The TV Zone

Even non-cable homes can now watch Glenn Close’s acclaimed FX drama “Damages” -- at least the pilot.

MyNetworkTV, seen in New York on WWOR/9, offers a premiere episode encore Wednesday night at 8 p.m.

This Aug. 1 airing is the only one announced. But maybe if it does well . . . ? We could hope, but it’s likely the content of this legal thriller show will be considered too intense and adult for a regular broadcast run.

Then again MyNetwork seems to have no trouble presenting men beating the living crap out of each other (Monday’s International Fight League).

UPDATE:
Ch. 9 will actually run the first TWO episodes of "Damages" Wednesday 8-10 p.m. (edited for broadcast airing).

In case you missed this morning's "Good Morning America" - I did - then you're maybe just now catching up to the news that Robin Roberts announced that she has breast cancer. Roberts has already posted a more formal statement on ABCNews.com and here's the place to go for it.

Now this is one of those news developments that could easily pass without comment, because her many fans will filter it in their own way. But I do have one little thing to contribute: She's lucky to have someone like Diane Sawyer by her side. Sawyer - as most people don't know because she wasn't exactly in the habit of talking about it - offered extraordinary support to Judd Rose during his valiant battle with brain cancer nearly a decade ago; Rose was, of course, one of ABC's stellar talents - a brilliant writer, reporter, essayist and anchor who finally succumbed to his inoperable cancer just about seven years ago. Sawyer got Rose access to the top doctors in the world, let him stay at her home, and helped him and his family (he had newborn twins at the time) past dozens of other obstacles.

So whatever you may read about Diane - and we have all read a lot, haven't we? - it's good to have her by your side when you really need her there. For that, Roberts can be thankful.

Here's a fresh partial transcript from this morning's program (forgive the caps, but that's how it was piped in:)

Good friend to have.

Diane Sawyer: AS WE SAID, WE CONSIDER ALL OF YOU FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
Robin Roberts: WE DO.
Diane Sawyer: AND WE KNOW THAT YOU REALLY ARE. SO THERE IS SOMETHING WE WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU ABOUT SOMETHING WE'VE LEARNED INSIDE OUR FAMILY THIS WEEK.

Robin Roberts: BECAUSE WE WANTED YOU TO HEAR FROM US. DIDN'T WANT YOU TO HEAR IT ANYWHERE ELSE. IT'S NOW BEEN ABLE TO SAY IT OUT LOUD. I HAVE BREAST CANCER, AS MY FAMILY HERE KNOWS AND MY FAMILY AT HOME KNOWS. I'M VERY VERY BLESSED AND THANKFUL
THAT I FOUND IT EARLY AND DETECTED IT. IRONICALLY, THE DAY THAT WE DID THE TRIBUTE SHOW FOR OUR DEAR FRIEND, JOEL SIEGEL. AND I HAPPENED TO DO A PIECE ON THE SHOW ABOUT HIS COURAGEOUS BATTLE AND HOW EARLY DETECTION IS KEY. THAT VERY NIGHT, I FOUND A LUMP. NORMALLY, I WOULD HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING BECAUSE I'M HEALTHY, RIGHT?

Diane Sawyer: HEALTHY? YOU ARE THE MODEL FOR ALL OF US.
Robin Roberts: SO YOU THINK THAT. I WOULDN'T HAVE ACTED OPON IT. BUT JOEL WAS RESONATING IN MY HEART, SO I CALLED THE DOCTOR
AND MADE AN APPOINTMENT. I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF VACATION. REMEMBER I EMAILED YOU AND SAID DO YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW A GOOD
DOCTOR? IT'S THE EARLY STAGES. I WILL HAVE SURGERY ON FRIDAY, BEGIN TREATMENT, AND MOVE FORWARD AS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DO WHEN THEY HEAR THIS. BUT STILL, HEARING THE WORDS AND SAYING IT AND SEEING -- IT'S SURREAL.

Diane Sawyer: AND WE ALL, TEAM ROBERTS, FAMILY ROBERTS, GOES THROUGH THE ROLLER COASTER EVERY FAMILY GOES THROUGH. AND YOU AND I'VE BEEN TALKING A LOT. 250,000 WOMEN EVERY YEAR DIAGNOSED, WORKING ALL AROUND US, OUR FRIENDS AS WE KNOW. IT IS SOMETHING YOU GO BACK TO WORK WITH AND THE WORD CANCER SURVIVOR IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PHRASE.

Robin Roberts: AND I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT IT THIS MORNING BECAUSE THERE IS A WONDERFUL COMMUNITY THAT I'VE ONLY LEARNED THIS IN THE LAST COUPLE WEEKS, BUT THERE IS A WONDERFUL COMMUNITY THAT WANTS TO SHARE AND THEY SAY ONCE YOU ARE DIAGNOSED, YOU ARE A SURVIVOR. ONCE YOU ARE DIAGNOSED THAT'S IT. YOU ARE A SURVIVOR. BUT I WAS ASTONISHED BY THE NUMBER OF WOMEN -- AS WE WERE TALKING ABOUT-- AND THERE IS NO HISTORY IN THE ROBERTS FAMILY OF THIS.

Tom Snyder's dead.

Why did I never expect to read, or write, those three words in this precise order? After all, he was self-destructive. He did smoke, and quite heavily for many years. He was mortal.

But he was also Tom - a human so loud, so raucous, and so entirely, utterly original that he had seemed for a time to carve an entirely separate self on the screen, an immortal self, so to speak. (And certainly Dan Aykroyd's great Snyder mimicry has conferred that immortality).

By now, you're read the obits, and if you haven't, then here's a good place to start. But for some reason, I suspect that none will tell the whole Snyder story, and none possibly could. Too much of that story is a blur - a mind-numbing Hunter-Thompsonesque burlesque of booze, good times, bad times, self-immolation, and self-creation, and even (improbably) career resurrection. Whether you liked him or hated him - and plenty of people seemed to fall on both sides of the ledger - there was simply no one else like him in the history of the world. (Forget broadcasting.) I liked the guy. I liked him and knew him as most people did - on the air, usually late late at night, and viewed through a lens (as it were) clouded by lack of sleep or a beer too many. He burst through that fog, stiffened the spine, focused your attention, sobered you up. There was Tom on the screen - HA HA HA (that laugh, oh what a laugh) - with those crossed legs and the cigarette smoke curling around his head. A fatal habit for a man who seemed to be a fatalist. His questions were real questions - insistent and curious. He even put the "snyd" in Snyder: He dripped condescension (on occasion), was openly derisive, and smeared NBC, his longtime employer, as only a longtime employer like NBC (especially under the satanic guidance of someone like Fred Silverman) so richly deserved. It was gonzo derision, and it inspired David Letterman who would find NBC a target-rich environment as well, thanks to Tom.

I've written a lot about Tom Snyder over the years, and I'm not above quoting from myself at this sad moment. Here's what I wrote about that splendid, bizarre career back in '95, just as he was about to become host of "Late, Late Show" - a career gift from one of the most generous people in this business, Letterman himself (who controlled the time period and still does):

Born in Milwaukee 58 years ago, and trained by Jesuits, Snyder got a part-time job at a local radio station while attending Marquette, then dropped out of college for a reporting job at a TV station in Georgia (he got fired after belching on the air and blaming his gas attack on something he had eaten at the Howard Johnson's across the street - which also happened to be owned by the station manager). In the '60s he held a succession of TV news jobs around the country and eventually landed at Philadelphia's KYW, where the characteristic Snyder style - at turns, witty, acerbic and nasty - came to fruition. (After a barbed Snyder review of one of his productions, David Merrick reportedly made a half-serious public offer to get someone to cut the station's cables.)

In 1970, Snyder hit the big time as an anchor on Los Angeles station, KNBC - a perennial loser of a station that hadn't won the local news race in two decades. Snyder changed all that: a booming news delivery and a tendency to interject his own observations into news stories caught viewers' notice.

But Snyder's penchant for being difficult also began in earnest. One former NBC executive who knew him in those days says he was "unmanageable . . . and very self-destructive."
\

Snyder says his rep for rudeness to co-workers and bosses is accurate, but "I was tough on myself too. I worked long and hard and I used to say that if I did my job as poorly as someone [in promotion or engineering] did theirs, then I'd be fired. I expected people to be as good as I was."

Snyder's on-air talent was indisputable and ratings at KNBC soared. He then got picked by the bosses in New York to head up a new post-"Tonight" project simply entitled "Tomorrow," which premiered Oct. 15, 1973, and would become a much-praised, much-vilified and much-parodied late night fixture for the next eight years. "Tomorrow," in effect, was Snyder: the tightly crossed bandy legs and the smoke curling from the omnipresent cigarette were as familiar as the Carson trademark golf swing. The interviews (Charles Manson, Jimmy Hoffa, James Earl Ray, Leon Jaworski) were sometimes splendid, sometimes tacky - but always memorable for the some 6 million viewers who bothered sitting through them at 1 a.m.

In New York, Snyder's on-air duties expanded beyond late night: there was a solo anchor stint on WNBC/4's "NewsCenter 4," a primetime news capsule, news specials (with Barbara Walters), a Saturday evening news program, and, finally, his very own news magazine, "Prime Time Sunday."

Grander things loomed. When Silverman took over the battered network in 1978, Snyder told him that "I want to be your most important talent. You're president off-the-air, and I want to be president on the air."

But, Snyder adds ruefully, "I now realize that was a goal that was really not worth pursuing. It really didn't bring me any satisfaction."

Indeed, with the onset of the Silverman era, things started to unravel. Part of the reason, says a former news executive, is that Snyder "was his own worst enemy. He never knew whether he wanted to be Johnny Carson or John Chancellor." Characteristically, Snyder never made it easy for his bosses to decide either. He was openly derisive of NBC management - often even on the air. And in those pre-Letterman days, such criticism, especially from a newscaster, was not taken lightly. Snyder scorned the trappings of network stardom even while he was ardently pursuing them.

There was discussion of pairing him with Barbara Walters on "Today," but the plan was dropped because "he and Barbara would have eaten each other alive," says the executive. Snyder was bitter about the loss - and even more bitter when NBC gave "Nightly News" to Brokaw.

"The tension and the pressure and the spotlight got to him at a very early age," says Snyder pal Andy Friendly. "It all got to him a little bit too much."

The worst was yet to come. Silverman had the singularly bad idea of jazzing up "Tomorrow" when it expanded from an hour to 90 minutes in 1980: a band was added, gimmicks (including, once, an exploding car) were used, and a co-host, Rona Barrett, was brought on-board. (She anchored from the West Coast.) It was a disaster. Snyder refused to acknowledge her on the air and Barrett then refused to go on. When the show was cancelled in early '82, Snyder was cut loose too.

Snyder now says that the '80s were not as horrible for him as many believe they were. There was that brief tenure as anchor at WABC / 7 - which Snyder says was an "honest" attempt at re-igniting his career on TV, as well as a way to pay some bills on expensive real estate ventures. Later he got a job as a late night talk show host on the ABC Radio Network in the mid-'80s that some interpreted as an even greater comedown. Snyder did not: "I see unemployment as a comedown . . . I wished I could have spent the rest of my life in radio. It was genuine fun. The three hours went by like twenty minutes."

So did the job. ABC later canceled the show, and Snyder was back on the street. But not for long. Friendly - who had been a producer on "Tomorrow" and had become CNBC's programing boss - called his mentor and offered a job on the cable network. Snyder now claims the CNBC gig was among the most satisfying of his career. It combined everything he loves about broadcasting - live TV, call-ins from viewers and spontaneity. Most important: he could handle it all from L.A., close to family and home (He was divorced years ago and never remarried).

Then last March, Snyder got another unexpected call - this one from another "Tomorrow" alumnus, Robert Morton, co-executive producer of "Late Show With David Letterman." In his negotiations with CBS, Letterman got the right to program the 12:35 a.m. time slot; there was some talk that CBS wanted Garry Shandling or Bob Costas. But Letterman's camp says there was only one primary candidate all along: Snyder.

Morton, who'll produce Snyder's late show with partner Peter Lassally, says "Snyder's still the biggest guy you'll ever meet. His voice is bigger than anyone else's in the room. His laugh is bigger than anyone else's. He's a head taller than anyone else. When you sit down with him, you feel like you're a guest on his show. He's made for TV."

Yes, he was indeed.

Baby-faced Amy Schumer was one of five finalists chosen last week in NBC’s current run of “Last Comic Standing” (Wednesday at 9 p.m.). Raised in Rockville Centre, Schumer started in improv, then moved on to stand-up, where she’s wowed ’em in Bud Light’s Ladies of Laughter competition as well as at Gotham Comedy Club, The Laugh Lounge and Caroline’s on Broadway.

Schumer was the only female chosen alongside four guys, to go with the previous week’s three guys and two women. Now all 10 face final challenges, starting with The Heckle -- taking off on each other as theater audiences vote their top jokesters and hecklers. Eventually, two comics square off in the first head-to-head showdown to winnow their number down.

Watch a two-minute replay of last week’s semi-finals episode here. And check out Amy’s MySpace page.

The votes are finally tallied for Saturday's noon-8 p.m. viewers-choice marathon of the History Channel fave "Modern Marvels."

Click "Continue" below to see which episodes won.

Continue reading "HOT TO WATCH: 'Modern Marvels' marathon Saturday" »

The networks might be having trouble making sitcoms stick, but TBS doesn’t seem to share the difficulty. “House of Payne” scores huge ratings, “The Bill Engvall Show” is a crowdpleasing familycom, and now our favorite female sportswriter returns for more adult fun.

Before “My Boys” begins a second season Monday at 10 p.m. with two new episodes, TBS is airing a catchup marathon of all 13 previous episodes Sunday 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. (Windows users can also watch episodes online.)

The time-pressed can try tbs.com’s “four-minute, rapid-fire recap of everything that’s happened up to now,” promises TBS publicity, “from introducing the show’s characters, 20-something sports writer PJ Franklin (Jordana Spiro, ‘Must Love Dogs’) and her cadre of male friends, to hitting the high points in the plot, such as PJ’s discovery of ‘the perfect guy’ and the surprising kiss that left viewers in cliffhanging suspense.”

Whew. But it’s worth it.

It’s not TV. It’s cable.

That’s where some (relatively) big numbers are suddenly being posted by new drama and comedy series, while the one-time-titan broadcast networks spend the summer playing singing bee, fat march and game shows.

Glenn Close’s FX legal thriller “Damages” drew 3.7 million viewers in its Tuesday night debut. That might not sound like much, but it’s more than just about anything on The CW and half the other broadcast network shows, too. (It's also higher than FX fave "Rescue Me.")

Holly Hunter’s hard-edged angel-touch saga “Saving Grace” [TNT photo, right] pulled 6.4 million viewers for its Monday TNT premiere, holding a huge chunk of viewers from smash-hit lead-in “The Closer” (7.2 million viewers). Only the networks’ top 20-ranked programs are reaching more eyeballs.

Add that to such previous ratings-magnets as Lifetime’s new Sunday dramas (“Army Wives” has grown since last month’s premiere to 3.7 million viewers), and you can see how cable is creating a competitive slate. USA’s longrunning “Monk” regularly scores around 5 million viewers, too.

And there’s more to come. TBS’ cult comedy “My Boys” returns Monday for a second season. TNT launches its CIA miniseries “The Company” next Thursday (Aug. 5). Sci Fi has a new “Flash Gordon” Aug. 10, and Showtime stars David Duchovny in the comedy “Californication” Aug. 13 (alongside the return of “Weeds”). Disney should top them all Aug. 17 with its movie sequel “High School Musical 2.”

Anyway, it's a small world here in Los Angeles, bounded by mountains and
soothingly cloaked in smog (though not too bad this week), and as further evidence of this smallness I point to an experience which befell me last night.

I'm sitting in a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood with my old and dear friend, Michael, when who should walk in with his family and friends and park himself at a table not ten feet away but someone who looked suspiciously like Harold Perrineau.

But of course, this couldn't possibly be Perrineau (I reasoned to myself), as he was last seen sailing off in a skiff with Walt by his side, wracked by guilt and tormented by Ben and wondering whether the perilous seas were about to swallow him and his murderous secrets.(There were a couple flashback appearances on "Lost" last season, too, per my recollection.)

And why should Harold Perrineau be here, in this Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, when the entire body of the TV press corps was just a few miles away, still furiously nursing a grudge against ABC Entertainment chief, Steve McPherson ("Big Mac") for playing footsy with them that very morning over the "news" out of "Lost" - which, after persistent grilling, was that "Lost" uber-producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cruse would announce at Comic-Con that said Harold Perrineau would re-join the cast of "Lost" next season?

Anyway, I asked this person who looked suspiciously like Harold Perrineau if he was in fact Harold Perrineau and he said, yes, he was (in fact) Harold Perrineau. To make a short story longer, we started to talk, and became close friends (I forgot entirely about my other friend, coincidentally named "Michael” - as mentioned, a small world), while he proceeded to tell me EVERYTHING about “Lost”.

I exaggerate. Harold - we are on a first name basis now - told me nothing, but he did reveal that "Damon and Carlton called up to tell me" about the fuss at the press tour; Hal and I got a good laugh over that. I then asked him why he dissed us (I was not smiling at this point) by deciding to reveal the big news at Comic-Con, that fanboy convention down in San Diego today.

"Because they're fans," said he. "We're fans, too," said me. He then told me he was going down to San Diego for the big announcement; Hal didn't look too happy about that.

I innocently asked which episode he would be returning in?

"Goodbye," said Hal.

"Cavemen:" Is there more idiotic idea in the recent history of television
than this show? Three hairy guys, Joel, Nick and Andy, who have trouble scoring dates in a sitcom (no laugh track – this isn’t a Fox show, after all) which was directly inspired by a commercial?

There is, in fact, a more idiotic idea - CBS's "Viva Laughlin," but that's another blog.

Because of the breathtaking inanity of this series, I was drawn to the session on Wednesday's press tour. I had to hear what the creators – some of whom had also written and directed the inspired commercials - had to say. Had to understand why this was on ABC's schedule, and whether the business of TV entertainment was as bankrupt as I'm pretty convinced it is.

I'm happy to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The creators of the show pushing this nonsense seem like pretty nice guys (hey, a pay check's a paycheck.) They've clearly tried to think this idea out, and justify its existence. I liked the actors, too - especially Nick Kroll, who plays a cavie named "Nick." Kroll’s a New York-based actor/author (he co-wrote "Bar Mitzvah Disco: The Music May Have Stopped But the Party’s Never Over") and is clearly bright enough to know how ridiculous all this must look

. He probably had the best quips of anyone on the entire press tour. (Said one critic, getting ready to ask a question, "I hate to beat a dead horse..."

Said Nick, "That's episode two..." )

Maybe Kroll should write the show.

The creators were all on hand: Bill Martin, Mike Schiff, Will Speck, Josh
Gordon, and Joe Lawson. (Lawson, Martin and Schiff are seasoned TV pros, having worked on shows like “3rd Rock from the Sun”). Like all TV creators, they're articulate, thoughtful and even erudite - and then you stop to realize, "Good God, they're talking about a caveman sitcom."

Gordon: "You know, history is written by the winners, and clearly homo Sapiens have portrayed cavemen as losers in the genetic battle as stupid and unevolved..."

(I plead guilty.)

Speck: "We knew we'd be under a lot of scrutiny but I think it just makes
our job a little harder. I think we all believe in this as a show as a platform
to sort of speak about a fish out of water experience, or what it feels like
to want to belong to something and to feel misunderstood. When we were
making the commercials [that's right, the guys who made the terrific
commercials are making the terrifically silly show too] we just felt like there were
more stories to tell. It starts in the purest place, which is for us feeling
like there's love and affection for these characters..."

(Thank God, someone will).

Schiff: "Unfortunately, in our society, if you pick an offensive stereotype
of any kind, it's going to bump into some ethnic group...If there were cavemen
in our world and people were, as they would likely be, be looking down on
them, what would be the things you would associate with the cavemen? You know,
thick-headed, primal, not as sophisticated or cultured as us..."

(Sophistocated or as cultured as WHOM?)

They also insisted this wouldn't be about race relations - even though they (or
ABC) decided to set it in Atlanta, the heart of the old South.

This bad boy from GEICO does not appear in series.

Other questions that were answered:

- How long does it take to put on the makeup? Three hours (longer for body hair.)

- Does GEICO have any role? No creative or commercial involvement.

- Are there cavewomen? They'll show up by episode five.

- Are there gay cavemen? Yes, but apparently no African American or Asian
cavemen.

- Will they reference other cavemen, like the unfrozen caveman lawyer? Yes, and they’re bugged by cultural touchstones like “The Flintstones.” .

- Why aren’t the guys in the GEICO commercials in the show? They've got other
gigs.

-Why don’t they shave? Cavies hate other cavies that shave, and call them “shavers.”

Finally, let's give the last word to the very funny Kroll (and in the unlikely event this show succeeds, he’ll be a key reason):

A critic was joking about how the characters in fact look a little bit more like Neanderthals rather than the Cro-Magnons they are supposed to represent.
Said the critic, "Given this failure..."

Said Kroll: "FINALLY, finally, someone is saying it...!!!!"

Sartorially challenged cavemen, from BBC series, "Walking with Cavemen." No role in ABC series.

A recap after only five episodes? Or, excuse me, a Top Chef: Watch What Happens Special after only five episodes?

Last night's show was hosted by Andrew Cohen, the executive at Bravo who oversees Top Chef as well as Project Runway, Queer Eye, and other fine reality shows. It consisted mainly of viewer questions and their answers from the judges and contestants.

Leanne looks great, but with Sam it’s either feast or famine. First his page boy was held back in a hair band, and now he’s shaved bald. Ilan's hair looks normal for the first time.

For someone who we only knew for two episodes—and who departed under a month ago—Sandee seemed to assume that we missed her more than we necessarily did.

Hung announced that he swings both ways.

In a nod to beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Micah would not be pinned down as to whether she had ever seen ketchup during the time she attended high school in Massachusetts.

Tom conceded that Candice Kumai (Season 1) was probably cast on the basis of her looks.

Tom seemed embarrassed but amused to learn, from a viewer, that he had become an icon among the bear community, that is, among gay men who favor burly (Ilan’s well-chosen word) partners.

Padma revealed that the long scar on her arm was the result of surgery following a car accident she was in when she was 14. I'd been wondering that for years.

And now, we prepare for next week’s guest judge, disgraced chef Rocco DiSpirito:

So says VH1, which is touting its new hour “The Fabulous Life of: The Hamptons” Thursday at 9 p.m.

(Repeat airings: Thursday at midnight, Friday at 5 p.m., Saturday at 2:30 p.m., Sunday at 4:30 p.m.).

Further say they: “Take rows of sprawling mansions, add exclusive nightclubs, throw in some of the finest dining and shopping in the country -- plus some of the hottest A-list events imaginable. Think you're in Hollywood? Uh-uh, you're in the Hamptons, baby . . . the ultimate summer hot spot for the east coast upper crust.”

And L.A.’s upper crust. And rap’s and TV’s and fashion's and other celeb’ssss. Otherwise, why would VH1 care?

Watch other “Fabulous” lives online here.

After three weeks of press tour, you pretty much expect a hundred and fifty TV critics and writers to turn into bloodthirsty shutins, but you don't normally expect it from the president of one of the television network’s entertainment divisions.

But Steve McPherson, ABC Entertainment chief – Big Mac - did not disappoint. In the press gaggle at the end of his "executive session" this morning, he expanded on his feelings about the casting of Isaiah Washington on NBC newcomer, "Bionic Woman," next season, calling his counterpart at NBC, Ben Silverman, "either clueless or stupid" if he didn't know about the possible legal consequences of talking to Washington while ABC was in the midst of discussions with him as well. That came up in response to a question about whether Silverman - who got Washington for the role - may have breached contractual agreements when he went after the "I Did Not Say the F-Word" actor for the five-episode role. (Does this mean Big Mac wanted Washington to return to "Grey's Anatomy?" Unclear...) A somewhat tempestuous guy by reputation, McPherson appeared to let it be known that there is certainly no love lost between him and Washington - or apparently Silverman either.

Or maybe he was simply rattled by an intermittently bizarre press session with critics, who blasted the ABC topper when he coyly declined to make a pending announcement about "Lost," insisting that that announcement would instead be made by show runners, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse tomorrow at Comic-Con, the huge convention that's all-things-comic-related and (coincidentally) runs while the TV press tour is on. When pressed, he declared: "I have cast Don Imus in 'Lost'" next season."

A few titters. Some giggles. Mostly silence.

Critics, understandably, usually don't like "coy" and almost none of them like Don Imus jokes anymore so Big Mac caught it with a couple of barrels. "This is a serious question," railed Rick Kushman, the respected TV scribe for the Sacramento Bee, who was actually about to give a serious speech. Newspapers "spend a lot of money to send us out and a lot of us are fighting to stay out here. We write about all you're television shows [so] if you're not going to tell us what [the announcement] is, at least you could tell us why you're not talking about it..."

Big Mac squirmed a bit - hemmed and then hawed - and suddenly, one of ABC's top press people, Hope Hartman, strode out on stage to let McPherson know that he could make the announcement because (as Steve then quipped) Damon’s “heard your fury."

Drum role...the announcement: That Harold Perrineau will return next season.

And that was it! After all the fuss, Harold - AKA Michael - is back! Didn't hardcore fans fully expect this anyway? He sails off into the sunset yet his business is completely unfinished. (Remember how he betrayed everyone to get back Walt?)

Meanwhile, there were some interesting tidbits from the session, and I lay them out for you right now:

"LOST:" We just can't get enough of our favorite show, can we? (And surprisingly, no questions about the most recent Emmy snub.) Says Big Mac, the creative team still hasn't decided whether they'll use "more flash-forwards or flash-backs" in the final three seasons. (As you may recall, Jack starred in several memorable flash-forwards in the season finale.)

"JERICHO:" No surprise, but CBS's show came up in a question about how closely ABC listens to rabid fans. Said Big Mac: "You have to be a little bit careful of that. I for one and am sure [it's true] for the other networks too can get 12,000 emails [on a site] but 12,000 viewers is not going to make a successful show..."

"GREY'S ANATOMY:" This was an interesting exchange too. Someone wondered whether the "GA" spin-off, “Private Practice,” was ABC's idea or creator Shonda Rhimes, to which Big Mac said: "Shonda came to us. She really wanted to tell Addison's" story in a different way and "she felt like she'd run her course on 'Grey's...'"

He then responded to another critic who said he'd gotten chain letters from fans who are so thoroughly disgusted with the creative direction of "Grey's." (I wonder - did I send a letter like this to that critic too?)

Said Big Mac: "Shonda has certainly listened to some of the stuff that people didn't respond to and has changed accordingly..."

"CAVEMEN:" As reported, the expanded GEICO commercial pilot will be held back for later airing. Said Big Mac: "The pilot that you have seen...jumps way too far into the development of those characters and kind of right into the frying pan [Cavemen are at a big party, where they act up, etc.] I think we made a mistake in trying to kind of do too much."

"DANCING WITH THE STARS:" Actually, Big Mac had kinda interesting news on this front. The hit show is working on a spinoff entitled "Dance X" in which "judges have teams of dancers that are basically competing against each other, and within those teams, the dancers get eliminated so that you get down to two teams competing in a choreographed dance."

"DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES:" Dana Delany is definitely joining the show, and so is Nathan Fillion. (He was most recently Alex, in "Drive.") They'll both appear in an arc.

Big Mac Attack

Easy come, easy go. Lia, last week’s winner, was told to pack her knives after her pallid attempt at Latino cooking.

Injustice ruled on Episode 5. The chefs started on their elimination-challenge dishes thinking they had 3 hours to prepare, then were told that the meal had been moved up; they would only have 90 minutes. Sara N. seemed to be in a good position as she had had the foresight to buy pre-made tortillas just in case she didn’t have time to make her own. Unfortunately, her failure to understand the difference between guacamole and ceviche doomed her dish.

Howie on the other hand looked like he was going to run into another timing crisis. The halving off his prep time did not dissuade him from sticking to his original plan of braising his pork, even though a good braise takes time. Perhaps it was all the sweat dripping into the pot, but his half-time pork took top honors.

Joey’s animosity toward Howie seems to have dissipated, but I still don’t trust the guy. Collecting kudos for his winning pastry, he modestly claimed to have had little pastry experience while earlier he had confided to the camera (and to the viewing audience) that he had had quite a lot.

Hung once again distinguished himself for pure arrogance. His quick-fire pastry creation, a runny chocolate mousse pie tarted up with sliced strawberries, looked like something you’d find on the back of a package of My-T-Fine pudding mix. And he seemed to have invested more effort in pronouncing “arroz con pollo” than he did in cooking it. Once again, he attributed any criticism of his cooking to the judges’ personal preferences. He was a lot easier to take when he cooking like a top chef.

There was a bloodbath in the season finale of "House" a couple months though not in the usual TV meaning of the word "bloodbath" but a bloodbath in the sense that everyone – either sick or tired of dear old irresistible House (Hugh Laurie) - seemed to tell him where to get off, and they either quit or were fired.

As such, yesterday's "House" session at the critic's tour had to be one of the major events of the week, if only because those who were so recently gone were right up there on stage and quite obviously BACK.

And so it goes in a hit TV show (or one that isn't “Lost” or "24"): Big stars go and big stars return.

Just to untangle the tangled web, Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) quit. Chase (Jesse Spencer) was fired. Foreman (Omar Epps) said adios too. That leaves, by my count, just one or two original members of House’s team, like Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), who for all I know was also fired, or thrown out a window, or was otherwise colorfully dispatched by House during a commercial break.

But what were they doing up there on stage yesterday, and all acting so very nice to Hugh Laurie, and he to them?. Katie Jacobs, one of the executive producers (David Shore was no where to be seen; had to take his kids somewhere), explained that "the truth is, everybody is back eventually. And everybody is back having changed and in different capacities....You know, the last two seasons we’ve done an arc [where] we started out with arcs that involved other characters as a way to explore more deeply House's character. But I think their three-year fellowship...had naturally come to an end [and] in the first episode [next season] House is alone and House is trying to solve cases by himself. Of course, Cuddy [Lisa Edelstein] is [p'oed] and Robert thinks he's losing his mind...Cuddy will insist that he hire a new team but he will do it in a very Housian way..."

“So over the first bunch of episodes, he's going to call in all the candidates, all the resumes on his desk - 40 I think - and we're going to see who survives. We're going to play a 'House' version of 'Survivor' and see what candidates really make the best part of House's team.'"

Added she: "This felt the most truthful. How many years can you stand working beside House? Or, how many years can he stand working with you and getting close to you? And does he really want that kind of intimacy?...Things are going to be different."

Beverly Hills - It's never too early to start predicting when Fox Entertainment chiefs will start to wonder whether they've made the biggest mistake of their professional lives by joining Fox. Current proprietor of the Fox Broadcasting Company's fortunes, Peter Liguori, seems to be doing splendidly - which is why he should start to worry. Kevin Reilly, his new number two, seemed pretty pleased yesterday too; more reason for him to worry.

Fox is a funny network. It has one show with vast viewership. Many with significantly less. The job of any FBC boss lies in addressing this iniquity. One way to do this? Mount shows that have what might be called "traditional appeal" - cop dramas or sitcoms - that are conspicuously designed for those parts of the audience which tend to have "traditional tastes." They're older. They're less "urban." They spend a lot more time in front of the boob tube than your typical 18-34 type who probably knows how to work his or her TiVo. There's also a lot more of these TV traditionalistas out there than your normally elusive younger urban type. That makes it easier for Nielsen to count 'em.

So this season Fox will mount shows like "K-Ville" and "Back to You" along side all those broad appeal Fox shows like "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" "K" is set in post-Katrina New Orleans, but is otherwise - if the pilot's a good indication - a standard cop drama. "Back to You" has TV royalty (Patricia Heaton/ Kelsey Grammer) but with a studio audience, three cameras and a beat as familiar as (say) "Three's Company," it also feels as old as TV itself.

The big question for Reilly - and the one he didn't actually get yesterday - is whether any of these new shows are even remotely Reilly shows? Of course, they are not. He's a single-camera guy with high-concept tastes ("Heroes") who now finds himself in a Big Tent world. He did everything in his powers at NBC to corral those elusive young viewers and actually managed to succeed. His problem at NBC, however, was that there were so few of said viewers (or so many of them bought "The Office" on iTunes rather than stick around on Thursdays to actually watch it) that his line-up was deemed a failure by General Electric - under pressure to boost its share price before investors force a breakup. GE wanted a grand slam; he provided bunts, singles, and walks. He got on base, but they wanted power hitting. And now, he's right back where he started from - at a network that wants another grand slam before the current power hitter, "Idol," starts to age and fade - as it inevitably will (and perhaps already is...)

So, time to start worrying.

New Fox Guy with a show that would probably not get on Fox. (Courtesy: Pastdeadline.com)

Meanwhile, for those of you not at the Beverly Hilton yesterday for Kevin's Meet the Press session, here are some quick questions, and abbreviated answers:

- Do you want your old NBC shows to succeed?
"I would like the best for them, and some will work and some won't..."

- What's the big difference between Fox and NBC?
"[Fox] is a restless company...So why make this change? I think it's just because of Fox [which is] ‘don't ever take it for granted, keep pushing forward...’"

- How will you and Liguori work together (Reilly, as prez of Fox Broadcasting Co. will report to Liguouri, who's chairman, and both were a team at FX)?
"We really do not walk in lockstep. We don't always have the same taste, but when we disagree, I know there's never a back channel or an end-around. It's just not going to happen...And if we disagree, every time we do, even if I think he is dead wrong, I've walked away saying, 'all right, wait a minute...what's he digging at...'"

- What do you like about Fox?
"It aligns with my personal sensibility...":

- How will you work with a schedule you had nothing to do with?
"You're right, it is somewhat awkward. The good news is I'm not sort of getting behind the wheel here, feeling like the wheels are about to come off...You don't want to come in and start spewing opinions all over the place. I'm going to be pretty low impact in terms of the on-air stuff...The network's running well."

- What does Fox need to do differently?
"I'm really encouraged that we can do shows are that just good television, perhaps a little broader than what you might define as the brand..."

- What did you learn from NBC?
"I feel like, at a certain point during my run, I was not playing that game and it didn't feel right for me, and it didn't work for the network [that is, going with his instincts]. I think this is going to be an environment that is just going to bring out the best in me..."

It's a morning of network musical chairs!

Check out there big announcements made in just the last few minutes:

1.) Campbell Brown: Curious thing about CNN's announcement a little while ago that Campbell Brown will join CNN on Sept. 1 - No where in the press release does it say exactly what Campbell will do. It's almost as though CNN wants us to guess, which shouldn't be too hard: She'll take over the 8 p.m. hour from Paula Zahn – Paula's immediate fate unknown.

Brown, of course, is the NBC "Weekend Today" co and longtime political/White House correspondent for the network. Long before Katie Couric split, she was considered a candidate - if not quite "front-runner" - for "Today."

What's the logic of this move? Believe me, it's not readily apparent. Brown's competent, but so is Zahn - whose show is actually quite good (thoughtful, never hysterical, usually intelligent, or at least when I've sampled it on my travels.) Numbers have been relatively modest, but does a Brown-anchored show instantly translate in millions more viewers? Only in Jon Klein's (CNN prez) dreams.

Zahn - you may recall - joined CNN just prior to 9/11.

2.) Lee Cowan: Not wanting to be in the position of having lost a reasonably big star without having something or someone to show for it, NBC has picked up Lee Cowan from CBS News. He'll be based in Chicago... I've always liked Cowan - he was one of Dan Rather/Bob Schieffer's most reliable people, but - as far as I could tell - seemed to recede in the Katie era.

3.) Dean Reynolds: Heading to CBS News, where he'll be based in the Chicago bureau too. In some ways, this is the most amazing move of them all - totally unexpected. Reynolds is son of legendary ABC Newsman, Frank - Peter Jennings’ predecessor - and was as closely associated with the on-air fortunes of ABC News as just about anyone I can think of. Over the decades - twenty-three years to be exact - he's covered everything for ABC. Reynold's is one of those network correspondents of the first rank so why did ABC let him go?

David Chase came. He saw. He comedied.

Thus the creator of "The Sopranos" charmed the crowd at this weekend's TCA Awards ceremony, despite slipping quickly in and out of the ballroom soiree, surrounded by a phlanx of HBO publicists, lest the horde of attending critics batter him about the head with such nagging questions as "What the blank was that last scene of the series finale about?"

Accepting the critics association's Heritage Award for his just-ended series' pervasive impact on TV and culture, Chase turned to the writer presenting the award (Alan Sepinwall of Newark's Star Ledger) and said, "I'm from New Jersey. You're from New Jersey. So you know it is possible to be sitting in a restaurant in New Jersey, and everything just stops. It is not that big of a deal."

But, Chase continued, he did eventually realize that if he was to appear this night before the nation's TV critics, "it might be a good idea if we said something about the ending." The awards' hundreds of attendees hushed. Maybe . . . could it be . . . some scrap of a scoop about that burning-debate blackout?

Chase confided he was impressed years ago in film school by the ending of the 1960s fantasy movie "Planet of the Apes," where human astronauts crash-land in a society ruled by simians and eventually discover maybe it's related to their own. "When the movie was over, I said, 'Wow, so they had a Statue of Liberty, too,'" Chase deadpanned about his slow-on-the-uptake realization, drawing yet another laugh from the Beverly Hilton ballroom crowd. "So that's what you're up against."

What, you thought he was gonna say something? In earlier acceptance remarks when "The Sopranos" won this year's TCA drama-of-the-year trophy, Chase had set his teasing tone for the night. "Here's another clue for you all," he said. "The walrus for Paulie."

Gee. Thanks, Dave. Here's another vintage musical reference: We're your puppets.

Alec Baldwin was a bit more forthcoming as he accepted this year's TCA nod for individual comedy achievement for his dry "30 Rock" humor. Living up to the honor, Baldwin rambled through a raucous anecdote about "how sad I am on a personal note that 'The Sopranos' is over." Baldwin said he'd switched several years ago to a new agent who dangled the prospect of Chase's interest in him doing a "Sopranos" guest shot. But their meeting and the gig never materialized. Then one day in Manhattan's "blasting furnace of summertime," he had raced blocks down the scalding sidewalk to the Four Seasons restaurant to meet a socialite about a charity event. "Now I'm shvitzing," Baldwin remembered, to the point he has to go into the men's room, take off his jacket, and take off his shirt, putting it under the hand-blower to dry it out. So he's standing there "topless. And into this room walks David Chase."

But comedy wasn't the only tone of the hourlong ceremony, held in the majestic ballroom that annually hosts the Golden Globes awards. (The low-budget TCA event isn't quite that elaborate or glittering. Our self-run, no-staff group is lucky to put bowls of nuts on the tables and show slides with the nominees' names on stage-side monitor screens.) The annual gathering usually has a heavy love-fest component, too. We critics (200 scribes from this country and Canada) tend to honor shows that might otherwise go without recognition -- under-the-radar overachievers the Emmys don't deign to notice. We've given top awards to axed series (1997's "EZ Streets," a short-lived effort from Paul Haggis, later an Oscar fave for writing "Million Dollar Baby" and directing "Crash"). We've been the first to flag surprising up-and-comers (Michael Chiklis for "The Shield"). We're not in it for the TV ratings (since our ceremony isn't televised) or the red-carpet hoopla (not even E!). We just groove to great tube.

"Friday Night Lights" felt the love this time, and the stars and producers of NBC's richly emotional but ratings-challenged saga turned it back-at-us. Accepting the TCA award for best new show, producer Jason Katims said "I really in my heart feel the reason we just started shooting a second season a few days ago is largely because of you." He told critics other shows might have "deserved" the award as much, "but nobody needed it as much as us."

"Heroes" did just fine in the ratings its first season, and series creator Tim Kring gave TV columnists some credit for that. "A lot of people initially wanted to dismiss this show as too sci-fi or simply fantasy," Kring said. But critics recognized "we set out to do something unique and something bold," with "a message of hope and a message of interconnectedness in the face of what is becoming an increasingly cynical world." He and much of the cast -- Masi Oka, Adrian Pasdar, Jack Coleman, Zachary Quinto -- took the stage to accept the TCA's most prestigious award, program of the year, by saluting "your collaboration with us in making this a huge success."

Aw, gee. We feel special. You feel special. All God's children feel special. But it's just one night. A fun one, a warm-and-fuzzy one, a we-all-love-TV celebration night. Yet it's over in a blink. Saturday night we party together, Sunday morning we're back to grilling TV's makers in press tour's unending parade of press conferences, holding them to account for their work, demanding to know what the blank they think they're doing.

Sometimes, they even answer us.

But not this time. [HBO photo by Craig Blankenhorn.]

Maybe I'm jaundiced or jaded or spent far too many hours of my life (not that many really, but more than enough) watching "The O.C." or "The Real O.C. - Laguna Beach," but I didn't find "Gossip Girl" all that degenerate, really. We've seen it all before - kids, sex, drugs. Ho hum.

There is one particularly troubling aspect of Josh Schwartz's lifestyles-of-the-young-rich-and-bibulous however, and that is the depiction of underage drinking. A few minutes into the "GG" session and Schwartz was pretty much parroting Dawn Ostroff's line this morning that there would "be consequences" for actions portrayed, but as far as I could tell, the only consequences for drinking on "GG" were to order another round.

Limoncello...vodka...champagne. It all flows freely. The kids are all underage, and while I'd be shocked, shocked to learn that underage kids by the millions are drinking, it is disconcerting to depict it on a primetime serial in a decidedly romanticized, sophisticated way. When Serena - Blake Lively - downs a martini, she's more sober than a tax collector; doesn't even stumble away from the bar. And - seriously - you know any bar in NYC that freely serves underage kids? That's called "losing your license..."

Schwartz: "We're not presenting a perfect world...as the series unfolds, we'll see other dimensions [and] characters learning from the repercussions of their actions...[viewers] will take solace in the sanity of their own lives..."

Yeah, and set me up again, Josh...

Meanwhile, "Reaper:" The CW newbie starring Ray Wise - as the devil - is terrific. It's about Sam (Bret Harrison), whose dad sold his son's soul to the devil. (Long story...) It's one of the most polished, entertaining pilots I've seen in a couple of years. Seriously. (And sorry to say, there’s some underage drinking here too…)
Ray Wise as the devil - steals souls and, in the case of "Reaper," shows, too.

Gossip Girl," the CW's new 9 p.m. Wednesday show, is what we in the trade call "edgy" - which is a nice, broad euphemism for all manner of bad on-screen behavior, from carnal to alcohol (as in consumption thereof.) "GG" is "VERY edgy." So...

I haven't seen the entire pilot yet (and will by the next time we meet), but I can so far attest to the word "very." With "Veronica Mars" and "Gilmore Girls" history, the CW has some massive holes to fill, and fill them it will with a show that is bound to offend most anyone over the age of 30 who has kids, plans to have kids, or worries about how kids cope in a commercial-soaked culture which now effectively demands that they no longer be kids.

If you've got a thirteen-year-old (or twelve or eleven) girl around the house then you absolutely know what "GG" is - that hugely popular book series by Cecily von Ziegesar about rich teens in NYC and their (ummm) interests in (ummm) matters relating to sex, drugs, and booze. The books are kinda controversial (duh) which has made them even more desirable. Anyway, Josh Schwartz ("The O.C.") holds the reigns of this series.

Dawn Ostroff, the CW's normally unflappable boss, became a little flappable this morning when she was gently challenged on the series. For example, “GG” will have a hyper-commercialized online component that'll let viewers buy the clothes the characters wear or the songs they have on their MP3's; so one guy reasonably asked - will they be able to buy Stoli too?

Ostroff (bristling) said the show wouldn’t be wall-to-wall (or frame to frame) teen sex/booze/drugs; "there will be consequences for a lot of the actions the characters take - we will be very responsible." And of course critics, having heard those words before and knowing how hollow they usually are, were suspicious. Ostroff kept using the words "heightened reality" to describe the show, meaning...what exactly? It's a phrase that - unless I'm mistaken - means a depiction of something that's so far beyond the normal range of human experience that no one believes it anyway. Maybe it means something else entirely, so please offer your own interpretation. Here’s a place to check out the whole GG phenom…

Meanwhile, here's some more news from the CW this morning:

- "Beauty and the Geek:" We’ve got a twist for the new season - a guy who's a beauty and a girl who's a geek in the mansion. (He’s a professional actor, BTW, and she is not – a true blue geek.)

- "America's Next Top Model:" Tyra Banks has re-upped through the 2009-10 season, and the show will be based in L.A. this season and then head back to NYC next.

- "Farmer Wants a Wife:" Yee Gads, ANOTHER CW reality show...this one's about a farmer who wants a wife. Need I say more? It's for mid-season.

- Chris Rock: He'll finally make an appearance in "Everybody Hates Chris," as a school counselor. He’s in only one episode so far - the season premiere.

- "Gilmore Girls:" Yes, it's still cancelled - hey, in this age of network reversals, you never know - and so is "Veronica Mars." What am I going to do with myself this fall?

A couple more years for TB

OK, this whole "green" thing has now officially Gone Too Far.

The sure sign of overkill: NBC crowed at press tour that's it's devoting an entire week of fall shows -- hours and hours and hours of shows, in prime time and cable and news and yada yada -- to a Nov. 4-10 ecological-awareness campaign oh-so-cleverly (and promotionally) called Green Is Universal.

The network's NBC Universal corporate umbrella is spearheading this "pro-social" "global event," where "green-friendly and environmentally oriented messages" will be shoehorned into -- I mean, included in -- the likes of "My Name Is Earl," "Heroes" and, God forbid, "Deal or No Deal." Even in (I swear I'm not making this up) NBC's "Sunday Night Football" broadcast of the Nov. 4 Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game.

This wall-to-wall week will also encompass such NBC Universal cable properties as Bravo, where stylists and chefs will further get on our case. CNBC shouting heads should hash over "green" stocks. Universal HD foists upon us short films about protecting the environment. Sci Fi plans a "Eureka" marathon carrying the theme Technology and Science to the Rescue.

What if you don't wanna be rescued?

I'm not against green. My recycle bin is full, and not just on the computer. But this wholesale hijacking of our airwaves for such a sledgehammer approach does nobody any favors. Viewers will be sick of the incessant sermonizing looooong before it's over, creating not a save-the-planet groundswell but a shut-up-about-it-already backlash.

Which may have started moments later.

"We're screwed," said John Krasinski of "The Office" at NBC's press tour session for its Thursday night comedies. "We're a paper company. We're going to get hammered."

"My Name Is Earl" creator Greg Garcia said it might not be so bad if fed-up viewers bailed by midweek. "If they turn off their TVs, think how much energy that will save."

Bill Lawrence, the mastermind behind "Scrubs," actually thinks the save-the-planet "burden is less for comedies. I doubt that any show here" -- "30 Rock's" Tina Fey was also on the panel -- "is going to be preachy, and is [instead] going to handle it in a comedic way. And although 'Law & Order' is usually pretty funny, I doubt they'll do the same jokes we all do."

"Saves a lot of energy if they cut all the 'dun-duns' out."

We'll let sound effects maven (and "Scrubs" star) Zach Braff have that last word.

There's really nothing to be gained from posting an entry on "Jericho." All this'll do is bring more fans to my cyber door - offering nuts, raisins, whatever - as inducement to keep writing about this thing. So be it. Just one time...and then, a "Jericho" ban. Go bother some other TV critic, preferably one who doesn't have a peanut allergy.

But I suppose there is plenty to say. Three cast members - Ashley Scott (Emily Sullivan), Lennie James (Rob Hawkins), Skeet Ulrich (Jake Green)- turned up a couple hours ago here at the all-things-CBS portion of The Tour, alongside creator, Carol Barbee, to talk about the miraculous fan intervention from May (twenty tons of nuts, as if you need to be reminded.) She said "when the fans started to roll on this nuts campaign, it only took a couple of days before we started having conversations about, 'is there something more we can do to sort of keep the story going?' And that's when I thought there was a possibility. I still thought it was a long shot."

The second season storyline she pitched to CBS before the plug was pulled "was going to take place in three different locations - Jericho, this new Cheyenne [Wy.] government, and also from New York, which survived [the nuke.] [But] when we got the short order [for new episodes] we said 'okay, we'll focus [only] on Jericho...'" That was for money reasons, presumably, and logistical ones too because "it would have been a 22-episode arc, and now it's seven...Because it's a short order, because we have less time to do it, we had to become lean and mean. The
stories are much more focused on a couple of people, and I don't think it will be hard [for newcomers] to follow."

So let's say another miracle happens - viewership does grow, and CBS extends the order, and "Jericho" quickly becomes the highest-rated drama on TV, exceeding "Grey's Anatomy" and...there really is a Santa Claus after all?

Said Barbee: "We're ready, willing and able, and have the stories already planned out. So we would love nothing better than to keep going." The show, by the way, jumpstarts production on Monday...

Persistent writers in the audience tried to tease new season details out of Carol. She obliged, to a point. What happens after that battle with New Bern? "We set up a big cliffhanger...a couple of big cliffhangers at the end of [last season] and we pay them off in the beginning. We start with the battle. You see what happened, and then we time jump to a couple weeks later, and we're rebuilding, and you see what happens to the town."

More details, courtesy Carol: "We leave them [the characters] with the new government from Cheyenne to stop the battle between Jericho and New Bern. There's still problems there. They're sort of like, warring tribes a little bit, but there's this occupying force that's trying to bring stability to the area, and then that becomes the new [story line]: Are these good guys or are these guys bad?"

And more detail still: "With the new season, part of what happens is we get back on the grid. Cheyenne is back - to help us rebuild and they have everything we need. So we get lights back. We get power. We get communication. Laundry. Make-up."

By the way, I think she was kidding about "make-up," but maybe not. "Laundry" is a must though. Said Skeet Ulrich, "my jeans stood on end at the end of last season..."

Cast members had plenty to say as well, but not so much about plot. Their ruminations were mostly about the amazing - and it was amazing, indeed - reversal by CBS.

Here, for example, is Lennie's: "Everything [in TV] becomes about the figures and I think the one thing that happened over the fight to save 'Jericho' was that our audiences became faces and people and lives, and it became real. It wasn't just a number that appears in the fast nationals or whatever it is the next morning. These" - the Nut People - "are kind of going, hold on a minute. This is my show. I enjoyed watching it. Stop treating me like I'm a number. This is a show I tuned in for...' One of the things I think was really exciting about the campaign is all those people to whom it kind of matters - they showed what THEIR demographic was."

That's right: The Nuts demographic.

Just to prove to my editors that I'm actually working at this thing and to justify the huge expenses I'm running up, here's a quick blog entry that catches up with some CBS show news. Much of this comes courtesy CBS E boss, Nina Tassler, who laid out some details during yesterday's opener. And away we go...

- "Numb3rs:" Tony Scott, Brit director ("Top Gun," et el et al) and show exec producer, will get behind the camera for the season premiere to give the show "a whole new look..." And that would be...? Oops, forgot to ask in the Q&A; session.

- "How I Met Your Mother:" Viewers will start to get hints about mom's true identity; exec producer Craig Thomas, later told everyone that there's going to be a new on-line component to the show called "How it Really Happened:" "It's going to be the story that the dad couldn't tell his kids. When parents tell their kids a story, obviously some censorship and sanitizing happens, So you'll be able to see the real version of certain scenes all through season three..."

- "Cold Case:" Season premiere will feature all Nirvana music "which is really exciting..." Why Nirvana? Why exciting? More overlooked questions.

- "CSI:NY:" The show goes to Second Life to solve a crime. Now this IS exciting; I can't even believe CBS knew what Second Life is! I barely do! Bless these technogeeks...(Tony LaPaglia's character is a huge Second Life freak...and to answer the note below, yes, so presumably is Gary Sinise's. Crossover possibilities?)

- "Two and a Half Men:" Jake starts junior high. Show to be re-named "Two and Three Quarter's Men." (Kidding...)

- "Ghost Whisperer:" We learn of a new "mythology for the show, in which Jim and Melinda didn't choose to live in dear old scary Grandview, but dear old scary Grandview chose them.

- "CSI:Miami:" Horatio Cane's got a son he never knew about, and I guess vice versa.

Who’s the early early favorite on best drama category?

Let's just stick our neck out right here and right now - knowing full well that Emmy has a wonderful and irrepressible habit of chopping off those heads which tend to do so - and predict that "The Sopranos" will scoop up the award that really truly counts.

It earned fifteen nominations a little while ago, which is usually a sign that the voting members actually watched the submitted episodes. It smoked other nominees "Grey's Anatomy" (better season the year before), "House," "Heroes" and "Boston Legal." "24" was also shut out of the best drama category - a good indication that the voting members actually know a sure loser from a sure winner (or maybe "24" just didn't bother to submit this time; if so, good decision.)

Here's something else that works in favor of "The Sopranos" - subliminal persuasion. After years of reading (if not necessarily believing) the words "best TV drama ever" when the subject of "The Sopranos" is broached in print in most newspapers and magazines, maybe voting members have finally been convinced. If this IS the best drama ever, then won't they look REALLY silly on September 16 when they give the little statue to (say) "Boston Legal?"

But they've looked silly before- in fact, they almost always look silly, so I'm not going to write off "Boston Legal's" chances just yet either. But other factors in favor of "The Sopranos" for best drama: It was the last season of the GTVE (that's "Greatest TV Drama Ever"); it was actually a pretty good season, though certainly not the best; David Chase could easily have pulled three episodes for nom that were superlative; the finale was a huge disappointment and didn't actually end (unless my TV did in fact break - I'm still not sure) but no doubt many voters loved the impish, post-mod, ending-without –an-end.

Meanwhile, I'm a little worried about Edie Falco's chances - she got a best actress nod along with Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: SVU"), Sally Field ("Brothers & Sisters"), Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer"), Patricia Arquette ("Medium") and Minnie Driver ("The Riches"). You know how much award voters like - they really like - Sally Field. Plus that Patty Arquette sure knows how to make voters love her too (inexplicably, but this is the Emmys.) Still, Kyra has to be the favorite of this field.

James Gandolfini got a a best actor nod, too - but so did Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie ("House"), James Spader ("Boston Legal") and Denis Leary ("Rescue Me.") Sutherland, a repeat? Emmy loves those (it's the well-established Emmy Law of Inertia). Spader? Another longtime Emmy favorite...but a win over Gandolf? Leary? Maybe the long shot of the group, but dear old sentimental Emmy loves to prove that even the long shots, however undeserving, can still win. Laurie? My gut tells me the Acerbic One has this one in the bag.

So let’s conclude: If both Gandolf and Edie lose out in their categories, that’ll make voters even more likely to give GTVDE the big award. I know the logic sounds twisted and strange, but we are talking about Emmy here.

Greatest TV drama ever: How could it not win? Well...

Smell that? (Sniff. Sniff.) Ah, yes -- the scent toward which entire flocks of TV critics fly like moths to a flame at the twice-yearly Hollywood gang-interrogation called press tour.

It's the sweet perfume known as Obfuscation. Or Withholding Information, the ever-popular Spin, or sometimes even Look How Long His Nose Is Growing. Nothing makes our kind grab for the press-conference question mike quite so aggressively as when panelists deliver non-answer answers, or what one reporter delicately termed an attempt to "fudge" a few issues during this afternoon's session for CBS' fall "Kid Nation" reality series. [CBS photo above by Monty Brinton.]

Let us count the varieties of fudge served up in this veritable chocolate-fest.

Critics skeptically inquired about the notion of sending 40 kids ages 8-15 into a New Mexico ghost town for 40 days to undertake the on-camera mission of creating their own youth-run society with, as CBS' promo clip proudly proclaimed, "no adults!"

Well, OK, admitted producer Tom Forman ("Armed & Famous," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"). The project actually had "a large adult safety net." Like a hundred-plus grownup crew members, nutritionists, doctors, etc. "But we were mostly just standing back and watching" as the kids cooked and cleaned, cared for animals, ran businesses, formed a more perfect government, etc.

Now about that genuine ghost town. Some of us had heard that oddly-camera-friendly Bonanza City, N.M., was actually being used in recent years as a standing movie set ("Silverado").

Well, sorta, said Forman. The production had to have some place to "safely put kids." So there were extant/constructed (and fairly comfy) buildings in which to sleep, eat, restructure civilization and hold town hall meetings. (And, lest we forget, to shoot well-lit TV footage.)

But the kids were supposedly set loose in it to construct a new society in whatever manner they wanted. "We made the decision early on that we were going to give these kids an incredible experience," Forman said, and producers would just "follow their lead," with cameras just happening to record it all. Well, except for those producer-designed Showdown challenges like the ones on "Survivor." And the every-three-days Town Halls serving as a kind of tribal council. And other cliffhanger/climax-generating events like that.

Forman said "I get it" about critics' well-voiced "Kid Nation" reservations. But he also claimed critics can't understand what a truly authentic and life-broadening experience this was for the kids. He said that's what all of the kids and their parents would tell us if they were here to answer questions. Except they weren't here. Why? Because those so-cool kids would only show him up, the perpetually smiley Forman grinned, before launching into more Hollywood how-great-my-project-is fast talk. "I can't wait," he enthused, "for everybody to meet them." Except that he, and we, will have to.

So maybe the kids aren't here because they're in school. Oh, wait. It's July. Interesting. "Kid Nation" was actually held back for a fall premiere from CBS' originally intended summer run. So when was this all-natural kid experience staged and shot? "April-May," said Forman. Which, where I live, is during the school year. Don't real kids go to school?

Sure, this show is all about average American young people determined to, as Forman said, "prove something to the adult world out there." Too bad he had just minutes earlier discussed rather more frankly what makes a show like "Kid Nation" so important in the network TV scheme of things.

America is "getting bored" by been-there done-that unscripted shows filled with "Hollywood reality types out to further their career," Forman said. The networks need to find something to provide the same "unpretentious excitement of the first cycle of 'Survivor,'" before everybody knew the reality show drill. The concept here was that "maybe we need to look for participants who weren't even born" when the reality format took off. Besides, he noted, kids are "incredibly honest. If they're sad, they cry. If they're mad, they fight. It's human beings at their best and human beings at their worst. They don't censor themselves."

Umm, maybe that's because they're immature, ventured one critic's follow-up question, and they haven't developed the internal mechanisms that tell an adult when to keep things private, or check a baser impulse, or forestall behavior that might injure/embarrass oneself or others. They are kids, for cripes' sakes – children! -- who are still developing, still learning skills like self-control, still rather inexperienced at interpersonal conduct. And they are still (despite any reality TV impulses) protected by society with all kinds of different-than-adults ethics and, yes, laws in recognition of their inability to make well-considered decisions. (See my colleague Verne Gay's report on that below.)

All this protection appears to disappear when it comes to providing reality show fodder for TV networks. Earlier this morning, CBS entertainment chief Nina Tassler was telling us about the "legacy of reality shows" changing now. "To really get out there and change the landscape of television, you have to sort of stir public debate. We know we're going to create some controversy," she said. "The whole objective was to get out there and do something different and have people talk about the show. Which is what's happening."

Well, bully for CBS, and its stock price, and the future employment prospects for reality show producers. But what about the on-camera kids whose actual lives provide this brave new landscape of "entertainment"? One of the most admired veteran critics of our unruly clan prefaced his question to Forman by positing that "You could ruin a kid for life. Literally. You could brand a kid as, say, the crybaby of 'Kid Nation'" and change the way both he and the world see him from then on, quite possibly not for the better.

Forman urged critics not to "judge the show based on a log line" synopsis condensed for a TV listing or press release. Fair enough. We haven't been shown more than a couple minutes' clips so far. That's why we come here to ask these questions. That's why we'd like to ask them of the kids themselves, and their parents, who Tassler told us "knew full well what was involved, and they embraced this opportunity for their kids."

So did Shirley Temple's folks. (The vintage Hollywood icon later wrote a book about the fallout of that "embrace.") So did the parents of such tragic died-young kid stars as Dana Plato, Anissa Jones and River Phoenix.

And those were performers playing scripted fictional roles. The hazard here is that "Kid Nation" has the potential to pervert real children's real (and naive) behavior into (not so naively) edited TV melodrama, which will linger through their entire real lives on DVD shelves and in cyberspace.

Forman kept telling us to just wait and see his show's "compelling stories about amazing characters."

That's precisely what we're afraid of.

Beverly Hills - Hey, networks are almost always happy to get a little pre-launch flak before a new show hits the air, but it's also always valid to ask - how much controversy? or what SORT of controversy? or can this controversy have the potential to humiliate both network, producer, cast member and viewer? This is the kind of stuff the new CBS reality show “Kid Nation" invokes because it IS about kids, and there AREN'T any adults involved, and there ARE such things as child labor laws, and, well, we could go on, but let Tom Forman tell you about all this stuff.

Tom's a reasonably well-regarded producer - talented enough to survive "Armed & Famous," his deliriously, deliciously bad creation, now thankfully cancelled. He was a top producer at "Extreme Makeover," and has a credit on CBS’s "9/11," and was once a network news producer, so maybe he deserves benefit of the doubt here.

Or does he?

There's not much to see with "Kid Nation" - CBS has released only a brief snippet - but it's still one of those shows that instantly prompts a visceral kind of response as in - "what were they drinking when they thought this up?"

The basics: forty kids spend forty days/nights in a New Mexico ghost town, Bonanza City, to "build a new world." They cook their own meals - and they are only about eight years old - haul water, run businesses, and create their own government. No one gets booted - this isn't "Survivor" - and at each episode’s end, the forty kiddies gather together for a town meeting where they hash stuff out. (By the way - no TV.) Seems harmless enough but there have been reports that the show somehow violated child labor laws, and Forman was even asked whether New Mexico was picked because the state has a loophole in said laws that he exploited.

"No," said he, "we picked New Mexico because it had the right location and...we checked with our attorneys, who said there was no problem." But - this persistent writer persisted - when the show started shooting, the New Mexico state legislature discovered the loophole and instantly closed it in response to “Kid Nation,” right? Foreman: "I don't believe that's true..."

"The truth is, it's less child labor laws than labor laws...the participants aren't acting, and we went ahead and made this show with he understanding they'll do what they do and we're not going to consider them actors" who get paid residuals.

He added, this kind of show would not have been possible in, say, California – where presumably the child labor laws have no loopholes.

Naturally, the big question as CBS launched its portion of the press tour this morning could be phrased thusly, "Mandy?" Or - if you prefer greater detail, "Mandy Patinkin?"

Or even greater detail still: Why did the lead actor in CBS's hottest almost-new drama, "Criminal Minds," drop out just as production began and literally hours before CBS was going to trot out its top executives to talk about just how great the new series are but instead are now forced to answer just one question:

And that would be…Mandy?

Of course, Nina Tassler, CBS Entertainment boss woman, had her story down, and it was this: He left for "personal reasons." She refused to elaborate beyond that, but for the record, here's her complete answer the first time Mandy came up:

"First of all, Mandy came to us and came to me and asked to be released from the show and we were able to accommodate that request on his part, and right now, you know, it's a personal issue, and I think the show is accommodating his needs. The creative on the show is very strong...People come to that show for the E ticket, for the white-knuckle ride you're getting every week. It's like 'ER'...The show goes along."

Alas, the ornery critics persisted: But for gosh sakes, Nina. This is the second time he's walked way ("Chicago Hope;" early '90s; remember?) What makes someone do that?

Nina: "You know, I only hope that in the very near future that Mandy will be able to handle those questions."

Someone reasonably asked, is he OK physically?

Nina: “I just don't think he wants me to discuss it."

Perhaps inauspiciously, Tassler also had to deal with big-stinking-controversy-number-two as well, notably the public blowup between Mark Harmon and show-runner, Don Bellisario on "NCIS," in which Harmon forced out the well-known producer - quite possibly averting another Patinkin.

Nina called the departure part of "the natural evolution of the show. You groom your writers to take over so he can move along to develop other shows, which is what we're looking to do...It's part of the changes that happen in many of the shows [and] personality aside, it was time for him to do something else for us, and the show will go on."

Oh, you're good Nina. You’ve very good.

An astute writer in the audience just couldn't shake loose that Mandy business, however, and pointed out to Nina that the press release announcing his departure had in fact cited "creative differences." Nina then issued what may go down as one of the classic lines in press tour history - a line that will be repeated fondly decades from now, and perhaps even wind up as the title of some book, maybe her autobiography.

"'Creative differences' is a euphemism for 'personal differences.'"

Beautiful. You couldn't come up with a more perfect response. Congratulations, Nina. You're good. You're really good.

Meanwhile, there were some more news tidbits and we get to those now:

Rosie O'Donnell: Tassler said that Fremantle have held conversations with her about another show, but offered no further details. The significance of this? Fremantle is the "American Idol" shop - yeah, they do a lot of biz with Fox – but that suggests that this particular project, if green light is conferred, will in fact head to CBS.

"Price is Right:" Yes, as widely reported, Drew Carey is "in discussions" - something they do in Hollywood a lot, along with "take meetings" and "do lunch." But Tassler refused to handicap his odds and remarkably, still no guestimate from CBS on when the formal decision will be announced. Bob Barker's shoes are "the biggest shoes
in Hollywood to fill." And the fall seasons approaches...

"Kid Nation:" Lots of little fires have already popped up around this toddler reality newcomer, notably reports that the producers may have violated child labor laws in New Mexico, where it is being shot. Nonsense, said Nina. No laws were violated, but - yes indeed, sparking a little controversy is good. "It's is an extraordinary group of kids [but] in order for a reality show to really...change the landscape of television, you have to stir public debate [you have to] create some controversy.

Now, onto "Jericho"...

Mr. Intensity quits and Nina has to mop up.

Sometimes the answer is just that simple.

Josh Schwartz, who created "The OC," was asked this morning at NBC's Q&A; session for his new sales-drone-turned-spy romp "Chuck" about one of this season's big trends. As has been written here, there and everywhere, the fall network schedules feature a lot of geek/nerds. Chuck of "Chuck" works in a big-box-store's "nerd herd." The CW's amusing adventure "Reaper" has another slacker sales dude pressed into the service of reclaiming escaped evildoers for the devil. And there's already "The Office," "Ugly Betty" and "Beauty & the Geek," among other showcases for those folks that "Chuck" title star Zachary Levi [in NBC photo, right] called the "cool-challenged" among us.

So how come this is?

"They say you should write what you know," Schwartz replied. "And I know a lot more people like Chuck than people like ['24' action-figure uber-hero] Jack Bauer."

But this early critical fave is also a finger-on-the-pulse of another trend. "I think big-box culture is very much a way we live our lives right now," said Schwartz. Yet we don't know what kind of future these stores' McJobs will provide the current generation. Executive producer McG (also "The OC," as well as the director of movies like "Charlie's Angels") said he sees "Chuck" as "a subversive but elegant commentary on 'Is this big-box culture really progress?' It's a way of connecting to a great many people and saying 'We understand.'"

Chuck ends up straddling the geek/spy worlds by accidentally having a whole supercomputer's-worth of international espionage secrets downloaded into his brain. (Don't ask. In this kicky comedy actioner, it makes sense.) The government drafts him into secret agentry alongside a gorgeous blonde female operative (of course), under the suspicious eye of a resentful agency dude who promptly joins the same store's workforce to "protect" (read: torture) America's most unlikely hero.

McG says "The Office" has already made clear the richness of that arena: "There's so much humor in the workplace, as much as in his work in the spy world." Schwartz noted "there are people trying to take Chuck down at work" already, including rival salespeople and aspiring assistant managers, whose scheming is played with ironic gravity. "It's almost as scary as when he has to go out in the field and do spy work."

In other words, says Schwartz, "everybody in the audience sees themselves in the character of Chuck." So do members of the cast. Right after star Levi played a scene in which Chuck's hands are injured from too much Call of Duty -- the video game, not the spy gig -- the actor showed up on-set with his own off-camera bandaging. "He was playing tennis with Wii," Schwartz recalls, "and put his hand through a light fixture," requiring 14 stitches.

Is that what they call method acting?

(Watch "Chuck" video previews/interviews here.)

We're off to see the Wizard, again. In its December cable miniseries "Tin Man," Sci Fi takes another pass at that modern American myth created a hundred years ago by L. Frank Baum.

We've all seen "The Wiz"and TV movie remakes and concert versions, none coming close to the magic of Judy Garland's classic 1939 movie musical "The Wizard of Oz." That tube perennial and DVD fave continues to embody the tale for most everybody. But the makers of Sci Fi's elaborate six-hour epic think "the problem with previous attempts was that they haven't reinvented the world to the point where it could stand on its own," cowriter Steven Long Mitchell told TV critics this morning. "The movie's out there and that's what people really know," so imitation won't cut it. Yet, said his writing partner Craig Van Sickle ("The Pretender"), it's the "iconic nature of the characters" we've all embraced for decades that actually "allows itself to be reinvented" through freshened-up details.

Sci Fi's press release promises a "darkly menacing world" with a thoroughly modern population of "cowardly psychics, brain-drained inventors," an ex-cop who lost his heart witnessing the torture killing of his wife, aboriginal people clinging to their threatened culture, and a dog/human shape-shifter (Toto, too!). It's a bizarre parallel universe called The O.Z. (Outer Zone) into which a tornado hurls star Zooey Deschanel's ordinary contemporary waitress named DG. (Dorothy Gale, perhaps?)

Sounds weird -- and potentially disastrous (still in post-production, "Tin Man" wasn't screened for critics) -- but the builders of this semi-fantasy/semi-gritty universe were certainly waxing lyrical as they discussed it. "All the characters are so rich and different and modern, and yet old-fashioned," said title player Neal McDonough, a critical fave from NBC's late, lamented "Boomtown" and "Band of Brothers" on HBO. "This is probably my favorite thing I've ever done," McDonough said. "I'm so damn proud of being a part of this," no easy deal since an Oz show "was the first thing I ever did in high school and the movie is a near and dear thing to my heart."

The new miniseries "tips its hat to the original book," said director Nick Willing (he did NBC's 1999 "Alice in Wonderland" with Martin Short and Whoopi Goldberg), "yet it creates its own world." The resulting special-effects-fueled amalgam melds "the flavor of a nostalgic world and a half-remembered world gone by" with a modern approach that makes it "a strange, grungy fantasy," Willing said.

Wicked witch/O.Z. sorceress portrayer Kathleen Robertson (Clare on "Beverly Hills 90210") extolled how "Tin Man" comes at the tale from what she called "a psychological way and a character-based way. Why would someone be this evil? We approached it from the inside out. It's about understanding why the characters did what they did, what their hopes were and what their dreams were."

Director Willing contends that harks back to "the emotional idea of the original book, that we have inside us all already what we're searching for." Despite "Tin Man's" flashy effects and elaborate costumes, "what sets this apart," he said, was the ambition to "try and create a modern version of the original idea. At its heart, this is a film about simply very pure values that are still important today."

[Above: Neal McDonough, Zooey Deschanel, Raoul Trujillo, Alan Cumming in Sci Fi photo by Alan Markfield.]

The public career re-hab of Isaiah Washington continues: Jason Smilovic, executive producer of newcomer "Bionic Woman," came to his new star's defense this morning, telling press tour denizens that "we believe in second chances" and that as a producer, he'd rather be "in the position of allowing [an actor] to make amends rather than ex-communicate somebody."

Washington's new pact with NBC - part of a 5-episode arc on "BW" and a still-to-be-developed action-adventure series - is certainly the biggest news so far in the network portion of the TCA, and he told the AP yesterday that he was "humbled by this opportunity..."

But TV critics being TV critics, some still wanted to know whether Washington's role might turn off viewers or whether it was an affront to the gay community, etc. etc. Smilovic (he and his other co-, David Eick, were presented with Washington after new NBC co-boss Ben Silverman signed him up) had easy answers for those as well. "In no way," he said, "are we making a judgement, statement or assignation about what was done...we found a great actor." Somenone then asked - serioiusly - whether Washington might undertake a gay kiss on the show as part of his on-going absolution. Said Smilovic, "that would do a lot more than break down the third, fourth and fifth wall in TV..." Short answer: No.

Not much known about Washington's character and not much revealed; he'll play a mystery man who works in the lab that creates Michelle Ryan's bionic babe.

No gay smooch.

For "Law & Order" fans, we've got reasonably big news: Brit actor Linus Roache has signed on as prosecutor on the show for this fall, replacing Sam Waterston who's moving into the D.A.'s office (replacing, of course, Fred Thompson, who's trying to move into another office of an entirely different sort.) "L&O;" czar, Dick Wolf, made the announcement a little while ago.

The bottom line on Roache: Not that well known as far as the small screen is concerned on this side of the pond, and his biggest screen credit is "Batman Begins." He also starred in the late/lamented "Kidnapped," which means he'll be paired up once again with Jeremy Sisto, who's also joined "L&O.;"

Beverly Hills - Lorne Michaels - the Great Sphinx of network TV - showed up the press tour yesterday, and there he was up there on the stage, surrounded by pups a quarter his age. Spread before him in the audience was the press gaggle, all wondering pretty much the same thing: How the hell does he do it?

How does the emperor of "Saturday Night Live" survive, let alone thrive? He finds people like (most currently) Kristen Wiig or Andy Samberg who have bumped and ground their way into that most elusive demo of them all, the sub-24-gen xyz-whatever, and has weathered more devastating reviews and more adoring ones (mostly from the assembled crowd in front) than anyone has in the entire history of television. Yet there he sat, with barely a smile, surveying his kingdom, and daring the serfs to challenge his rule.

Of course, he got the question he always gets when he shows up to these things. How much longer, Lorne? (Translated as, for cripes sake, man, you've been doing this 33 years and you'll turn 64 in November...) May I give Lorne a handy riposte the next time he gets this one? "How much longer are YOU going to be doing what you're doing...?"

Said the Great Sphinx: "I really love doing it. And as long as....also, I think it's a show that, once it stops, it'll never be...you know, it's from another time in network television - it's budget, the way it's produced. It's really a throwback to live television really from the '50s, and so it's really a handmade show. I think it's a tribute to NBC that it's still on the air and that it gets the support it gets. And I think that if I didn't think it was important, there are a lot of easier ways to make a living."

You'll notice he didn't answer the question, but the response was fascinating nonetheless. The Great Sphinx, in his own elliptical way, essentially said that he's the only one left standing who can do battle with the numb nuts in corporate who want to hack the budget to pieces or turn "SNL" into "America's Got Talent."

And he's right - there's absolutely no one who could take his place. Without the Great Sphinx, there would be no "SNL" - a good, bad, or indifferent "SNL." He really is the last guy standing, and in a business now populated by sub-34-gen-xyz-whatevers, he's the only one with a sense of TV history, a sense of what NBC used to be about, and is probably the one around 30 Rock who still remembers who the president of the place was back in 1977, when he first started. He talked yesterday - fondly, and even with reverence - for the great and enduring Don Pardo. (I wonder if Silgrab know who Don Pardo even is?) Another amazing survivor wandering around here yesterday - Dick Ebersol - certainly knows.

The Great Sphinx was asked about that moment a couple years ago when someone at NBC wanted to turn the search for castmembers into kind of an "Apprentice"-like circus, with Lorne acting as the Trumpster. Said Lorne: "Donald Trump is perfect at being Donald Trump, you know. And likes that...For me to be in that role wouldn't have been..."

The Great Sphinx paused a moment, wondering what the most diplomatic way of putting this would be…

"I wouldn't have been comfortable doing it."

He added, "It's not a bad idea. It's a little bit of what we make fun of, so it's hard to then go out and do the straight version of it."

In fact, it was a bad idea, the execution of which would have been impossible. The Great Sphinx endures and as a result, so does "Saturday Night Live."

Cool dude.

The two new guys who are running NBC's entertainment fortunes, Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff - Silgrab - seem like a couple of nice guys, but the new guys (whosoever they may be) always do at press tour. Thrown before the baying coyotes of the press who believe nothing and trust no one, the fresh meat usually has no choice but to seem nice. It is their only defense. In the absense of huge announcements or stunning coups - none from this morning, best I could tell - Silgrab had to rely on their native charms. At press tour, that only goes so far.

Silverman: He's got that youthful, rumpled, disarming style, distantly reminiscent of a youthful, rumpled and disarming Brandon Tartikoff. Graboff: A business guy, he's older and grimmer, with gimlet eyes and a no-nonsense manner. It's a good cop-bad-cop routine. In the weeks and months to come, as these two try to mince their way through a new schedule against a stiffening headwind, you can almost imagine how this tag-team will work. Silverman will tell every creator and wouldbe network hit maker how much he loves their idea, and Graboff will tell them in the follow-up meeting that it's too expensive. And so it will go.

Together they replace a popular - popular with press, not popular with G.E. - executive who is now working for Fox. (Kevin Reilly's Revenge Served Ice Cold this January? "American Idol.") But what can this duo do that Reilly could not?

Network television is all about generating hit shows, and how that is done remains one of the great elusive arts of popular culture. Silverman, when he ran Reveille, understood that pop tastes often have no boundary (he shopped internationally, and found templates for shows as diverse as "Ugly Betty" and "Survivor.") But network schedules are also products of multiple agendas. Can Silverman adjust to a world where interference and second-guessing are management tools of choice? Can Silgrab work when the track record for other hydra-headed teams (Jamie Tarses/Lloyd Braun) is mixed?

And if youth must be served, then why - for their first official act at the press tour - did Silgrab announce the appointment of Norman Lear, as the consultant/creator/guiding force of a new hour-long battle-of-the-sexes dramedy set on Wall Street? Lear's last great triumph was "The Jeffersons," deep in the last century. And so this is what might be called a mixed-message-move: By name along, Lear invokes the great years of network past, but it is a past all of the networks are actively disavowing. But the message may not be so mixed after all: We can't really escape our past after all, can we?

First question Silverman got was barbed, and referred to Reilly's contract that NBC bought out just a month or so after renewing it: "Ben, what would you say about a company that hires somebody for $6 million and fires them after a month? Is that a good company or a bad company?"

Ben: "Do you know what? I hope our shows and our results speak for what we're doing. And you know, I only arrived, so all I can say is, we're really excited about what we're doing today and what we're going to be doing tomorrow and what you'll be watching in the fall."

Graboff then got a crack at that one: "He [Reilly] wasn't fired. What happened was when Ben became available about three months after we made Kevin's new deal, we jumped at the opportunity to bring Ben on board to the company....Kevin, when that happened, realized or determined, frankly, that there was just no role for him at the company and decided to move on."

That got the biggest laugh of the whole day. If they could only write sitcom lines this funny.

Silverman was also asked the obvious question - just what sort of investment do you have in all these new shows that you didn't even put on the air in the first place?

"I am so happy to build on the legacy of quality that has been NBC's hallmark. From the days I began watching television, it was always tuned to NBC, and that tradition continues and I'm excited to build upon it and thrilled wherever the hits come from, existing or through new doors. It's great."

Okay, smarty-pants. What else did you expect him to say? "I hate Reilly's crop. It's doomed, I tell you, doomed."

Anyway, those were canned responses to questions they anticipated, the ones they had prepared answers for. All that matters now is the fall.

Us coyotes await.

Silgrab: How long will this marriage last?

Would you trade worldwide music fame for Long Island domesticity?

That's what Cheryl James Wray did. Formerly Salt of Brooklyn rap's titanic Salt 'N Pepa act, she shook her partner loose back in 2002, calling on the cell phone while Sandy "Pepa" Denton was at the salon getting a pedicure, to say "basically 'I don't wanna be joined at your hips anymore,'" as Denton recalled to TV critics during VH1's session for a fall reality series tracing the duo's current attempt to reunite.

"A lot of things led up to that point," explained Wray, who's found God and now lives quietly with her family in a tidy new Melville development. "It was all fun for her, but I felt like I didn't have control of my life. I felt like I was compromising in a lot of ways, and I was just tired. I needed to do some soul-searching. Then I married my daughter's father. We had another child. I kind of cleaned up my personal life, and I needed that time to do that."

"Which is fine," added Denton [left in Getty Images/VH1 photo], but she expected to have her longtime partner "actually sit down and kind of prep that other person that this is your next step. To me, it was just the way that she did it. I've just been bitter about it, and upset, and we just never really spoke about it."

"And I have apologized for that many times," replied Wray. "Even in writing."

So the tension still simmers, on stage and off, which VH1 is undoubtedly counting on to fuel "The Salt 'N Pepa Show" premiering Oct. 15. In on-camera footage, Wray/Salt expresses her dismay when Denton/Pepa's act gets too wild and sexy for her taste. "I'm a mom of a 16-year-old," Wray told critics. "I feel like I have a responsibility to my daughter to present myself in a certain way." "I'm also a mom," noted Denton, but what Wray viewed as lascivious performance behavior, "I took that as dancing."

Even when (perhaps especially when) they disagree, the VH1 show is "a way to explore to new ways to work together," says Denton, "and also tap into some of those reasons for even breaking up in the first place." Wray says she's "trying to figure out how I can live my life without feeling like I'm compromising the new person that I am, and still work together."

Sounds like a show to me.

Beverly Hills - Feed the Beast and the Beast is happy. Don't feed the Beast - the Beast That Covers Television - and the Beast is not happy.

So on that score, NBC gets high marks as it kicks off the Big Network portion of the biannual press tour. The new bosses were trotted out this morning, Ben Silverman, and Marc Graboff (or should it be Marc Graboff and Ben Silverman? More on that later) and to artfully obscure the fact that they abruptly replaced a successful and competent executive, Kevin Reilly, in a putsch that seemed to happen just days ago, they announced a whole slew of news. And without further ado, let's go straight to the slew...

Isaiah Washington: Silgrab confirmed this morning's USA Today scoop, that the deposed, angry, outspoken, accused (but not convicted) reputed homophobe has found a home on new show, "Bionic Woman." He'll guest-star in a five episode arc and play (per the press release) a "mysterious person who is brought into the enigmatic scientific organization that is responsible for creating the bionics..."

"The Apprentice:" The low-rated nearly forgotten former Pillar of Thursday will return mid-season in an all-celebrity edition. (Paris, call your agent, if you've got one...) Silgrab didn't give a lot of details except to say that celebs will come from areas like sports, and the like, and that winnings go to charity. They also said they'd be very pleased to have appear a certain former co-host of "The View" named...

Rosie O'Donnell: Yes! Rosie doesn't even have to be here (she's not) and she can still make news. Silgrab said - almost in unison, it seemed - that they'd LOVE to see her on the celebrity edition, and that they've "had conversations" with her - as have the other nets - about a range of ideas, including a primetime vehicle. The discussions were described as "general." Translation: Nothing imminent and Ro wants too much money.

Norman Lear: Yes, Silgrab reached waaay back to the prehistoric past of network TV to sign up King Lear for a new show, described as an hour-long dramedy based (per presser) "on a single mother's battle of the sexes on Wall Street." King Lear won't actually write, per se, but will mostly consult, etc. Show is described as a "dramedy series based on single mother's battle of the sexes on Wall Street..." No details on casting, though Silgrab said they were looking for an a-list talent actor/actress.

Jay Leno: "We LOVE Jay Leno," said Silgrab (definitely in unison) several times, when asked about Mr. Tonight Show. Yeah, there's been much press speculation (fueled doubtless by the Chinned One himself) that he's unhappy that he'll be dumped off the show that he lives for in a couple of years for Conan. Silverman: "We're actively trying to come up with ideas that will make him [Jay] happy." Graboff: "Primetime is definitely an alternative, yes - something we're talking about. There are a whole number of ideas." But Silgrab added in no uncertain terms: Conan O will take over "Tonight" as planned.

"The Singing Bee:" And...the little show where people sing out of tune got a berth on the fall schedule. It'll lead out of a 90-minute "Biggest Loser" block on Tuesdays.

Lia won! Since the first episode I’d harbored a hunch and wish that this low-key young woman—far more grad-student than sous-chef—would distinguish herself in the kitchen, and I’d been stunned by her poor performance in last week’s lighten-up-a-classic challenge. (Frankly, I’d been stunned by the whole group’s seeming cluelessness at a task that is the basis of Cooking Light and Eating Well magazines, as well as a standard element of virtually every newspaper food section. Well, when your only food-magazine subscription is Gastronomica, this is what happens.)

Lia wowed the judges in the elimination challenge with her olive-oil poached shrimp, the best third of the winning shrimp course. Brian’s shrimp was also praised, while Hung’s was judged the weakest.( Hung also flunked the quick-fire challenge, where his cocktail was dissed by mixologist/judge Jamie Walker. Hung’s reaction? “I’m thinking to myself that he [Walker] was confused.” Apparently Walker knows as much about bartending as Alfred Portale does about cooking.)

Going into the elimination challenge, Team Tuna was the underdog, a perfect storm of dysfunction: Casey, improbably, had earned immunity and thus it was up to her stocky, belligerent team mates—who also happen to dislike one another—to battle it out. Much as the judges (and, one assumes, the producers) were expecting a disaster, neither Howie’s nor Joey’s dish was terrible and judge Tom fell back on criticizing them for not tasting Casey’s ill-conceived and underseasoned contribution.

Dessert turned out to be the real disaster. Once again, Top Chef viewers were reminded that cooking without a recipe is much much easier than baking without one. My colleague Sylvia Carter used to regularly wow us with her ability to whip up a batch of muffins or biscuits or cookies without so much as glancing at a recipe. But even Sylvia didn’t try to make cakes blind. Unfortunately Camille did, and her pineapple upside-down cake earned her the boot.

Perhaps the boot should have been directed at Dale since he was the one who had insisted that the meal needed dessert. This struck me as a fairly selfless act since even if the contestants as a whole had been criticized by the judges for not providing one, no individual or team would have suffered. Dale seemed to be professing an obeisance to some culinary Natural Law that trumped his own desire to win. So I’m glad he got to stay.

As with Lia, Camille hadn’t really registered until this week. Casey also came to the fore with her French toast bar snack and her Jennifer-Aniston-like obsession with touching her hair.

My favorite line of the show, however, was uttered by Jamie Walker, who bore the extraordinary title of “Global Master Mixologist for Bombay Sapphire Gin.” “With Bombay Sapphire,” he intoned, “what you have is ten uniquely vapor-infused botanicals. For that reason you have a wonderful platform to create a whole plethora of cocktails.”

Tonight’s vocabulary lesson

Gastrique: gas-TREEK. A syrupy, sweet-and-sour sauce made by reducing sugar and vinegar. Usually contains fruit as well.

Sumac: SOO-mack. A Middle Eastern spice made from the ground berries of the sumac bush. The tangy reddish-brown powder is used frequently in salads or sprinkled on yogurt.

Ceviche: se-VEETCH-eh. A Latin-American preparation in which raw fish is marinated in seasoned citrus juice. The acid in the juice “cooks” the fish, turning it opaque and making it firmer in texture.

Take that, Bill O'Reilly! You think you know hip hop? You don't know hip hop, the Rev. Al Sharpton said today at TV critics' press tour, discussing BET's fall "town hall" program "Hip Hop vs. America." That lively cable debate, planned as a two-hour special, has turned into a "multi-episode" event, announced BET programming chief Reginald Hudlin, because the conversation among a broad spectrum of black voices proved so fruitful.

"To have Nelly and I on the same stage," Sharpton said, "to have TI and Stanley Crouch on the same stage, and talk, that could only happen in this kind of a format. You can't get that on Bill O'Reilly."

Ever-thoughtful Roosevelt rap pioneer Chuck D [right] of the influential '80s group Public Enemy sat alongside Sharpton at the press conference, and they're joined in the BET show by a virtual who's-who of contemporary music and cultural commentary. In addition to those mentioned above, the 30-person slate includes Master P and MC Lyte, NPR's Farai Chideya and journalist/filmmaker Nelson George, TV judge Mablean Ephraim and religious leaders, magazine editors, DJs and activists.

It's an inside-the-community extension of the debate unleashed this spring by white radio host Don Imus' insensitive "comedy" routine about the largely black Rutgers women's basketball team. The syndicated morning personality said he believed he could employ the racially and sexually incendiary descriptions, which eventually got him fired, because they had become such common language in hip hop culture. Fingers of blame were then pointed every which way -- yes, even on "Oprah" -- but often without much understanding of how that language became so pervasive and how its impact might resonate.

Chuck D said he and other BET debate participants from the music world were able to finally hash over "things we felt deep inside these issues. There are some areas of their music they wanted to talk about, and some areas the record companies wouldn't allow them to deal with. The show has great potential because it deals with the inside of the artist." He also appreciated the opportunity to explore "accountability" for cultural depictions. "These artists signed mainly with a corporation to be broadcast," he said. "You have a lot of hidden hands and a lot of hidden faces in the history of this hip hop genre. That's why I nodded my head yes [to join the debate], as a progressive step."

Sharpton thinks today's controversy over hip hop echoes those of groundbreaking pop culture genres from previous generations, where the new form can be misunderstood by those to whom it feels so alien. Diverse exponents tend to be lumped together, this time under the "hip hop" umbrella. "It's not true that there's one monolithic messenger," Sharpton said. "There never was, and there never will be. The genius of this program was that it got every messenger on stage to say what they had to say, and say it to each other."

Star Jones plans to "interrogate" guests in a witness box on her live Court TV afternoon hour debuting Aug. 20, in addition to having cozy conversations in chairs and topical discussions across a news-style desk.

But the onetime Brooklyn prosecutor, who made her name on ABC's contentious daytime talkfest "The View," didn't do so great under her own interrogation this morning at TV critics' press tour. Jones deflected questions about her dramatic weight loss and sleek new look, admitting only "you've seen me gain a whole person and lose a whole person." [See current Court TV promo photo, right.]

She shied away from explaining where she's been since her stormy departure from "The View," too, preferring to emphasize her new show's focus on "the most important political, news-making and cultural issues that affect our nation," she said, "from the Don Imus controversy to Ms. Paris Hilton and her Biblical studies, from airport security to why in the world are we still so obsessed with [the VH1 reality series] 'Flavor of Love.'"

That might make sense, except her new Court TV weekday series is titled simply "Star Jones." Even if "it's not all about me," as Jones stressed yesterday to persistent reporters, her own controversial reputation certainly serves as the hook to lure viewers to the table, or the chairs, or the witness box.

Jones finally got the message and got personal, after show producer Gail Steinberg ("Donahue," "Ricki Lake"), sitting on the press conference stage alongside Jones, urged her to discuss "the reason why you took a year off." Then Jones opened up, saying "I spent some time getting to know Star. Getting fired will make a person want to learn a little bit about themselves."

That introspection, which she said included teaching a civics class in an East Harlem school, brought her back to what sent her to law school in the first place, she said, "because it's about serving people." In moving to TV, initially in 1991 as a Court TV trial analyst before her big "View" splash in 1997, she said she "was trading in one jury for a bigger jury. And I think for a long time I lost sight of that. I enjoyed a little bit more of that which was around instead of that which is in." Jones was even frank about "correcting some of the misconceptions about who I am, and correcting myself so that there would not be misconceptions. Because people can only take you for what you give them."

But this new Star isn't completely a changed Star. Producer Steinberg said that if the most successful TV personalities "take a clear stand on issues and what they think, with Star you'll never be left to wonder." Jones proved it by telling critics that, despite her residual warm feelings about "The View" having given her "the opportunity of a lifetime," she's "disappointed" that "no person of color has been permanently placed" on the show's high-profile panel since she left in June 2006. That's important, she said, for the show's "editorial purpose. We all sat in the back [production meetings] and brought different values to the table. We need to make it look like the fabric of society, not just to look like that from the outside but to feel that way from the inside."

Recently departed panelist Rosie O'Donnell was an asset to "The View," Jones said. "I really think she's one of the smartest people that I've ever seen on television. She knows how to make people talk about her and the things that she does. I didn't get to work with her, as you know. I actually think that probably would have been good TV."

On press tour, there are no days off. Heck, there are no meals off. GSN sponsored lunch today, and its execs and talent jabbered on from the stage about two upcoming game shows while my fellow critics and I downed some sort of Mexican wrap thingies laid out on restaurant tables in the Beverly Hilton hotel ballroom. We don't ask what it is, we just shovel it in to fuel up for the next session.

You go to 10 press conferences a day seven days a week for three straight weeks, and you learn a lot about the goals of upcoming shows, the shape of the fall season, who's side-splitting even out of character ("Curb Your Enthusiasm's" Larry David) and who's not (Hallmark mystery-movie star Dick Van Dyke; a lovely man, however). But you don't actually get a lot of stop-the-presses news. This is Hollywood, and they're too much on-script to let things slip.

Until just now, when in the 10th hour of today's events, five minutes before it was over for the afternoon and we could head upstairs to compose breathless dispatches to You The Reader, David Duchovny just happened to mention, in Showtime's session for his new self-destructive-writer half-hour "Californication" (yes, the series deserves that title; it is, after all, on Showtime), that he was, by the way, expecting to see a script this week for another "X Files" movie.

Say what?

Duchovny continued that it's been written by "X Files" creator Chris Carter and longtime collaborator Frank Spotnitz, and that "Gillian is on board" to do it, too, meaning costar Gillian Anderson. So that sounds like it's actually going to happen, nine years after the previous theatrical film and five years after the Fox series' end.

You know. No biggie.

Just thought you might wanna know.

Who'd have thought the biggest mob scene at TV critics' press tour would be for a Disney Channel presentation?

Only anyone who's ever been in the vicinity of a kid fallen under the all-encompassing spell of the pop culture phenomenon that is "High School Musical."

Dozens of reporters swarmed the TV movie hit's six young stars Saturday morning after their press conference about the Aug. 17 debut of "High School Musical 2." The rush created gridlock in a Beverly Hills hotel ballroom of the ginormous scope awaiting anything remotely having to do with the hotly awaited "HSM2."

And there will be plenty of those things. Disney Channel's web site premieres its first "HSM2" music video this week, with a second number getting an on-air Disney Channel sneak peek July 27. Radio Disney will debut the sequel's soundtrack, in a simulcast with Disney XD broadband. Already available is the film's online "supersite," which adds a debut-night "party planning kit" before the movie's official premiere. But Cablevision and FIOS subscribers can get access to a video-on-demand preview screening even before then.

The "HSM" machine rolls on. Luckily, the sequel itself, like the original January 2006 sensation, merits the mania. Screened in its entirety here, it's a quality musical spectacular with an uplifting message as well as catchy new songs, exciting dance moves and cute teen stars. "It's a cautionary tale about learning to pay attention to your own moral compass," said Disney Channel entertainment president Gary Marsh. Heartthrob star Zac Efron's young athlete character has his head swayed by Ashley Tisdale's spoiled rich witch during a summer working with his erstwhile school friends at a lush desert resort.

"It's summer and we're outdoors," director Kenny Ortega said of the colorful Utah location filming, which includes a huge baseball production number echoing the original film's basketball sequence. Athletics, academics, performing arts and youthful romance are all represented, with the familiar Wildcats also dancing through school halls and into a resort talent competition.

That clique-crossing mix of teen activities has spilled over into real life. Since the original "HSM" exploded, teachers report school plays have attracted a larger and broader range of auditioners, bringing athletes together with brainiacs and drama lovers. Disney has licensed more than 1,500 amateur theater productions of "HSM," a side-effect covered back on Disney Channel this fall in a documentary from Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple that chronicles a staging by two Fort Worth high schools.

The musical's pervasive popularity has also changed the lives of its young stars. "The whole thing is still very overwhelming for me," said female lead Vanessa Hudgens, who's become a favorite of paparazzi when she's out with costar and now boyfriend Efron. Supporting player Lucas Grabeel mentioned getting "to travel the world and perform in front of 65,000 people in Sao Paolo, Brazil." Corbin Bleu, whose own subsequent Disney Channel movie "Jump In" set ratings records, said "everything done in the name of 'High School Musical' seems to create some kind of phenomenon."

So far, the cast members have managed to avoid Lindsay Lohan-style publicity for troubled behavior. "This is such an awesome opportunity, and such a special thing," said Monique Coleman, who parlayed her "HSM" splash into a "Dancing With the Stars" run. "Why would you want to ruin that?"

Director Ortega, too, accelerated his career, 20 years after choreographing the "Dirty Dancing" blockbuster. "This has turned on a whole new generation that has said to us 'We like musical storytelling,' and that is a thrill," said Ortega. He credited the late Gene Kelly as his mentor (they worked together on 1980's "Xanadu"), a dance legend from an old-Hollywood era when the musical was a hot big-screen genre. "This is the most successful original musical in like 25 years," Ortega said, "and the kids have made it that way. That's a wonderful thing for our industry, and a wonderful thing for people that enjoy working in musical film, and a great legacy."

[Cast photo courtesy Disney Channel.]

Elvis is still in the building. We can't, in fact, get Elvis to leave the building. Even 30 years after his death.

TV Land hawked its August "Elvis Month" -- yes, month -- at press tour this morning with a panel including Elvis Presley's "former girlfriend and 'Hee Haw' honey" Linda Thompson.

The Elvis industry rolls on.

Panelist Pamela Clarke Keogh is the "authorized biographer" of Elvis Presley Enterprises ("Elvis Presley: The Man, The Life, The Legend"). "Friend" Jerry Schilling mentions that he just wrote a book about Elvis ("Me & A Guy Named Elvis"). Who remembers Thompson from the old "Hee Haw" TV show? She dated Elvis!

Even tube-lovin' TV Land is strip mining the territory now, airing "a huge showcase featuring nearly 40 hours of Elvis-related programing," said TV Land president Larry Jones. In commemoration of Presley's death Aug. 16, 1977, they'll be running Elvis' music specials (the 1968 "comeback" and 1973's "Aloha From Hawaii"), Elvis movies ("Love Me Tender," "Speedway"), Elvis documentaries (including TV Land's new "Myths and Legends: Elvis"), Elvis on the web site (footage of TV Land's statue being unveiled in Honolulu), Elvis everywhere.

And unending Elvis hype. "He had such a terrific impact on our society and was representative of good and bad, the things that came about in his life," intoned Thompson. "I think he was an extraordinary human being and a great American, really," said Keogh.

All right, already. Let's get over the aggrandizing and just look at the entertainer. And icon. The TV Land promo reel shown on big screens in the hotel ballroom here actually was an impressive montage of moments we all know -- the hip swiveling '50s footage, the black leather '60s, the sparkly white jumpsuit '70s; the memorable songs, and the formula chick-chasing flicks MGM made Elvis churn out. Even fetuses in the womb probably recognize this stuff.

"You have to remember, Elvis was the first," Keogh pointed out. "There was no infrastructure of entertainment then. There was no one there to show him the way." True. Plenty of showbiz ground was broken by Presley Inc. Unfortunately, not quite enough. Elvis was only 42 when he died suddenly, of drugs and hard living. "This was before Betty Ford," noted Thompson.

We'll probably hear about that in August, too. Much of the press conference was taken up by talk about Elvis' sad final years. "In those days you turn 40 and you're on your way downhill," said ex-bodyguard and road manager Joe Esposito, "and it affected him tremendously." Magazines were poking fun at Elvis' fat-belly-jumpsuit look, and he was no longer taken seriously musically.

But now, "after 30 years, people are starting to look back at this man's body of work," said Schilling. "There are a lot of projects you're going to see in the next two or three years, and you're going to see the legend of Elvis Presley go to the next level."

Imagine what they'll do for his death's 40th anniversary. The Elvis Channel?

"Greek" is pretty much what "Mean Girls," "Old School" and (of course) "Animal House" have spawned, and for that alone they can all be condemned. Broad, shallow, and surprisingly caustic, "Greek" – WABC/7 at 9 - has a huge target that it manages to miss almost entirely. No one can dispute - least of all those who belong - that frats and sororities comprise (and pretty much always have been) the primal social order on many campuses: Lubricated by booze, for the most part, and logical extensions of the hierarchies of high school, that most tangled of jungles, they’re places where kids on the verge of adulthood don’t always make the smartest of decisions (yet still learn behaviors that they’ll manage to apply later in life anyway.) But "Greek" just feels dumb and dumbed down. It's so content to wallow in the clichés and excesses that there's little room for subtly here, though God knows, subtleties can be lost when tequila is consumed by the barrel. But even in its sober moments - one or two of them - "Greek" is forced and flabby. The series premieres on ABC tonight, but it's had its ABC Family Channel outing, so there may be fans out there already; heaven help ‘em. The overview: Rusty (Jacob Zachar) heads to Cyprus-Rhodes U where his sister, Casey - Spencer Grammer, daughter of Kelsey, and who affects a surprisingly good imitation of Missi Pyle - is the big woman on campus (and at Zeta Beta.) He's a nerd. She's cool. He wants to have fun. She wants to ignore him. He decides to pledge. She grudgingly accepts his presence. He sees her boyfriend cheat on her. She has a spiritual crisis (sort of.) Will she head back into the oily embrace of former boyfriend Cappie? (Scott Michael Foster) Will slick willy Evan (Jake McDorman) and BMOC/ Casey boyfriend turn out to be a complete cad? And so on. No one (by the way) goes to class. No one talks about homework or studies or life beyond the frat/sorority. Zzzzz

Must watch or must avoid: Avoid.

Spencer: Daughter of Kelsey, but does a good Missi Pyle in "Greek"

HBO went a long way toward getting its critical (and watercooler) mojo back at TV writers' fall-season press tour Thursday evening. The cabler presented a diversely ambitious slate ranging from showbiz sitcoms to sensitive sex, from saucy Shakespeare to the shattered limbs of Iraq war soldiers.

The impact of the session for September's "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq," with five veterans sitting on stage missing various body parts, was so great that nobody asked the documentary's producer/interviewer, "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini, about his drama series' controversial blank ending last month. Critics wouldn't have gotten far if they'd tried. The always press-shy Gandolfini deflected questions about his personal reactions to the vets' tales by saying "It's not about me," instead shifting the spotlight to this war's unprecedented numbers of soldiers surviving catastrophic, used-to-be-fatal injuries.

"There are 12 functioning limbs among the five of us," noted Jonathan Bartlett, a 22-year-old former Army corporal missing both his lower legs. Even non-amputee Army staff sergeant Jay Wilkerson noted observers can't see the traumatic brain injury that forced him to relearn to talk.

Just as serious in a different "real" sense is HBO's fall drama series "Tell Me You Love Me," an exploration of interpersonal intimacy among three long-term committed couples that's raw both emotionally and sexually. The latter depiction dominated the press conference, as critics tried to ask tactfully about the 10 episodes' full-on portrayal of sexual activity. Some wondered whether computer imagery might have been used to create such apparently, uh, genuine lovemaking scenes.

"This is certainly turning out to get a lot more attention than I thought it would," said series creator Cynthia Mort. "The sex always was there in service of intimacy and in service of love." HBO's new co-president Richard Plepler said, "I've never seen intimacy dealt with that honestly and that bravely. It's quintessentially an HBO show."

The surprisingly graphic couplings are "integral to the storyline," said actress Michelle Borth. "We're not porn stars, we're actors, and you do the best you can to make it authentic." Agreed costar Ally Walker [in HBO photo with Tim DeKay], "It's an exploration of real intimacy that sex happens to be a part of." The emotional nakedness of the sex is actually what "does kind of upset some people," Walker believes. "It's not hot, steamy, grabbing the walls [sex]."

Larry David's panel for his self-portraying Hollywood comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" became a lighten-up relief. That show returns in September for its sixth season, even though the fifth seemed to wrap things up. It could indeed have been the end. "Every season is my last season," said the famously neurotic David ("Seinfeld" co-creator and George Costanza inspiration), explaining it's the only way he can get himself psyched to design and star in another 10 episodes. Also on the lighter side is Kenneth Branagh's August movie version of Shakespeare's romance "As You Like It," featuring Kevin Kline and Alfred Molina and set in modernizing 19th century Japan.

But it wouldn't be an HBO day at press tour without some project being delayed, as every season of "The Sopranos" seemed to be. "Deadwood" was the subject this time, with channel executives hedging on announced plans for movie(s) wrapping up David Milch's truncated adult western series. They promised to "revisit" the idea with Milch once they "know what the future of [Milch's current series] 'John From Cincinnati' is," according to new HBO west coast program president Michael Lombardo.

"We'd love to do it," added Plepler, but only if Milch is "fully motivated" and if the no-longer-under-contract cast can be gathered again. Execs refused to speculate on the odds of producing more "Deadwood." But critics wouldn't bet on seeing it.

Glenn Close and Ted Danson made quite an impact on American TV back in 1984 when they starred as an incest victim's parents in the groundbreaking ABC movie "Something About Amelia." Now they're poised to make another splash in the much-awaited FX series "Damages," debuting Tuesday, July 24 in a commercial-free hour at 10 p.m.

This New York-filmed drama isn't likely to be as socially controversial, but it packs just as big a character punch as Danson's shocking daughter-abusing turn did. Close plays a steely litigator who'll stop at nothing to nail Danson's corporate titan, who's accused of profiting handsomely while his company tanked, Enron-style. And he'll do anything to stop her. Deaths are plotted, twists get serpentine, and it's unclear in the two episodes seen by critics just who the bad and/or good guy might be between these two heavyweights.

Close and Danson have no scenes together in the riveting debut hour, but "that's something the whole season is building up to," series co-creator Todd Kessler ("The Sopranos") told TV critics at the fall-season press tour in Beverly Hills. "We're brick by brick building the expectation of that to come later in the [13-episode] season."

He describes "Damages" as "a thriller in the legal genre," where viewers are presented with both a murder mystery and the fallout of what co-creator Daniel Zelman ("The Inside") calls "power dynamics." Zelman says "power becomes a tremendous burden, and it can force people to do compromising things. We're interested in them discovering for themselves what they're willing to do and not willing to do."

"I feel very much part of an ensemble," said Close, who first starred for FX in a season of "The Shield" as a tough police lieutenant squaring off with Michael Chiklis' ruthless street detective. "I feel like I did in 'The Shield' that any of these characters could carry an episode on their own," Close said, including young Rose Byrne as a hotshot new legal hire and Tate Donovan as a veteran colleague of Close whom the newcomer fatefully decides to trust.

Close, who lives in New York, is doing the series to stick closer to home with her teenage daughter and to plumb the depths of a complex character over time. "She knows that she's not a good mother," Close says of another developing plot with the litigator's at-risk teen son, "and I can't wait for that particular storyline. I think she has spawned a child who can give it back to her the way she's given it to everyone else. He's a smart kid, who is already a master manipulator."

The actress says she's used to her work having "a beginning, middle and end, whether it's theater or film or other things I've done in television. The idea of not knowing everything at the beginning can be a challenge. But in some ways, it's very freeing because you just have to live in the moment." Danson agreed yesterday that "knowing a lot about your character is only necessary when the writing sucks." When it's good, as in "Damages," Danson said, "you commit yourself to the writing and you end up discovering who you are."

How do you refresh a show in its fifth season? On "nip/tuck" this fall, creator Ryan Murphy told TV critics today, the plastic surgeons played by Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh [in FX photo above] "go from being big fish in a small pond to exactly the opposite" as they move their practice from Miami to Beverly Hills/Hollywood.

It's where "people come to sort of reinvent themselves and go after their dreams," says Murphy, who claims that's what he did coming out here from Indianapolis and first creating the WB cult fave "Popular" before his current FX hit. He'd originally wanted to set "nip/tuck" in Beverly Hills, "but it seemed a little bit too on-the-nose" as public awareness of showbiz plastic surgery surged, "and I was interested in doing something darker."

Now "nip/tuck" lightens up a bit. A big subplot in this first Hollywood season has the surgeons "get a job as medical consultants on a 'nip/tuck'-like plastic surgery show," Murphy said. "It's called 'Hearts & Scalpels,' and it's kind of the worst medical show that's ever been made. It's run by Oliver Platt, who plays me. In a weird way, it's almost to satirize ourself."

Rosie O'Donnell comes back, too, as uncouth lottery winner (and unlikely lover) Dawn Budge. "She returns in episode 4, and she's doing several episodes this year," Murphy said. A rumored spinoff series with the guest character remains "an ongoing discussion."

But not all happenings are light in Hollyweirdland. Murphy wonders about this sunny playground, "Can you retain your soul when you're surrounded by all these great temptations? From a moral point of view, it's been very interesting to write to."

It's danged hard for any TV show to get a buzz, let alone a number, in the middle of summer, but AMC's forthcoming "Mad Men" is doing just that, and a week before air too.

Here's why: Creator and head writer, Matthew Weiner, who's one of the young masters of the TV universe. Even though he wrote virtually every episode of "Becker" (and not a bad show at all, if memory serves), he was one of the chief creative forces of "The Sopranos," and wrote/co-wrote/scribbled-on-script-margins fully a third of that late lamented masterpiece. Ergo, what Matthew does from here on out is a big deal in the little world of showbiz.

Anyway, I've seen "Mad Men" - about ad men circa 1960 - and it's generally terrific, with a compelling performance from a moody, sexy, smoky, sultry Jon Hamm. ("Providence" fans will remember him as Burt, and "What about Brian" fans as Richard.) Hamm's Don Draper is what might be called a morally/ethically compromised snake oil salesman who knows that he's a morally/ethically compromised snake oil salesman. As such, comparisons with another similarly conflicted character are inevitable - Tony Soprano - though no one will mistake one for the other. Weiner et al do an especially creditable job of recreating the ad game from an historic era – even if at times it all feels a little too broad - but purists will fault the license taken with the creation of the famed Lucky Strikes tagline, "It's Toasted." That's one of the best scenes in the show, by the way, though that famed marketing rascal/genius, George Washington Hill, who masterminded that particularly lethal brand of cancer stick, claims provenance for the line.

Who cares, though? In the dead of summer, this is one show worth taking time out for. Set your TiVos, and go here for a quick preview.

Amidst these dark days at CBS News [see: NY Mag] there finally comes a particularly bright ray of light this morning: The network has grabbed Christopher Isham to become its Washington bureau chief, replacing the well-regarded veteran Janet Leisner, who is retiring. To most viewers this may be no big deal, but Isham was a behind-the-scenes investigative star at ABC News, from whence he comes, and probably network TV's best-known gumshoe after Brian Ross - who is well known to viewers, of course.

Isham and his I-team at ABC News have broken countless stories over the years but the one that comes immediately to mind - pointed out by the CBS press release - was the John Miller interview with Osama Bin Laden in '98. Isham started at ABC in '78, after a spell at NBC News. The appointment is effective early September.

They can announce all the brilliant, deep and profound TV shows they want while we're out here at press tour. We already know what most impresses us.

"Car Talk" takes those wacky automotive mavens Ray and Tom Magliozzi from their laugh-out-loud National Public Radio call-in show into the brave new world of tube animation. We'll have to wait till summer 2008, but just knowing their cartoon selves are on the way gives us reason to smile.

The to-be-titled half-hour series -- they'll be taking suggestions from listeners -- follows the Click and Clack brothers into their fictional Car Talk Plaza garage, where they do their best to goof up and slack off amid a cast of quirky types including fellow mechanics, a receptionist and an eager-beaver radio producer.

Making the announcement, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger told critics, " It will be unlike anything you've ever seen before on PBS." Guess so, unless "Masterpiece Theatre" also employs a Russian chauffeur named Pikop Andropoff.

Yes, the Fox News business channel - now named the Fox Business Network - will be on a New York cable outlet this fall, but still no word yet on whether deals have been reached with Cablevision.

And there you have it: The big news out of this afternoon's announcement that the Fox Business Network will go forward, as expected, in mid-October. Official start date: October 15.

This is, of course, an interesting development for any number of reasons - notwithstanding Rupert Murdoch's bid to purchase the Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones. With an official name and start date now in hand, does this mean Rupe thinks he's got the Journal? FNC's biz channel was - or is - expected to exploit the many resources of Dow Jones, assuming News Corp.'s $5 billion bid succeeds. (Naturally, Murdoch may also think the Journal deal - now under pressure from a pair of white knights - is kaput, so he wants to put a happy face on the new biz network.)

Fox had earlier announced that it had secured 30 million subscribers; there's no magic to the number, and it still pales in comparison to rival CNBC's 90-million-plus subscriber base. Nevertheless, it does suggest that the new channel has some traction in the brutally tough cable world, where space remains at a premium even in the digital era. The new network will appear on Time Warner systems throughout New York City, per a spokeswoman, who added that deals with Comcast, Charter and DirecTV were also secured. (No surprise with DirecTV, which is owned by News Corp.; unclear how many of the 30 million subs will be DTV ones.)

Those with long memories will recall that T W initially rebuffed Fox News Channel way back in '96, igniting a ferocious legal battle between News Corp. and CNN's parent that ultimately engulfed then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani and - quite colorfully - Ted Turner who called Murdoch all sorts of amusing names. (FNC, by the way, launched with seventeen million subscribers.)

“We are excited to introduce the Fox Business Network into the financial news arena and look forward to growing our subscriber base to develop a competitive network in the coming years,” said Fox Biz Network boss, Kevin Magee.

"I'm very Jewish," says comedy legend Carl Reiner, creator of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and the sidekick interviewer of Mel Brooks' classic 1960s comedy character The 2,000 Year Old Man -- one of mainstream entertainment's first big "Jewish-sounding" characters.

"But I'm an atheist Jew," Reiner said today during PBS' press tour. "And that shocks a lot of people."

So, it seems, will "The Jewish Americans," a six-hour, three-part history debuting on PBS in January. Producer David Grubin said at the production's press conference that most people seem to think of the American Jewish experience as starting with 1880s immigration to Manhattan's Lower East Side. "Most people don't know this is a 350-year-old history," Grubin said. "Jews first came here in 1654." They were part of the nation's westward migration, the project explains, and Jews in the south "had slaves like other Southerners," Grubin said. "It's a series that shows all sides of the Jewish experience, warts and all. What you see in our film is that there are many ways of being Jewish in America."

And "America has absorbed much of what it means to be Jewish," said executive producer Jay Sanderson. Singer-actor Mandy Patinkin explains in the film that a tune as all-American as Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" is "a Yiddish song. You can hear the shtetl." (Patinkin was supposed to be at the session, but called in sick.) Reiner told critics he thought so many Yiddish/Hebrew words had crept into Americans' vocabulary -- chutzpah, for instance -- "because it has a funny sound to it. There's an onomato-poetic silliness to them."

"It's these last 50 years that have made the difference," said Grubin. After World War II, early television spread Jewish-influenced New York urban entertainment across the country, and, Reiner says in the film, Jews finally felt comfortable "making fun of their own accent" in routines like The 2,000 Year Old Man. He and Brooks had been doing that particular shtick (another Yiddish word) at New York parties for 10 years before they felt comfortable enough to commit it to a (soon-to-be bestselling) LP record. Grubin says "The Jewish Americans" is "the story of how a tiny minority made their way into the mainstream of American life."

Crt tv's nw nm is so bd that it mkes me LOL.

Have you heard it yet - that is, the new name for Court TV whose bosses announced back in March that they were gonna slap a new schedule and format on the old bird as well?

Drumroll....

It's truTV.

What is it about the word "tru" that bugs me? Oh, yes - it's not a word! Never was. Never will be. It means nothing - least of all "true" which has an "e" on the end of "tru" and which actually does mean something.

Here's what the press release reads:

"Through a dynamic original programming line-up that has been providing the network with strong and consistent audience growth, truTV will target a highly coveted psychographic known as 'Real Engagers.'”

What the hell's a "real engager?" He's real - I'm pretty certain of that - and he engages stuff. That seems self evident, too. Beyond that, I haven't got a clue.

Maybe these real engagers will engage with Star Jones' new talk show or a primetime one - to be launched as part of the new name/line-up in January - called "Bounty Girls." Now THERE"S a name I can get my head around. This one will feature "four tough, smart, beautiful and diverse female professionals on the hunt for some of Miami’s most dangerous fugitives." And if the engagers have trouble engaging with "Bounty Girls" - and I can't imagine why anyone would - then there's always newcomer "Outlaw Chasers," about a couple of storm chaser dudes whose dream is to film the inside of a tornado but not get, like, killed (Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt in the final scene of "Twister" - remember?)

Okay, I'm engaged. Now, about that nme...

Dateline: BEVERLY HILLS

When you walk into a Hollywood-area hotel and the first thing you see in the lobby is Tim Conway – or a buff athlete standing there on two exposed high-tech artificial legs – you gotta figure you're back at press tour.

This is why we love TV. It gives us everything. (And Tony Orlando.)

The Television Critics Association brings together disparities like that twice a year, as members gather for a couple of weeks to preview what's hot (or not) in future months all over the tube.

PBS is kicking things off this go-round with two days (Tuesday-Wednesday) of press conferences for documentaries, Jane Austen adaptations, the inevitable Ken Burns, "The Jewish Americans," and a dash of showbiz, too. Conway was here, along with Orlando, Betty White and some other vintage entertainers, to talk about public TV's ongoing "Pioneers of Television" series.

Carl Reiner and Mandy Patinkin arrive shortly for "The Jewish Americans," a January study of, well, Jewish life in America. Burns does lunch for his September-starting opus, "The War," about, as Archie Bunker would say, The Big One. And Carol Burnett closes out the afternoon today as one of PBS' latest "American Masters."

So stay tuned. We'll be right back . . .

So you wake up this morning to belatedly find out that Michael Moore had it again at CNN's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta last night, and feel a sense of remorse - because in this, our summer of discontent, the only things that pass for entertainment are Paris Hilton and Moore's rip of CNN on Monday?

Well, not to worry: Last night's "Larry King Live" face-off was a tea party, with the only things absent being teacups and extended pinkies. It was polite, gentle, and so knotted with facts and pointed discussions on France's health care system that I nearly fell asleep, and am fairly certain that Larry did too.

But last night has got me to thinking: Michael Moore is a lot more like Roger Ailes than anyone – including Roger Ailes and Michael Moore – realizes. Both are bomb-throwers. Both are from the Midwest. Both are shrewd manipulators of the media beast. Both were born in spring months. Both hate CNN. But here’s additional evidence: As media adviser to George H.W.Bush back in '88, Ailes coached the candidate to get off this indelible shot to Dan Rather during that live interview: "I want to talk about why I want to be president…And I don't think it's fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran [Contra]. How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set…” Dan got mad, Bush got even, and from there, Bush’s polls soared and Rather's ratings sank. A little later, one guy's son becomes president. The other guy gets replaced by Katie Couric.

Now this from Mike to Wolf Blitzer on Monday’s “Situation Room:” “You're the ones who are fudging the facts. You've fudged the facts to the American people now for I don't know how long about this issue, about the war, and I'm just curious, when are you going to just stand there and apologize to the American people for not bringing the truth to them that isn't sponsored by some major corporation?"

LIKE IT WAS CNN"S FAULT WE GOT INTO THIS MESS. Brilliant diversionary tactic, and it actually took attention away from all the points - certainly some of them reasonable ones - that Gupta raised in set-up piece Monday which ignited Mad Mike in the first place (points, incidentally, also raised in other forums, like The New Yorker, which carries pharmaceutical ads, too, so what does it know?)

Anyway, this should definitely help “Sicko’s” box office.

Separated at birth?

"Nova ScienceNOW" - that terrific PBS science series with the less-than-terrific name - returned last week, but if you happened to miss the premiere, then tonight's a fine place to start. This episode has what may be the single best overview of the CERN project in Switzerland - you know, that Large Hadron Collider thingie that starts up next spring - that I've ever seen. Which really doesn't say much, does it? The what? The who? The where? The why? It's important stuff - lemme tell you - but don't ask me to explain. Let "Nova" correspondent Dave Wark do the honors and he does them so very well. Wark - like this show and like superlative viewer-friendly astrophysicist/host extraordinaire Neil deGrasse Tyson - never talks down to viewers, but OVER to them. The approach to subjects is often humorous, always warm, never over-bearing, and always informative. It's a journey, and "ScienceNOW" is so skillfully produced that we actually want to reach the end of it. Show is great for kids, adults alike. Other stuff explored on tonight's edition: sleep; something called "emergence," and a profile of archaeologist Julie Schablitsky.
Must watch or must avoid: A definite winner. Can't go wrong here. WNET/13 at 8.

Always wondered what Joey Fatone would do after *NSYNC, and then "Dancing with the Stars" near-triumph, but I wonder no longer: He's MC of a new game show called "The Singing Bee" which features "dancing bees" (“The Honeybees”) and some fatally bad singing. Normally a comedown, big time, except that "Bee" has its charms and should be a real draw for anyone who lives/breathes/sleeps karaoke. "Bee's" a standard-format gamer: Fatone roams the audience, picks out contestants (presumably at random) then pulls them on stage. "You don't have to have great voices," he says redundantly. But reasonably good memories, and an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music, circa 1970-2000. They're then pared down through a handful of rounds. Example: The house band runs through a song, then stops and said contestant has to finish the lyric. Etc. Etc. Final round is a three-strike-you're-out one, where contestant’s got to complete lyrics for a bunch of very very well known songs. But get just one word wrong and you're history. Get words exactly right, and the winner leaves with $50,000.
Must watch or must-avoid: A crowd-pleaser for a very specific crowd, namely one comprised of a few million people who have been stuck in traffic lines the last few decades and know every word to ever song on every radio station that's ever played a contemporary, Jack, or AOR format. But that's fine. You know who you are, and what you'll be doing tonight. (WNBC/4 at 9:30). Problem with the show is indeed the voices - painfully off-key, or flat, and (per rules of the game), unless contestant gets EACH AND EVERY SYLLABLE EXACTLY RIGHT then he or she doesn’t make it to the next round. That's a lot of bad repeat singing. Bring earplugs.

Buzz, buzz. (Courtesy MSNBC.)

You know what I really miss -- and they ain't coming back -- are summer replacement shows.

These were shows that literally took the place of an established program while it took off the summer. A quaint TV institution that has vanished in favor of an avalanche of cheap and increasingly dumber reality shows. I'm not bitter, right?

Because I don't wan't to watch "American Inventor," starting today, Boomer Tube will take a look back at some of the most memorable summer replacement shows.

Lets set the wayback machine for the summer of 1968 and tune into “The Summer Brothers Smothers Show.”

That groovy title was no doubt thought up by some sideburned, Nehru-jacketed exec at CBS for the Glenn Campbell show that took the place of the variety-comedy hour hosted by the Bad Boys of CBS Tom and Dick Smothers.

To keep the connection going between the two shows, “Smothers” regular deadpan comic Pat Paulsen appeared here each Sunday night — and why not? He was, famously, running for President. He lost, btw, to Richard Nixon.

Also on the show, “Smothers” head writer Mason Williams debuted his instrumental hit “Classical Gas,” which he touts here as the first-ever music video.

Campbell was so successful that he got his own CBS show a few seasons later. Check out this clip from "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" in which Glen grooves with Stevie Wonder.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SUMMER REPLACEMENT SHOW? POST A COMMENT HERE

What does a sports channel do when it loses the rights to sports? Left without either the Yankees (now on their own YES channel) or the Mets (SNY cable), MSG Network has turned to its namesake arena to fill the summer schedule.

Madison Square Garden events are all over the venerable cabler, in vintage wrestling highlights (“WWE at The Garden”), classic boxing matches (“Golden Gloves Classics”), current New York Liberty games, and compilations like “The 50 Greatest Moments at Madison Square Garden” (repeating Saturdays 2:30-6:30 p.m.).

But our favorite solution is music. The "MSG Concert Series" is back this Friday, July 13 at 8 p.m. with O.A.R.’s Garden performance of last Jan. 27 [MSG photo above]. It’s preceded at 7 by MSG’s musicfest “The Jammys.” Upcoming “Concert Series” acts include Dashboard Confessional (July 27).

Of course we may have a new fave as of July 29. That’s when MSG launches (we can’t wait) ’70s-vintage “Roller Derby”! May we suggest an accompanying screening of Raquel Welch’s classic flick “Kansas City Bomber”? (Enjoy the trailer here.)

Kevin Reilly's back in the game - though heaven knows, after his recent exit at NBC, one wonders why. Fox Broadcasting this afternoon said he's coming aboard as president of entertainment.

Reilly - I should add, Long Island's own Kevin Reilly - did a terrific job at NBC and for his trouble got shown the door last month. In his new gig, he'll report to former colleague at FX, Peter Liguori, who was upped to chairman of FBCE. All this, by the way, was predicted in Variety late last week.

Here's the canned quote from the press release:

“The television industry has changed more in the last five years than in the past 20,” said [Peter] Chernin [News Corp prez]. “We need to be structured in a way that puts us in the best position take advantage of the myriad new opportunities digital technology has afforded the broadcast television business. When Peter Liguori approached me with the idea of re-teaming with Kevin Reilly, I thought it was a bold move to redefine the structure of the network behind a pair of dynamic executives who have a proven track record of advancing the medium.”

Nice quote and I'm fairly certain it means nothing. But who cares? Fact is, Reilly is a genuine talent who catapulted NBC's Thursday back to its rightful place (ratings may come in time), did a lot of other good things there, and who is one of the brightest guys in the business. FBC is lucky to have him.

Kev's looking good! And "American Idol's" got his back.

Okay, I'll give you a couple options on the Katie Couric slapping (ooooh that HURTS!) saga. You can either read Joe Hagan's solid opus in New York Mag (nymag.com) or you can read my read of various outtakes. Why is the latter preferable? Because mine'll only take 30 seconds to absorb and you better set aside 30 minutes for Joe's.

So here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to pull some copy from the NY Mag piece, and then give you my two cents on why it's important, and what it may mean/portend.

Let's start with...

"60 MINUTES"

"The shift to a more traditional format clearly left Couric with some job dissatisfaction. Now that her interviews were being cut, she found herself having to fight for airtime in a way she hadn’t had to since her rookie days in Washington. According to Nicolla Hewitt, Couric’s longtime producer and 'really, really close friend' (whom Couric personally authorized to speak for this story), the network began to renege on its promises and stopped giving Couric the support she needed to pursue news or command the news division. Management 'nickel and dimed' her on ambitious enterprise stories and deferred to what Hewitt called the 'old guard' at '60 Minutes' on interviews that belonged to Couric. ‘They do more to protect the old guard than they do to promote the new face of the network,’ says Hewitt. ‘And it’s completely wrong. It’s time for a younger person there.’”

MY READ: Oh man, with friends like these... I suggest Nicolla check the ages of some prominent "60 Minutes" types - Scott Pelley is Katie's age; Anderson Cooper was born in '67 and Lara Logan in '71. Do these qualify as "younger" types, Nicolla? But this may be the most important segment in the entire 6,000 word piece. Why? Note the words "personally authorized to speak..." This means we are effectively hearing Katie's own words, and she is clearly sending a Katiesque message to "60" chief, Jeff Fager. The message is this: Since I'm going to be joining you full-time after the '08 election, give me that nice office Mike Wallace used to have. “What? He's still in there? Well move him out..."

BOB SCHIEFFER:

"When I bring up the name Bob Schieffer, Couric first affects naïveté, then smiles a knowing smile and says nothing."

MY READ: Katie obviously believes Bob was the leakee to Gail Shister, who wrote/predicted in the Philly Inquirer this spring that Couric would be out of "Evening News" after the elections. Love Hagan's "affects naivete" line. Says it all. But was Bob the real source? Wouldn't it be hilarious if he wasn’t but the real source - and I'm just spitballing here – was Scott Pelley, who will take Katie's place when she leaves for "60 Minutes?"

WHOOPI GOLDBERG:

"’Call me, woman!’ says Couric [at some industry function,] making a phone gesture with her thumb and pinkie. ‘Now that you’re all skinny and ----!’”

"It’s the ‘girlfriend’ Katie, the former Tri-Delt sorority sister at the University of Virginia, the one whose cell-phone ring was recently identified as the Pussycat Dolls’ 'Don’t Cha (Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me),' the one who bonded with American women over cooking and fashion and parenting segments on Today. The one who doesn’t fit the mold of an evening news anchor."

MY READ: Maybe the best part of Hagan's piece - Katie as she really is - and sadly-but-truly the reason why America has not embraced her in her new role, and likely never will. "Making a phone gesture with her thumb and pinkie...??" Where was the air kiss? The "let's do lunch, babe?" Or, "you da bomb, Whoopi!!" And PUSSYCAT DOLLS!!??

“'TODAY SHOW:"

“'I think the show got increasingly soft during my tenure, during the end of it,' she says, referring to the version of the program run by former executive producer Tom Touchet, with whom she often clashed. 'And that’s one of the reasons I wasn’t fulfilled journalistically in the job. Perhaps the most recent memory of me in the eyes of some people is of the softer, fun aspects of the Today show, which I totally enjoyed and I think I did well in, but it wasn’t the whole enchilada for me.'”

MY READ: Another great read-between-the-lines moment. Oh, so it's poor Tom Touchet's fault now, is it? So he's the one that made "Today" so insufferable. YOU had NOTHING to do with it, Katie.

DIET COKE:

"As her friend Hewitt puts it, 'I don’t think CBS was ready for the change they said they were. They bought Diet Coke and turned it into bottled milk. They totally changed the brand.'”

MY READ: There you go again, Nicolla. Let's parse this cliché - Katie was "Diet Coke," or something that has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever, and CBS turned her into "bottled milk" - which you can't even buy anymore, except at Zabar's?
Sometimes it’s best to say nothing at all.


O.HENRY

“'And if I had my druthers, would I have not been on every bus in New York? Especially the ones that almost ran me over, which would be the ultimate modern-day O. Henry story? Yeah.”

MY READ: Katie is conversant in O.Henry? Who knew. Great quote though. Why o' why don't we have more of this type of Katie?

SPUTUM:

"The stress has caused her to blow up at her staff for small infractions on the set. During the tuberculosis story in June, Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested—'sputum'—and the staff grew tense when she began slapping him 'over and over and over again..'"

MY READ: I laughed so hard the tears soaked my shoes. Imagine the scene: Katie slapping this poor guy, harder and harder and harder, until he screams out in pain. He probably still has the bruises. And over what? A word like "sputum." Frankly, I don't blame, Katie. I woulda slugged the guy. ("I'll sputum you, pal...") I think "phlegm" is a much better word anyway. Or hocker.

"EVENING NEWS"

"Couric is realistic enough to imagine that it might not work out in the end. 'If it turns out it wasn’t a perfect fit,' she says, 'then, you know, I’ll do something else that’s really exciting and fulfilling for me.'"

MY READ: A fabulous quote, and proof that Couric has decided that this hasn't worked, and she's looking to the Next Thing. And what will that be....?

"60 MINUTES” AGAIN:

"Jeff Fager, the executive producer of the show, says he can easily imagine Couric working at 60 Minutes full time. 'I could see that, yes,' he says. 'I’m sure she’d probably like to do that some nights.' When I bring up Fager’s comment to Couric, she agrees, ‘Yes, and have a little more of a life.’”

MY READ: It's official. She's going to "60." Now, Jeff, about Mike's office. Not big enough for Katie? Maybe your's might do...

Is the fabulous Ms. Katie "60 Minutes-"bound? Put your money on that one. (Picture courtesy Time.)

Well, I don't know about you, but I feel cooler already after "Live Earth" - though my temperature gauge may be off because I don't live outside Giants Stadium where traffic tie-ups generated so much heat that Infrared monitors on Mars could pick up the radiation. But that's neither here, nor there (nor anywhere): "Live Earth" is history, except that it will now live in perpetuity on MSNBC.com and YouTube. But did it change the world? Did George Bush watch? And what was the deal with that hologram of Al Gore?

Let's talk about that hologram. So as not to expend energy - you know, by riding to concerts in his private jet - Mr. I Used to Be The President presented a hologram speech at concert's outset. It was very weird. He said a lot of stuff about global warming, and planet-saving-initiatives. But here's the point: HE WAS NOT THERE. He was there in three-D - but if you were in Tokyo and threw a rock at him, it would have gone right through him. He wouldn't have even noticed. I couldn't stop thinking about "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" when Chancellor Palpatine occasionally popped up in three-D, and Ian McDiarmid doesn't even look like Mr. I Used to Be the President.

What was the concert like? Well, I don't know about you, but I caught up with most of it via YouTube - all the better to avert the commercial overload on NBC. Of course, NBC promised half the commercial load. But when was the last time you believed a network promise? Ten minutes an hour instead of twenty? So we're supposed to stand up and cheer? Oh bless you NBC - you global-warming-fighting bundle of joy, you.

Fact is - or perhaps misstatement of fact - the concert performances seemed pretty good, and I do hope Sting finds his message in a bottle one of these days. Kanye...Alicia...Beaties Bs...I happened to think Metallica was the high point, but what do I know? Not much really. I liked Rihanna too. Kelly Clarkson? She seems, ummm, shorter on stage. Phil Collins? Umm, him too.

But I'm not a music critic. What do I know? Not much really. So let's go across the pond to a critic for the Daily Telegraph. I liked the pungency of his opinion, which I cut and paste here for your perusal. Take it away, Neil McCormick!

"We know what to expect by now: bands play three songs each; celebrities make speeches; short films illustrate the cause. The portmanteau aspect tends to drain momentum, and with no Bob Geldof figure to drive the event along, Live Earth lacked urgency, emotion or sense of internal narrative. Instead we had Geri Haliwell, chattily complaining about 'this freaky weather.'"

Yeah, Neil. Thanks. But you forgot to mention fewer commercials.

I'm wrong. There's absolutely no resemblance at all. What was I thinking? My sincere apologies to both gentlemen.

CNN investigates the costs of America’s military actions in Iraq this weekend in its report “Battlefield Breakdown” (Saturday and Sunday at 8 and 11 p.m.). The much-hyped documentary was pushed back from its scheduled prime-time debut last week by a new “War Within” report after the attempted U.K. terror attacks.

Correspondent John King tallies costs of $500 billion, more than 3,500 Americans killed (and 25,000 wounded), and “a devastating impact on the readiness of the U.S. Army and the National Guard.” King also examines inadequate planning, rushed training and scarce resources.

Already online: program transcript and audio podcast.

I do love blogs that spark debate (don’t you?) and one that's likely to do exactly that was posted yesterday on the web's best site for all things TV-related, Tvtattle.com. It was by the Wall Street Journal's Jeff Zaslow (in his "Moving On" column) who credited a university prof for blaming Fred Rogers as an instigator of the culture of narcissism. You know this culture - as exemplified by kids who carp about bad grades because Fred told them they were so "special" for so many years. The way this prof sees it is that FR told kids they were special, and that as a result, they figured everything they did was "special" too, and that they should have higher grades than the prof gave them. FR, in other words, made them feel TOO good about themselves.

The cad.

What's wrong with the argument? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But before we pile on Fred – gone a few years now - maybe a little context would help to put this in perspective.

Why did Fred, an ordained minister, get into TV in the first place (he started in the early '50s, as a page at NBC, I believe, then later moved on to Canadian TV)? Because - in his indelible phrase - he "hated it so." Kids' TV by the mid-‘50s was as tsunami of commercialism, where the hosts were pitchmen and even the puppets were, too. Disneyfication was born as well, when ABC pumped millions into Disneyland so Walt could get the park off the ground, and - incidentally - a show to help sell it ("The Mickey Mouse Club"). Almost everything on kids' TV was geared to selling them something (from sugared cereals, first invented in the early ‘50s to take advantage of the new captive audience, to beanie caps) and all Fred said was – ENOUGH! Great Society-type reforms also begat "Sesame Street," which has the same sort of ethos as "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," but in some respects Fred Rogers - even more than Big Bird – was the reigning symbol of the anti-kids'-TV movement.

Why his catch phrase about them being so "special?" Because by the late '60s, divorce had surged, Vietnam had torn the country apart, "latchkey" became a key phrase, and - then - by the '70s and '80s, "self-actualization" had take full hold among many adults, and how, pray tell, could you "self-actualize" if kids where hanging onto you? Kids were thrown in front of the set - a deranged creepy commercialized place which still (nonetheless) had a few really good shows ("The Electric Company") and some really bizarre ones (anything by the Kroffts) and mostly flat-out violent/silly ones.

All poor dear Fred was effectively saying was this: Even though your parents are ignoring you, and the images you see on the TV could turn even a "normal" person into either a zombie or a maniac after prolonged exposure, "you are still special."

"I love you."

That was it. If that made these kids demand higher grades fifteen years later (even when they don’t necessarily deserve them) then perhaps that's the price to pay.

We still love you, Fred. And that big yellow thing, too.

Curious about next week’s new ABC Family college drama “Greek” or Comedy Central’s auto-com “American Body Shop” with former NYC cop/LI comic John DiResta [pictured right]?

Sneak a peek at them by downloading next week’s pilot episodes right now through iTunes. These previews are free, along with tastes of such other current shows as Bravo’s “Hey Paula” docusoap with the “American Idol” judge and LOGO’s “Curl Girls” reality show in the surf. Also still gratis are last spring’s ABC story catch-up clipfests from “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty,” to keep you (almost) current for fall.

Plenty of other tube treats have been added at $1.99 an episode, including Garry Shandling’s acclaimed “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” You can even try out offerings from cable/satellite channels you might not otherwise have access to, including FUEL, Style, Sleuth, the English-language SiTV channel and the bilingual mun2.

Remember you can watch the shows through iTunes on your computer as well as on your iPod. Click on “TV Shows” in the iTunes store box (upper left on the application's home page), then scroll down to click “Free on iTunes.”

"Coma," tonight on HBO at 9, is one of those docs that make each of us thankful for what we have and fearful for what could go wrong (and how very quickly wrong indeed.) It envelops each viewer into the desperation - and desperate hope – into which the family and loved ones of those suffering from various forms of "persistent vegetative state" are immersed. "Coma” follows the stories of four brain trauma victims - Tom, Sean, Al 'Khan, Roxy - for a solid year because "the first year [after an accident] is the critical time for recovery," viewers are informed. Broadcast comes from two particularly fine and thoughtful documentary filmmakers, Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus (most recently, "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib"), who launched this inquiry in the wake of media hysteria over Terry Schiavo. As such, it's one of those "away from the media glare"-type broadcasts that take a granular – and glandular - look at the moment-to-moment reality of someone who has emerged from a coma to something ostensibly much worse - a persistent vegetative or minimally conscious state.

Watch or avoid: Check your emotional pulse tonight before electing to spend an hour and forty-five minutes with this. If you can handle the hard, difficult, depressing slog that this type of exploration (of necessity) must be while holding out for a release, or proof that God works in marvelous and mysterious ways, then this is by all means for you.

Out of Bedrock comes perhaps the coolest July 4 marathon you’ll find -- all 166 episodes of “The Flintstones.”

Cable’s Boomerang channel (the retro Cartoon Network spinoff) lines ’em up in order this Wednesday beginning at 6 a.m. and running through Saturday, July 7 at 5 p.m.

First up is the original Hanna-Barbera pilot, then titled “The Flagstones.”

Get the full episode rundown here.

[Art above courtesy Turner Broadcasting.]

For some folks, the Fourth of July holiday means barbecuing, shooting off firecrackers and a day off from work.

For me, two out of three ain't bad. I don't eat meat and I'm scared of firecrackers. (At least I'll be off from work.)

But what I really look forward to about the Fourth -- besides celebrating the 31st anniversary of the Bicentennial -- is the semiannual "Twilight Zone" marathon the folks at Sci Fi channel graciously provide.

This year, they're really going all out. It kicked things off at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and goes through 4 a.m. on Thursday morning.

That's a lot of Rod Serling -- and I, or rather my VCR, will be loving every minute of it.

Here is the Wednesday schedule.

And if you're looking for a one-stop "Twilight Zone" site, check out Sci-Fi's very own.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE 'TWILIGHT ZONE' EPISODE? POST A COMMENT HERE.