girl-on-girl action broken up by a head cold (later, Spratt will blithely wipe her snot off on a kid patient).

Megan Mullally, Ed Helms, Nathan Corddry and even Eva Longoria Parker turn up in bit- or larger-than-bit-parts. 9/11 is a running joke. The PA announcements from the film "M*A*S*H" are also an inspiration. "Children's Hospital" grabs jokes from every source within reach, and makes most of them funny.

Had this actually been a sitcom relying upon 22-minute episodes, it quite likely would've fallen flat. But it isn't - the 10 episodes currently online run between 4 and 6 minutes - so it's nearly perfect, and perfectly offensive. (Corddry does, for the record, spare child actors from the most offensive material. Mostly, at least.) A caveat: The show downloads really slowly (it can take you 10 or more minutes to watch a 5-minute episode), though I watched the episodes on Monday, when they launched, so maybe viewer traffic was higher then. But just be warned.

Tonight, NBC unveiled - well, um - something about its new late-night show, "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon." Fallon, best known for laughing at his own jokes on "Saturday Night Live," takes over for Conan O'Brien March 2, 2009, who takes over for Jay Leno in June. (Leno, as you may have read in the previous entry, will be heading to NBC primetime, hosting a show very similar to the one he's doing now and saving NBC boatloads of money on development and production and, even more importantly, saving them from the ignominy of getting Conan's butt kicked had Leno moved to ABC or Fox.)

Nothing really of a whole lot of value in that, except that Fallon introduced his house band, The Roots. He's going to be doing one of these nightly until his show launches. Two suggestions: 1) Why not actually try to show the creative process involved (assuming there is one), and 2) Would it kill you to include a few jokes?

This is one of the reasons reporters are in a constant state of exasperation with network executives: Today, NBC abruptly calls a press conference for an "organizational announcement." Given that earlier in the day, NBC-Universal uberlord Jeff Zucker had floated the notion of scaling back the network's number of hours of primetime programming - "Can we continue to broadcast 22 hours in primetime? Three of our competitors don't. Can we continue to broadcast seven days a week? One of our competitors doesn't" - we anxiously rearranged our schedules and phoned in, awaiting the big news.

Which, of course, wasn't big news at all, just an executive shuffle that Variety had already reported on. (One of the new executives executive produced "Grease: You're the One That I Want" and "I'm with Stupid" for NBC and "Viva Laughlin" for CBS, proving that if nothing else, he was a courageous man for allowing such failures to remain on his resume.) It was delivered in typical lipstick-on-a-pig fashion, referring to the 500 layoffs at NBC Universal as "right-sizing" the network, and that by "eliminating layers of bureaucracy," NBC was poised to become the "most-talent-friendly organization," because they no longer had anyone around the office with the time or inclination to give show-runners notes on their shows.

(Be sure to use lots of brown!)

So while we were listening to this folderol, Bill Carter was off chasing the real story: NBC actually is kind of ceding its primetime schedule - they're going to give Jay Leno the 10 p.m. hour Monday through Friday. It's, if not win/win, at least win/not-lose-too-much for NBC, who had already promised Conan O'Brien Jay's 11:30 p.m. timeslot five years ago: They keep Jay (and, perhaps more importantly, ABC or Fox don't get Jay), and they get five hours of incredibly cheap (if, probably, fairly low-rated) primetime programming.

But, of course, NBC Entertainment co-chairs Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff didn't mention this. (They will tomorrow, though.) Graboff was asked about Zucker's talking up cutting back primetime, and replied, I haven't seen the comments. (Then he was probably the only person on the phone call who hadn't.) "We're looking at everything [we can to] keep the broadcast network single-revenue stream viable in this economy." The typical non-answer answer.

Also, I think I figured something out about Ben Silverman: Whenever he's lying or just can't or doesn't want to answer a question, he starts jabbering away in industry jargon and keeps saying the same thing over and over.

For example: Asked about NBC's crummy fall, Silverman replied, "We need to be patient. Patience is really where we need to be ... we need to continue to be patient."

But not as patient as the people who have to listen to him speak.

"Hardball" host Chris Matthews, apparently confusing the ability to spout any old thing that pops in one's head on the TeeVee with gravitas worthy of governance, is contemplating a run for the Senate in the state of Pennsylvania.

Which begs the question of whether he should remain on the air until he makes up his mind. A lot of people think he should cede his pundit's role, though you kind of wonder if that's not just wishful thinking on their behalf, looking for any excuse to get rid of his show. Others think Matthews is just pulling a stunt to get MSNBC to pony up big bucks for him when his contract expires in June, which would be wishful thinking on Matthews' behalf.

If he does decide to run, the New York Times helpfully provided a bunch of things his opponent can attack him with - back in April.

This is a sad day for people who enjoy listening to others rant: Bill O'Reilly has announced he's giving up his radio show early next year. He just re-upped with Fox News for a handsome sum of cash ($10 million per year), so it's not like the guy's going to be hurting.

A while back, I appeared on a radio show at KABC while O'Reilly was recording his program from the station. A sign in the lobby read:

There's little debate, one supposes, that Tina Fey served heroically as 2008's Entertainer of the Year, and not just because she could pose for cheesecake shots like this:

Fey won an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award, even though she insists she's not that great a performer; the show she created, "30 Rock," won its second Best Comedy Series Emmy; she turned up on the cover of Vanity Fair not once but twice; and she turned in the year's most indelible performance, playing her doppelganger, Alaska governor, former Vice Presidential candidate and human Rorschach test Sarah Palin - did Fey's bubbleheaded turn as Palin influence the electorate? We'll probably never know, but we dodged a bullet nonetheless.

Perhaps to offer Fey a victory lap (though NBC cancelled a phone-press conference with Fey before the election when it became apparent few would be asking "30 Rock" questions), tonight's episode was sent out in advance. Truth be told, it's only an OK representation of the series: Liz (Fey) wants to avoid her high-school reunion, because she doesn't want to deal with everyone who was mean to her way back when, but her hate-f@ck fake-boyfriend Jack (Alec Baldwin) convinces her to attend, prompting her with the not-terribly-comforting observation, "The ugly duckling has turned into a vaguely ethnic-looking swan."

So she goes, only to discover that all the cool kids remember her as being witheringly nasty to them. Meanwhile, Jack becomes more popular than anyone else at the party, because, as he explains, "Rich 50 is middle-class 30."

You almost get the feeling that Fey and company are doing almost everything in their power to erase the fact that the show is about producing a TV show, which most of middle America cares about almost as much as they care whether Dick Cheney will ever find true love.

So Fey's on the cover of Vanity Fair again, and the New York Times' once-relevant columnist Maureen Dowd scored the interview, and it's basically your standard-issue celebrity puff piece only you discover how Fey is kinda sorta like Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl and how she got that little scar on her cheek.

To wrap up this "30 Rock" blog entry extravaganza, we offer this latest bonus feature from nbc.com, "Ask Tracy Jordan," which is vaguely funny but mainly underscores why the show is hellbent on emphasizing Liz and Jack.

- "30 Rock:" 9:30 tonight, NBC (Channel 4).

CBS and ABC announced their midseason plans yesterday; NBC dragged its feet and waited until today, but they still don't know how they're going to fill some of their timeslots or where they'll put some new shows.

(That didn't last long.)

NBC has the Super Bowl this year, so they've given that highly prized post-game slot to ... hmm. An hourlong episode of "The Office," which is already doing pretty well by NBC standards and wouldn't seem to need that kind of promotional bump. As opposed to, say, its new show "Kings" or something.

Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, enthused, press-release style, "The biggest event on television (that would be the Super Bowl, not the Jan. 16 return of "Friday Night Lights"), will provide the perfect promotional platform as we launch some of the most eagerly anticipated new and returning shows on any schedule." (Emphasis mine.)

Unfortunately, the next paragraph in the press release discusses "Chuck" (about 6 million viewers weakly weekly) and "Heroes" (down more than any other show this season). Which only fuels those rumors about what he's allowing into his system.

So here're the random new shows and stunts NBC's offering come 2009:

* "Kings," starring "Deadwood's" Ian McShane as a powerful ruler in a mythical country who lives in "a clean new city that is unspoiled by time or litter." A guy in a neighboring country is the David to his Goliath. It premieres with a two-hour debut Thursday, March 19 at 9 p.m. before settling into its 10 p.m. timeslot the following week.

* On Monday, Feb. 2, "Chuck" returns with a 3-D episode, "Heroes" starts a new storyline and "Medium" returns.

* "VIII," a miniseries starring Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff with a whiff of "The Bourne Identity" about it and involving the assassination of America's first female President and a conspiracy to overthrow the entire government, airs Sunday, Feb. 8 and 15 at 9 p.m.

* "ER" goes away for good with a two-hour series finale Thursday, March 12 at 9 p.m. Half of those tuning in will be doing so just to see if George Clooney makes an appearance.

* "Knight Rider" goes away (maybe for good) Feb. 25 at 8 p.m.; NBC isn't sure what they'll put in that timeslot yet.

* "Celebrity Apprentice" returns Sunday, March 1 with a two-hour episode at 9 p.m., because, you know, why not.

NBC also has a couple of shows - "The Philanthropist," which has, like other new NBC shows, endured some show-runner woes, and the tantalizingly titled "The Untitled Amy Poehler Project," from "The Office's" brain trust (though this isn't the "Office" spinoff that was promised earlier in the year) - that they don't know what they're going to do with at this point.

(Amy Poehler is enthusiastic about starring on an NBC primetime series. Wouldn't you be?)

Now, if a movie were called "The Exterminators," you'd know immediately what you were in for: A medium-budget romp featuring anonymous ripped, monosyllabic behemoths with huge artilleries shooting the sh!t out of everything in sight while speedmetal screams on the soundtrack, with copious amounts of blood spattering in slo-mo and shell casings rattling on the pavement in glorious Dolby Stereo. Not for everyone, maybe, but it'd be a satisfying if idiotic entertainment for 14-year-old boys whose fingers were recovering from repetitive-stress syndrome after playing their first-person shooter videogames too much.

(OK, so the movie probably wouldn't star these guys.)

But if, say, you were to learn that "The Exterminators" is not coming soon to a theater near you and is, in fact, a reality show airing soon on A&E - the network that gave us "Parking Wars," a reality show about meter maids handing out parking tickets (no, really!) - then your first inclination might be to try to conjure up that imaginary cast of the hypothetical film version of "The Exterminators" and send them to A&E's offices to seek a righteous, wrathful vengeance approximating any random blood-and-shell-casings scene from the movie upon any executive who had any hand in green-lighting a show about pest removal.

Yes, here's an actual press release that traversed my Email basket today:

"A&E's new original real-life series 'The Exterminators,' premiering January 7, 2009 at 10:30pm ET/PT, follows Billy Bretherton and his family who make up Vexcon, one of Louisiana's busiest pest removal companies, as they balance family life with the drama of running a successful business together. 
The 13-episode half-hour series follows the Vexcon team in their search and rescue efforts to rid clients of their most extreme pest cases, while also taking care to release as many animals as possible back into the wild. The company handles all types of removal and in the swamps of Louisiana that means big business - from colonies of ants to giant snakes, Billy and his team have seen it all. ...

"Keeping it all in the family, Billy runs Vexcon with partner and wild card brother Rick, droll and matter-of-fact dad Bill, office manager and feisty tempered mom Donnie and beloved wife Mary. Whether it is a giant 8-foot alligator walking down an affluent street, baby raccoons inside the wall of an office, 70,000 bats who call a stadium home or a wild pet-eating bobcat, Billy and his family get the job done with skill, energy and humor that will keep even the most squeamish viewer along for the ride."

Jeez. Cypermethrin must be blowing through the air-conditioning ducts at A&E. How else to explain how they might possibly think this'd be must-see TV?

Coming up soon on A&E: "Insurance Actuaries!"

From today's paper:

Given how inarticulate many musicians can be, it's somewhat amazing that a couple of the smartest talk shows I've seen this past decade have primarily featured them.

Bravo's too-short-lived "Musicians" featured Rolling Stone writer David Wild in conversation with performers and could be revelatory in its insights into the creative process, and now we have "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...," featuring the genre-bending singer-songwriter in hourlong chats with superstars, cult heroes and even a former President about their musical influences.

Warning: The conversations can be a little inside-baseball, so if you're not a huge music fan, the discussions can seem a little arcane. If you are a big fan, however, this could be your equivalent of a "Star Wars" DVD tricked-up with dozens of extras.

Tonight's inaugural installment features Elvis interviewing Elton John (not all that big a "get," given that Sir Elton is one of the show's executive producers).

Though Elton is an engaging storyteller, offering anecdotes about both Frank Sinatra and "American Idol" embarrassment William Hung, it's clearly a first effort. Elvis asks questions off cue cards, making it obvious this is not an innately easy gig; both men sit with their legs spread uncomfortably wide; and the cutaways to audience members suggests that they're not entirely enraptured with the proceedings.

Next week, Costello coaxes fairly insightful observations from the notoriously press-shy Lou Reed, then invites Julian Schnabel - director of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and the film version of Reed's wrist-slitting masterpiece "Berlin" - into the fray. Drink in hand, Schnabel transforms the episode into a fascinatingly cringe-inducing confrontation, ameliorated by Reed and Costello's transcendent duet of the songs "Perfect Day" and "Set the Twilight Reeling." (The music throughout this series is pretty much impeccable.)

Even more surprising is episode three (airing Dec. 17), featuring former President Bill Clinton discussing his musical passions, his getting into Al Hirt's New Orleans club even though he wasn't of drinking age, his introduction to rap, how music helped him consider multiple political viewpoints and his regret that music is no longer a focal point in public schools. Alas, he doesn't break out his saxophone. It concludes with a haunting performance of "Is This America? (Katrina 2005)" by Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny.

Yet another arresting episode features the impossibly humble and engaging Tony Bennett, who at one point pulls Costello's nonplussed wife, jazz pianist Diana Krall, from the audience to perform together.

Part of this series' charm might rest in the unexpected and borderline-awkward moments that occur. And part of it could come from the fact that Elvis wears the same clashing, unflattering shade of green socks in each episode. But if you're a hardcore music fan or a neophyte, you're almost guaranteed to learn something about how to become a better listener.

- "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...": 9 tonight, Sundance Channel.

(We're gonna get these reviews online one way or another.)

Many years in the future, someone will be picking through the articles in a remainder bin at a flea market and come upon the Season 8 DVD boxed set of "According to Jim." And wonder: "Was that show on for eight years?" Assured that the 8 is not a typo, they'll ponder, bewildered, "How? How did it last that long?"

Long forgotten will be ABC's miserable comedy development and the writers strike, which necessitated the network renewing it for one final, disheartening year. "According to Jim," long our favorite standard-bearer for banal mediocrity on Television, returned last night and was viewed by about 5.8 million people who simply had nothing better to do.

(If only it had ended there.)

Want to know something depressing? "According to Jim" is now a longer-running show than "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Of course, Mary and the gang could've kept on going; they just had the good grace to know when to hang it up. Beloosh's brain trust has no such sense of decorum.

A more noteworthy piece of ratings news from last night: "The Mentalist" absolutely blew up, beating even its venerable lead-in, "NCIS," which is enjoying its highest viewership in its six seasons this year. "The Mentalist" was seen by a series-high 18.77 million - all of whom no doubt chuckled more than anyone watching "ATJ" at the same time - and beat Fox's "Fringe" in the all-important viewers-aged-18-to-49 demographic, as well.

Next week on "According to Jim:" Complications and comic high jinks ensue when Jim's wife decides she'd rather watch "The Mentalist."

From today's paper:

I'd say that Bio Channel's marketing campaign for its new talk show "Shatner's Raw Nerve" is pretty successful - except that it's not for the show that they've actually created.

The campaign's principal image - host William Shatner looking mischievous opposite a chair in flames - suggests an interview gone horribly awry. Bio's press materials suggest that the series' intent is for Shatner to ask questions so personal that his guests become uncomfortable. The first two episodes suggest that something else is at work, and it's not as interesting as you might hope.

William Shatner will be taught in future acting courses as the best way to remake a career. He morphed from a hammy actor into a hammy actor who was agreeably, lovably in on the joke. He's probably never been busier than in the past few years, when he's appeared in all manner of programs, specials and commercials - at this point, it'd probably behoove him to learn how to say "no."

(Your humble hosts suggests a way to make watching his latest effort more enjoyable.)

This show doesn't quite fall into that latter category, but it's hardly what you want from the guy, either. On its face, it's a standard-issue celebrity-interview show, only Shatner's kinda-sorta channeling an evil version of Oprah Winfrey - he's asking the same questions Oprah might ask, but he's ostensibly seeking a different reaction, but really, he's not.

And he's really interested in divorce (having gone through two himself), and he's happy to talk about himself at length.

From the outset, one senses that a certain distance has been created between Shatner and his subjects: The set consists of two chairs facing one another, yet separated by their right arms, in a kind of blocky letter "S." No one has this sort of alignment of furniture in his or her home, and if they do, they probably don't have many friends.

Tonight's episode features Valerie Bertinelli, who we learn is a good sport far before we learn she's Shatner's neighbor. He presses her on her divorce from Eddie van Halen, on her Catholicism, on her inability to forgive herself and other spiritual issues ("Is there sin and do you have to pay for sin?").

Initially, Bertinelli's just being the sort of revealing-yet-glib personality you've seen on a dozen different talk shows, and then, after he repeatedly dissects responses that were intended light-heartedly, she backs off offering anything that might offer genuine insight into her life.

When Shatner asks, "What makes you happy?", she simply responds, "Life."

"You're filled with guilt but not filled with the ability to forgive yourself," Captain James T. Kirk diagnoses Barbara Cooper Royer, which qualifies as a minorly surreal moment in the history of television.

("You may play a shrink on TV, but I think I really am one!")

Next week, Shatner interviews Jimmy Kimmel, and it's obvious from the initial gushing introduction ("When TV history is written, Jimmy Kimmel will appear among the kings of late-night") that the gloves will remain on.

Kimmel shares some vaguely amusing anecdotes and amiably discusses his divorce, but this interview feels more like a standard-issue late-night schmooze-fest. This is, however, likely the only place you'll ever hear a host earnestly ask a guest, "Have you ever made love with someone who was drunk?"

- "Shatner's Raw Nerve:" 11 tonight, Bio.

Not to be outdone by CBS's scheduling announcements earlier today, ABC has cooked up some programming changes of its own. Caught flat-footed by the writers strike, ABC has gone into virtual freefall this season (with the exception of "Dancing with the Stars"). Its returning sophomore shows have cratered (and mostly have been cancelled), its two new shows landed with a thud and its older hits are showing their age.

The network announced three new hourlong shows premiering next year:

* "Castle," Monday, March 9 at 10 p.m. About a famous mystery novelist (Nathan Fillion) who helps the NYPD solve murders so he can flirt with a pretty detective (Stana Katic). It's a comedy-drama, probably not unlike, say, "Monk" or "Psych."

(When you're the star of the show, you get the actresses swarming around you; when you're not, you're thrown on the perimeter of the photo, where you look unpopular and like you're posing for a "before" shot of a Weight Watchers ad.)

* "Cupid," Tuesday, March 24 at 10 p.m. Remake of a well-regarded but little-seen show that used to star Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall, only now it stars Bobby Cannavale as a guy who thinks he's actually the Roman god of love and Sarah Paulson as his shrink. They play matchmaker and are flirtatious and stuff. Rob Thomas, who created the original, is given a second chance.

(Paulson and Cannavale (left), and then a couple of interlopers who just wandered in and ruined the shot.)

* "The Unusuals," Wednesday, April 8 at 10 p.m. More NYPD, more murders, more comedy. Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia," "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants") stars.

(Perhaps more crimes would get solved if TV cops would do more than stand around and pose for group photos.)

* "Primetime: What Would You Do?" returns Tuesday, Jan. 6, 10 p.m. ABC News sells this as some sort of social experiment, but it's really just another hidden-camera show placing unwitting folks in uncomfortable situations. But then they talk about ethics, which apparently makes it OK.

* Oh, and "Lost" returns with a two-hour premiere Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 8 p.m. "Life on Mars" will follow, at 10 p.m. "Private Practice" will head for the comforting embrace of 10 p.m. Thursdays, where it will follow its mothership show "Grey's Anatomy."

CBS, which is only down about 3% in the ratings from last year despite the proliferation of DVRs, etc., is applying just a handful of tweaks so far to its schedule, and none with far-reaching ramifications.

On Saturday, Jan. 3, "Game Show in My Head," another chance for Ashton Kutcher to humiliate people, debuts. Basically, people tailed by hidden cameras and wearing earpieces will wander around in public and be instructed to do something embarrassing. If they do, they get money. If they don't - oh, who are they kidding, if they didn't want to disgrace themselves they wouldn't've gone on this show, would they?

(Since making this film, Ashton Kutcher has been hellbent to make sure other people humiliate themselves publicly, too.)

Note that this is actually airing on Saturday, an evening given over of late to repeats, sports and newsmagazines. CBS would assert that this is a bold new initiative of some sort to try to program the evening. I'm guessing they're not expecting too much from this and are putting the best face possible on the situation. It's certainly a cheap show to produce - the most the contestants can earn for debasing themselves in front of a national TV audience is $50K. It'll air at 8 p.m.

"Flashpoint," the summer success starring Enrico Colantoni as the head of an elite Toronto police force, returns Friday, Jan. 9, at 9 p.m..

(What are all these folks with those really big guns overcompensating for?)

What might be a kind of cool mini-series, "Harper's Island," debuts Thursday April 9 at 10 p.m., once "Eleventh Hour" completes its first-season run. We know "Harper's Island" can't actually be turned into a series because most of the characters will be dead by the end of the run.

It's about a group of friends who gather on a secluded island for a wedding celebration, but there's a serial killer among them, and so the body count ratchets at a fairly fearsome rate. Per CBS's press release, "In every episode, someone is killed and every person is a suspect, from the wedding party to the island locals. By the end of the 13 episodes, all questions will be answered, the killer will be revealed and only a few will survive."

(By the end of the show, most of these people will be dead. Murder is fun!)

Now, that's entertainment. And as it's a close-ended show, there's less chance of it going off the rails the way other serialized series do ("Heroes," ahem). And it's produced by people with "Alias," "The X-Files," "Jericho" and "Angel" on their resumes.

CBS hasn't yet announced when it's finally going to give up on "Worst Week" and bring "Rules of Engagement" back, but as far as I'm concerned, "Rules of Engagement" can continue to sit on the shelf, thank you very much.

NASA Simulator Prepares Astronauts For Rigors Of An Interview With Larry King

The shouting begins within four seconds. Within 15 seconds, the slapping stars. Kicking and punching begins at 33 seconds.

Welcome to Oxygen Channel's "Bad Girls Club," or, more to the point, "Women in Dire Need of Haloperidol." The producers of this concoction (who likely would've preferred the screaming start even sooner, but got all responsible-feeling and stuff and opened with an establishing shot) decided that seriously unhinged sociopaths should be rewarded for their extreme anti-social behavior with temporary residence at a posh mansion and TV cameras following them 24/7. If, in fact, you are sane, you don't give people like this a TV show and a mansion. You institutionalize them.

Meet your bad girls:

Sarah ("The Party Girl"): "My nipples are probably hard." ... "When I'm attracted to someone, I'm going to f@ck the hell out of them." ... (Belches.) ... "I'm more of a slut than a drinker."

Tiffany ("The Warden"): "I won't start sh!t, but I will finish it."

Whitney ("The Straight Shooter"): "The one person you should probably not f@ck with is me." ... "I'm a Boston chick, and that means, go f@ck yourself." (Whitney is genetically incapable of saying two sentences without using the word "Boston.")

Amber I ("The Control Freak"): "I'm very rude, conniving, opinionated ... I've a very bad person to know."

Kayla, AKA KC ("The Loose Cannon"): "Look bitches, I don't tolerate the bullsh!t ... I'm gonna f@ck you up."

Amber II ("The Firecracker"): "Sex is so much more fun."

Ailea ("The Instigator"): "It's so much fun to make people mad. ... 'I p!ssed her off - yeah!'" ... "I say things that offend people all the time."

As you've no doubt figured out, these women were cast for their utter lack of any redeemable qualities. When they arrive at their mansion, it's locked, so one breaks a window and enters. When a guy shows up to repair the window, another parades around topless in front of him. They get thrown out of two bars and one restaurant in the first episode alone.

The point of the show, I suppose, is to snicker with Schadenfreude at these blithering idiots' obnoxious cluelessness, but listening to them screaming at one another virtually nonstop and watching them throwing drinks almost as often becomes a wearying exercise pretty early on. I can't imagine having to be one of the show's cameramen and having to hang out with these abject harridans for hours on end - even a couple of the women themselves seem exhausted with all the drunken diva drama by the end of the first episode.

Naturally, the gals prove to be fairly interchangeable, making it hard (and pointless) to attempt to track their individual character arcs (that was an attempt at dry humor, because there are no character arcs, just nonstop venal, dim-witted pettiness). So here're just some random lines from the first episode that sum up the show better than I could ever bother to try.

"I'm going to use your beer bottles as a sex toy."

"We do what we want when we want."

"Did y'all see all the hooker shoes?"

"I think I need a vibrator because I've never bought one ever in my life and I really want one."

"I'm not used to trying to get people to like me."

"Maybe I'm high maintenance, you know?"

"I'm gonna kill someone. ... I'm nice today, but I can be a bitch from the hood tomorrow."

"Don't let me get drunk, don't let me get drunk. ... Yeah, I'm a bitch."

"If a black person walked in here, I'd treat them very, very nicely. Mexicans, a little bit different, because I think they're illegal."

"I'm about to go the f@ck off."

"They fightin'! They fightin'! They fightin'!"

"The black bitches should be gettin' along. And the black bitch is acting fake."

"How did you get such amazing boobs? I'm not used to everyone around me have such good ones, too."

"If it were up to me, I'd be naked all the time. ... Like misery loves company, nakedness loves company."

"Girls get jealous of me, no matter where I am."

"On God in heaven, I'm not going to hit you now, but you need to walk away."

"When I get angry, you don't want my blackout stage because I go nuts."

"I wanted to come here and party but right now I'm not impressed. I want to go home."

"I can't get over this - I've never been kicked out of so many places before."

"Are we going to be throwing drinks every night?"

- "Bad Girls Club:" 10 p.m. Tuesday, Oxygen.

The planet responded with a shrug at news that Rosie O'Donnell would be hosting live variety specials no longer. Despite a lot of hype (hey, NBC, I don't think football fans were the target audience for this), the special lured fewer viewers than "Knight Rider" usually does in the timeslot, which is saying something; reviews weren't enthusiastic, either.

That said, NBC probably screwed up on this. The night before a holiday isn't when you want to premiere a show you hope will succeed. Ratings were down overall on the evening (except for Barbara Walters' interview with Barack Obama, who remains a ratings juggernaut; "Criminal Minds" did OK, too). Ah, well, at least it gave her a chance to write another one of those little poem thingies on her blog.