Two sad deaths this week - Tony Award winners Ron Silver and Natasha Richardson.

I loved Silver on The West Wing

Silver, who was 62, was buried Wednesday after a two year battle with esophageal cancer. Ed Rollins remembers him here.

Here's Richardson and husband Liam Neason talking about Eugene O'Neil.

She was just 45.

Best reason to watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon so far?

The Roots.

The Village Voice has one-upped the viral audio clips of Barack Obama reading hilariously out-of-character phrases from his books.

Their entry: Bill O'Reilly reading passages from his creepy, hilariously bad thriller novel Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder.

The Voice writes that the 1998 book is "about an O'Reilly-esque TV journalist who is trained by an Irish Republican Army terrorist to kill the people who deserve it the most: the broadcast news bastards who interfered with the O'Reilly character's career. It's personal on the political level, too -- his victims include a powerful 'bitch' named Hillary and a fat 'slob' named Martin Moore."

Some are shocked that O'Reilly -- a self-styled moral arbiter who has criticized the coarse language, sex and violence in movies, on television and in pop music -- produced a novel full of coarse language, sex, violence and sexual violence.

Those people have got to be kidding, right?

Anyway -- the audio clips are pretty priceless. They include (among many others) O'Reilly voicing a crack dealer who says to his underage girlfriends:

"Say baby, put down that pipe and get my pipe up."

"Off with those pants."

It has been said, and I have to agree, that it will probably be a matter of hours before we're seeing dance remixes of this stuff in the wild.

In case you missed it: Neil Gaiman (Sandman, American Gods) appeared on The Colbert Report last night to promote his new children's book, The Graveyard Book.

The book's out tomorrow, and I may now have to read it. You should too.

I love a good detective show.

I love a quirky detective show.

I especially love a good, quirky detective show.

But with Pushing Daisies and Life on Mars canceled out from under me, The Mentalist really failing to live up to its initial potential and Lie to Me beginning to feel like little more than a good premise I am getting a little discouraged with the genre.

But not so fast! Now comes Castle, a detective show about (wait for it...) an eccentric writer who helps the police solve crimes! Starring Nathan Fillion of Firefly and Dr. Horrible Fame!

Check out the first 13 minutes.

What do we think?

You can't make this stuff up.

Just in time for the reboot of the film series, the new collection from Genki Wear will begin with three scents:

Tiberius (Captain Kirk's middle name)

Red Shirt (from the uniforms of low-level, often doomed crew members in the original series).

And...well...Pon Farr, folks. Pon Farr.

Wait, wait, wait...

The Green Hornet movie, written by and starring Seth Rogan, is now going to be directed by Michel Gondry?

Somebody's punking me, right?

You may remember The Green Hornet from the 1960s TV show - straighter than its campy cousin Batman and featuring Bruce Lee as loyal chauffeur and sidekick Kato.

But the property's been around since the 1930s, when it was a hit on the radio.

I'm a little worried that like fellow radio heroes The Shadow and Doc Savage, this update's going fail. But with a script by Rogan directed by Gondry it may be so gloriously strange that I have to see it anyway.

This could be really funny! I think he's going to be in the Kenny Mayne awkward vein, though, if the history of geeks on this show proves true.

My early pick without doing any reading or knowing some of these people would be Shawn Johnson (limber and lots of stamina, although her short and stocky build could work against her -- Nastia Liukin might have been a better choice) or Chuck Wicks, who is dating and dancing with Julianne Hough (I have a feeling she wouldn't have danced with him unless he had some rhythm, and she makes her partners much better than most).

The complete lineup for the eighth season of Dancing With the Stars, premiering March 9 on ABC:

• Belinda Carlisle, 50, singer
• Stephen "Steve-O" Glover, 34, reality-TV star
• David Alan Grier, 53, comedian
• Shawn Johnson, 17, Olympic gymnast
• Jewel Kilcher, 34, singer, TV personality
• Lil' Kim, 33, rapper
• Gilles Marini, 33, actor
• Ty Murray, 39, former rodeo cowboy
• Nancy O'Dell, 42, entertainment anchor (43 when the show starts)
• Denise Richards, 37, actress
• Lawrence Taylor, 50, retired NFL player
• Chuck Wicks, 29, singer
• Steve Wozniak, 58, technology billionaire

Variety reports that MTV will launch 16 new reality TV shows -- this time a little more cuddly than what we might be used to.

"Our new shows will feature themes of affirmation and accomplishment," says Brian Graden, prez of entertainment at MTV Networks music channels and president of Logo. "Our shows are going to focus less on loud and silly hooks and more on young people proving themselves. These are themes that are consistent with the Obama generation."

I'll be interested to see what comes of this new direction. MTV pioneered reality television with The Real World a generation ago. But the earnest exploration of people trying to understand each other's world view has mostly been replaced by binge-drinking, boob-flashing partiers. I can only watch so many fist fights and fake interventions. That's so 1999, Real World: Hawaii-style.

Graden may be on to something with this new affirmation approach. I prefer shows like MADE, which helps a teenager transform into whatever they want to be. They've turned sissies into BMXers, geeks into beauty queens, fatties into models. It's a nice and seemingly -- for reality TV anyway -- genuine take on the makeover show.

Now let's see if shows like that can really draw an audience.

If you're anything like me then TV Christmas specials are one of the highlights of your holiday season. Not just seasonal favorites like How The Grinch Stole Christmas but the holiday episodes of your favorite shows.

WFMU's website has posted a list of classic TV Christmas specials and where you can see them online for free.

The list is terrific and has everything from I Love Lucy's 1956 Christmas special to The Jeffersons Christmas specials from 1976-1978. In between: Andy Griffith, The Brady Bunch, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, The Twilight Zone, Taxi, Sesame Street and even The Price is Right.

One of my personal favorites: the 1978 Taxi Christmas special.

Negotiations between the Obama campaign and ABC have broken down and they will be the only major network not airing the half hour Obama spot on Wednesday. Instead, Pushing Daisies will air at its regular time.

The network is now telling viewers they "have a choice" on Wednesday night...

I love Pushing Daisies -- but my choice? I'll DVR it.

Saturday Night Live's sketch on the Obama program has been on a constant loop in my head for days...

Richard Dreyfuss, who plays Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's "W." biopic, slammed the movie in an appearance on "The View."

He called it "6/8ths of a great film" and said he was disappointed Stone didn't come to some conclusion at the end -- a common criticism so far. He also compared working under Stone to working under Sean Hannity.

Which Stone's gotta love.

Tonight's the premiere of the new Christian Slater spy/split personality show "My Own Worst Enemy." It's on at 10 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

Being a sucker for espionage, I can't wait to see if this ends up being terrific or a spectacular bomb.

How did I never see this clip of Jerry Seinfeld saying what I've always wanted to say to Larry King?

King seems never to know anything about his guests or what they do -- even the big ones. He hides behind this "Well, I'm just asking questions the viewers may not know" thing, but it's patently obvious that he just does little or no prep for most interviews.

Watching this is glorious.

Reader Brad K. sends an item about the AFP Photo service running a picture of Tina Fey as an actual picture of Sarah Palin.

Oops.

Yesterday, during a session with college journalists from around the state over at A&T, N&R editor John Robinson asked the students:

"How many of you heard Sarah Palin say that she could see Russia from her house?"

A number of hands were raised as the students laughed.

"And how many of you know that she didn't actually say that?" he then asked. "That it was Tina Fey playing her on SNL?"

Hands went down and there was some nervous chatter.

She is damned good...

If you didn't catch David Letterman's McCain rant last night, check it out here.

Dave and McCain are old friends -- the candidate announced his presidential run on Dave's show. But McCain apparently said he had to skip Dave's show to go to Washington, then sat down with Katie Couric. That and McCain's announcing he would "suspend" his campaign was too much for Dave.

This is the single best thing I've ever seen on an awards show. I adore Josh Groban for this!

(If this gets taken down, just search for Josh Groban Emmys on YouTube.)

Have you seen these new "I'm a PC" ads that Microsoft has out there as a counter-punch to the popular "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" Mac ads?

Yeah. Apparently, they were made on a Mac.

That's how I like my irony, baby -- nice and stinging.

It's Web Junkie Wednesday, and as the new television season is about to begin, I thought we could talk TV online.

By now, you should know about Hulu - the game changing Web site that legally streams a number of old and new TV shows and movies for free, at your convenience, no downloads necessary.

But like YouTube before it, Hulu has pushed networks to start posting their shows on their own Web sites - in higher def, with minimal ads and streaming whenever you like.

This season there are a number of networks posting their shows' season premieres before they actually hit the TV. Among them:

Showtime is allowing viewers to see this season's first episodes of hit shows Dexter and Californication now well before their Sept. 28 premieres.

But if explicit shows about serial killers and drunk, masochistic writers aren't your bag, NBC may have what you want.

Right now you can see the premiere of the new Knight Rider revival and this season's first episode of Lipstick Jungle ahead of their Sept 24th premieres.

Next week the network will let you watch the season premieres of Life, Chuck and 30 Rock before they hit the airwaves as well.

The writer's strike threw a monkey wrench in America's TV viewing this year, cutting the season short for a number of shows and leaving many plotlines dangling. For some shows, it feels like so long since there's been a new episode that it's hard to remember all those loose ends.

Luckily, a number of good TV shows are out on DVD this week, just before their second seasons premiere. Here are a few that are worth catching up on:

Pushing Daisies, Season 1

This weird little show about a pie-maker who can bring back the dead wth a touch of his finger (and re-dead them as long as he does it right away) is easily one of the most charming on network television. The production is positively Burton-esque and the script somehow splits the difference between J.K. Rowling and Wes Anderson (with Harry Potter audio-book narrator Jim Dale doing voice-overs for a little extra atmosphere). Bonus: the lovely Kristin Chenoweth as a waitress who pines for the piemaker and has a penchant for low-cut tops. Unfortunately, there were only nine episodes in the first season -- and we were left seriously hanging. But those nine episodes plus the extras on this DVD set make the package well worthwhile. Catch up before the new season debuts October 1.

Torchwood: The Complete Second Season

This Doctor Who spinoff really hit its stride in the second season. It's sort of an English X-Files meets NCIS -- a little darker and more consistent in tone than the show that spawned it, the second season saw some interesting crossover between the two shows at the same time that its own universe really took off. The revelations about (and fate-tempting adventures of) the immortal, bisexual Captain Jack Harkness are worth boning up on before the third season debuts next week in 2009.

Chuck: The Complete First Season

Take one average computer geek. Download a bunch of top-secret government knowledge into his head. Add a sexy spy girl and constant danger. Shake well and enjoy.

Criminal Minds: The Complete Third Season

When star Mandy Patinkin left this show about FBI profilers, some predicted it wasn't long for this world. But Joe Montegna stepped in for the third season and fans gave him a chance. Catch up on his entrance before the fourth season kicks off.

For their 25th anniversary, they've re-issued the G.I. Joe guys of my childhood just as they were when I hung them with nooses made of yarn, buried them in tin Band-Aid boxes and sunk them in the bathtub, their ankles weighted with a stack of pennies.

They're like little plastic time machines.

This one, the Native American soldier "Spirit Iron-Knife" (swear to God), comes with an eagle. An effing eagle!

Well, the first episode of the new 90210 is now television history -- and it's one for the books.

(First episode spoilers after the jump...)

...yeah, I'm ashamed of myself for that one too.

But as many of you are no doubt aware one of my generation's defining television melodramas is being resurrected tonight at 8 p.m.

That's right - Beverly Hills, 90210. Like a bizarre zombie stripper, its been resurrected to shake its old, dead ass for a sweaty fistful of dollars. On the CW.

What we remember:

The new look:

This is the show that gave us the outrageous teenage soap opera long before teachers were bedding students on Dawson's Creek, young girls were doing Maxim photo shoots on One Tree Hill or parents were doing coke on Gossip Girl.

It was a magical show full of characters who were unlike anyone we'd actually meet in high school, played by actors who were far too old to be there anyway. They faced problems that were ripped from the headlines and pumped full of steroids until they were almost completely unrecognizable as anything relevant to the lives of its young audience -- and oh, how we loved it.

As you quiver with anticipation or revulsion for the first episode of the re-make, I bring you links to tide you over:

USA Today has an interview with Shannon Doherty, the wide-eyed teen who moved to Beverly Hills 18 years ago, stole our hearts and eventually became such an awful shrew no one wanted to work with her. She's chilled out a bit since then, apparently. Better living through chemistry.

There's also a West Beverly High yearbook to get you up to speed on all the characters and actors. So that you don't actually have to watch the show or follow the story.

The New York Times has done a giant oral history (pun not mine but probably intended) of the original show. The lede suggests that some regard Brenda losing her virginity to Dylan as a defining moment of the 1990s. Which, sadly, I cannot refute.

And if you missed the original series or just barely remember it, you can catch up with streaming episodes online at CBS' site for the old show.

As I cannot think of even one television show that has ever been successfully revamped with a new cast under the same name, I'm predicting a crash and burn. Which would, no doubt, please all of us who watched the original to no end. Both because we are bitter and heartless and because we realize the culture has moved so far beyond being scandalized by "Are they gonna do it?! Is she pregnant?! Did he drink and drive?!?" that this iteration of the show will almost certainly seem like just another in a sea of teen exploitation dramas.

What do you guys think?

It may also be worth mentioning that the chants of "eight is enough" that we heard at the Obama acceptance speech last night were previously heard on The West Wing, hurled by a Republican presidential candidate at the Bartlet administration.

It was mentioned on another blog that there was a similarity between Obama's saying John McCain "didn't get it" and a line from Michael Douglas' President Shepherd in The American President, written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin.

That line, aimed at Richard Dreyfus' Republican candidate in the movie, is actually "Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it."

Life imitates art imitating life.

In an interview in this month's GQ, Sorkin says he digs Obama.

From the Q&A:

"The first time I met Barack Obama—I should say the only time I’ve met Barack Obama—was a year ago, when he was doing fifty-person-cocktail-party fund-raisers. He flattered me by saying, “My intention is to steal a lot of your lines.” My prediction is he’s just going to blow the doors off the place in Denver. This is a man who—the Jeremiah Wright of it all aside—was clearly paying attention in church. I don’t need to tell you that I’m a big fan of oratory. A big part of leadership is the goose-bump experience. We’ve been missing that."

David Duchovony has apparently entered a clinic for sex addiction.

He's been married to Tea Leoni for a decade and has two children, so no F*%&s Mulder jokes or anything just...wow. That's sad.

The former X-Files star recently starred in the Showtime series Californication -- in which he played...well, a guy who stops enjoying all the sex he's having but can't stop himself.

(Video trailer not-entirely work safe)

The Daily Show, taping before Obama's big speech last night, had to settle for this "biographical film."

For those who missed the actual speech:

I did think it was a little strange that after the speech, as the Obama and Biden families were gathering together on the stage, there was this over-the-top country song called "Only in America" playing.

Maybe it was one of those hedging-your-bets things. Like -- all right, we've just seen a black man nominated for president by one of the two major parties for the first time in history. Let's give them a little twang to take the sting out of it for those people who are a little freaked out. When Bruce Springsteen's not patriotic enough you've gotta find somebody in an actual cowboy hat.

It's another Web Junkie Wednesday and this week we're looking at getting more bang for your DVD buck.

If you're like me your inability to keep track of series television (especially large, complicated serial stories like those on Lost, Heroes and 24) has led you to give up, wait for the DVD and watch it at your own pace.

This can be leisurely -- an episode or two a night -- or you could stay in your pajamas, get a giant punchbowl full of breakfast cereal and create your own Saturday catch-up marathon. But however you do it, it can get expensive.

That's where Just The Disc comes in. By ditching the packaging and selling you just the disc of movies, shows and music CDs they cut the price dramatically -- CDs are just $2.99 and DVDs $3.99. You can buy one disc at a time and if you buy five, you get free shipping. All discs are pre-owned but in excellent condition and fully guaranteed.

They don't have everything -- but they do have a lot of popular shows, movies and CDs.

Example: On Amazon.com the cheapest price for the First Season of The West Wing is $37. Even used, the best you can do is $21. You can buy all four discs of the same series at Just The Disc for $16 -- or just buy the first disc to see if you get addicted (you will).

I don't know about you, but I rarely keep DVD and jewel cases nowadays anyway. I slip them into a disc wallet to save space. From now on, when possible, I'll be buying them this way, saving money and cutting out the middle man.

Apparently HBO has given up the idea of turning PREACHER into a television show.

The popular comic, concerning a disillusioned preacher, his gun-toting girlfriend and vampire buddy in search of an absentee God, is apparently too dark, violent and controversial for HBO.

Yes - TOO CONTROVERSIAL FOR HBO.

Somehow I just don't buy this explanation.

This is the network that brought us live car sex in Taxicab Confessions, graphic rape and murder scenes in Rome, prisoners shivving, poisoning and forceably sodomizing each other on OZ.

They're the network that originally gave us all George Carlin's specials, brought us Borat on Da Ali G Show, who gave Bill Maher Real Time when he got bounced from his network gig in a political/religious controversy.

They're going to shrink from PREACHER?

I'd be willing to believe they thought it was too complicated to translate to TV, that a lot of it would have to be changed or wouldn't come across the way it was intended, that the comedy would be hard to balance with the drama and that all of that, on top of the controversy it would create, made it untenable.

Luckily, PREACHER scribe Garth Ennis seems happy in comics. No one seems to be waving him off controversy there. I recently read THE CHRONICLES OF WORMWOOD, in which the hero, a rebellious anti-Christ who has shunned his dad and become friends with Jesus, has anal sex with a perverted Joan of Arc while she talks dirty and begs for more.

And then, two pages later, serious philosophical discussion.

Let's face it: some of these Comedy Central Roasts suck.

Anybody remember the one for Flavor Flav? Yeah, me either.

But the roast of Bob Saget this weekend was damned good.

And the surprise MVP? The 82-year-old Cloris Leachman.

Check out her extremely-not-safe-for-work bit:

Leachman was also a great sport while providing plenty of "she's so old" fodder for the other guest roasters...

Leachman is an Oscar winner and has won more Emmies than any other actor. And there's talk this roast could bring her another.

I say she's earned it.

Canadian prog rock legends Rush tried their hands at the video game "Rock Band" backstage at The Colbert Report this week.

Playing "Tom Sawyer," one of their own songs, the band washed out -- getting only 31%.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's "The Golden Girls," has died. She was 84.

Full story here.

--

Watchmen trailer: I have no idea what this movie will be about (haven't read the graphic novel), but it looks amazing, and it's done by the director who did "300," which is enough for me.

24: Exile: The "24" movie. It looks like Jack Bauer does Rambo.

Terminator Salvation: Christian Bale as John Connor? I didn't even need to watch the trailer to know I'd see this. But it still looks pretty awesome.

Bonus: Not a trailer, but definitely a teaser: The series "Wizard's First Rule" (based on Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series) is debuting the weekend of Nov. 1! And it's Sam Raimi! How exciting is that??? The hourlong series, starring Craig Horner and Bridget Regan, starts with a two-hour premiere. (If you haven't read this series, you have enough to time to finish it before Nov. 1. If you start now. And read fast.)

If you're not watching Mad Men on AMC, you should be.

It's smart, dark, sexy and stylish -- a look at America in the 1960s through the prism of the Madison Avenue advertising men who created our consumer culture.

You can catch up with the first season on DVD now.

Season Two premieres Sunday, July 27.

If you've been curious, AMC has also posted the pilot episode online.

Bozo the Clown, dead at 83.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83.

UPDATE: Reader Dave R. sends the following note on Bozo's passing:

"Jessie [sic] Helms and Bozo the Clown die within days of each other? Is anyone else wondering why you never saw these two together?"

Might file that one under "too soon" -- but you be the judge.

A few quick reports on movies in various stages of not-out-yet:

* If you just can't wait for the new X-Files movie, the opening scenes are now online at Yahoo! Movies.

* Rolling Stone movie reviewer Peter Travers has an early review of The Dark Knight. He digs it - especially Heath Ledger's performance, which he calls "mad-crazy-brilliant."
"If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up," he says.

* A fourth Spider-Man movie has been scheduled for a 2011 release. Neither leading man-boy Tobey McGuire nor director Sam Raimi have yet signed on for the sequel -- and after the trainwreck that was the last one, I can hardly blame them. Still, I'll probably end up seeing it and feeling dirty afterward. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

Why does this guy not have a record deal? I love, love, love his voice. And his pretty eyes don't hurt, either. Eli Kerr is much better than this show, but every so often, that happens.

In a recent interview with The Times of London, Jason Bateman confirms we'll see an Arrested Development movie in 2009.

Nice.

Michael Cera and Bateman (both of whom were in Juno) rocketed to film success after the show was canceled -- which Bateman attributes to the show missing with America at large but being beloved of people in L.A.

"..and those are the ones who hire us," Bateman says.

Looks like the Vampire detective show Moonlight is finally, truly dead.

Never saw it? You didn't miss much.

I love detective shows. I love supernatural fiction. I think they can be melded together well. This one didn't do it -- and it's going on the slag heap with Forever Knight.

Sarah Silverman and Norm MacDonald have joined the cast of Match Game 2008.

"The comedians have signed on to be on the panel for TBS' updated "Match Game" pilot, shot this week in Los Angeles. Also taking seats are Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein), Kids in the Hall trouper Scott Thompson, Rashida Jones ("The Office") and Niecy Nash ("Reno 911!")."

I'll actually probably watch this, at least the first time. Back when I got the Game Show Network (curse you, TimeWarner, for taking it out of my cable package!), I used to watch the reruns all the time, and they were pretty amusing. Especially as relics of their era, with Gene Rayburn, Richard Dawson and the recently deceased Charles Nelson Reilly slipping double entendre after double entendre into the game.

It mildly amused/irritated me to watch the way women are treated on that show. There's no way women or female panelists today would let Gene Rayburn kiss them or say those sorts of things -- it would be a sexual harassment brouhaha.

It'll be interesting to see what the show is like in an updated version -- I have a feeling that overt lewdness and potty humor (which had it's place in the original) will replace the double entendres and subtle digs.

Last night I watched the premiere of The Middle Man on ABC Family.

Based on a comic book I love that was (I didn't realize) intended to be a television show all along, The Middleman is strange, smart, well cast and well executed -- which, I fear, means it is not long for this earth.

I've learned over the years that shows that seem like they were made just for me rarely last -- the fact that The Venture Bros. is still going strong still amazes me.

The show, about a broke young female artist who is recruited to fight mad scientists, aliens and monsters by a mysterious figure with futuristic weaponry and a grumpy android assistant, is almost too good to be true. I was a little surprised to hear a few curse words, some gay jokes and a lot of obscure film, literary and comic book references on a show for ABC family -- but hey, it comes on at 8 p.m. and it's cable.

Here's hoping we get more than one season.

So who wins Top Chef last night?

Richard, the weird guy with the faux-hawk who cooks with liquid nitrogen?

Lisa, the combative lesbian who fights with fellow chefs and is constantly talking about how she's going to dominate the contest?

Stephanie, the quiet one with the cute smile and all that curly hair?

Find out after the jump, where spoilers (and links) abound.

I swear, it's a rite of passage. Simon is the best judge on 'American Idol,' never afraid to say exactly what he's thinking. Until the last week, and then he seems to back the producers' call.

Simon had faint praise for David Cook (although I agree Cook would have done better to reprise 'Billie Jean' or 'Don't Want to Miss a Thing' if he wanted to win), and he had nothing but fawning for Baby David. And that second song that Baby D. sang, his choice from the writers' competition songs, was a piece of treacly crap. (At least David C. made his piece of crap song watchable by singing the hell out of it.) Not to mention, Baby D. was a poor man's Clay Aiken for the first song, doing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," complete with a dash of Fantasia's bobbing up and down movements. Third round, Archuleta sang "Imagine" again, and once again he screwed with the lyrics, which is unforgivable. And yet, Simon, who usually sees past all that, gave him the "win" each round.

Last night was a travesty in other ways, as well. What was up with the extended boxing metaphor? They had the announcer in the beginning, complete with Rocky music, announcing the contestants and their weights. He even did the signature "Let's get ready to rumble!" Then the poor contestants had to come out in boxing gloves and robes, and I swear I couldn't stop laughing. It was awful.

'American Idol' really needs to take a page from 'Dancing with the Stars,' 'Rock Star' and 'Nashville Star.' Once upon a time, it was the only game in town, but now there are similar shows who do it better. Instead of a bunch of talking and recrap every results show, let's see you do what 'Dancing' and 'Rock Star' do, and let the judges pick someone for an encore performance. Copy 'Dancing' and fill your results show with actual content: medleys and professionals and other creative things. Also, let's see the contestants do their own material, a la 'Nashville Star.' Of course, that would require picking contestants with talent instead of great mimics.

Also, I would love to go to a system where the judges come into play in who gets kicked off, like 'Dancing' or 'Rock Star.' In the first, the judges' scores count for half, with any ties going to the audience choice. In 'Rock Star,' the audience decided the bottom group, and the judges picked one to kick off from those two or three, with a sing-off on the results show to help decide. Surely a system like that would have kept the Tamyra Grays and Chris Daughtrys on 'Idol' longer.

Also, 'American Idol,' you don't get to use a clip of Daughtry when announcing the 'Idols' who have gone on to be stars. Seriously -- not an 'Idol,' didn't win, you don't get to pretend he did. And that's the biggest thing wrong with your show -- the real talent is often kicked off the show long before the winner is announced.

Yesterday The Muppet Show: The Complete Third Season was released on DVD.

Check out Alice Cooper's appearance from that season in this clip. Alice performs "Welcome to My Nightmare" and tries to buy Kermit's soul for Satan.

"Man, it wasn't spooky like this when Julie Andrews did the show," Kermit says.

Man, this was a weird and wonderful show.

Seriously, are we supposed to believe Oprah asked for her show to be canceled?

The 2008-09 season will be "Boston Legal's" last and "Oprah's Big Give" is not coming back.

"Big Give" had modest sucess and won its time period on Sunday nights.

"We loved that show and absolutely would have loved to bring it back," ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson said. "But it was something (Oprah) didn't want to do."

You can tell she's got a lot of power if they let her say she chose not to come back.

I can't sleep and I'm up writing with the TV on in the background.

Madonna's video for "Open Your Heart" just came on VH1 Classic.

And it made me think:

1) Madonna was better before she thought she was "important."

2) Music videos were better when they thought they were.

The Kids in the Hall are doing a 30-city, two-month tour (don't call it a comeback - they've been here for years, rockin their peers and puttin' suckas in fear).

The Onion's A.V. Club has an interview with them.

They're apparently looking to do a new show and movie. To which I will immediately become addicted.

In a rare show of mercy (for both its stars and the audience), CBS has pulled the plug on the new reality TV show Secret Talents of the Stars after just one episode.

The show featured George Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek) singing country music and country star Clint Black trying stand-up comedy.

I almost want to mail them some cold, hard cash for stopping this before Danny Bonaduce got to show us his secret talent.

Holy Chocolate Salty Balls!

South Park Studios is now live -- a South Park internet hub from which you can legally stream every episode from all 12 seasons of the show, right up to last Sunday's installment, all for free.

The site also has clips, games, news, an episode guide (when DID Kenny come back, and when DID we find out who Cartman's father was?) -- as well as this really weird avatar maker.

Reader Jim Vanner sent me a link to this Q&A with historian David McCullough from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

McCullough is the author of some of my favorite historical biographies, and in this Q&A he talks about the John Adams miniseries HBO has created around his bestselling biography.

McCullough has had really good experiences with HBO so far -- they produced the excellent Truman, based on his Pultizer-prize winning biography of Harry S. Truman. He has high praise for what they've done with John Adams as well.

The author says of the min-series' gritty realism:

"It's going to be the 18th century -- and particularly, of course, the 18th century in this country -- as Americans have never seen it before. It's not a costume pageant; it's the way life was. You are going to see people with bad teeth and dirt under their fingernails. You are going to see a man tarred and feathered and it's going to be hard to watch, it's so awful. It wasn't just a sort of high school prank. Tar-and-feathering was torture. People died from it. You are going to experience the horror of smallpox and of someone having a leg amputated without anesthetics. It's very real and entirely in keeping with the way it was."

I've been really enjoying HBO's mini-series event, John Adams.

Which sort of surprises me.

I'm not much for period pieces. I find that most films that take place during dramatic, world-changing events in human history are so scrubbed down and overblown that there's no way you could be fooled into thinking it might have happened even sort of this way.

But the John Adams mini-series...it's like seeing Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven after a steady diet of John Ford or Howard Hawkes westerns. There's something about seeing our founding fathers sweaty, smelly, dirty, petty and egotistical that seems so much more authentic.

At one point in the second installment a group of representatives sits around a table patting themselves on the back over the first continental congress -- which has to this point accomplished nothing. Adams -- whose directness we admire even if it does sometimes make him an insufferable prick -- says that all they've proved is that every man there thinks he's a great man and has to go out of his way letting everyone else know it.

Which is the kind of thing you never read in your grammar school history class.

Any of you enjoying it as much as I am?

After airing a single episode, NBC has canceled Quarterlife, the first scripted show to go from online to network television.

The five remaining one-hour episodes will air on Bravo.

Amanda and I saw the premiere this week (well all right - I watched most of it and washed dishes through much of the middle section while she watched) -- and neither of us is happy about the news.

But the show's co-creator says it should never have been a network show, calling it "too specific."

Not everything is for everybody.

8: 22 p.m.
We're coming right up on the telecast now - I'm tired and achy from the flu, speedy and loopy from the Sudafed and a little annoyed by the Red Carpet coverage.

I mean - I'm usually pretty disinterested in "So, who are you wearing?" over and over again -- but this year, it seems like it's particularly bad.

I'll be live blogging the Oscars tonight on Culture Shock. From a flu-medicine stupor. Should be entertaining.

Predictions now?

Good morning!

Though it may yet be months before some of our favorite shows are back in working order, the writer's strike is officially over.

Can we stop watching HGTV and Food Network reality shows now? Please?

Filling the air without scripted television hasn't been easy -- and it's been even harder to watch some of the scum that rose to the top without competition from human beings writing television. American Gladiators staged a comeback in the vaccum and VH1 hit a horrid reality TV trifecta with new editions of (sorta) dating shows Rock of Love with Brett Michaels, Flavor of Love with Flava Flav and (ugh) A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.

In what may be the most apt but still mind-bending television metaphor ever, all of these shows' continued success and renewal depends upon the person searching for love (a washed up rock star, a washed up rapper (sort of) and...Tila Tequila...) never actually finding it. Failure is necessary for success, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

May the professional writers get back to work, down to their fighting weight and wash some of this flotsam from the pop culture landscape.

Yesterday Jeri Rowe dropped a package on my desk from the Independent Film Channel.

Inside were two DVDs of Japanese Anime.

Not usually my thing -- I think anime is an acquired taste that requires a very specific sensibility or a lot of acid (or both) -- but these caught my eye.

One of them is an anime version of the Top Cow comic Witchblade, which was already a failed live action series with talk of a movie in the works.

No surprise -- the Witchblade (a sentient alien artifact that bonds with human women making them into superheroes) of the anime also makes the female wielder dress like a stripper from space.

Some things remain, whatever the genre.

Am going to have to put this on and try not to have a seizure as the strangeness of the original witchblade concept melds with the weirdness of anime. I guess in way the two are made for each other -- the Japanese have a strange fetish for scantily clad women being persecuted by monsters and that's sort of what Witchblade is all about.

Local son Chris Daughtry is taking a swipe at the show that made him famous.

About 'American Idol,' from Rolling Stone:

"I feel like it's definitely lacking some credibility at this point," says Daughtry, who came in fourth place on the 2006 season but went on to sell 3.6 million copies of his debut record and be named one of Nielsen's top ten selling artists of 2007. "It's in a state of decline and if they don't do something about it, it's probably not gonna last too much longer. I'm sure that'll be used against me, but that's the truth, you know?"

He's right, though. Last season pretty much sucked, if you want my honest opinion. I didn't care who won, and I'm having a hard time even remembering many of the contestants. I watched the first episode or two of the season, but then I tuned out until they whittled it down to the top 24 or so -- there's only so many times you can watch someone screech Celine or Whitney, know what I mean? The occasional awful person is fine, but they just went overboard with the people who were clueless at auditions and the ones who were clearly there just to get on TV. Guess what, auditioners? It's no longer edgy to flip off the camera when you get the boot -- everyone does it.

I watched last night's 'Idol' this afternoon. (I never watch them live -- I have to be able to fast-forward through the recrap and pointless pauses for effect.) Maybe it's just me, but it was perceptibly better -- there were still some attention whores, but the guy who sang "No Sex Allowed" made up for that. As did the blond horse trainer at the end (I can't recall her name) who had a great voice.

But I agree with Daughtry -- I think it's on the way out. As soon as it veers back to people in Big Bird costumes and mocking people who are clearly handicapped (despite the pleas that they've changed), I'll tune out until the finals.

I saw this anti-drug commercial starring Clint Eastwood (in character as Dirty Harry?) for the first time in a TV documentary tonight.

It does sometimes seem to me that VH1 is playing "Best Week Ever" or "I Love New York" 24-hours a day.

But right now they're playing this great documentary (Rock Docs: Drug Years - Teenage Wasteland, The 70s) where Wayne Kramer of the MC5 just said the following thing about heroin, Vietnam and crime in the 1960s/1970s:

"When I was in jail there were a lot of my fellow inmates who were Vietnam veterans. They got hooked over there but when they came back, they found they couldn't support their habit as easily. So they reverted to what they knew -- weapons and tactics. They became bank robbers."

People participating in the documentary include famous drug smuggler Allen Long, Lou Reed, Henry Rollins, Richard Belzer, Country Joe McDonald, various famous photographers, DEA and former CIA agents. Fascinating. Among the fun facts I learned: apparently High Times magazine, which is now sort of quirky and quaint, was founded because drug smuggling friends of the publisher had tons of high grade golden marijuana and people didn't yet know what it was or how good it was. They decided to start a magazine to educate the market.

Like the Hip-Hop, Punk and Metal docs they did recently, this is what this channel does best.

A new deal has David Letterman and Craig Ferguson coming back to Late Night with their writers.

Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be coming back without theirs.

You know what's strange? I'd rather watch Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert without writers than David Letterman with.

I'm not saying they're going to be great shows -- Conan has predicted it could be a train wreck and I agree -- but Letterman's show has been on autopilot for some time. The last time he was really hilariously funny was the mid 90s.

I do think Craig Ferguson is pretty funny.

But given the option, I'd still go with the comedy central guys sans-writers.

Tonight. 8 p.m. ABC.

A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Be there.

Caught the premiere of Tin Man last night on the Sci-Fi channel.

The big budget sci-fi retelling of L Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a dark, steampunk-esque epic featuring robots, fierce monsters, magic, interdimensional travel, shape-shifting and drugs. Most of those things feature in some way in either the original book or the classic MGM movie -- so they shouldn't come as such a shock. But it's a thoroughly modern vision of the story with quite a few important changes:

* OZ is now "The O.Z" or "Outer Zone," a different dimension that was once a paradise until the rise to power of the evil witch Azkadellia (played by a sexy-as-she-is-scary Kathleen Robertson).

* Dorothy Gale is now "D.G." (Zooey Deschanel), a rebellious waitress who rides a motorcycle rather than a bicycle with a handle-bar basket.

* The Scarecrow is now "Glitch," (Alan Cumming) a once brilliant scientist who was tortured in one of Askadellia's prisons and had half his brain stolen and a zipper attached to his skull.

* The Tin Man (Neal McDonough) is now an ex-cop whose badge (and being sealed in a metal suit while watching a hologram of his family being tortured) gives him his name. He's out to kill those who took his family from him and took over the O.Z.

* The Cowardly Lion is now "Raw" (Raul Trujillo), a psychic man/wolverine who can heal wounds with a touch.

* The Wizard is now a drug addled nightclub performer who mixes philosophy and...well, incoherence...while trying to help D.G.

Can't tell you much more than that without revealing some of the show's many secrets -- some of which are only beginning to unravel. Overall I enjoyed the first installment very much - enough to make me anxious for the next.

Who else saw it? What'd you think?

If you missed it, you can watch all of part one here.

This YouTube clip, created by one of The Daily Show's 14 writers, is for my mom.

She's been missing her Jon Stewart fix since the writer's strike began. It is a pretty funny look at the strike and the CEOs who sue over Internet content and say on the record it's worth billions but then tell the Writer's Guild that there's no way to figure out what online content is worth.

Blimey!

Check out this flashlight in the form of the Sonic Screwdriver device from the long running BBC science fiction show Doctor Who.

And it's just $13.

Here's a clip of The Doctor with his favorite tool:

And here's a video review of the actual flashlight (or torch, for you anglophiles):

Well, the Hollywood writer's strike is in full effect.

Sure, Jay and Dave's late night shows are now in reruns -- but I didn't watch them anyway, and this is all fascinating to me. I'm very interested to see how everyone's reacting to it.

According to the AP Jay Leno rode up to a line of writers picketing outside NBC to deliver them donuts and show his support.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the cast of her show, The New Adventures of Old Christine, were picketing alongside striking writers outside Warner Bros. on Monday. Dreyfus is married to a writer.

30 Rock's Tina Fey has been picketing in New York in November -- the L.A. Times caught up with her on the line.

Brian K. Vaughan, one of my favorite comics writers and now a writer and producer on Lost, talks about the strike on his MySpace blog, saying:

A few months ago, I was thrilled to start my second season as a writer and now a co-producer over at LOST, and have been unbelievably fortunate enough to help write a few scripts for what I think could end up being the show's best season.

And much as it breaks my heart for my colleagues and I to have to walk away from a job we love, we all think it's vitally important to the future of our industry.

Judd Apatow, director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, agrees, explaining the grievance over writers not being paid for residuals aired in new media formats:

"Here's how I would explain it: If you're a teamster, you get paid to drive a truck. But if someone invents a new kind of truck, and you're still driving it, you should still get paid."

SO EXCITING! Joss Whedon already has a seven-episode commitment from Fox for "Dollhouse" (let's hope they don't cancel it soon after that a la Firefly), which will star Eliza Dushku, (Faith on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Tru in "Tru Calling").

Here's how Fox describes the series:

"Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody's fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo's burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse."

It sounds a bit like River from "Firefly" meets "Total Recall" meets "Alias." And I can't wait! Let's just hope the writers' strike doesn't postpone it too long!

Last week J.K. Rowling outed top wizard Albus Dumbledore (of Harry Potter fame) as gay -- well after the last book of the series had gone to press.

There are some who are claiming they knew all along, or at least that the signs were there for those who were looking. Ed Cone pointed to a Metafilter comment thread in which someone said:

"He was a stylish 150-year-old-ish bachelor. You do the math."

If we're going to accept that a character's creator can out a character after all of the canonical work dealing with that character has been produced then I think there are some characters out there who are at least as likely as Dumbledore for a little homosexual retroactive continuity...

(WARNING: Comedic homosexual stereotypes ahead. Satirical. Not to be confused with actual homophobia.)

There seem to be some strange movies becoming television shows lately.

The movies themselves are of course successful -- it's just strange trying to imagine them on the small screen.

The premiere of the Terminator TV spin-off, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is drawing near and the AP reports George Lucas is planning a live action Star Wars television show thirty years after the first film hit theaters.

A "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" television show is supposed to have been in the works for a while now. The pilot apparently didn't fly at ABC but is now being shopped around. I actually think this might work really well, as long as the camp is left in for that old-school Avengers vibe.

Also, talk of an Ocean's 11 TV miniseries

There have been far, far too many television shows going to the big screen in the last decade or so -- and I'm wondering if reversing the formula is a good idea.

Maybe I'm just nervous because of the old Robocop TV series.

Some movies that were arguably better once they became TV shows:

1) M*A*S*H

2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer

3) In The Heat of the Night

4) Stargate

5) La Femme Nikita (Fairly good TV show, though not as popular as "Alias." I actually liked the movie remake Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda -- for whom I have a thing spawned by this film and Single White Female.)

7) Highlander (the movies were sort of all over the place. The show, while a bit much, was at least consistently interesting.)

Can they really be assembling the cast for the 20th version of "The Real World"?

I think most people my age remember the first season of the Real World (or the popular third season in San Francisco, where many people came aboard) with a sort of awe. Before anybody was using the term "reality television" it did seem revolutionary -- strange, unpredictable, maybe even a little dangerous.

It's the way our parents' generation must have felt about Saturday Night Live -- something that so changed the face, the direction, the very fabric of pop culture that it's hard to imagine what the world would now be like without it.

Can you believe the company decided to send me for a week of training during premiere week last week? A full week without my DVR dual-tuner, without my Windows Media Center recordings, without the ability to speed through commercials. I had to watch TV live.

In any case, how do you think the week went? What shows are on your must-watch list and which ones have been kicked to the curb? I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of shows, and I was pretty disappointed in others. Here's my list:

Sorry for the lack of posts lately -- have been learning a new beat and dealing with High Point's Furniture Market. But now that I've got my feet under me the regular posts will continue.

Beginning with...

ESPN 2's Bill Simmons is blunt about the possible fate of NBC's critically acclaimed sports drama, Friday Night Lights -- and who's to blame:

NBC is damned close to burying Friday Night Lights, which would be a shame on a number of levels, but none more serious than this one: It's the greatest sports-related show ever made. Returning for a second season on Oct. 5, it's a fair bet that FNL will be canceled by Christmas. And when it is, it's going to be because of people like you.

I don't know anyone who's watched the show and doesn't like it -- but like other critical darlings Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks and Firefly, FNL may learn the sad lesson that being good is simply not enough on network television.

I've written previously that NBC is now offering a money back guarantee to anyone who buys the first season of FNL on DVD and doesn't love it. They obviously have a lot of faith in the quality of the show -- but if a show airs and no one is watching, does it make a sound?

Making lists of the best shows canceled before their time is a time honored tradition -- and it's a good way to manage the frustration of reality television taking over and bad television shows sticking around so long while good ones die on the vine.

Here are my picks for the top five TV shows canceled too soon. You guys tell me which ones I missed.

If you are anything like me, you lament the existence of TV execs who cancel shows like "Firefly," "Wonderfalls" and "Veronica Mars," while shows like "Cavemen" get greenlit. ("Charmed" ran for eight seasons. Seriously.)

While TV Bigshot won't let you keep great shows on the air, it does give you something to do on your break at work. It's a game put on by Television Without Pity and network sponsors. You get a budget of $300 million to use to buy and sell TV shows and move up the rankings, which change every week with the Nielsen ratings.

I love online stock exchange games, so I'm in. (I've been playing Hollywood Stock Exchange for years.) Comment if you're playing so I can see how we compare!

So, I just finished watching the pilot for Journeyman, which, I admit, I really hadn't heard much about. My husband and I watched it because it was on InDemand, along with a bunch of other pilots. About two minutes into it, I turned to my husband and said, "This is the 'Time Traveler's Wife.' They should sue!" He pointed out that there was also the Good Samaritan aspect, so it was a mix of that and "Quantum Leap."

We start out with Kevin McKidd as a reporter in San Fransisco. McKidd is a poor man's Daniel Craig, complete with rugged good looks and piercing blue eyes. (You've seen him on "Rome," "Trainspotting," and in other supporting roles.) He has a wife and a kid, and you get the sense that not all is happy with him and his wife. Suddenly, he starts jaunting around in time uncontrollably, and by the end we find out out that he's supposed to change events to help out a stranger. Of course, the time-jaunting takes a toll on his relationships, since he sounds like a raving lunatic when he tries to explain where he has disappeared to for days at a time.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good pilot, if you can get past the similarities to other shows and books. They threw a few twists in, including at least one that I didn't see coming. I'll probably watch at least a couple more episodes to see where it's going.

Got a sneak-preview DVD of the new Bionic Woman revamp.

My expectations were very low -- but it's really good.

And not just compared to the original, of which I've seen only a few episodes but with which I wasn't terribly impressed.

Like Battlestar Galactica (brought to us by the some of the same folks) this is a darker, scarier, more political version of a 70s classic.

It also manages to be sexy without being cheesecakey or exploitative -- no mean feat. The titular bionic woman is played by the gorgeous Michelle Ryan, who manages to be tough and sexy without (at least in the pilot) overtly exploiting her sexuality or leaning on her good looks as a crutch.

Her adversary, the evil (and beta model) bionic woman is played with femme fatale flare by Battlestar's Katee Sackhoff.

The two manage to have a brutal super-cat fight on a rooftop in a rainstorm without it looking anything like a beer commercial or one of those effing Charlie's Angels movies.

The show's apparently had some creative troubles, but the cast is strong, the writing is good, the effects are impressive and I for one am going to be keeping an eye on it.

The show premieres Sept. 26 on NBC and will air on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Jon Stewart's going to hose the Oscars once again. I, for one, loved it when he hosted two years ago. C'mon, a gay cowboy montage? It doesn't get much better than Ho!Yay! Perhaps he can do a montage this year involving overly-pretty men in epic movies -- Xerxes in "300", Achilles and Paris in "Troy", and Colin Farrell in "Alexander".

Donald Trump may have done the one thing that could possibly get me to watch Celebrity Apprentice -- it sounds like he's cast a "Buffy" alum. TV Guide is reporting that Charisma Carpenter (who played Cordelia Chase) will be appearing on the show, and apparently she is willing to "make like Alexis Carrington and bring out the claws if need be."

Sweet little Stephanie Tanner from "Full House" is pregnant. Doesn't that make you feel old?

I'm not sure how I feel about Nirvana's music being licensed for TV shows now. "Cold Case" does it well, so the Nirvana episode should be good. But I have to wonder if I'll soon be hearing Nirvana songs in places that make me cringe, like so many other classics that have been ill-used. ("Crumb-believable" and "Take this steak and top it" come immediately to mind.)

In this week's posts you can:

* Read my musings on Britney Spears looking like a drag queen (and the possibility that she'll spend the rest of her life performing for them).

* Find out whether Disney Channel's High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens (and new star of inadvertent teen amateur Internet pornography) is into the Brazilian wax!

* Check out pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal in the new Agent Provocateur lingerie ad campaign!

* Consider "The N Word" with comedians Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle -- all of whom used it to greater effect than Eddie Griffin, who was bounced from a Black Enterprise event for dropping it this weekend.

* Tell me whether you got screwed when Apple dropped the price of the iPhone just two months after its release (and whether the $100 store credit they're giving customers makes up for it).

* Check out clips from shows coming out on DVD -- including 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and, of course, Flight of the Conchords.

If you missed any of it, it's all archived. Enjoy.

Also -- talk back, you lurking bastards!

Joss Whedon fans take note:

Amazon's Gold Box Deal for today is Firefly: The Complete Series for $19.99 (!)

Firefly is the prematurely canceled cult sci-fi show that spawned the film Serenity and retains a fierce cult following. Part Western, part space opera, the show has great characters, terrific production and effects (by which I mean they look as though they could actually be happening -- a bit of gritty reality to the future and to space travel).

It's well worth looking into -- and for the price of the average DVD you can get the whole series plus DVD extras.

Well...not here, of course.

But the pictures are out there.

It seems Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron's brainy love interest in the popular High School Musical franchise (and demonstrably less brainy love interest in real life) took some nude photos of herself. And, of course, they leaked onto the Internet.

Where I found them in about three minutes.

Would get fired (and possibly sued) for linking to them from here but I will note a few things:

1) There are a series of photos of her in progressively less clothing, in provocative poses, until she's posing naked and smirking for what seems to be a camera with a self timer.

2) She's doing so in what is clearly a bedroom and not (as has been reported) a bathroom. The curtain behind her just looks like a shower curtain. There's a bed and dressers in plain view.

3) The sort of creepy part about this (I mean -- besides her being the star of Disney films) is that, though she's 18 years old, the bedroom looks very much like the bedroom of a very girly high school girl. Christmas lights are strung along the ceiling of the room. Stuffed animals are visible on the fluffy bed on which she poses on all fours in what appears to be her sports bra.

4) Though she's turned out the big lights, turned on the string of Christmas ones and lit a series of tea candles on the dresser to "set the mood" she's left a half-finished plastic bottle of Dannon water (exactly like the one I'm drinking out of right now, eerily) on the dresser right beside her. This sort of kills the teenage girl faux romanticism of the scene and gives it a creepy, "I'm going to need to stay hydrated" porno shoot vibe. While the photo is undeniably aesthetically pleasing (in the strictest anatomy-drawing class sense, of course) the room and the way she's set it up sort of torpedoes any potential sexiness and just sort of makes my skin crawl. Mostly.

5) Female friends of mine who are hostile to the idea that every woman needs a Brazilian wax to be sexy have a new hero in Vanessa Hudgens. She makes their argument forcefully.

The number of news stories on these photos this morning is sort of staggering -- and many suggest that this is going to ruin her career with Disney, maybe even take down the entire High School Musical franchise. But as I look at them I wonder -- can that be right? It's not like she's doing anything really awful in them. They don't even rise to the level of misbehavior of some recent beauty pageant contestants. She just did what some (maybe an increasing number, and we can talk about and be disturbed by that if we're so inclined) 18 year old girls do when they're young and beautiful -- she privately documented her nudity for her boyfriend. I don't think it was for mass consumption -- though with Paris and Lindsay as warnings along the path of young fame she probably should have known better.

Let's hope this mistake doesn't doom her.

So, apparently Eddie Griffin's set at a Black Enterprise event was ended when he used profanity and (gasp!) "The N Word."

Hey -- it's their event and they can do what they like. But you might want to fire your entertainment director if he hired Eddie Griffin and thought he wasn't going to say nig...um.."the N-Word."

Had none of these folks ever seen Eddie Griffin's standup? Or any of his movies? He's sort of a third-rate Chris Rock (another comic who would, in all likelihood, have used the N-word without apology to anyone) and his comedy is usually racy and racial.
(Clip from Griffin's stand up below, strong language)

I don't like the N Word. I don't use it. But in comedy and satire -- particularly comedy and satire with a racial component, which is often Griffin's thing -- you have to make some allowance for its use.

Lenny Bruce famously (and brilliantly) advocated the use of the word (and other racial slurs) as a means of taking power from the word. If the president went on TV and used the word a hundred times, he said, it would lose its power completely. Consequently, no redneck could ever make a little black girl in Alabama cry by using the word.

Chris Rock famously (and controversially) tackled the N-word in his bit, "N---ers vs. Black People" (Clip below from "Roll With the New" -- some strong language).

Richard Pryor, after a trip to Africa, famously swore off use of the N-Word.
(Clip below from "Live on the Sunset Strip" -- includes strong language)

One of Pryor's most famous disciples, Dave Chapelle, uses the word almost plenty -- often with a biting satirical edge.
(Clip below from The Dave Chapelle show, includes strong language)

It is, of course, all a matter of context.

But the ridiculousness of pretending censoring the words does away with the racism aside -- there are any number of "safe" comics you can hire for this type of event. Why go with Eddie Griffin and then embarrass and persecute him for doing the kind of comedy on which he's made his reputation? Why not just go with Wayne Brady?

All right...maybe that's a bad example...
(Clip below from The Dave Chapelle Show, contains...oh, you know...)

I'm strangely ambivalent about Britney Spears, her new single and her upcoming performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

The new single, "Gimme More" begins with Britney announcing "It's Britney, b**ch!" -- and then giggling girlishly.

She then moans/sings lines like "You've got me in a strange position/if you're on a mission/you've got my permission."

Which might have been intriguing five years ago. But we've now seen her pregnant, bald, swinging at photographers, marrying backup dancers and walking barefoot through gas station bathrooms. Any mystique that once existed is gone forever and the new single seems almost like a parody of a Britney Spears song.

As I've written about before, part of Britney's incredible success was the way in which she so successfully straddled that ever-thinner line between innocent bubble gum pop princess and wanton, hardcore pop whore. The whole wet hot virgin thing was not new -- but she did it so transcendently well that even the most savvy of us had to wonder, as Chuck Klosterman did in a classic piece for Esquire -- was she the least self-aware person on the planet, or the most self-aware?

The Video Music Awards could be a triumphant return for Britney -- someone I know has a theory that she's been so successful because so many people are, deep down within themselves, pulling for her to succeed despite her own ridiculousness. The further she falls -- marrying K-Fed, having two of his children and then leaving them at home to go panty-less clubbing with Paris Hilton -- the more we want her to, like Hulk Hogan, come back from the depths and be our hero once again.

But as a fellow reporter said to me today -- this could also be just an awful embarrassment. She's been through a lot since her last album and tour -- a marriage, two children, rehab -- and those who care on more than a voyeuristic, will-she-make-a-fool-of-herself level, may be expecting the young, hot dancing machine sexpot of a half-decade ago. We may instead get the modern version of Elvis' Live from Hawaii special -- a pop icon past whose pop moment has past, well beyond the peak of their powers, begging for people to care again but clearly consigned to a sort of post-stardom that can only ever bottom out in a sort of cut-rate cult fame that will never really compare to the heady thrill of new, young fame.

Her new publicity shots do have her looking a bit like a drag queen...

Which brings me to an interesting point.

I've noticed that gay men have become the latter-day bread and butter of many a faded female pop star (Cher, Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Debbie Harry). Some of the young women who grew up with the music will always have a soft spot for these pop divas -- but for whatever reason (pop stars' flamboyance, the fact that some drag queens like to dress like them, take your pick) gay guys seem to be the retirement plan. None of these women are gay themselves -- but they've all become "gay icons."

Not a bad deal, really.

So maybe the question is -- will Britney use this upcoming performance and upcoming album to keep herself in the mainstream pop spotlight a while longer (as her idol Madonna has managed to do) -- or is she headlining the next Gay Games?

VH1's new Rock Docs series kicks off this weekend with part one of the two-part NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell

The series looks at New York City in 1977 -- the year of the great blackout, the Son of Sam killings, the beginnings of hip-hop culture and punk rock at CBGB. The story is told by those who were there -- among them KRS-One, Afrika Bambaattaa, Richard Hell, Tommy Ramone, Annie Sprinkle and Geraldo Rivera (yes, Geraldo Rivera).

Check out these clips from the documentary...

The Ramones bring together punks and criminals:

NY77: Punks and Criminals

In this bonus story from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) the Ramones artistic director Arturo Vega explains how the Lower East Side's punk culture helped some potential criminals realize that it was cooler to hang out with the Ramones than to rob them.

Al Goldstein and Geraldo Rivera remember NYC's first open swingers' club, Plato's Retreat:

NY77: Plato's Retreat

Television - This excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) recalls the first public swingers club, Plato's Retreat.

How the NYC blackout (and ensuing looting) helped give birth to street DJs and hip hop crews in need of equipment:

NY77: Blackout!

This excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) shows how New Yorkers coped with the great blackout in July 1977. Musicians, celebrities and politicians remember the fear, the looting and the unexpected benefit to hip hop.

An animated recounting of an early rap battle:

NY77: The Rap Battle

In this excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY 77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007), a memorable rap battle between Grandmaster Caz-DJ Disco Wiz and Afrika Bambaataa is recounted in classic comic book style by the artist Jim Rugg.

Sad news.

The Flash Gordon pilot is not very good.

Now -- let me preface this by saying that the DVD I've seen was a very, very rough cut.

Special effects were missing and text would roll across the screen explaining: "THIS THE PART WHERE A GIANT SPACE SHIP APPEARS, WHICH IS WHY EVERYONE'S LOOKING INTO THE SKY AND GASPING!"

There were a number of scenes where the actors were walking past green screens that I'm assuming will eventually be lavishly created other-worlds or where a pivotal plot point was revealed with an effect that just didn't happen. Some of the sound and music cues weren't there yet, either, or shots were just missing, replaced with black screens that said: "ESTABLISHING SHOT, HOME."

But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that the concept has been reimagined in a way that isn't (yet) very interesting. It's very much like that first season of Smallville where, if it hadn't been for the fact that you know this kid is going to grow up to be Superman, you probably wouldn't have watched a show about a bunch of poorly developed high school characters running around in Kansas fighting a different mutant monster created by meteors every week.

But there are two important differences between these two series....

Joss may be one of my favorite people in the entertainment industry. Not only was he responsible for Buffy, Angel and Firefly, but the man's genius also extends to comics, public speaking, writing music, and dancing. (It just doesn't seem fair, does it? Although, maybe the dancing bit is not quite accurate. But Numfar -- aka Joss -- never fails to make me laugh.)

Now, coming from Comic-Con, Joss has revealed that he is talking with the BBC about making a 90-minute movie, "Ripper", about Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher on the TV show. And Anthony Stewart Head is apparently already on board.

Also in Joss news, he is already plotting season 9 of the Buffy comic, and Oz will be making an appearance! "The Angel: After the Fall" series will be 12 issues, picking up where season 5 of Angel left off. And here's a free comic he's collaborating on with Fabio Moon, called "Sugarshock" -- I just read it, and I have already bookmarked it for future issues.

Yet more Heroes-related news: Kevin Smith has announced at Comic-Con that he will be directing the first episode of the "Heroes" spinoff, "Heroes: Origins", in spring 2008. Kevin Smith, who directed and wrote Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma, has also directed the pilot episode of "Reaper" for the CW, which is getting great reviews, including one from the New York Times.

Apparently a different director will take on each episode of the spinoff. Who would you like to see? Quentin Tarantino's episode of "CSI" was pretty good, and I wouldn't mind seeing his take on "Heroes."

"Reaper" premiers on the CW on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 9 p.m.

Finally caught the first four episodes of Burn Notice -- a new show on the USA network a few people told me I would love.

They were right.

The premise: U.S. spy Michael Westen (a smooth, hilarious, constantly put-upon Jeffrey Donovan) is inexplicably given a "burn notice" by his handlers in the middle of a foreign mission. This means he's been blacklisted by all intelligence agencies, his credit destroyed, his assets frozen, his name put on watch lists. After a horrific beating he barely makes it out of Nigeria alive and wakes up in his home town of Miami still wondering how and why this has happened to him.

Almost no one he knows will still talk to him, all of his contacts are stonewalling him, he has no money, no prospects and is being trailed everywhere by the FBI. The only people who will help him try to figure all this out (and figure a way to sleep indoors and eat) are a psychotic ex-girlfriend (late of the IRA) a washed up ex-spy (played to drunken, sleazy perfection by Bruce Campbell) and the last person he wants to talk to for any reason -- his mother (Queer as Folk's Sharon Gless). Throw in a losery, trouble-making, gambling-addict younger brother (Jason Priestley at his least likeable but most interesting) and it is really a miserable existence. But you can't look away.

Westen realizes that with his skill set and no identity to speak of all he can really do is operate as an unlicensed P.I. and spy-for-hire for whoever will pay him while he tries to raise the money and chase down the clues to crack the mystery of who burned him and why.

The USA netork is certainly living up to its "Characters Welcome" slogan with this one -- and it's a bit slicker, more cynical and intentionally funny than their other two episodic detective series, Monk and Psych (both of which I do like, even if they seem a bit slap-dash now and then). The clever premise, the first-person narration I liked so much I realized I'd written two lines from the first episode almost verbatim in some fiction I'm working on) -- I think it's a winner.

Variety agrees.

Check it out.

As a little bonus -- you can watch Bruce Campbell's character recount Sam's spy stories on the show's website, which is pretty spiffy (even though I don't like the video that begins automatically, without your pressing anything).

My favorite part of the last Harry Potter movie?

Seeing this Get Smart trailer beforehand.

The audience went nuts for it.

I discovered Get Smart on Nick-At-Nite when I was a kid -- back when their line-up included nothing from the 1980s.

I thought it was some of the strangest, funniest stuff I'd ever seen (particularly because I finally understood where much of one of my favorite cartoons, Inspector Gadget, was coming from).

And, the rarity among things from our childhoods, it just got better as I got older.

Now, it's going to be a major motion picture starring Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart.

All right...would you believe a minor motion picture?

A puppet show with very sophisticated lighting?

Those who never saw Get Smart -- or just haven't seen it in a while -- can brush up before the movie with these episodes on Google Video.

Fox has announced what may be the geekiest comic-book centered television episode of any mainstream television show ever.

Apparently the Oct. 7 episode will gust star comic book heavy-weights Dan Clowes (Eightball, Ghost World, Art School Confidential), Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman (Maus) and the legendary Alan Moore (Watchmen, From Hell, V For Vendetta, Promethea).

The plot will apparently concern a new comic store coming to town (Jack Black will voice its owner) to supplant Comic Book Guy's Android's Dungeon as Springfield's supreme spot for guys who lose themselves in spandex clad superhero adventures.

I do wonder how many people are going to get or care who the guest stars are -- but the Simpsons does this with some regularity. I remember them once having Jonathan Franzen and Michael Chabon as guest stars. When you reach the sort of iconic status The Simpsons has I think you can sort of do what you like.

I do not apologize for being a Will Farrell fan.

I also don't care what you think of the hilarious (but strangely divisive) Anchorman. I think it's probably his best film because it's his most ridiculous.

And for my money one of Farrell's best Saturday Night Live sketches was a "VH1 Storytellers" with Neil Diamond. (The clip may not be work-safe...may want to plug in your headphones.)

It worked because Farrell completely embraced the absurdity of the premise -- squeaky clean, square-as-they-come singer/songwriter Neil Diamond as a racist, drug addled wreck who can't remember his own songs and has an incredibly warped sense of his own importance. In fact, he made love to it.

I'd always wanted to see more of the character -- but in the end I thought maybe it was best they didn't beat it to death.

But Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch has posted an unaired clip of Farrell's Neil Diamond doing a duet with Christina Aguilera (Kate Hudson). Like a lot of failed SNL sketches it stretches the premise a bit far and Hudson is sort of heavy handed as Aguilera, but it's still funny.

What's your favorite Will Farrell moment? Harry Caray? James Lipton? "More Cowbell?"

My best friend, an active and unrepentant TV addict, called me last night after the premiere of VH1's latest reality TV show, Scott Baio is 45...and Single.

The surprise:

"It's amazing. I'm actually emotionally invested in whether Scott Baio can get over his tremendous commitment issues. He visited Erin Moran, who played Joanie on Joanie Loves Chachi. Apparently he lost his virginity to her. She was screwing with him, telling him he had a little penis. Next week he's visiting two women who were on Charles in Charge. One of them tells him that his cheating on her so much was the reason she got her first AIDS test."

Her analysis of the show's appeal:

"One of the things that makes it so good is, I think, the fact that he seems really sincere about wanting to get his life together. And the production quality is really good. It's well put together. It's not like you're watching Scott Baio going through the drive-through for a half an hour."

Final verdict:

"This is going to be the best washed-up celebrity reality TV show of the summer. Maybe all year."

High praise indeed.

I'm a little young to remember Baio as a heartthrob, but I'm told he was quite the Tiger Beat centerfold.

Anybody out there willing to admit to a childhood crush?