The TV Zone

So long...for now.

Hey, kids, why wait for tomorrow's paper when you can get Uncle Verne's review of Friday's finale right now!

In a word, the show was boffo...

[Oh man, a smart and well informed reader has just told me that Conan will actually originate "TS" from Universal City; I guess I knew that but I just can't bring myself to say "Beautiful Downtown Universal City." So, I'll just leave this the way it is. Thanks anyway, Rick.]

"Warm, funny, gracious, emotional and even muted, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" ended a very good and very long run Friday night. Next stop for the host: Beautiful Downtown Burbank.

As far as fans were concerned, the finale was all they could have hoped for while audience members even left with a memento - chunks of the set which was demolished by the host himself. As there have been all week, clips of classic bits were shown, including one described by O'Brien as his personal favorite - a day of old-time baseball at Old Bethpage Village. Special guests stopped by - they always do at these sorts of things - including Will Ferrell reprising a certain former commander-in-chief; longtime sidekick Andy Richter, who observed, "I TOLD you that you would never last without me;" and the White Stripes singing their old hit, "We’re Going to Be Friends."

You don’t get much more muted than that. David Letterman's last musical guest on "Late Night" was Bruce Springsteen.

Especially gratifying to fans, however, was this promise: "We're going on to this next gig and sometimes people have said, 'it's time [for me] to grow up, and I assure you, that's just not going to happen. This is who I am for better or worse."

What was best, however, about this finale was just how clearly it demonstrated to fans - and a few million doubting Thomases still out there as well - why a relative nobody and former TV scribe with about as much on-air experience as YOU was picked so long ago to replace a legend.

The whole last week of "special" shows also demonstrated how the once-implausible had somehow morphed into the once-unthinkable: On June 1, O'Brien becomes host of the most famous franchise on all of television. How in heaven's name did something like THIS happen? Simply put, he's a nice guy who just happens to be immensely talented and funny. The latter is a given in this job, but the former is not necessarily. On Friday O'Brien offered a long and gracious post-script to the many staffers, band members, on-air support, NBC execs - even his brother Neil - who made "Late Night" such a success over sixteen seasons. Such valedictories are common-place in TV farewells, but not ones that stretch for eight minutes and which thank everyone - up to and including the parents - for Making All This Possible.

Conan even teared up when thanking the brilliant if somewhat imperious TV legend Lorne Michaels for choosing him to replace Letterman, and it seems almost redundant to point out that few have ever choked up when thanking Lorne.

But Friday's finale served primarily a reminder, and a bittersweet one at that. New York television has just lost a unique and indelible talent. Let's hope Burbank appreciates the new guy as much as we did."

(Pix: AP)

Did you watch last night's interview on "60 Minutes" with Barack Obama - conducted by Steve Kroft and produced by Michael Radutsky and Frank Devine?

Of course you did, and if you didn't I now offer my two cents - make that four cents. It was a huge TV event, seriously, in so many ways that are so obvious that it almost beggars the reasons for pointing them out, but I do nonetheless. The first black American president - there, on "60 Minutes," the nation's premiere news mag. Get beyond the content of that interview and what news may or may not have been parsed. It was just a stunning event in and of itself; a TV moment where you almost felt the ground move beneath your feet.

Here's my insta-analysis:

* Obama was very good. Of course, you say - he's always that way. . But I felt and maybe you did too that he THOUGHT as he spoke, and that the words he used were not dropped as mere recitations of former campaign promises, but a re-affirmation of those. Whatever you think of the wisdom or lack thereof of some of his stands - say, the closing of Guantanamo, and Kroft's obvious failure of followup (um, where do the prisoners go?) - those positions were stated precisely and intelligently.

* Michelle O was good too. ("Good?" Yes, "60" interviews are to a certain extent performances and as everyone well knows, such interviews can be easily botched.) "The White House was beautiful, awe-inspiring...a great honor to live there." Right answer, when you consider that after Nancy Reagan first walked through, she couldn't plan fast enough to demolish the second floor.

* Delayed gratification on new puppy ("gratification?" Not necessarily the right word when it comes to new puppies.) Yeah, much'll be made semi-seriously of the fact that a new dog isn't coming until maybe in the spring, maybe later. First broken promise!! Oh, puhlease...

* Great night for "60 Minutes," now the only serious news mag left on TV. The Only One. (Really? "20/20" had the bearded lady-man on Friday, will have a famous prostitute this Friday, and next week, closing up sweeps, an exclusive interview with Batboy.) "60" was the most watched program on television week before laset, and will likely do same this week. An "old" warhorse that just keeps on establishing its relevancy.

Grade: A

(Photo: AP)

On Nine Eleven we're supposed to remember the day, now seven years distant, which was the point of this morning's moving ceremonies. But to what extent should we re-live it? There have been many great 9/11 documentaries, but most seem more preoccupied with understanding, if that's possible, or a compilation of what we know, or should know, or still don't know. What's so incredibly unique - and uniquely powerful - about tonight's "102 Minutes that Changed America" on the History Channel (9 p.m.) is that it eschews all of that for something far more visceral and elemental. There is no moment over these 102 minutes that plows the mind any closer to comprehension, but instead, quite the opposite. To watch is to reverse some process that we've all gone through over these last seven years - a process of grudging and painful acceptance and even partial understanding. This program is a knife that scrapes living bone and tissue. It's a hot poker in the belly. So it's entirely up to you whether to watch or not, but to watch does mean re-living the morning. Sorry, but that's a difficult decision you'll have to make on your own.

How do the filmmakers, Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel, accomplish this feat? They've collected raw video footage (much of it amateur) from over a hundred sources, and pieced it together in a way that tracks every second from 8:48 on; they've managed this, one assumes, with the aid of time clocks, but this real-time approach almost tricks the mind into NOT knowing will come next; this pastiche would also seem to promise some sort of Rashomon effect, with a blizzard of different perspectives all adding up to the same truth. But really, the opposite takes place: Yes, everyone had a different story or a different perspective that morning, but what Jacobs and Siskel have done here is to reveal that so many people had a shared perspective as well, where all seemed fused together nearly as one.

There are many many grace notes throughout, so powerful that they will be absorbed into your memory of Nine Eleven, as they have now been into mine: Soft urgent voices in the background...a camera left on the floor, revealing only a pair of dust-covered sneakers, shuffling away...a man saying "Monday Night Football saved my life..." Firemen walking toward the lone tower, grim determination on their faces, knowing that they are going to certain death...The cloud of rolling dust, in the brilliant sunshine, about to engulf the tiny figures fleeing before it...the pigeon that just drops out of the sky...the firemen, again, kicking through piles of paper, looking at the wreckage and you knowing what they know at that exact moment...the little girl pointing and saying, "it's not there any more."

In sum, "102" is a remarkable film. You should watch, really.

Car lover alert: Check out tonight's pretty solid CNBC special, "Saving General Motors" airing at 9. This one's for car lovers (or anyone else worried about the state of a company that so long ago was the tail that wagged the U.S. economy.) But it's chiefly for car lovers because this is a doc on a business channel that isn't all THAT much interested in the biz about cars as it is about the wheels themselves. Plus, this sprawling doc tackles something that's just about as iconic as milk, or at least once was - General Motors. Reported by Phil LeBeau, "Saving" is about GM's struggle for survival - though watch this and you won't get the sense that the situation's as dire as we all seem to think right now. That said, it's reasonably tough in spots though an exceedingly fair-minded (and open-minded) overview of this giant-in-trouble. Only one in five cars sold in the U.S. are now GM-built (down from one half in the '50s), while even that figure is under assault. LeBeau notes, GM's remarkable legacy both "inspires it and cripples it." He's got access to all the top dogs here - including chairman, Rick Wagoner, who puts on a good face, and maybe one that's even justified. (LeBeau explores the megagiant's success in China and eastern Bloc countries because "apparently ex-communists love Chevys." Also good interviews with quality chief Bob Lutz - a great salesman who insists quality has improved and you kinda believe him - and Ed Welburn, chief of global design, who's in charge of designing the new Camaro, out in 2010 (a terrific looking car, BTW; see above.) There's much much more here - crippling gas prices, worker strife, GM's struggle with hybrids, and the new Chevy Volt (in production and due 2010.)

Bottom line: Watch this. Interesting and engrossing.

Grade: B.

What it's about: Those of us who struggle to pay our gas bill always look wistfully to the day when we can pay said bill, but tonight at 10, CNBC takes us into a world where something as picayune as $4.55 per gallon is as momentous as a molecule on a mote of dust on a mite's middle toe.

The world of super duper rich.

This hour begins with a Rolls show, and ends with the stark screen graphic that tells us the average salary is $26,323, but the 400 richest Americans are worth a total $214 billion which is more than the GNP of 149 nations. "Super Rich" is filled with such stats, and after a while they'll drift away from your plain of consciousness, as if they are just more numbers in a sea, nay, universe, of grandiose figures and outsize bank-rolls. Forty-nine thousand households have net worths of between $50 and $500 mill, and 125,000 between $25 and $50 mill. In 1985, there were 13 billionaires from sea to shining sea; now there are more than a thousand.

Millionaires are the mere middle class rich and barely merit inclusion here; this is the rarefied world of wealth, where a billion is a nice pile of peanuts, but you're only really interesting when your pile is up to ten billion. The show - narrated by vet CNBC reporter, David Faber - profiles many of these people and - my suggestion - bring your sunglasses because every one of them seems to have a taste for gold lame.

There's Tim Durham, who confides that it costs 23 grand to change a tire on his Bugatti (he's got 70 cars scattered about, each one worth more than your house, twice over...). There's Glenn Stearns, a poor kid from Maryland now worth - I think I heard the program right - $100 billion. Maybe $100 million. Whatever. There's Anthony Scaramucci, of Manhasset worth only $80 million; he seems like he's almost a pauper in this crowd. These are people who go on vacation to places like Parrot Cay (above) where a lousy room costs two grand a day. Many make their lucre from hedge funds, and in fact, it seems like most do.

Bottom line: David Faber is one of the best financial reporters on TV, maybe the best, as far as I can tell, so you start out with the assumption that this will be a well-told hour that's richly - pun absolutely intended - reported. It is. But like all pornography, wealth pornography starts to wear thin after a while, no matter how skillful or thoughtful the treatment. Faber and his producers, it seems to me, do just about everything right: They offer perspective, talk to the right people (including Ron Chernow, the National Book Award-winning author and biographer of J.P. Morgan), ask the right questions, and provide the requisite beauty shots. But still something is missing, and that is opinion. A subject like this, at a time like this, absolutely demands a moral, or ethical, perspective, which can be summed up in one question: Is such wealth RIGHT? Or does it represent a serious failing on the part of a nation where so very many are struggling each and every minute? Hedge funds? Only the most excoriated financial instrument since Teapot Dome, but most of these people seem to have earned their money this new-fashioned way, by profiting off of others' misfortunes. Is that right? I'm not sure, but I think a question is merited. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, in his Harvard days, used to rail against the paper millionaires who didn't actually make anything. Do THESE people? And if they don't, isn't there a question to be asked, to wit: Is this kind of wealth and iniquity good for the longterm health of the economy and the country?

This hour is fascinating - but I do wish it would have taken another hour to go deeper, and hit harder.

The most bitterly divisive primary campaign in the television age - or at least, my memory - ended last night (hallelujah and praise be) but not mere political fortunes were determined but TV news careers, too. No one in TV news emerged unaffected, or unscathed, by the Hill-Obama bout; 'twas a whack time in TV news, where up became down, and left became right, or vice versa. Here's my handy, off-the-top-of-my-head wrap of what happened to who/what/when these last six months:

Wolf Blitzer: Stood on his feet a total of 5,432 hours (rough estimate)

John King, CNN's doughty political reporter: Got engaged, AND got a new toy ("look ma! you touch the screen and something happens!"); declares it almost as good as "Guitar Hero."

Larry King: Gets new contract.

CNN: Gives Larry King new contract while launching search for his replacement (while denying it is doing latter).

Campbell Brown: Joins CNN, hit with rumors that Katie Couric is going to take over 8 p.m; LK is subjected to KC rumors, too. (Anderson Cooper? So far exempt from said rumors; stood a few thousand hours too.)

Brit Hume: Does not stand (but sits a total of 5,432 hours).

Bill O'Reilly: Becomes a Friend of Hillary (FOH), and so does Fox News.

Chris Matthews: Becomes an Enemy of Hillary (EOH), and so does MSNBC.

Karl Rove: Former media-denounced Bush Darth Vader is embraced, lionized by media (head still shiny.)

Keith Olbermann: Nightly Bush rant, bangs tables during live telecasts, is called crazy by Rupert Murdoch, who once paid him millions to sit on bench for Fox Sports.

Ann Curry: Bungee jumps.

Katie Couric: Loses more ratings.

Matt Lauer: Loses more hair.

Sue Simmons: Screams at Chuck, "what the *&^%$# are you doing?" Gets promotion.

Barbara Walters: Confesses to hot pillow affair with married senator; gets number one best-seller.

Charlie Gibson: During debate, asks Hill and Obama about favorite brand of cereal, if they like new edition of "Grand Theft Auto," whether either has ever used Botox; reviews are unkind.

Tim Russert: Wonders why CNN has given John King a half-million-dollar touch screen, and NBC will only spend twenty-five bucks on chalkboard for HIM.

Bob Schieffer: Gets new contract, deja vu all over again rumors that he'll replace Katie.


"Nightly News," "World News:" They tie; "Evening News" ties with "Noticiero Telemundo."

Morgan "Fu Manchu" Spurlock owes the Big Mac a Big Wet Kiss - a debt of gratitude so great that "debt of gratitude" is kinda pale; he owes his whole damn career to the 'wich that nearly whacked him. In "Supersize Me," he ate so many Macs and consumed so many extra large cokes and absorbed so many large fries smothered in that extra delicious Mac catchup (which I think is a little sweeter AND saltier than Hunt's) that he nearly croaked. Maybe not, but he definitely got fat.

But out of that full-fat experience came a pretty amusing-if-somewhat-fallacious film (really, who's gonna engorge on Macs day after day, week after week?) and now a pretty good series: "30 Days" has its faults, notably poor wife Alex who clearly didn't know what she was in for in this marriage, and Morgan's occasional tendency to focus on Morgan, but otherwise, "30 Days" is good. The conceit: Spend thirty days in a world and/or pursuit that may be otherwise alien, and from this emerges truths about the human condition or (at the very least) Spurlock's tolerance for a lifestyle unbecoming an emerging/or-wouldbe indie prod superstar.

Tonight on the third season premiere, FX at 10: the coal mines of West Virginia, from whence Morgan came (his father made the torque wrenches used in the mines.) Lots of interesting detail here - pillar mining, for example, and the way miners take out a pillar of coal and then the roof collapses - as well as a compassionate look at those who do the hard, very hard, work.

Bottom line: What's best about Spurlock is, in fact, his compassion for his fellow man and woman - never "sympathetic" or paternalistic, but open-hearted and non-judgmental. He comes. He listens. He reports. And - while I'm getting perilously close to sounding like a promotional tag line - he also seems to care. Future editions include 30 days in a wheel chair, animal rights, same sex parenting, "Gun Nation," and life on an Indian reservation. You go, guy.

Yeah, I know "The Real Housewives of New York City" has gotten a ton of pre-launch buzz and (if not mistaken) even received above-the-fold treatment in the New York Times. But watching this (11 p.m., Bravo, seven episodes) series should be an option only for the masochist at heart. "Real Housewives" - oh, right, sure, these well-stocked supercareerists are "housewives," nyuk, nyuk - is the anti-zeitgeist show, soaked in a let-them-eat-cake and aren't-I-FABULOUS tone that will force all but the deeply envious or deeply insecure to the exits. WE are in a recession. THEY are in a perfectly formed, shiny bubble. The juxtaposition isn't just jarring, but obnoxious.

Here we have Alex, Bethenny, Jill, LuAnn, and Ramona, and - if I'm not mistaken - the only thing missing from their absolutely fab and gorgeous ME-ness is a starring role in a TV show.

Now, thanks to Bravo, they've got that too.

Anyone familiar with "The Real Wives" format knows what we're talking about here. But - if memory serves - the "Orange County" babes were a little more randy, or at least a little more reflective of their primetime "Desperate" counterparts. This fivesome of the Upper East East and the East End seem fairly chaste and happily married by comparison, though this impression could change. They lead perfect lives, uncluttered by the frazzle of OUR daily grind. The Hamptons or St. Barts, they muse? (God, it's so hard to make a choice.) They have fabulous husbands, fabulous careers, fabulous children who - nonetheless - assume the role of the Greek Chorus in this fable.

That is: They tell us what's really going on. Says Avery of her mom and friends, "they'll do things that are so unladylike. They're SO embarrassing."

From the mouth of babes.

(Above, our heroines, from left: Ramona, Jill, LuAnn, Bethenny, and Alex.)

CNBC's just-concluded 7 p.m. worldwide market wrap.

I'm sitting in front of the TV set, and I am in a panic. There is no Xanax left - I shake the bottle. Empty! CNBC is on. I need a refill. No Lexapro, Cymbalta, Zoloft, Effexor, Prozac, Paxil, Celexa, Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, BuSpar, Remeron either! This is gonna be long day.

This is also gonna be one of those days when you can pretty well determine exactly what the news on TV will be - what people will be talking about, what TV will be talking about, what the lead story of the nightly news shows will be. Anyone tuned, for example, to "Rachael Ray" this morning will be both wise and dumb - wise because they're missing all this, and dumb because they're missing all this. It's gonna bad, people. BAD! The sky isn't falling. It's fallen. Jim Cramer tells me so.

Yes, there's Jim Cramer on the phone to the CNBC studios. What would a panicky day be without Jim? He's talking about the Fed cut ...too little too late..."they shoulda done this three months ago..." Some Wall Street Journal Reporter's on the screen: Cramer's beating up on him because he miscalled something the Fed did a while ago. Jim is always right. But everyone on CNBC is always right. Also: I've never heard anyone on CNBC say, "I don't know." To utter that phrase on CNBC air must be a fireable offense.

I like Cramer. He's a really smart guy and pretty entertaining. But I also worry about the financial advice of a guy who helps Donald Trump fire people on "Celebrity Apprentice." That's just me, though. Some guy named Bob Doll, vice chairman of investment company called Blackrock, tells viewers "to stop listening to us jabber." Is he talking about Jim?

There are important color schemes at CNBC - you know them almost intuitively. Green is good - the color of money, the color of up arrows. Red is bad - the color of less money, the color of down arrows. There's a lot of red on screen today. This is one of those times when I really wish I still had my old black-and-white TV.

Bottom line: Today is the day, no doubt about it, to watch CNBC. It'll be one of the biggest days in the network's history - no doubt about that either - so forget about that yummy sandwich segment on Rachael. This is the place to be. One wonders, though, just about twenty minutes to the opening bell, how much light will be shed versus how much panic sewn. CNBC, as a general rule, is magnificent at reaction and has almost perfect 20/20 hindsight. Its predictive powers, however, are uneven, to put it mildly. But on days like this, it moves markets and changes history. Meanwhile, some sound investment advice: Buy, buy, buy stocks of pharmaceuticals that make anxiety meds.

(And a quickie P.S.: CNBC just announced that it'll air a two-hour special at 7, just in time for the opening of other markets around the world.)

Courtesy: Sportsillustrated.cnn.com

You don't need to be a baseball fan to know that something remarkable took place at 2 p.m. today.

I mean, in all my years of watching TV - including hundreds of press conferences, breaking news events, speechs, debates and on and on and on - I do believe the Mitchell report presser deserves a special place in the pantheon of News Events. It was packed - beyond imagining - with news: Massive, stadium-shattering news, that sent a perceptible chill through an industry and hundreds of players and millions of fans. Sentence after sentence from George Mitchell was a headline. And not just any old headline, but a hundred-and-ten-point-bold-face-for-crying-out-loud-this-is-astounding-stuff headline.

And the names? Oh my God: Clemens, Pettitte, Mo Vaughn and on and on and on. The faces that MSNBC threw up on screen are more familiar than some of our own relatives. There they stood, accused of the third-most serious crime a ballplayer can be accused of (the first, throwing a game, and second, betting.)

What to say of George Mitchell: Get over the fact that he kind of looks and sounds like Bob Newhart and your realize that his performance was stunning. He's a masterful speaker who talks in iambic pentameter - without rhyming, that is. This senatorial sing-song conveys a sense that he is saying something monumental; in fact, he is, but his style adds even greater gravity.

And in all of this, a final bizarre irony: As Mitchell is laying out one of the biggest sports stories of the young century, the Iowa Democratic debate is on-going. Imagine that! Fox News - foolishly, in my opinion - stuck with the drab debate. MSNBC and many others - wisely - carried Mitchell. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of local stations - with the exception of WNYW/5 - stuck with the soaps. Oh brother. Their viewers missed some history.

Seems churlish to describe tomorrow night's History Channel special, "Baghdad Diary" (at 10) as a bait-and-switch, but a bait-and-switch it is: There's nothing about ABC News’ former anchor Bob Woodruff here, although he hosts and has been the public face on this broadcast for weeks, leading to at least ill-(in)formed impressions (like my own) that he'd have a greater role. He has virtually none at all.

Get past that and there are other problems: Though tracking events that happened a mere four and a half years ago, it feels like ancient history. Hardly irrelevant history - history never is - and hardly uninteresting, given the subject matter, but so much has happened and continues to happen in that tragic country and city that watching these video diaries following the war's outbreak sometimes gives one the impression of looking through a straw at some distant point: You know that a great deal is taking place, or has taken place, beyond your limited scope, and you feel a little slighted that your straw doesn't offer a wider angle view.

"Diaries" never does, never attempts to, and - in fairness – couldn’t possibly, as these "diaries" are based on you-are-there accounts by different people with different perspectives, including NBC cameraman Craig White - who accompanied David Bloom across the desert and, after Bloom's death, went straight into the heart of Baghdad himself - and Fadil Kadom, a 36-year-old Iraqi taxi driver who was given a hand-held videocam by a Norwegian journalist so he would track the movements of ordinary Iraqis at the war's outset.

"BD," as such, has an immediacy that seems ill-placed: This isn't quite history and it isn't quite journalism, but something in between. The footage is occasionally riveting, but it also feels terribly familiar. There are scenes of great carnage and great tragedy - but we've actually seen worse in the intervening years, if that's possible. Maybe we've - maybe I'VE - become spoiled, or maybe I've just become numb, but when you see fields strewn with Iraqi remains or bullets whizzing through a Baghdad underpass, you want to look away, or close your eyes. After all, some of these men you see fighting in "real time" four years ago, may no longer even be alive. The same with the Iraqis. It's all the first act of a terrible tragedy, and we haven't even reached the final act.

If you do decide to sit through this, maybe you'll come away with a couple of other impressions, as I did: Admiration for the courage and professionalism of people like White and Kadom, but (especially) admiration for the average Iraqi citizens and the U.S. soldiers thrown into their midst.

Alison in; Caroline out.

I've always had kind of a soft spot for "The Biggest Loser" and maybe that's because I'm such a fathead. "TBL" offers no recourse for that problem, since it's the other kind of lard that has made this show such a keeper for the Fourth Place Network. And that's a good thing, indeed. Yes, FPN needs "TBL" badly and in fact, after Sunday football and (maybe" "Deal or No Deal") this could become its most reliable performer this season. Tonight's virtually an all-"TBL" night, with the two-hour season opener, and I've gotten a quick look at the premiere.

Fans will love it: Casting's excellent, and there's an everyman/woman quality to these people; they are large but not fantastically obese (the off-season rumor was that this would be the fattest group ever; not so.) They all seem nice - Bryan, David, Neil, Hollie, and so on - and their lifelong struggles with weight seem (and doubtless are) sincere. There's a third team this year, too - the "black team," headed up Jillian Michaels (last season's uber-intense uber-scary uber-noisy "Red Team" trainer). Alison Sweeney's the new host and Caroline Rhea replacement; she’s a former, ummmm, large person and soap queen (“Days of Our Lives”) who rallies our zaftig newcomers out in the Mojave Desert (tonight). Hard to say why she’s better than Rhea but certainly adds a little more sex appeal and a lot more puns (“…the wait is over!!”) Don’t get too fond of anyone: A bunch of people will be sacked even before the two hours are up.

Meanwhile, we've got a pair of LI contestants on tonight's show too - 40-year-old twin brothers Bill and Jim Germanakos. My colleague/editor, Andy Edelstein, blogged about them recently, and here's his description: "Bill, of Lynbrook, is married with three kids and works in medical sales. Jim, of Massapequa, also married with three kids, is a police officer. In his free time, he’s a volunteer firefighter and can be caught singing Sinatra songs at the local Italian bistro. Their goal, according to NBC, is not to become the 'fat twins.'”

But like I said, don't get too fond of anyone just yet...

Yeah, it's a lousy day to premiere a reality show, and pretty much a lousy day to premiere anything, given that most people's thoughts - consciously or subconsciously - are tending to other matters that happened six years ago. But if you've gotta premiere something, "TBL" should do: 6,500 pounds have been shed over the last four seasons and another couple thousand will melt away (painfully) this season. Alone among major reality shows on the Big Four, "TBL" actually has a message most of us need to hear and heed.

Good old WLIW/21 has a hidden little treasure under a rock tonight, so a good thing I've turned over said rock: "Lights! Action! Music!" tonight at 9:30 is a particularly well executed doc about a particularly interesting craft - motion picture composers and their glorious art. "L!A!M!" is less a showcase for the music and more one for the art of composition itself. How do composers actually create the music for a movie? Watch on: There are a lot of interviews with major directors (Francis Ford Coppola) and major composers (John Barry, David Shire, Terence Blanchard) with each explaining why a movie wouldn't be a movie without the stuff you hear. (In a word, music conveys emotion, which is what most people are shopping for when they sit down in front of the screen, according to Coppola.) Here's Elliott Goldenthal ("Interview with a Vampire") on one youthful lesson: "My first [composition] was a porno movie - I was in my teens and, to say the least, it required a lot of music. My first lesson was stay out of the way of the movie. Write stuff that doesn't interfere with what's on screen." Viewers will wonder why their favorite score wasn't included, or at least given greater weight - John Williams' many great scores (for "Star Wars" alone), or the incredibly rich, lush, overripe oeuvre of Erich Korngold, or "On the Waterfront," or "Citizen Kane," or even "Psycho." But you may do well do remember that "L!A!M!" isn't striving for completeness as much as for understanding. And by that standard, it, ummm, scores.
Must watch or must avoid: MW. Definitely.

"Lion" queen Julie Taymor talks about the art of movie music.

Much, much, much has been written and filmed about Hiroshima and Nagasaki though it's tough to think of any of this as comprehensive or - for that matter - as grueling as "White Light/Black Rain." This is as fine a documentary on one specific aspect of the bombings - the survivors - as one could conceivably imagine, until you are told that there are 200,000 still alive today. Fourteen survivors are profiled here, which means "WL/BR" is only scratching the surface. What's best about "White Light/Black Rain" is that it's not an exercise in political finger wagging. That would have led filmmaker Steven Okazaki down a different trail than the one he intended to explore - what actually happened on those two days 62 years ago, and what has happened since. The narratives are clean and direct, and notable for almost an entire absence of emotion or even anguish. This is who we are, and who we were. This is what we saw. "I've come to realize the only reason I'm alive is to tell people what happened," said one woman who was the only student in a school with 620 pupils to survive. And another: "I realized there are two kinds of courage: The courage to die and the courage to live. Me, I chose the courage to live...I still want to live." "White Light" is filled with details so horrific that one struggles with how best to render them in simple prose: The particularly cruel disposition of the bomb, for example, to suck eyeballs out of skulls, or to liquefy human skin. Okazaki's intent is not to horrify but to remind, and you suspect that even he knows that his battle is a losing one. The hibakusha - those who survived the bomb - were discriminated against and still are (they were initially called the "pika dons," or "untouchables”). They are grim and aged reminders of one of the most horrific moments in human history, yet when young kids at a mall in Hiroshima are asked what happened on August 6, 1945, they affect blank stares before finally blurting out, “I don't know... “
Must watch or must avoid: "White Light/Black Rain" is a fascinating and often engrossing film but it is also filled with graphic images and one wonders why on earth HBO would schedule this at 7:30. It's a hard way to spend a night, which is the whole idea, I suppose.

Oscar-winner Steven Okazaki

"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"

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.)

Never been a member of a boy band. Never will be. The world - and I - can be thankful for that. But that doesn’t mean I can (and do) have an opinion on Sean “Diddy” Comb's newest edition of “Making the Band.” (MTV at 8.) It's boring. It’s tired. It’s listless. Two editions in (second one tonight), and what are the major concerns of our would-be Dids? Weight. Cheese sandwiches (grilled variety.) Posture. Sometimes it all feels like a workout video. At other times like a confessional. But the fact remains - this "Band" is bland, and even Diddy - on his very rare appearances - seems blasé. He’s pure been-there-done-that.

And of course, he has been there and done that, which may be the problem. Four editions old, this "Band" features the first all-male one, and the guys do seem like good guys - in awe of Diddy and the fact they are HERE and so is HE (sometimes). There's some celeb judges on hand too (New Edition's Michael Bivens, for one) but they don't seem overly-exercised about the whole spectacle either. So if they aren’t, should viewers be?
(USA Today)

Watch or avoid: Granted, "Band" fans - this show takes time to build, while "MTB 3" did well for MTV and its progeny all-girl "Danity Kane." But tough to carve out the time for "MTB 4;" this edition is for true-blue believers only.

"EXPOSÉ: America's Investigative Reports" is one of those rare - shall we say unprecedented - efforts by TV to chronicle the work done by newspapers, or at least by newspapers' dwindling corps of investigative journalists. It's back tonight (Ch. 13, at 10) - though it really already bowed a couple days ago online, as part of a PBS experiment ("initiative's" too strong a word) to get the program "on the air" even before it's on the air. Ah, the new world of television.

Tonight's show features Carl Prine, a Clark-Kentish figure with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who spent the years in the wake of 9/11 probing chemical plant vulnerability. Prine's a remarkable figure because he not only established how porous chemical plants were but helped initiate legislation to get the plants sealed, so to speak. He later joined the Pennsylvania National Guard and was shipped to Iraq.

Watch or avoid: Most definitely watch. The guy's amazing, and so is his mission, though you may end up wondering - as I did repeatedly - that if the plants are so vulnerable, then why haven't terrorists exploited the weaknesses yet? Also, apparently little has actually been done to prevent attacks on plants, trains, and the like, which forces these unanswered questions, too – is something else wrong, or is Prine’s mission a quixotic one?

Today, I'm starting this little thing - and I do mean little - called New York Minute reviews, that'll basically take a very quick look at some new series that'd otherwise fly under the radar, including your's. Idea here is to throw a spotlight on something worthwhile, or to flag a beast, so that your precious time (or TiVO capacity) isn't wasted. There are about a million new/returning summer series out there, so without further babble, let's float straight over to...

"Live from Abbey Road" (Sundance, 10). This guy's gotten a little bit of advance attention thanks to the clever name; anything with the words "Abbey Road" attached merits a look, I suppose, and this certainly does too. But don't expect some sort of Beatles tie-in, even if AR Studios are hitting their 75th anniversary (the reason for the series in the first place.) Airing over twelve episodes, "LFAR" is a pure music show,
highlighting three first-rate acts per edition (so be sure to check listings to see if your favorite act is on.) Tonight - John Mayer, Richard Ashcroft, Norah Jones - with Snow Patrol, Shawn Colvin, Iron Maiden (!), Dave Matthews, and Muse showing up in the future.
To watch or not watch: Sure! By all means. Nice production, great acts (and again, pick and choose your faves) but the only Beatles tie-in here is the occasional clip interstitials (and umm, it's taped, not "live." Truth in advertising!) Still, this is Abbey Road, after all, the most holy shrine in rock 'n roll history...

"American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals." (CNBC, 10.) Ah, now there's a title to get the blood racing - plus it's alliterative, whatever that means. You're probably sick (and tired) of all big league network investigation-type stories that promise the moon and deliver Paris Hilton. This CNBC series "examines the dark side of the American dream" (Paris Hilton?!) and starts off with a look at a real-life scam artiste named Barry Hunt who rolls innocent (and greedy) by-standers with promises of instant wealth. Instead, he's a master check kiter and Ponzi scheme crook - and a garden variety one at that. What's amazing is his marks' gullibility along with the fact that he's a dead ringer for Ned Beatty (but thankfully is not.) He also looks a lot like John Locke's crooked father in "Lost"... Tonight also has a fascinating story on a Maxwell Parrish art heist in L.A. – how the crooks tripped an alarm over and over until even the cops ignored it.
To watch or not watch: I say yes - give it a try. It tells its stories well, and offers a moral to boot (that which glitters is not necessarily gold, and greed is not, repeat not, good, even if this is CNBC).

In this not entirely flattering shot, Stace looks a little like the bad guy in the first story on tonight's "American Greed;" do not be fooled - Keach only narrates and, as usual, does a fine job as well.