TV

Leno's return to late night television at the helm of the Tonight Show began with a spoof of The Wizard of Oz. In grainy black and white, Jay is lying in bed, surrounded by anxious friends, a re-enactment of the classic scene in which Dorothy awakens from Oz's technicolor dreamland to find herself back in her Kansas farmhouse.

The difference is what Jay is waking up from was more like a nightmare. His opening monologue made only a few glancing references to the last several months of tumult and drama. No mention of Conan O'Brien, an affectionate jab at David (Letterman) and Oprah (Winfrey) with whom he appeared in a Super Bowl spot, and one joke at the expense of his home network NBC.

Other than that, the "new" Jay quickly settled into "old" Jay mode and tossed out jokes about Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Tiger Woods and Toyota. With jokes about incompetent government and greedy airlines, Jay continued his re-branding as the Tea Party TV host, an effort that will receive a considerable boost tomorrow (Tuesday) night when his main guest will be former governor Sarah Palin.

What if you held a press conference and nobody was invited to come -- would you still make a sound? That's a question nobody asked, but Tiger answered it anyway at a Friday morning event where almost no one and certainly not journalists were invited.

Technically, pre-approved members of three news organizations were allowed to attend, but nobody was allowed to ask questions. Tiger just talked (and talked) in a speech that lasted about 13 minutes. You can watch it here

April 13, otherwise known as the return of the Fox-tastic musical-comedy-drama Glee, is still a couple months away. But the network kindly offers this little taste-tease to tide fans jones-ing for a fresh batch of the show. Click here for a short promo of the upcoming season. My favorite moment: dragon-queen coach Sue Sylvester (played by the priceless Jane Lynch) critiquing her cheerleaders' performance of a routine to a Madonna song, I think it's Get into the Groove: "Somewhere in the English countryside, in a stately manor home, Madonna is weeping."

"My Funky Valentine" is another winner. There are, as always, three intersecting storylines involving the show's three circles of family hell. Best this week is the story of Phil and Claire trying to have an excitingly different kind of Valentine's Day, involving role-playing and a hotel bar.

Phil is just so reliably hilarious in his clumsy ineptitude. As soon as Claire suggests the role-playing idea, he launches into some improv -- "Perhaps I'll be Reginald Appleby. An English gentleman in town for a polo match." Each is more ridiculous than the last, and Claire finally says "Phil, you're kind of spoiling it." He then tries to seductively brush and caress her face. After several faltering swipes, she sighs and pushes his hand away..

The pick-up scene at the bar is priceless and even better is the escalator fiasco when Claire gets the belt of her coat caught. She's naked underneath it, so naturally a parade of friends and family start streaming by, all opening with the suggestion "Why don't you just take your coat off?"

Look out 30 Rock? There's a new, really funny, kid in town.

I'll go ahead and say it: I was a little let down by Monday night's finale, "Brave New World." After a season of build-up, slowly amassing Samuel's apocalypto-creepy status, setting the stage for what seemed like it was going to be kaleidoscopic-crazy showdown in Central Park, between the evil and/or duped carnies and the Justice League of Benevolent Specials, it all amounted to some jittery camerawork, a few exploding light bulbs and some fairly rinky-dink cracks-in-the-earth effects.

The fight between Peter and Samuel was especially lame as they sent unseen seismic waves back and forth at each other while grunting and straining heroically or villainously, depending on whose turn it was to grunt and strain.. Likewise, Sylar's showdown with the Puppetmaster was more pffft than pow, and mostly happened off-camera. The whole fairgrounds scene just looked so staged and small -- they kept talking about "thousands" being killed but you never saw a crowd that looked like more than a few dozen, and zero sense of it being in Central Park. This was a finale that seemed severely under-produced (and under-budgeted?).

No suprise then, that the best moments were the quietest and those rooted in the writing and acting. The hospital-room interlude between Hiro and Charlie, when Hiro discovers that Charlie was swept back to the 1940s by one of Samuel's minions and has been living (and growing old) ever since. The scene of him watching through a window as the now elder, and dying, Charlie is surrounded by her kids and grandkids was a sweetly-sad moment of truth for Hiro, and us.

And the exchange between HRG and Claire was likewise satisfying as he shared his dying testimony with her in that buried trailer.

That scene tied directly into the closing vignette that served as the kick-off of the next chapter -- if there is a next chapter. Claire climbing to the top of the ferris wheel and throwing herself off as the Big Apple's TV camera and reporters watch. "What's she doing? asks Lauren. "Breaking my heart," says HRG.

Claire gets up and resets her broken bones and says "That's suicide attempt number, I've lost count.'' So now the secret is out and the world will know that "they" (the specials) are among us. Unless, of course, NBC cancels the show. But why in the Southland would they do that? Oh yeah.

The commercial I admire most is the Google ad: no flash, no special effects, no naked women, no talking babies, no screaming chickens. But it's such a smart idea, telling a love story (and telling it really well) through a procession of search questions, The arc from the unentangled beginning (student questions about programs in France) to the final "how to assemble a crib" is just beautifully, sweetly done. And it deepens your appreciation of the Google brand and what it does.

But as far as Super Bowl commercials -- the good, the bad and the raunchy goes -- I liked Denny's screaming chickens, I liked the McDonald's early first quarter commercial that probably almost no one saw and the Brett Favre Hyundai commercial. But I'll go with Kia and its toy-filled Vegas bound joyride spot.

Funny new E Trade baby spot, "First Class," with the Wall-street-wise baby flying home after a business trip and explaining how E Trade "saved me a pantload."

It is finished.

Wow. So GoDaddy.com isn't even trying to do anything but leer and provoke. A pseudo-interview with Danica Patrick, asking her if GoDaddy's commercials are "too hot for TV." When Patrick responds by demurely asking "What's too hot," her interviewers gets up and starts to strip with the inevitable tease telling viewers to go to the web site to see more. Ugh.

Bud Light boors bust into a all-woman book club and act like... Bud Light boors. Crudely cute closer -- woman: Do you like Little Women? dude: "Yeah, I'm not too picky." My guess is this and other Bud Light spots will be high on viewers top pick lists, but it's just strikes me as more lazy formula.

It's official: every one of the Doritos commercials, each produced based on an average person contest winner's idea, has been awful. Not funny, not clever but acting as if they were both. I wish I ate Doritos so I could quit eating them.

Maybe Super Bowl organizers should have picked Cheap Trick for its halftime entertainment. The reworked version of the band's hit Dream Police was more enjoyable 30 seconds of rock than the Who's entire set. Lots of funny gags in a commercial spoofily promoting the A3's "clean diesel" -- a guy being arrested for possession of an incandescent bulb, a hot tub bust for a tub that's too hot and a cop being ticketed for using a foam cup for his coffee. Doesn't make me want to buy a "clean diesel" Audi, but it's a funny 30-second distraction.

Usually it's monkeys (or Clydesdales) that are the big animal stars of the Super Bowl. This year, it's Denny's and its screaming chickens. The free grand slam breakfast makes it "a great day for people,a bad day for chickens." The second spot is my favorite, a montage of chickens screaming as they get the news -- the best is the silent, no-one-hears-you-scream-in-space scream from the chicken astronaut, although the oval office and the screaming president chicken is a close second.

While the flash-arty animation is cool enough, the Honda Accord Crosstour commercial made absolutely no sense to me. So the squirrel is storing all kinds of things, lamps and dumbells and whatnot for, presumably, winter and then a hatchback door opens and the car drives away. I don't get it. At all.

Here's an interesting point about the EA spot for its new video game, Dante's Inferno. For the game that's set, literally, in Hell, the original tag line was "See you in Hell." That was rejected by CBS as objectionable, so it was changed to "Hell Awaits." Yeah, that's much more acceptable. It's easier to sleep knowing that the network censors are on duty.

Emerald Nuts is now Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret (butter flavored microwave popcorn) and the snack company has another weird but cute Super Bowl commercial. No big thing, I won't be watching it again on YouTube, but I like the Gallagher-looking guy with green wings on his canary-yellow costume barking out commands to his performing human dolphins.

All these Hyundai commercials and my favorite car ad is now the Kia "joyride dream." All these iconic toys -- Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba, Sock Monkey, Mr. X -- are out on a joyride that ends in Vegas (where all joyrides end). Top shelf funny-silliness. Favorite moment: Sock Monkey getting a "Mom" tattoo stitched into his arm

Thought that Bridgestone life/wife commercial with the road warrior styled highwaymen was a lot of build up for no pay off.

Loved the Google ad, telling a love story through google searches -- smart, clean simple effective -- talk about brand reinforcement.

I like the Brett Favre Hyundai commercial. A silver-haired Favre is accepting the 2020 MVP trophy, saying it gets hard when "You're older than the fans, the coaches, the owners."

I guess advertisers think men are feeling oppressed; either that or they're trying to ignite a gender war because commercial after commercial is built on the premise that men are down and women are keeping them there.

Dodge has a smart-witty execution of this theme as it has an off-screen (manly) voice reciting all the everyman's daily oppressions "I will put the seat down," "I will carry your lip balm." All reasons why a man needs to drive a Dodge Charger ("the car you want') The Dodge Charger is "Man's last stand." Really?

And then there's the Flo TV commercial narrated by sportscaster Jim Nantz in which we watch "Jason" who has, according to Nantz, had his spine removed by his girlfriend and is being forced to miss the Super Bowl and go shopping. If only he had Flo TV ("live mobile TV" whatever that means -- hey you can watch on your cell phone, oh boy). "Change out of that skirt, Jason."

I'd say this could get ugly, but it already has.

Mildly funny spot from another dotcom job search site. Guy is trapped in an office where "Casual Friday" means everyone walks around in their underwear, culiminating in the boss declaring everyday to be casual friday. But the idea of being trapped in a horrible workplace has been done before and better, such as a previous Super Bowl commercial about a guy working in an office full of monkeys. That too was careerbuilder.com.

Dockers scores a nice commercial with the simple fun of watching a bunch of guys tramping across a field singing about not wearing pants. Of course, I don't really remember what the point of the commercial was since Dockers, makers of pants, does a good job of showing what fun it can be to walk around with no pants on.

Of course, just as I say that, here's a Bud Light commercial that is flat-out great. It's a Lost spoof, the wrecked plane, the straggling survivors, the desert island. A woman says she's found the radio so they can get off the island. But then a guy says he's found the beverage cart and "it's full of Bud Light." Party on, island paradise. Fun montage of images, soaking in a jet turbine transformed into a hot tub. Closing shot, she's just got the radio tuned to an emergency frequency and someone changes it to party tunes. Hah.

Here's the thing that gets really tiresome about Super Bowl beer commercials: they all operate from the presumption of people's (but especially men's) hysterical devotion to and love of drinking beer. So here a small town bands together to form a human bridge so that a stranded bud truck can make its delivery. The human suspension bridge is a funny visual, but enough. It's not even halftime and I feel hungover.

Bud Light's next commercial is a funny variation on the Dude, Dude, Dude style beer commercial with every guy talking through an auto-tuner -- the vocoder-type device that makes your voice so synthesized, first heard in Cher's "life after Love" song and now a required element in every hit hip-hop song.

Monster.com is an exception to the dotcom rule and has been the creator of some of my favorite Super Bowl spots (When I grow up...), but the fiddling beaver while an obvious and laudable attempt to be upbeat in a downbeat job market is just ...what's the word, oh yeah, stupid.

Bridgestone borrows mightily from hit movie The Hangover in its first Super Bowl commercial. We see a trio of guys racing along in a car with a killer whale hanging out of the hatchback. They race to pier where they drop off the whale. "Now that was a bachelor party." If it were a little more clever, or brought anything new to the formula (other than subbing a killer whale for a tiger) the spot would seem less like a lazy rip-off.

It wouldn't (unfortunately) be a Super Bowl with some 30-second act of crass titillation from the web site GoDaddy. Here it's Danika Patrick who was the star of previous ads getting a massage from some blonde Heather Graham wannabe. The blonde, of course, dreams of being a GoDaddy girl and is determined to try out. She rips off her top and the commercial stops and up comes the cue to go to the web site to see more. Don't believe the hype. If previous years of this old trick are any example, it isn't worth the pointing and clicking.

Hard to complain that The Simpsons are selling out by hawking Coke in a Super Bowl commercial when the show has been so prolific in its commercial tie-ins over the last 20 years. Lots of funny sight gags tying in to the "broke billionaire" theme as Mr. Burns has his Warhol and Da Vinci auctioned off and Patty and Selma get Smithers. Just as I was thinking that this would be a silent commercial with none of the famous and expensive voice actors, there's Milhouse saying "sorry coke." Guess he works for scale.

Astronomers see an asteroid heading toward earth and party like it's the end of the world and they feel fine. Turns out -- plink -- to be a tiny little flaming cheeseball of an asteroid. hee-hee, $3 million never looked so puny.

The reunion of the 85 Chicago Bears -- QB Jim McMahon, coach Mike Ditka -- for BoostMobile. com was a silly mess. McMahon getting a spray tan in a wheelchair was a good as it got. And after watching still have no idea what BoostMobile.com does or is. Typical problem with dotcom SuperBowl commercials which is why there are too many of them any more.

Two good commercials, and the unveiling of the first of the controversial Tim Tebow and his mom commercials.

The good first: a reasonably funny (with no aggressive stupidity factor) Bud Light commercial about a guy who loves beer so much he built his house out of it. Best line: "Hey there' bud light in the fridge made of bud light."

Then it's funny commercial for Snickers that represents the candy bar maker's first Super Bowl spot. Starring Betty White and Abe Vigoda (I can just hear Dwight and LeBron: Who's that? I don't know.) They're playing in a neighborhood football game, Betty gets crushed, is given a Snickers bar and is revealed to be some weekend warrior. Ditto Abe Vigoda a moment later. Tag line "You're not yourself when you're hungry." Hah.

As for the Tebow spot, after weeks of back-and-forth debate about what was touted as pro-life commercial from Focus on the Family, the spot was so generically heart-warming as to be the complete opposite of controversial. If I hadn't heard all the abortion talk, I never would have made the connection.

Nostalgia is essential to any sports ritual, so McDonald's smartly reprises its classic 1993 "nothing but net" ad starring Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. But it's not just nostalgia that makes this commercial work so well -- it's hip, smart and now. Now means NBA stars LeBron James and Dwight Howard. It plays off the original in some very clever ways. It duplicates the opening with one star challenging the other to a game of horse with the winner getting the McD's lunch. Then it was Larry Bird cautioning MJ "no dunks." This time it's Dwight telling LeBron, no jump shots. It's all flat-footed dunks. What follows is a reel of amazing acrobatics. Is this all for real? Can humans really do this. It's can't-believe-my-eyes time as LeBron dunks the same ball twice and Dwight does a 360 dunk from the foul line, landing in an "olympic pose." It's funny and fresh with a great closing, as Larry Bird says hello and thanks for the lunch (that he's been eating while they've been playing). The kicker. Dwight asks "who's that?" LeBron shrugs and says "I don't know."

Hyundai's second spot is my favorite of the three I've previewed. Pitching the made-by-hand theme, we see a car being carried, mosh-pit-style, by the company's assembly-line workers from bare chassis to finished car. Lots of clever images (the car being passed down a stairway) make this a spot a perfect balance of Super Bowl silliness and straightforward selling.

Hyundai is the opening ad of the pre-show and it's one in a series, this one highlighting all the safety it already has that the government will soon require. That voice, that Crazy Heart, His Dudeness voice is none other than Jeff Bridges. That's an Oscar-nominated inflection he gives to the spot's tagline "Do you really want to wait."

That spot is followed by one of the now all-too-familiar Verizon commercials featuring Luke Wilson, an actor who hasn't been nominated for an Oscar. Maybe it's just me and my shallow, superficial self, but all I can think about during these spots is how big Luke Wilson's face has gotten. It's like a balloon.

I'm stationed in the underground facility that Belo built just for this event: covering the 2010 Super Bowl commercials. As with everything else related to this annual celebration of excess, the spectacle begins before the game does. First up the Hyundai Kickoff show. Hyundai's is this year's biggest advertiser. See if you can Name that Celebrity Spokesperson in the Hyundai spots. It's the perfect celebrity voice -- naggingly familiar with an easy authority. (Hint: he's nominated for Best Actor in this year's Oscars). It took me two viewings of one of the commercials on YouTube.

I have an ongoing debate with someone who swears I claimed that Modern Family is funnier than Arrested Development. I didn't, I don't, I can't imagine that I ever will. But I am beginning to think I may soon be arguing that its the funniest show currently on broadcast television; more to the point, funnier than 30 Rock

If there is one essential image I will take away from this season of Heroes it is from Monday night's penultimate episode, "The Wall:" Peter and Sylar swinging sledgehammers at a giant brick wall.

In a word: Wow. In three words: Best Episode Ever. Sunday night's episode, The Mighty and Strong, was an amazing hour of television. Just when you thought things couldn't get any crazier, they did.

For a lot of people tuning into watch Conan O'Brien's final Tonight Show, this was probably the first time they had watch since his first show seven months ago. As his dwindling ratings reflected, that's what it takes these days to get the kind of BIG audience that late-night talk shows used to regularly command. As if by some sort of evil-genius design, NBC execs have succeeded in transforming the network's late-night talk show world into the scene of the hottest reality show on television.

What Friday night's viewers watched was superficially very different from that first-night debut way back nearly forty weeks ago. Conan's first Tonight show was exuberantly silly, triumphantly madcap. His last one was sort of solemnly silly and bittersweetly madcap. But the essential Conan was virtually unchanged, or if anything, even more sharply defined and resolved by the recent soap opera and premature withdrawal.

USA Network is really establishing a groove at creating TV shows that are easy-breezy fun and White Collar's return just reinforces that brand-enhancing trend.

It was double-shot Thursday as NBC unveiled two new episodes of 30 Rock. I was dubious since this has been a mostly-off-and-on season, but hopeful since the last couple of episodes have been pretty good.

In what I hope is a trend, both shows Thursday were rock-solid, maybe not top-ten contenders, but definitely in-the-groove funny.

Conan O'Brien took his viewers and more particularly NBC execs to school Wednesday night, and his lesson was this: Don't jerk around someone smarter and funnier than you, especially when you're providing him a nationally televised platform from which he can beat you like a pinata.

Here's my little prelude to Monday night's (quite good) episode:

To all the Heroes haters out there, what's your malfunction? I've watched as all the pop culture pundits who went cuckoo for Heroes through the first season and have been trashing it ever since. It's too confusing, it's too aimless, it's just gotten silly, no one really cares anymore -- on and on. I get it.

If there was any doubt, Tuesday night's final episode, announcing the ninth-season winner of Dancing with the Stars, made it clear: the emphasis is on the last word in the title, not the first.

The opening night of Dancing with the Stars finals showcased three competitor archetypes. There's Mya, the R&B singer. She has lots of dance experience, making her this season's ringer. There's Kelly Osbourne. Zero dance background, but sweet and hard-working, making her this season's success story. And then there's Donny Osmond. Show-biz legend who knows how to play to an audience, making him this season's fan favorite. They all had high and low points during Monday night's three rounds. If this was a dance competition, Mya would be the easy winner. But popularity trumps talent, so figure Donny will be tonight's champion

Tuesday night's semi-finals elimination confirmed the one immutable law in the Dancing with the Stars universe: Celebrity appeal trumps dancing ability every time. As expected (not to mention predicted here after Monday night's show), R&B singer Mya, the best dancer, and Donny Osmond, the biggest celebrity, were spared. That left swimsuit model Joanna Krupa and rock daughter Kelly Osbourne. Despite being the best dancer (by far), the little known Krupa was cut, while reality TV princess Osbourne moves on to next week's finals.

Four semi-finalists performing three dances each filled Monday night's Dancing with the Stars.

If you go by the judges' scores during Dancing with the Stars semi-finals on Monday night, then Donny Osmond is in last place and therefore the most likely to be cut on tonight's elimination round. But Donny is also the most popular star on a celebrity show where his competition includes an R&B singer most viewers had never heard of, a swimsuit model known only to Maxim subscribers, and the daughter of a rock legend.

Is this what passes for event television now? If it is, then the revolution is over and video of cats playing piano on YouTube won.

Boring may be too strong a word, so let me just say that Oprah's hour with the former vice presidential candidate and new book author was uneventful. Let the pundits hash out and endlessly parse the politics -- to sum up, pretty much everything bad that happened during the presidential run was someone else's fault.

I officially add Dexter to the list of favorite shows that are disappointing me this year. Last season, with Jimmy Smits as the hardcore D.A. that got crazier week after week, Dexter was show I most looked forward to watching, week after week. This season, to echo my 30 Rock summation, not so much

Five shows in, here's my summation of 30 Rock so far: Not so much. "The Problem Solvers" continued what's become the new normal of the show. Some clever/funny moments and lines, but a general listlessness overall.

As Tuesday night's elimination revealed, Dancing with the Stars is now officially a spoiler-free zone. The chances at this point of anything unexpected, never mind surprising, happening at this point are somewhere between zero and fuggetaboutit. Aaron Carter was eliminated while his fellow bottom-two dweller, Kelly Osbourne was spared. He's the (much) better dancer; but she's the cuter storyline -- just like high school, popularity trumps performance. Sure to go next week is Kelly, leaving Donny Osmond, Joanna Krupa and Mya for the finals. And maybe, just maybe, Donny won't win, and the best dancer, Mya, will. But look for the flock of pigs flying overhead if that happens.

R&B singer Mya scored the season's first perfect score on Monday night's Dancing with the Stars. Take that as a sign of Mya being the star to beat going into next week's semi-finals, but the more important message is how inferior the quality of competition is this season compared with previous editions. Everybody was a distance second (or worse) to Mya and pro-partner Dmitry Chaplin -- their 70s-styled samba was this season's best dance yet.

Most of this season, I've been watching and wondering: What is this show about? It's a beautiful period piece, worth watching for the amazing attention-to-detail sets and costumes. It's got great writing and acting so there's are plenty of reasons to watch, but in that it's the closest thing to a post-Sopranos Sopranos on TV, I've been frustrated by the show's slump. This third season has kind of wandered in the 60s wilderness.

In what may be the least suspenseful moment in reality TV history, former pop star Aaron Carter won Tuesday night's dance-off and remained among the final five competitors on Dancing with the Stars. He beat out Iron Chef host Mark Carascos who performed a cha-cha-cha much praised by the judges. But it was no match for the flashy, fleet-footed jive delivered by Carter. The big surprise of the night was the early dismissal of ex-Cowboy Michael Irvin. Despite two weeks of improving performances, he was the first of the show's two eliminations.

With two dances on Monday night's show and a double elimination tonight, the competition is heating up for the seven remaining celebrities on Dancing with the Stars. The former teen idol Aaron Carter continued to recover from his imminent nervous breakdown and nailed the top score with a feet-flashing jive.
Joining him in recovery is Michael Irvin who is getting better every week. He's still not all that good, but his foxtrot was solid and he had his best moments of the season in rallying his Team Tango for the group dance competition. He silenced bickering partners with his call for "one heartbeat."

Dancing with the Stars' ninth season just got a whole lot less interesting. Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmer Natalie Coughlin was eliminated Tuesday night after landing in the bottom two with pop pin-up Aaron Carter. She had been one of this season's few bright spots, embodying the show's ideal -- a complete stranger to dance who threw herself into the competition to bloom as the weeks went on. But she didn't have the fan base that a former Cowboys receiver (Michael Irvin) or a current snowboarding champ (Louie Vito), both much weaker dancers, so she's gone.

All in all, a blunt confirmation that this isn't a dance competition, it's a popularity contest.

It was only a matter of time and entering week five of Dancing with the Stars, Donny Osmond turned in the best dance of the night. To the list of a little bit country and a little bit rock n roll, we must now add that Osmond is also a little bit tango. He and partner Kym Johnson scored a near-perfect 29 as Osmond snapped and scowled his way through their dance.

The story that just won't quit. The runaway balloon, the helpless turned hideaway boy, accident or hoax, stricken or scheming parents -- and now, puking as performance art?

Check out this clip from Good Morning, America. The boy throws up as Meredith Vieira and the father continue the interview. To quote Reverend Lovejoy's wife on the Simpsons: "Won't somebody please think about the children?"

And the story just keeps expanding, as pop culture marketers get into the act

The wait finally over, I watched the premiere of 30 Rock's fourth season. Was it my insanely, impossibly high expectations that doomed me to disappointment, or was the show just a little flat?

Chuck Liddell is best known for busting heads in "the Octagon" as an ultimate fighting champion, but for the last month he's been clomping across the dance floor of Dancing with the Stars. That improbable run ended on Tuesday night with his elimination. Most immediately spared was teen-pop star Aaron Carter, the other half of this week's bottom two this week. Michael Irvin, another underachiever, also survived. But with two dances to learn for next week his reprieve may be short-lived.

For the first time in Dancing with the Stars history, the worst dance of the night wasn't a dancer, it was a dance. The "country two-step," better known as the Texas two-step, was one of the four new dances introduced on Monday night. Three couples performed it -- Chuck Liddell and Anna Trebunskaya, Mark Dacascos and Lacey Schwimmer and Louie Vito and Chelsie Hightowers. But none of them danced anything like a recognizable two-step.

For anybody who's been watching Dancing with the Stars, Tuesday night's news came as no surprise: Tom DeLay is out. The former House Majority leader and more recent dancing fool had surprised and charmed skeptical viewers with his determination and unabashed enthusiasm, but aching feet (from stress fractures) forced his withdrawal. "You can't practice," DeLay explained, "and if you can't practice, you make a fool of yourself."

He may be back. Host Tom Bergeron invited him back to dance the Texas Two-Step (one of this season's new dances) during this season's finale. No such invitation was extended to the evening's other departing star. Debi Mazar was eliminated the old-fashioned way: the audience voted her off, sparing underperforming Michael Irvin for at least one more week.

Last Thursday night when David Letterman opened his show with the revelation that he had been the victim of a blackmailing attempt over an unspecified number of sexual trysts with female staff members, he vowed that this would be the only time he would speak in public on the subject.

But after Monday night's show, the real question may be: Will he ever stop talking in public about it?

Another week with two or three good dancers and then all the rest. Mya's rumba got the high score, with the season's first two 10s (Len Goodman, a grinch with his scores all night, gave her a 7).

Great season finale; for that matter, this could be how the series goes off and it would be fine.

If you haven't seen David Letterman's -- I don't even know what to call it, it's not really a confession, he didn't apologize and delivered it kind of like a stand-up bit but, of course it was a true story, so let's call it a -- revelation on Thursday night's show, here it is.

Throughout Tuesday night's elimination round, host Tom Bergeron kept exclaiming that, with just three points separating all but three of the 14 couples, it was the closest week-two competition in Dancing with the Stars' history. That's only because most of the competition isn't very good, at least so far. For the second week in a row, the weakest celebrity dancer, Kathy Ireland, was eliminated. Michael Irvin, with his newly minted nickname, "the Comeback Kid" and Tom "Twinkle Toes" DeLay are safe for another week. But probably not much more than that.

Can we share a moment of stunned silence for the hot mess that was co-host Samantha Harris' cotton-candy hair (extensions)?

The question last week was: is the judging tougher or the competition weaker? The answer offered with Monday night's show was: a little bit of both. The single-word summation of the 14 dances is sloppy. Lots of mistakes and missteps. Iron Chef host Mark Dacascos slipped during his quick-step; former House Majority leader Tom DeLay nearly fell over at the end of his tango. There were two unequivocally good dances, from former teen idol Aaron Carter and R&B singer Mya, with Donny Osmond cementing his status as the Osmond who can dance. MIchael Irvin improved on last week's poor showing.

The penultimate episode sets up what promises to be a great finale to a solid season. About to finish its sixth season, Entourage is getting a little long in the tooth to maintain its hip, young heat -- the rest of the boys are as old as Drama was when the show started and he was the target of a steady stream of washed-up geezer jokes. But this has been a fun season

Sunday night's show, "Living the Dream," was just a flat-out great premiere, setting up at least three story arcs that could carry a season.

On the women's side for Dancing with the Stars' "double elimination" on Wednesday night, there was no question who should go first: Macy Grey who made a so slack as to be sleepwalking debut. On the men's side, there were a couple of bottom-end performers to choose from -- an anti-charismatic Ashley Hamilton and a surprisingly stiff Michael Irvin. The show tried to squeeze out a little tension with the women, and if Macy weren't such a disaster, it would have been Kathy Ireland's turn (and probably will be next week). Michael Irvin has another week to get in the game, but Ashley is gone.

Ladies night as the eight female contestants took their turns at either the salsa or the Viennese waltz. There were a couple of good dances, a couple more that showed promise, a couple more that were thoroughly mediocre. And then there was Macy Grey.

The opening night, "Macho Monday," of DWTS' season nine debut, the first of its three-night kick-off to this "super-sized" season with the biggest-ever field of 16 celebrity couples, was a mixed bag.

It was the men's night, with the women watching from the audience, so who knows what they will show us tomorrow night. But as for the men, there were a couple of good dancers and a couple of surprisingly good (which is to say, not nearly as bad as expected), but most of the men were somewhere in the mediocre middle -- not awful, but it's hard to see any developing into much of a dancer.

The new Dallas Cowboys Stadium glowed and glittered like a giant spaceship in the pre-dawn dimness, already burning bright as NBC's Today Show set up shop inside the high-tech cavern for a Friday morning broadcast touting "what many are calling the eighth wonder of the world" and it national-television debut during the Cowboys' Sunday night home opener against the New York Giants on, coincidentally, NBC.

Sorry to be following up so late in the day; sometimes, writing about television gets in the way of blogging about television. The third episode of the new season (6) of Top Chef confirms that this is probably the most talented cast yet -- the quickfire challenge, make something "out of this world" with potatoes, resulted in an impressive array of mostly imaginative dishes.

Tonight I'll be watching Top Chef: Las Vegas on Bravo. The rebroadcast of the season opener is at 7 p.m., last week's at 8 p.m. and the new episode at 9 p.m. I'm there. Tune in, too, and we can dish tomorrow.

My one-word summation of last night's season 5 finale: Wow.

Vying for least surprising announcement of the year, AMC released the news today (Tuesday, 09/01) that it has ordered a fourth season of its hit series Mad Men. Apparently 16 Emmy nominations and a record-setting audience of 4.5 million viewers for the third season's Aug 16 debut, along with a seemingly endless assembly line of universally rapturous media attention, is all it takes to get renewed.

Tonight it's the season finale of FX's Rescue Me at 9 pm. Week in, week out, Rescue Me is punk-rock TV -- loud, raucous and fearless. It's smart and savagely funny. I can't wait.

A great end to a great year. The highlights included Andy asking Audra (aka Alanis Morrissette) to marry him, Celia forming her own drug-dealing team and Nancy finally having her showdown with the evil Mexican power baroness, Pilar. Take everything from here on as some form of spoiler, so...

I can't wait for the season finale of Weeds tonight at 9 pm on Showtime. This fifth season has been great. When the show blew up its original premise of suburban widow turning to dealing pot to take care of her family, I thought the show might lose its reason for being. But it's been sharper and better than ever.

For a show that seemed on the verge of overstaying its welcome, this season of Entourage has been pretty good, and last night's episode was no exception.

I've been watching Hung all season, giving it a chance, week after week, to hook me. But I think I'm done. I really like Jane Adams, who plays Tanya the poet-pimp. And Thomas Jane is likable enough as Ray, the high-school basketball coach who's trying to become a male prostitute.

The show's not funny enough to be a comedy and the characters and storytelling aren't interesting enough to be a drama, so it's just twisting in this never-never zone. I'm tired of everybody -- Anne Heche as Ray's crazy ex-wife is particularly insufferable. For a show that's ostensible all about its main character's tool, Hung is in serious need of retooling.

HBO has branded Sunday night the way NBC once branded Thursday night with a rack of appointment-viewing programs.

It was the penultimate episode for both True Blood and the new series Hung. True Blood was up first. The show has become something of a pop-cult phenom in its second season and I count myself among the viewers who have caught on to the show.

Adding to the sense of contradictory messages: just a few minutes before, on the same stage, during the So You Think You Can Dance panel, judge/executive producer and former Idol exec, Nigel Lythgoe said that while he had already been talking to Paula Abdul about making guest judge appearance on Dance, he didn't think it was certain that Paula wouldn't be returning to American Idol.

"I'm not at all sure Paula won't be back on Idol. There's always time for talks about whatever possibilities until Idol goes on the air in January. So I take nothing for granted."

20 minutes later, there was Fox chairman Peter Rice sitting there, maybe even in the same chair, flatly saying that "Paula Abdul will not be returning to American Idol."

So there you are. Case closed, except for the possibility that it's still open.

Both Fox executives, but especially Chairman Peter Rice, emphasized that Fox wanted Paula to stay and that they regretted her departure.

"It's very sad for us," Rice said. "Paula was a very important part of the Idol family."

But he was also unequivocal that she was gone and it was over and they were moving on.
"We're excited. This is an opportunity to create a new dynamic for the show, a new kind of energy."

So, in conclusion, Fox is very sad and very excited.

Fox prez Kevin Reilly offered some historical perspective to the Paula situation. "It's like when Walter Cronkite left the CBS Evening News and everybody said 'they'll never be able to replace Walter Cronkite.' It's always a matter of finding the right person at the right time." When a journalist exclaimed over his equating of Walter Cronkite and Paula Abdul, Reilly said "Oh great, there's everybody's lead."

Reilly also went on to make another TV history reference. "It's like Sam and Diane, only times have changed and now it's Rebecca and Diane." He paused a moment and then said "We've got that in development, by the way."

Asked if there was any chance of just going with a three-judge panel, Fox chairman Rice said it was a possibility but not a probability. He also seemed to dismiss the idea of going with a rotation of guest judges.

"We're better off having someone permanent. We're now treating this as an opportunity to bring a different energy to the show, with the emphasis on fun and great chemistry.

"It's a very complex piece of producing that probably has multiple right answers and wrong answers. The most important thing is to have that great chemistry between the judges."

Chairman Peter Rice and Fox prez Kevin Reilly described the auditioning process that is already underway and will continue until American Idol's sixth season begins in January. They will use a rotation of "guest judges" for the auditions being held for the next seven weeks. Those guest judges will be made up of "female pop stars, performers and artists." Negotiations are underway with some already and Rice announced the first two: Victoria Beckham (confirming internet reports) and Katy Perry. "These are the first two names we can confirm," said Rice.

At the executive session Thursday morning in Pasadena, Fox Broadcasting Chairman Peter Rice flatly stated: "Paula Abdul will not be returning to American Idol." He unequivocally placed responsibility for her departure on Paula. "We very much wanted her to return; we made what we think was a very fair offer with a substantial raise and she decided not to come back.

Conan O'Brien is not smooth, or charming and far from being classically handsome, he's kind of weird-looking. That's why as a celebrity, and more to the point, as a talk-show host he lives and dies by being funny and smart. He was both during his Monday night debut as the new host of The Tonight Show, replacing Jay Leno who ended his 17-year run on Friday.

Just not enough of either

He didn't cry, but after 17 years hosting the Tonight Show, Jay Leno has never done anything to make viewers expect he would. The man who replaced late-night legend Johnny Carson under less than ideal circumstances -- Carson was clumsily forced out and his handpicked heir, David Letterman, was unceremoniously passed over -- has proven to be unflappable during his tenure, always steady and ready with a joke and a softball question for his next celebrity guest.

Dancing with the Stars' Tuesday night finals showcased three last dances earning three perfect scores. It was the perfect summation of an 11-week competition that host Tom Bergen revealed, just before announcing the winner, had been "our closest season ever, with less than one percent in difference between the final two competitors."

And with that, the winner was named -- Shawn Johnson, the gold-medal-winning gymnast who, at 17, is the youngest competitor in the reality TV show's eight-season history.

The breakdown is this: Shawn and Gilles tied at 58 going into tomorrow's night final judgment, Melissa bringing up the rear at 56. This after Monday night's opening "Paso Doble face-off" followed by freestyle dances from each.

It finally happened: Ty Murray was eliminated. The bull-riding champion who has been this season's hardest-working dancer was voted off Tuesday night, sending Dallas gal Melissa Rycroft to next week's finals. The only question now is can either she or Shawn Johnson beat dreamboat dancer Gilles Marini.

By the scores, the breakdown of Monday night's show is easy: Gilles scored a perfect 60 (isn't that a first in DWTS lore -- a star scoring two perfect dances in a single night?) followed by Shawn with a 56, Melissa just behind her with a 55 and Ty bringing up the rear with a distant 48. But that doesn't really tell the story.

Calling it a shock may be overselling it, but what a surprise to hear Tom Bergeron call out Lil' Kim name when announcing the contestant who was being eliminated on Tuesday night.

How close is the competition this season? Going into next week's semi-finals, the high score of Monday night's two-dance contest was decided by the final performance -- Melissa Rycroft's perfect-score samba gave her a one-point lead over Gilles Marini and Shawn Johnson.

This may be the strongest field of celebrity dancers yet for Dancing with the Stars, but it's hard not to see this week's elimination as an expression of the dance competition's flip side -- a big-name, big-budget popularity contest. Country star Chuck Wick, coming off a two-week streak of strong performances, was eliminated, sparing this week's bottom-rung holder but perennial frontrunner, Melissa Rycroft.

The big surprise of the evening came with the announcement of the second celebrity to be safe (after last night's top scorer, Lil' Kim) -- bull rider Ty Murray. As faithful viewers know, he's been an up-and-down dancer and an undeniably gracious, humble and good-natured competitor. If this were just a dance competition, it would have been his turn (who was it last night that prognosticated that tonight he would be "riding off into the sunset?" Oh yeah, that was me.) But it's not just a dance competition, and Ty's voting fan base bested Chuck's. It's presented an interesting moment in pop culture. The real cowboy proved more popular than the show-biz cowboy.

It's got to be Ty's turn next week, doesn't it? As this week proved, not necessarily. At this point, the real suspense may be in who goes and who stay in the mini-finals brewing between Lil' Kim and Shawn Johnson. Stay tuned.

Lots of action during Monday night's show, but the funny thing is the biggest news of the night came from the one competitor who didn't dance -- Melissa Rycroft. A rib injury (an x-ray had the doctor theorizing hairline fracture) sidelined the Dallas gal and jilted Bachelor winner. Tom Bergeron explained that she was determined to comeback but had to sit out this week so her partner Tony Dovolani had to stand solo as the judges scored the taping of their rehearsal performance of a jive. As all acknowledged, the rehearsal just had the pair "blocking" their dance -- going through the motions without giving any moves the full treatment. The resulting score, the evening's lowest, three 7s for a 21.

The bottom two were no surprise -- Lawrence Taylor and Ty Murray. The only uncertainty was which would go this week, which would go next. This week it was Lawrence. Next week it will be Ty. Then we'll be wondering about the next couple on the chopping block and which will be cut first -- Chuck Wick or Lil' Kim.

You didn't have to watch long on Monday to see the best dance of the night. Dallas' own Melissa Rycroft and her partner Tony Dovolani opened the show with an Argentine tango that alternately snapped and simmered, lots of intricate interlacing leg work. Bang -- high score of the night, 29, with only head grinch Len Goodman withholding a 10.

We're getting to the middle of the season, so it's time for everything that bugs me about this show to really kick in, and, sure enough, tonight it was all there.

And then there were nine. On Tuesday night's results show, it was the dreaded "mid-season double elimination." That twist took the place of this season's added element, the elimination dance-off, in which the bottom two couples dance their routines in the hopes of improving their judges' scores. I didn't miss it.

With Tom Bergeron exhorting this week's "mid-season double elimination" and "two new dances," Dancing with the Stars sounded more a night of pro wrestling than ballroom dancing, but with Monday night's performances, the truth was somewhere in between.

First things first: the biggest surprise of the night wasn't who was eliminated (Denise Richards) but who wasn't. Among the first four couples announced, "in no particular order." to be safe, was Steve Wozniak and his pro-partner, Karina Smirnoff. He's cute, he bright, he's positive, he's daffy-laffy, but he's a terrible dancer. As Bruno said of his performance last night (echoing Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons) "that was the worst salsa I've ever seen." But reflecting his cult-of-Apple fanboys out there, he got the audience votes to stay in. So next week we get to see him cute-and-goofy his way through either a Lindy Hop or Argentine Tango. Oh boy.

By the third week, things are getting interesting, and frustrating. Interesting because the good dancers are really getting good, and that includes some that at first didn't seem like they would. But it's also frustrating because already you can see who the hopeless competitors are -- the ones who are irredeemable and if they were going to get better would at least being showing some spark.

The eighth season of Dancing with the Stars got going even before Monday night's debut, as two contestants bowed out and two hastily drafted substitutes were added. Thus, the night's drama preceded its broadcast.

My one-word summation of Jimmy Fallon's debut as the latest late-night talk show host is: oof.

More from Media Critic Tom Maurstad:

Dallas gal and The Bachelor finalist Melissa Rycroft won the heart, and marriage proposal, of Jason Mesnick -- hooray. But wait, on Monday night's follow up to the season finale, a one-hour special The Bachelor: After the Rose, we watched (in horror) as Jason reneged on his proposal and decided he wanted to date the other finalist, Molly from Michigan. Boo.

In the post-dumping limo ride, a tearful Melissa said she was more hurt than angry and would come back to Dallas and continue the search for her Prince Charming. So gentlemen, start your engines.

Media Critic Tom Maurstad files this report from the first hour of ABC's reality series:

As spoilers such as this one predicted in January, Bachelor Jason Mesnick picked Melissa Rycroft, Dallas gal and former Cowboys cheerleader, as his bride-to-be. Let's all hold our breath and wait for the wedding. It could happen -- a flock of pigs could fly by, too.

The post-finale, After the Rose twist (there's one every season)? Jason just announced that "things have been different since the show ended and we're not right together." This is his summation of his engagement to Melissa six weeks after the cameras stop taping every moment between him and his line-up of ladies. Turns out he's still in love with Molly and wants to 1) break up with Melissa and 2) start dating Molly

WFAA-TV's Victory Plaza studio will turn into a celebrity fishbowl on Tuesday morning when Will Smith stops by to visit Good Morning Texas and promote his new film, Seven Pounds. While Channel 8 viewers are by now familiar with on-camera spectacle of post-game crowds milling about the studio during the ABC (and, of course, Belo-owned) affiliate's 10 pm newscast. But this Tuesday morning will offer the rare opportunity for some completely justified screaming-in-public when the man known as Mr. Fourth of July/the $25 million dollar Man and/or the Biggest Movie Star in the World gets his up-close-and-personal groove on in Victory Park. The show begins at 9 am, so figure out what the ideal arrival time is and be part of the throng.

Editor's note: Smith will also host the Dallas premiere of his upcoming movie Seven Pounds at Cinemark 17 at 11819 Webb Chapel Rd in Dallas.

Click the link below to see details on how to attend the screening.

NBC announced that its dropping second-season start-up Lipstick Jungle and debut My Own Worst Enemy.

The fall of Lipstick Jungle is no surprise. The show isn't good, never really found an audience and was stuck in the primetime deadzone of Friday night. The writers strike gave it a stay-of-execution as it was declared the putative victor in the contest between dueling Sex and the City knock-offs when the even lamer Cashmere Mafia was put out of viewers' misery. But the show never found its rhythm, a point driven home by the debut of a much more successful primetime series starring Brooke Shields, namely the clever series of Volkswagen commercials for the German automaker's new minivan, the Routan.

It was the last elimination before the semi-finals on Tuesday night's Dancing with the Stars -- the cruelest cut, to be so close to something so meaningless. With all the mounting stress and strain, the five remaining couples had a session with Celebrity Rehab's Dr. Drew. Former Olympian sprinter Maurice Green and DWTS vet Cheryl Burke could have saved themselves the soul-baring; they were the unlucky couple cut, sparing north Texas native Cody Linley who with sub Edyta Sliwinska was the other couple on the cusp of elimination. Cody teared up while talking about how much his DWTS partner Julianne Hough -- who's been out for a couple of weeks after surgery -- means to him during his Dr. Drew session. He managed to hold back the tears of joy when the judgment was announced that assured him of being reunited with Julianne for next week's semi-finals.

A nice bit of 'ripped-from-the-headlines" verisimilitude at the end of Wednesday night's new episode. At the end of a highly publicized murder trial, DA Jack McCoy is giving a press conference on the stairs of the courthouse. As he finishes his comments and turns to leave, a reporter shouts out "Is it true you've been asked to join the Obama administration?" Is America ready for its first fictitious Attorney General?

I took advantage of this week's TV Guide/iTunes exclusive offer and downloaded the 30 Rock premiere. I just watched it on my iPhone where it now is stored along with other favorite episodes, including season two hotspots such as "Rosemary's Baby, MILF Island and the sublime "Cooter" ("The ceiling's leaking." "No, it's not. I can show you the study.")

The ongoing financial implosion has had lots of effects on our nation's economy and our society's psychology. But one of the most dramatic has been its transformative effect on the television viewing experience.

In this cable era of 24/7 news cycles and competing news networks, watching the news has become the routine backdrop of our daily down time -- flop on the couch, go through the mail, return email and text messages, pay bills and whatever else, all while your preferred news network buzzes in the background, sort of the televisual equivalent of Muzak.

But now, thanks to the economic crisis, with each day bringing a new chapter of breaking bad news, watching the news has changed. Turning on the news these days feels like you're enrolling in a correspondence program to earn an MBA. All the facts, all the figures, $700 billion this , $300 billion that, the "commercial paper" industry, "mortgage-backed securities -- as the newscasters and pundits go on and on, you just want to hit the pause button and scream "Is any of this stuff going to be on the test?"

Okay, no season-recapping prologue here, just off to the races. The season premiere of the show in which aspiring-idealist lawyer Nick (Peter Krause) tries to take care of a rich family's business while holding onto his integrity started its second season with a tricky time-twisting episode in which we start at a birthday party for Nick, watch a few critical exchanges -- with patriarch Tripp Darling (Donald Sutherland), with ex-flame daughter Darling Karen and his straight-arrow wife Lisa -- and then flash back to 48 hours previous and spend the rest of the episode catching up to the point at which the show started. It's not a new trick, but it sure was fun.

There should be a special category of Emmy for next year's awards -- the outstanding season-recap prologue. Pushing Daisies is one of many sophomore shows that were refreshman-ized by the writers' strike. Critics loved it but not many people had a chance to jump on before the strike ended last season. So here comes the second-time-around that the network hopes will attract a lot of first-time viewers -- Dirty Sexy Money is another promising show that's getting its second first debut tonight, but more on that show after it's over.

Big two-hour premiere of the new, strike-delayed third season of Heroes -- "Villains." This has been hyped as the season that gets the show back on the rails after jumping off them with a second season that many complained was rambling, disjointed, dull, etc.

My reaction to the premiere was mixed.

Can we get a message to the programming committee for the broadcast of the 2012 Summer Games in London -- cut way (way) back on beach volleyball.

The WB is returning as TheWB.com, the latest experiment in bridging/blurring the chasm between television and the Internet. A beta version of the site is scheduled to be up and running on August 27.

If you get frustrated with the programming choices NBC is making for its Olympic broadcasts, you can have much more freedom and variety by tuning in online. NBC has set up an entire digital network to cover and keep up with every event at its olympics site -- I've been watching hours of badminton. Who knew -- I mean besides a couple billion people in Asia -- how exciting and beautiful a sport it is to watch? B

The August 11 issue of TV Guide (available on newstands on Aug 7) features a list of TV's highest paid stars. Can you guess who is at the top of it?

While watching "Flight 1" I found myself thinking "I almost don't care what's going on. This show is so beautiful to look at, you could just hit the mute button and just lose yourself in the cinematography and styling." I don't know if Mad Men now ranks as the most expensive-to-produce show on television but it sure looks like it. Every frame is its own perfect composition. And the stunning attention-to-detail -- the clothes, the furniture, the slang -- make Mad Men the best period piece ever on television (take that Happy Days), and one of the best ever filmed. But, of course, this week's episode was just another reminder that it's also great character-driven storytelling. Let's dig in.

Over a week and a half of stars and creators and executives (they're my favorite), the crowning moment of my TCA experience this summer had to be getting publically reprimanded by Ian McShane, aka Deadwood' Al Swearengen.

I know I said I would be, what was the seductive phrase I chose, "disgorging" my press tour journal entries today, but alas, life has conspired against me. Monday, I promise.

This concludes the live-from-L.A. portion of my TCA coverage. But tune in (late afternoonish) Friday when I will be disgorging my online journal of all the news that's fit to blog from my nine days at the Beverly Hilton.

It was Al Michaels, John Madden and the rest of the seemingly ever-expanding team of commentators/reporters/analysts that make up NBC's football-coverage team.

Perhaps the biggest news item coming out of the panel was the reunion of Keith Olbermann with his ESPN counterpart, Dan Patrick. When someone asked about the secret of their success during those mid-90s hey-days when they co-hosted ESPN's Sportscenter, Mr. Patrick explained "We just tried to entertain each other."

Mr. Olbermann elaborated, saying "the goal being to make the other laugh uncontrollably on national television."

When, in a joking reference to the "controversy" that has dogged Mr. Olbermann here at the TCA Press Tour since, during an earlier Fox News panel," anchor Chris Wallace opined that Keith Olbermann's dual function on MSNBC as both outspoken editorialist and co-anchor of campaign coverage, was a breach of journalistic ehtics and/or intergrity, Mr. Olbermann was asked if his outspoken criticism of the Bush administration should disqualify him from serving as co-host of Football Night in America, he (eventually) responded thusly:

"Barring the possibility of John McCain picking Brett Favre as his running mate, I don't think it will be a problem."

As the panel wound down, a final question was asked. "Are any of you," someone queried "going to be on the next season of Dancing with The Stars?" A follow-up to the suprisingly slinky and newly traded REdskins pass-rusher, Jason Taylor who made it to the finals this past season.

Chris Collingsworth was the first to wave off the suggestion.

"My wife's been bugging me ever since the first season that show was on to take dancing lessons. I finally just told her 'I will never either look like or dance like Jason Taylor.' "

Jerome Bettis patted running-back-cum-commentator Tiki Barber and said "Tiki's our guy." For his part, Mr. Barber just laughed and shook his head 'no.'

Then Mr. Madden entered the fray on a serious note.

"I heard it's going to be Warren Sapp," he said and then proceeded to start doing what he does -- analyzing and forecasting the outcome.

"He's good, he's got the moves," Mr. Madden said. "I predict he'll win."

The panel had opened with a discussion of last year's Super Bowl (Mr. Madden thought it was good for football and -- more importantly -- football commentators that the NY Giants had one since it set up a more interesting storyline this season) and a look ahead to this coming Super Bowl. It culminated in Mr. Madden predicting that the New York Giants, against most oddsmakers, would win again.

Now he wrapped things up.

"I'm going with the Giants and Warren Sapp."

Another Deadwood alum, another Deadwood perspective. Last week, it was Timothy Olyphant dishing Deadwood and on Monday it was Ian McShane, aka Al Swearingen. Appearing at a panel for the new NBC drama, Kings, in which Mr. McShane plays -- can you guess? -- a king, someone asked for his thoughts/feelings on the sort of sad, undignified way that Deadwood ended. Mr. McShane likewise lamented its passing, and more to the point, the way it passed.

"They (HBO reps) said the reason was he (creator David Milch) was working on another show -- well, he was always working on another show. He had signed a three-show deal. You're familiar with David Milch and how he works. I suspect what happened was HBO saw that this was the most expensive show on television and went to David and said 'how about we just do maybe eight episodes this season. And he said 'how about we do [expletive] none?'

I always knew it was over, that was the end. Everyone involved did. That 'two movies' idea that was floated about was just a smoke screen. Pathetic. It left me with a bad taste for a while."

Think the Summer Olympics in Beijing are going to be a big deal? NBC, which paid $1 billion for the broadcast rights, certainly does. How big? Try "the single most ambitious media event in history" in the words of Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics. Or, in the words of NBC's Olympic primetime host, Bob Costas, "uber-spectacular."

Start with the amount of coverage -- 3600 hours, more than the combined total of every other Olympics televised in the U.S., starting with the 20 hours CBS devoted to the first Olympic broadcast in 1960.

In a cutting-edge exercise of multimedia programming, all those hours are going to be spread across television, computers and mobile devices, and all are going to be broadcast in high-definition.

"That's probably the biggest technical innovation," Mr. Ebersol said, speaking by satellite from Beijing. At the last Olympics (in Salt Lake City) only five sports and the opening and closing ceremonies were in high-def. They were boutique presentations. Now every camera we're using, including the lipstick cams that will show you the arrows landing in the archery competition, will be high-def.

The other change that may mean even more to viewers -- considering that according to NBC astatistics, 95 percent of Americans still use standard televisions -- is that the majority of coverage will be live. In stark contrast to previous NBC-broadcast games, viewers will see what happens as it happens, as when, over the first eight nights, swimming events will be shown during primetime. Gone is the "plausibly live" approach of previous Olympic broadcasts when NBC would hold back events and package them for a primetime audience, showing them hours after they had happened and, in this evermore wired world, results were widely known.

One reason for the emphasis on live coverage is viewser frustration. "We've learned our lesson," Mr. Ebersol said.

Another reason is that China, though halfway around the world, is, conveniently, 12 hours ahead of New York -- mid-morning there is primetime back home. With all those high-def cameras and all that "cross-platform content" -- streaming video on nbcolympics.com, updates broadcast to cell phones, and , of course, all the coverage televised on NBC and its cable counterparts -- it's easy to understand why the Olympic mantra at NBC is "whenever, wherever, any hour, every hour."

If imitation truly is the the sincerest form of flattery, the NBC paid ABC a huge compliment during its executive panel by pulling the same stunt as its rival network did a few days ago. Just as the first question for ABC's president Stephen McPherson came from Jimmy Kimmel posing as journalist, the first questions to NBC's co-chairmen, Mark Graboff and Ben Silverman were asked by a bald, bearded guy in the back, who turned out to be Jay Leno in disguise.

It made for funny impromptu theater for the NBC execs, but it also allowed them to handle The Question -- what's going on with Jay and when will Conan be taking over The Tonight Show -- in a way they could control. Thus, a ballroom full of actual journalists found out that Jay Leno's last night as Tonight Show host will be Friday, May 29 of next year and Conan O'Brien's first will the next Monday, June 1. The stunt also allowed Jay to seem in on the joke and to dampen suspicion that this transition marks a fractious break between the talk-show host and his network, a suspicion that was seemingly buttressed by Mr. Leno himself in an interview with USA Today in which he was quoted as angrily saying he was done with NBC once his reign on the Tonight Show ended.

Just a misunderstanding due to a quote being taken out of context, according to Mr. Silverman, who said that the network continues talking with Mr. Leno about what role he might play after the switch to Conan.

"He came to us and said he felt bad about how he sounded in that interview. We're still talking to Jay about staying within NBC."

Jay Leno, the bald-headed journalist, didn't stick around to provide any answers. He just asked his questions -- "You've brought back Knight Rider, any plans to bring back Manimal? "Have you offered Jay a fifth hour of the Today Show?" -- and then he was gone. He didn't sound mad, but then, this is show business.

A panel with the cast (minus Darrell Hammond and the soon-to-be-former member, Amy Poehler) of SNL and creator/executive producer, Lorne Michaels, opened with a burst of news items:

This season will be extended from the normal 20 episodes to 22.

There will be seven live episodes leading up to the November presidential election, with four consecutive live shows kicking off the season.

Most notably, during the build-up to the election, the SNL crew will stage a weekly half-hour version of Weekend Update, Thursday Night Live, which will premiere on Oct. 9.

But there was time for all of that. Another more pressing question had to be answered: How will the show deal with a pregnant Hillary Clinton? No, that's not another news flash, the First Lady and former presidential candidate isn't pregnant. But the SNL actress who impersonates her on the show is, Amy Poehler, and will be abundantly so as the election nears. "Are you going to have her wear really big dresses or have her sitting behind a desk?"

"There'll be less need for Hillary in the fall," head writer Seth Meyers ventured. But when reminded that Bill Clinton being out of the White House hadn't meant that Darrell Hammond's version of him didn't still pop into SNL skits, Mr. Meyers nodded. "That's true, well then, you're idea about the desk is a good one. We'll do that."

With the country accelerating into the final months of the presidential campaign, it's not surprising that talk during the SNL panel focused on the show's plans for and history of political satire. How, for example, will the show's writers deal with Obama, who has thus far proven to be a tough personality to parody.

"He's still defining himself," Mr. Michaels said, "and he's still primarily cast as heroic. But that will change. It's all about finding the take on him that everyone can agree on. He's still being dealt with very cautiously and reverently, but as he becomes more familiar and the campaign grinds on, the proper satirtical take will become clear."

Since both candidates have appeared on the show, although Senator Obama just appeared in one sketch while Sen. McCain was a guest host this past season, Mr. Michaels was asked "who's funnier?"

Of course, they both were funny, in their own ways. He complimented Sen,. McCain for being such a good sport and willing to go with the show's flow. When he was subsequently asked about his personal politics -- he acknowledged that he has contributed to Sen. McCain's campaign, he waved off the possibility of any such bias affecting the show's content or tone.

"I contribute to any former host running for office," he joked, before adding, "Who ever's in power, we're suspicious of."

Sounding like a coach about to enter the championship season, he also said that Amy Poehler "will be with us through the election, or at least, as long as she can be."

When Friday Night Lights' Connie Britton (Coach Taylor's guidance-counselor wife) was asked about the effects of all the doomsday-anxiety surrounding the show, she said:

"Maybe it's got something to do with Austin, but once we're down there and shooting, we don't pay that much attention to what people are saying about the show's future or demise. We're just in our little Texas heaven."

Friday Night Lights has been a unique and extraordinary show since it debuted on NBC in Oct, 2006. It's a show based on a movie (of the same title) that completely reinvented itself and became not just different but better than the film that inspired it. It's become variably known as 1) the football show that isn't about football, 2) the best show on television that almost nobody is watching, or 3) just simply the best show on television.

That unique/extraordinary aura got (at least) another level added to it on Sunday when at a panel featuring castmembers and exec producer/writer Jason Katims it was confirmed that the show will become the test case for "a completely new model" of distribution -- this plan was originally announced, but sketchily explained in an April meeting with advertisers during NBC's upfront. FNL's upcoming third season will debut in Feb. 2009 on NBC, but first it air in its entirety -- starting Oct. 1 -- on satellite TV provider Direct TV's original programming initiative, the 101 Network.

."I'm a huge fan of the show," said Eric Shanks, executive vice president of entertainment for DirecTV, "and like everybody at NBC, I wanted to fiure out a way to keep the show going. It's been a long journey, but the show is so special and it has such intense, dedicated fans."

The plain facts are this: NBC has ordered 13 episodes (nine less than last year's 22-show season). Production will begin some time in August, in Austin. The show will start clean; rather than picking up where the strike interrupted it, FNL's new season will begin at the start of a new school year, the next football season. That means that two of the show's central characters, former star quarterback/paraplegic, Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and hotshot running back 'Smash' Williams (Gaius Charles) have graduated and won't be regulars on the show anymore.

"As much as we love those guys and those characters," said Mr. Katims, "we felt the show has always been about being true to life, authentic as possible, so we love them but to be true to their lives, it was time for them to move on.

"They're both going forward to the next step in their lives, but we are absolutely leaving the door open to them coming back."

Other than that, not much in the way of facts, plain or otherwise, were offered, a reflection perhaps of just how "completely new" this arrangement is and how little about how it's going to work is known.

For instance, how will this experiment be judged a success. Is it just a matter of attracting a significant segment of DirecTV's existing 17 million subscribers, giving them something to get excited about? Or will this venture be judged by how many new subscribers it draws?

Mr. Shanks either didn't know or was unwilling to say.

"There are a large number of things that we will be looking at. It's about keeping existing customers satisfied and new customers coming in the door, You can't just look at one thing to say whether this is a success. There are a lot of ways we're going to be looking at it."

Okay. Let's try something else. Among the unique FNL features DirecTV will be offering to its subscribers are a "postgame" show, Friday Night Lights Live in which viewers will be able to call in and ask questions of that week's participating cast members (Mr.Kasims guessed that "two or three" will take part each week). Even more enticing to hardcore fans, however, is the promise of bonus content and/or extended episodes available only on DirecTV. What does this mean. Will the show be reverse-engineered, sort of the opposite process a cable show like Sex and the City goes through to run on broadcast television, only instead of taking the R-rated material out, FNL's producers will be putting it in?

In a word, maybe, or more precisely in three words, they don't know.

"Well, we're talking about what we might do. We haven't started production yet so I could probably answer that question a lot better in six or eight weeks," Mr. Kapinos said. "We potentially could do a version that's different for DirecTV. One thing that's really attractive is the possibility of a longer running time, so we might do something like that.

"I don't really know yet, but each version would have something to recommend it."

It's not surprising that, on the cusp of doing something that's never been done before, that clear, certain answers are few. Switching to a new season with fewer episodes and the creative possibilities of longer, more fluid running times and adult-themed content -- Friday Night Lights seems to be going through a strange, unprecendented metamorphosis. It entered its strike-imposed cocoon an underperforming broadcast show and it may emerge a precedent-setting new kind of cable show.

The new 90210 may be a whole new show -- "We're really having a strong adult storyline" -- but there are a few ways in which it will be just like the old show by including some of the original castmembers. Jennie Garth will be back as the all-grown-up Kelly Taylor, and in one of those what-a-teeny-tiny-world, improbably convenient coincidences that always happen on television and never in real life, she is now back at West Beverly High as the school's guidance counselor.

The show's producers also confirmed that Tori Spelling will be back as Donna Martin, now the owner of a boutique that will no doubt prove to be a crucial site in the lives of its new crop of hip high-schoolers (you know how teens love a good boutique). The producers also announced that Shannon Doherty will appear in an undetermined number of episodes as a drama teacher "guest directing" a musical at West Beverly High.

As for Jason Priestley, Luke Perry et al, "We're open to it," said Gabe Sachs, executive producer, "as long as we can do it organically within the show. But we haven't talked to any of them yet."

For anyone who lived through the original 90s craze that was Beverly Hills 90210, the specter of a new "cooler, sexier, more provocative" spin-off series may induce a groan and a shudder. But there are reasons to hope the new series may not only not be hateful but actually be fun.

1. It's being written and produced by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, who worked on Freaks & Geeks and created Life As We Know It, two shows that blew up and turned inside-out all the conventions and tedium of teen "dra-medy."

"We grew up in Apatow country (a reference to filmmaker and Freaks & Geeks creator Judd Apatow)," Mr. Judah said. "We're grounded in reality, telling truthful, emotional stories that are also really funny."

2. It's got an interesting cast that includes Jessica Walters, from Arrested Development, and Tristan Wilds, from The Wire.

Asked to compare her matronly character in 90210 to her hilarious stint at the matriarch of Arrested Development's dysfunctional Bluth family, Ms. Walters said "They're very different. First of all, Lucille (Bluth) drank vodka and Tabitha drinks scotch."

Mr. Wilds' tenure on The Wire provided the panel's funniest moment when Mr. Judah talked about his excitement at working with a Wire alum. "I love that show so much. The first time I was with Tristan, I was like Chris Farley, a reference to recurring SNL sketch in which Mr. Farley would play a starstruck celebrity interviewer.." 'You remember that time you were sitting on the stoop? That was awesome' "

The Cw, once staked its brand on being a source of "urban" entertainment shows -- a show biz euphimism for shows centered on African-American stories and characters. But at this point, the only such shows remaining on the network's schedule are Everybody Hates Chris and The Game.

Meanwhile, the CW's new target audience are women 18-34 and the shows the network is using to attract them are series centered on the young, beautiful and (perhaps especially) rich. Perhaps the signature show of this new brand identity has been Gossip Girls, a show about the days and nights, loves and addictions of a band of merry (and not so much) rich kids in New York City. With its new season, the network looks to expand that niche with entries like the updated spin-off, 90210 ("If you wanna live in the zip, you gotta live by the code"), and Privileged, a show about the fabulously wealthy, and did I mention young and beautiful, residents of Palm Springs.

Clips of both these shows shown to the press gathered in the Beverly Hilton ballroom on Saturday offered a dizzying, designer-decked montage of high fashion, fabulous mansions, exotic cars, exclusive clubs and, of course, the lucky inhabitants of all this gilded luxury. All this glamorizing imagery and voyeuristic fascination with the wealthy, their playthings and playgrounds, comes just as news reports and front pages are filled with daily accounts of America's slumping economy, described, coincidentally, in Saturday's Los Angeles Times, as "the worst economy since the Great Depression."

As gas prices climb, stocks slump and the housing market implodes, is anyone at the CW concerned that viewers' appetite for or perceptions of all the wealth-worshipping entertainment may suddenly shift? No. Being a network executive means the glass if never half-empty, it's always half-full.

"I think when times are tough, escapist entertainment is even more important. Viewers are looking to escape into television and see worlds they wouldn't see every day," Ms. Ostroff says. "You look back at shows like Dallas and Dynasty, they were fantasy shows that were very popular at a time (the 80s) when we had similar economic problems."

For some of the broadcast networks trumpeting their new (or not so much) seasons at the TCA press tour, spring has become the new fall as they announce post-strike plans to shift the premiere of new shows from the traditional launching-pad of the Fall season of September/October to Spring and January/February (and maybe March). But on Saturday, the CW unveiled another calendar re-calibration -- summer as the new fall.

Instead of springing forward, the CBS-owned network is falling back and premiering its new Fall lineup in the last couple of weeks of summer. Returning shows One Tree Hill and the cult-pop phenom, Gossip Girls, will debut on Monday, Sept. 1 while the Tyra Banks-hosted reality hit, America's Top Model, starts Wednesday Sept 3. In between, the spin-off of that inescapable 90s smash, Beverly Hills 90210 -- this time dubbed simply 90210 -- will kick off on Tuesday, Sept 2 with a two-hour premiere.

A week later, another new soapy drama focusing on the young and the rich, Privileged, will debut on Tuesday, Sept. 9, and the following week Smallville and Supernatural return on Thursday, Sept. 18. There are a couple of exceptions to the earlier roll-out -- Everybody Hates Chris and The Game return on Friday, Oct. 3; the new fashion-reality show, Stylista debuts on Wednesday, Oct. 28 -- but CW's falling back into summer will last beyond this post-strike season and even extend further next year.

"This won't be a one-time maneuver," said Dawn Ostroff, the CW's president of entertainment. "We plan on starting earlier in the summer from now on, maybe early August or even late July.

"It allows us to premiere outside the clutter of the Fall season."

The move can also be seen as the latest reaction from broadcast networks to the ongoing and broadeneing success of cable networks with original programming, many of which use summer -- a season historically neglected by the broadcast networks, a dumping grounds for re-runs and cheap-tp-produced reality shows -- as an uncontested fly zone for fledgling series.

"Sure, we looked at cable," Ms.Ostroff said. "They launch a lot of show in the summer and it works for them. And we looked at what broadcast puts on in the summer.I think it's a real open opportunity for us."

For now, anyway. With basic cable networks joining in on premium cable networks' show-launching (Emmy-garnering) fun,and broadcast networks trying to find ways of holding on to their core viewers and reach out to new ones, summer may soon look like an overbooked hotel during a holiday rush -- no vacancies.

At a panel of CBS News personalities -- Bob Schieffer, Jeff Greenfield, Katie Couric -- and Sean McManus, CBS president of news and sports, the question of Ms. Couric's fate and future as anchor of the network's evening news was asked, repeatedly. And again and again, both Ms. Couric and Mr. McManus reported that there was no news to report.

"All the speculation is befuddling to me," Ms. Couric said. "At least it's died down considerably."

Showtime has signed Edie Falco to star in a new 30-minute comedy series, Nurse Jackie. On the surface, it looks to be a female version of House -- she's smart, dark and drug-addicted. But this being Showtime and premium cable, count on more "edgy" content (that is, R-rated) and executives involved promised that the show would be more about her personal life than a week-to-week medical procedural.

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said she is "very proud" of Swingtown, the show centered on wife-swapping couples in the 70s, and loves the show. As to whether the show will be back, "We wish the rating were better but right now we're behind it."

Jason Alexander and Luke Perry will make guest appearances on the upcoming season of Criminal Minds

In a case where quantity trumps quality, CBS has, at least in one way, already won the Fall season irace before it has even started by managing to muster one. At a press tour where the standard post-strike approach taken by most of its competitors has been to introduce a couple of new shows and talk about what an exciting opportunity it is to re-introduce last Fall's shows again, CBS is debuting four shows -- Worst Week, The Ex List, Eleventh Hour and The Mentalist.

What fate awaits them is another matter, but there's something to be said just for getting them on the air this fall rather than delaying their debuts to what has now become the default, post-strike pilot season, which is January or the even more vaguely delayed release of "sometime this spring."

How did CBS do it?

"The strike was a tough time for everybody," said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. "But we felt it was really important to get viewers back, win back their hearts and trust, and we approached that challenge in a very strategic, methodical way....

"That meant we had to have a pilot season and develop new content that viewers could look forward to. "To build viewers' anticipation of your new fall season, you have to first have a new fall season."

Of course, with that mission accomplished, the question becomes are any of the shows any good? It's a fool's gambit to judge the merits of a series based on its pilot, so let's go ahead and do that.

Two are comedies: Worst Week, a sitcom about a nice guy who always has bad things happening to him. It stars Kyle Bornheimer, the guy from that hilarious T-Mobile commercial where he's trying to leave a voicemail message to a girl he went out with the night before and keeps screwing it up ("gosh, you ate like a horse last night..."), so that's good. The pilot is a fairly frantic procession of physical-comedy gags so that could grow tiresome over time, but the core situation -- he's trying (and failing) to win the approval of his pregnant girlfriend's parents (think Meet the Parents as a sitcom) offers plenty of potential laughs.

The Ex List is all about a single woman (Elizabeth Reaser, Ava/Rebecca on Grey's Anatomy) who is told by a psychic that she has one year to get married or she will spend her life alone. The additional hook is that the man she should marry is someone with whom she's already been romantically involved. The pilot was as strained and limited as that set-up, but if the show can be half as funny and crazy-energetic as its creator, Diane Ruggiero, was in the show's panel on Friday, then it will be worth watching.

Two are dramas: Eleventh Hour is a science "fact" not a science fiction show from Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff, the creators of the Showtime series Sleeper Cell. Another plus, it stars Rufus Sewell as the biophysicist-investigator who goes to work for the FBI, solving crimes having to do with cutting-edge stuff like cloning and cryogenics. The pilot is good, but there's a lot of this kind of techy/edgy drama on television, so it all depends on the consistency of the show's execution.

The Mentalist is a drama starring Simon Baker (the callow hunk from Devil Wears Prada) who stars as former fraud-psychic who is now using the skills he perfected as a fake psychic ("his razor sharp skills of observation") to help the California Bureau of Investigation to solve the seemingly unsolvable crimes. It's got a kind of clever charm about it, but I wouldn't bet on it.

A recurring message among executives, producers and actors at the TCA Press Tour has been that the message that shut Hollywood down for five months and brought last year's new Fall season to a screeching halt was, really, when you think about it, a good thing.

Of all the outrages big and small, this year's final snubbing of HBO's The Wire is the most maddening and egregious. One (!!!!) nomination. That's it. Granted, it's for Best Writing, a category that the Academy should just go ahead and rename in honor of the consistently best written show ever (there, I said it, take that Sopran-iacs). But year in year out, The Wire had great acting and great cinematography It's a joke that among that amazing ensemble of actors creating and extending such rich and unpredictable characters that none has ever been nominated.

In its six year on-air, it received only one other nomination, in 2005, also for writing. And now it's going out with a final season that I personally thought was (once again) smart, courageous, compelling TV all but ignored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. So be it. Decorum prevents me from the purest expression of my reaction, but fans know what a singularly great show The Wire was, and thanks to DVD afterlife, is.

ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson acknowledged that this past season of Dancing with the Stars lacked dramatic tension. While he first discounted the suggestion that Kristi Yamaguchi's superior athletic/dancing skills didn't dampen excitement and speculation over who might win ("we didn't get back in testing that people thought she had some sort of unfair advantage"), he went on to pretty much say that, in fact, yes she did.

"No mystery does take away from the fun of watching the show and from early on you knew that unless she fell there was no way she wasn't going to win." He also admitted that Jason Taylor's second-place success was a surprise. "We honestly thought he'd be out in week two. I mean, he's this 7-foot-tall football player, who knew he could dance like that?"

He did add that Kristi as the obvious winner wasn't last season's only problem. Another problem was that everybody was just too nice. "You need some edge along with more competition. We'll definitely be looking for some entertaining personalities as we cast this season."

Calling Gary Busey?

The writers strike ended last February, but its effects linger on. In its first day at the TCA press tour, ABC spotlighted the only two new show it has to offer viewers this fall -- Life on Mars, a remake of a British series, and Opportunity Knocks, a reality game show. That's not exactly a jam-packed schedule for what is, after all, supposed to be the new TV season. But Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, tried to put the best spin on the situation during his morning Q&A session.

"The strike changed everything in terms of the way development went.... We're in the middle of pilot season now. January and March are the new launch zones for shows this year."

So Spring is the new Fall in TVland. So what does that make Fall. For ABC, it has become the season of making old shows new again. The name of the game this September and October isn't launching shows, it's re-launching, whether it's a relative newcomer like Dirty Sexy Money coming back with a new star (Lucy Liu) joining the cast or an old-timer like Desperate Housewives returning with some fired-up plot points (that must not be revealed).

"We are prioritizing returning shows this Fall, that's where we're at," Mr. McPherson says.

The last season of what FX introduced on Tuesday as "the single most important series in commercial supported cable television" (a long-winded way of saying "the most important cable show other than The Sopranos") is being called The Shield: The Final Act. It will begin in September and the cast and crew gathered on stage at the Beverly Hilton to talk about it, with star Michael Chiklis appearing via satellite, thanks to a movie-shoot obligation.

There was a lot of talk about what made the show great, how it was for the actors and writers and producers and so on. But, of course, the bulk of questions tried to ferret out clues or glimpses of what will happen and, especially, how will it all end for the gang of L.A. cops.

"It feels like a graduation," said creator Shawn Ryan. "The finales I've liked are ones where the shows stayed true to themselves, didn't try to go outside the umbrella. I think our finale feels like the Shield universe."

As to anything more specific -- who lives, who dies -- forget it. But you can be sure that some characters do die since, responding to a question about the possibility of a Shield movie, Mr. Chiklis said one of the problems would be "are there enough characters still alive to do a movie?"

The real question everyone was looking for an answer to or hint about was: Does Vic Mackey, Michael Chiklis' maverick cop, die?

No answer, of course, except for this offered by co-star CCH Pounder, who plays Mackey's tough captain: "This finale is what Vic Mackey deserves."

John Landgraf, president and general manager of FX Networks opened his morning comments with several announcements. They included:

Nip/Tuck: The final eight episodes of the strike-interrupted fifth season have been completed and will air in "early 2009." In addition, the network has ordered an additional 19 episodes, bringing one of cable TV top-rated scripted series to the significant-in-syndication total number of 100.The show, which has been the number-one-rated scripted series on basic cable for five consecutive years, will conclude its run in "early 2011."

Rescue Me: The series will begin its fifth season in Spring 2009 and will include a guest-star run from Michael J. Fox who joins the show for a four-run arc starting with the season-opening episode.

Damages: The series will return for its second season in January. Joining the cast will be Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt and Timothy Olyphant. Ms. Harden will play an attorney who goes up against Glen Close's character, Patty Hewes. Mr. Hurt plays a man from Patty's past who's in trouble and reaches out to her for help. Mr. Olyphant plays a "mysterious figure," a man that Patty's assistant Ellen meets in grief counselling and becomes her confidante.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The network announced it will order 39 more episodes of the comedy that has become the number-one downloaded show on the online-TV site, Hulu.com. 13 episodes are currently in production and the fourth season kicks off on Sept. 18.

New Show Announcement: FX will introduce Testees, a new comedy from Kenny Hotz, a writer for South Park and creator of the Comedy Central series, Kenny vs Spenny. The show will center on two buddies who make their livings as medical test subjects.

He was at the FX network's day during the TCA press tour to talk about his new role on the upcoming second season of Damages -- new enough that the listing of it hasn't yet made it onto his profile at IMDB.com. And talk about it he did, but let's get to that in another post.

He's the second Deadwood-alum actor in as many days to appear on a TCA panel (Garrett Dillahunt who played Hearst's psycho-killer scout was part of Monday's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles panel). And once again, the Deadwood diehards in the audience couldn't let the opportunity to ask some questions, specifically The Question: Will there ever be the once-promised series-concluding movie?

But as an opening segue question, he was asked to compare his experience thus far on Damages with his experience as Sheriff Seth Bullock. The big difference, he said, is "that when those guys talk," pointing to executive producers Daniel Zelman, Todd A. Kessler and Glenn Kessler, "I understand what they're talking about," a reference to Deadwood creator David Milch's tendency to speak in grand, rambling, incantational discourses.

Then he was asked if he always knew there would never be a movie.

"I thought there was a really strong chance it would never happen, but no it's not like it was clear all along that it wouldn't.

"Nothing ever was very clear in that experience."

Two actually kind of newsy tidbits came out an afternoon panel of the producers of Fox's animation line-up.

1. Work on a follow-up to Family Guy's most-successful-episode-ever spoof of Star Wars (an hour-long retelling of the original Star Wars movie, recast with the Family Guy characters) is, according to creator Seth MacFarlane, "basically done." It's -- can you guess? -- a spoof of The Empire Strikes Back and will be "shipping off" to whereever the show is animated sometime in the next week. No word yet on when it will air, but soon, Mr. MacFarlane promised.

2. Seth Rogen has written an episode of The Simpsons. Longtime producer Al Jean revealed that episode has Comic Book Guy creating a superhero that gets made into a movie played by a slimmed-down and buffed-up Homer, thanks to his celebrity trainer, played by -- wait for it -- Seth Rogen.

Spring will be the new Fall in this strike-struck year of television, a forecast made clear in Monday morning comments from Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Company. Acknowledging that because of the writers' strike -- started last November and ending in February -- Fox was only going to have two new shows debuting this fall, Mr. Reilly said that the network was going to have a lot of new shows premiering in January, "by default."

But that's good, really, the executive went on to explain because the strike and its consequences are just forcing Fox to change and adapt in ways that an evolving media marketplace and shifting viewers' habits were going to force on the networks anyway.

He may have refused to appear before Congress, but Karl Rove appeared before a ballroom full of television reporters on Monday afternoon as part of the Fox News panel. Mr. Rove was there in his role as a "contributor' to the Fox News team, but his presence created a surreal buzz and dramatic tension to what is more typically just another assembly-line promotional event.

First came a general question about the whole slippery-slope aspect of Mr. Rove, so centrally involved in so many ongoing and headline generating stories, appearing in the role of a commentator on a news network covering those stories.

Thanks to the breakthrough success of shows like Lost and Heroes, it wasn't all that long ago that "serialized" television was all the rage. Over the past couple of years, while trumpeting new series at TCA events, producers talked enthusiastically about the depth of storytelling and audience connection/interaction made possible by the serialized style -- in which the arc of a story runs over an entire season with each episode acting as more the chapter in a book than a stand-alone experience -- and held it out as the killer-app strategy that television could apply to counter the YouTubing of viewers' tastes and habits.

Jon Voight was surrounded by a throng of reporters at the Beverly Hilton on Monday afternoon. He was ostensibly there to talk about joining Kiefer Sutherland and company for the new season of 24. But I will give you two guesses what everybody was instead asking him about.

Take it as a sign of this new series' success that, as you're watching, you can't believe that it's taken this long for someone to make this show. Coming from the same production company that brought us Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, Black Gold -- the new original series from TruTV -- is yet another winning iteration of this brilliant/breakthrough reality TV formula. Rather than throw a bunch of strangers into a ridiculously artificial and contrived environment and film them "acting" like real people, this approach finds groups of intimately connected people working in extreme conditions and film them being real people.

The fourth season of Weeds returned Monday night and the first episode of a new (to America, anyway) series, Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Let's start with the old show and then move onto the new. Please consider everything that follows to be a spoiler if you haven't yet watched the episodes and wish to remain blank-slate ignorant of what transpires.

It's a sign of just what a readymade commodity hipness has become that the funniest/snappiest commercials on TV right now are a series of spots for -- not established cool-makers like Apple or Target or BMW or some recreational beverage producer -- Holiday Inn.

That's everyone's favorite funny lady, Tina Fey on the cover of the current issue of Emmy Magazine. At this point, her cover is blown and the secret is out that Ms. Fey is drop-dead, knock-down gorgeous but the cover portrait and inside photos certainly make that abundantly clear -- my personal favorite in the page 129 image of her sitting on a white pedestal decked out in a black Dior dress and white Christian Louboutin shoes.

Based on the premiere episode, producers may want to consider changing the name of this franchise to Law & Order: Criminal Negligence. I want to go on record as saying I'm a fan. Criminal Intent is my favorite of the L&O spin-offs. I like Vincent D'Onofrio, was happing when they brought back Det Mike Logan as the series' alternating-weeks crime-solver and thought it was a cool gambit when NBC Universal announced it was making USA Network the first-run platform for the show's seventh season. But the debut episode, which aired last night (Sunday, 06/08) was an uninvolving mess.

It appears the broadcast networks are (finally) reacting to the cable networks' re-animation of summer from a dead zone into a hot time for new, original programming. Case in point: NBC's unveiling on Thursday (06/05) of its new horror series, Fear Itself. The series will occur as a thirteen-episode anthology of hour-long tales of dread and terror.

Instead, you can waste endless hours playing this game. This is an example of the sophistication of simplicity. The name of the game: Throw Paper -- a virtual version of that most banal of office-time acts, throwing a ball of paper into a trash can. But that simple premise is so time-suckingly seductive, thanks to a few genius touches: the ever-shifting wind speed and direction (I guess this office has a really powerful and unpredictable air-conditioning system), the curveball arc of the paper ball (there is something so deeply, irrationally satisfying about clicking the perfect shot in a strong crosswind, watching it slowly bend and drop into the basket. And then there's the sounds, the clack-a-clung clunk of the two-rim shot.

So click away, but be prepared to lose a few hours.

Fans waiting for the next season of Entourage now have something else to look forward to, an upcoming installment of DIY Network's show, Celebrity Rides. Kevin Dillon, aka Johnny Drama will be the star of franchise starting with an episode on September 3. Over four episodes -- what Drama would call "a four-episode arc" -- viewers will watch Kevin, who we learn is both a car aficianado and a devoted James Dean fan, oversee the production of a replica of James Dean's 1955 Porsche Spyder.

If you've ever wondered how much art is imitating life when it comes to how convincingly Kevin Dillon inhabits his Johnny Drama character, this quote from the press release will only confirm your suspicions that there's not much "acting" going on.

"As much as I want it to look like James Dean's original car, there are a couple things that I'm doing to make it my own. His car was set up for racing...the windshield was so small it would mess up your hair, and I've got to keep my hair in shape! But it's still going to say James Dean."

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the perfect job just got a little more perfect. The core group of actors providing the voices of The Simpsons -- Dan Castellenata (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa) and Hank Azaria (Moe, et al) -- have signed a new four-year deal with Fox, settling months of negotiations. They will now receive $400,000 per episode. Nice.

This is just the latest reminder that being a voice actor for a successful cartoon series is the greatest job in the world. All the money and privileges of a celebrity lifestyle with none of the privacy-obliterating hassles of it. Dan Castellenata could go into a Starbucks (product placement) or a Target (ditto) anywhere in the country -- except Los Angeles) and be just as anonymous as he wants to be -- maybe a hardcore Simpsons fan here or there might recognize him. But any time he feels like having a king-of-the-world moment, he just has to open his mouth and say "D'oh."

The cast is supposed to start work on the 20th season this week. Because of the lengthy negotiations, this season will contain only 20 episodes instead of 22. That's $8 million. For a job you could do in a bathrobe. I'll say it again: Nice.

This exciting news just in: Starting Sept. 8, Dr Phil -- the syndicated talk show starring that Oprah offspring, the bald guy with the mustache, what's his name?, oh yeah, Dr. Phil -- will be produced in glorious high-definition.

In the attendant press release, Dr. Phil (McGraw) says, "My goal has always been to give our viewers the very best in show content, and now we are able to offer the very best broadcast quality."

Well, that's just fantastic, what a thoughtful service he's providing viewers and it's all about the viewers, after all. This isn't some silly attention-seeking stunt, a gratuitous application of some zippy sounding but fundamentally pointless high-tech trick. Goodness no. Granted, Dr. Phil isn't exactly Planet Earth-type programming but high definition broadcasting really makes a difference when you're doing a daytime talk show. You want to be able to see the furrows in Dr. Phil's billboard forehead deepen as he chastizes the father who wants to marry his daughter. You want to see each hair in his moustache bristle as he dresses down the compulsive shopper who has squandered her children's college fund on eBay auctions.

So get ready. Come September you can see this mug in high definition.

The "Characters Welcome" network unveiled its new brand-enhancing project in the form of Sunday night's premiere of In Plain Sight. The new original series is the latest example of cable TV's ascendancy as a source (verging on "the" source) of edgy, innovative story-telling.