Fox News Channel's Stuart Varney came up with a hilarious excuse for Sarah Palin's surprise decision to resign as governor of Alaska before her term's completed.

It's David Letterman's fault!

During Fox's coverage Friday, Varney has kept repeating the question of whether Palin was hounded out of politics by the "vicious" and "scurrilous" attacks against her, citing Letterman's joke about her daughter (and the subsequent controversy that Palin and her supporters stoked) as a prime example.

Sorry, it doesn't wash.

Even if you accept that Letterman's poorly constructed joke was beyond the pale -- and for the record, I feel all that righteous indignation was highly calculated and overblown -- it's hard to defend buckling to such criticism as the rationale behind Palin's action. After all, if she truly aspires to higher office, the criticisms will be a lot more pointed than the kind that's delivered by latenight comedians.

Of course, the notion that Palin is nobly stepping aside to advance her political career or for the greater good of Alaska doesn't endure close scrutiny, either, so Varney was in essence grasping at straws. As Fox News' Carl Cameron put it -- summing up the hanging curve that Palin has served up to detractors -- the political ads against her will simply say, "Sarah Palin wants to be president, but she quit her last job."

Meanwhile, the unhappiest man in America is probably John Ziegler, the conservative talkshow host turned documentary filmmaker who has sought to transform defending Palin -- or rather, lambasting the mainstream media's handling of her -- into a cottage industry. If Palin is truly out of politics -- as some, in the frenzy of instant analysis on Friday, suggested she might be -- it's another sign that the Wasilla native was out of her depth all along.

Strictly as TV theater, Palin's rambling speech -- with her bizarre basketball analogy about when to "pass the ball for victory" -- rightfully should mark the end of her time on the national political stage. Like Michael Jackson, however, the Palin circus is just too irresistible a story to go away anytime soon.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel yet on Michael Jackson lunacy, as CBS just announced that Katie Couric will be anchoring "The CBS Evening News" from the Staples Center July 6-7 in order to cover the Jackson memorial on the second day. In addition, "The Early Show" will also be originating from the Staples Center, and one suspects the other morning shows -- already up to their elbows in Jackson coverage -- will dive right in as well.

Of course, the last time there was a major event surrounding Staples it was the post-championship unrest and looting that ensued after the Lakers won the NBA championship in June. I've never heard of a post-memorial service riot, but inasmuch as this is Los Angeles, the local authorities should be put on tactical alert. As for those wondering who would go downtown to honor Jackson in the middle of a weekday, with disproportionately high unemployment rates in the L.A. area, the crowd will likely spill out of Staples (the capacity for Lakers games is about 19,000) and into the surrounding plaza. My advice is to stay as far away as possible unless you have to be there or near there.

Meanwhile, Jackson media mania is approaching comical heights, even prompting John Stossel to criticize ABC News -- as the website mediabistro.com/tvnewser noted -- for bumping one of his "20/20" pieces to make additional room for the Jackson story. As sick as I am of all things Jackson, bumping ABC's resident swaggering blowhard is the kind of collateral damage a fella could get used to.

This Jackson carpet-bombing illustrates the major difference between print and television. On the latter, the obsession with a tabloid oddity like this can squeeze practically everything else off the air. In print, at least there's still room for other stories, though admittedly, you'd scarcely notice that from reading the Los Angeles Times -- a.k.a. TMZ Spring St. -- which has seemingly committed to keeping Jackson on the front page above the fold every day until Sam Zell sprouts a full head of hair.

As for Couric, it's certainly easy to rationalize devoting so many resources to a story that's so good for business -- witness the Christmas-in-July ratings spike for "Nightline" last week, which averaged more viewers than either of the latenight talkshows -- but I suspect we'll all be looking back on this circus a few months from now with the same level of embarrassment and derision that followed the shark-attack summer of 2001.

Of course, we all know what happened in September of that year. Let's just hope we don't have to wait for something truly terrible to happen again to deliver another wake-up call.

Right after the Tonys aired in June, I politely suggested that Neil Patrick Harris -- who also did a brilliant job emceeing the recent TV Land Awards -- was the logical choice to host the Emmys.

I know what you're thinking: Brian, do you ever get tired of being right? Well, no, but thanks for asking.

As my colleague Cynthia Littleton is reporting, it looks like the "How I Met Your Mother" star does indeed have a date with the Emmys, a savvy move that promotes host Emmy network CBS' Monday comedy block while bringing a multifaceted talent (go back and watch that terrific closing number at the Tonys) to the hosting role -- someone who actually welcomes the pressure associated with a gig that brought five reality stars to their knees.

Now I know what else you're thinking: There's nothing more obnoxious than columnists who dislocate a shoulder patting themselves on the back over what they told you (or rather, Toldja!) would happen, and I completely agree. But frankly, that's child's play.

From the pundit's couch that I occupy (and someone should really re-upholster this baby), the real trick is having the insight to anticipate what should happen. You know, like stating outright that ABC should declare an official end date for "Lost" two or three years down the road -- under the headline "'Lost' needs an exit strategy" -- about six weeks before producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse wisely cajoled ABC into doing just that.

Of course, I've been wrong a number of times over the years too, but for some reason my Google refuses to dredge any of those up. (OK, so I might have predicted that the premiere of "Law & Order" looked shaky and that "Cop Rock" was likely to open big; sue me.)

At any rate, with the prospect of Harris as host I'm actually looking forward to the Emmys -- the actual show, I mean, not just the melee that's about to ensue when the TV academy tries to strip a handful of awards out of the main televised ceremony without causing a major ruckus among producers and members of the talent guilds.

So for now, assuming that nothing derails the deal, CBS and the Academy should reap the rewards of a solid decision, one that could be -- wait for it -- Legendary.

Remember last November, when newspapers were flying off racks and broadcast news ratings soared because of the election of Barack Obama?

To quote those "Bruno" ads, that was so 2008.

The media remains fascinated with Obama, all right, but it still can't resist its tabloid cravings for illicit affairs, shark attacks and freak shows such as the one represented by the later years in the life and now death of Michael Jackson.

Nearly a week after Jackson's death, the story is still dominating cable news, network morning shows and even key newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, which seems to have seized on "owning" the Jackson story by keeping it on the front page every day as its latest bid to save the struggling Tribune-owned franchise.

Unfortunately, such coverage is better suited to TMZ.com and other outlets that are more comfortable wading through celebrity trashcans -- no slap at them, by the way (as I've noted in an earlier post, it's Harvey Levin's world now; we just live in it), but a mere statement of fact.

There was "Nightline" on Tuesday, trying to cover the Jackson story without getting its hands dirty by running a puffy profile of TMZ mastermind Levin. "We use the same principles that 'Nightline' uses," Levin said earnestly, but I couldn't help thinking that the reality was a little closer to the other way around -- that "Nightline" has inched closer to TMZ's celebrity-crazed mix.

Like the shark attack mania and Chandra Levy-Gary Condit coverage that dominated the news in the summer before the Sept. 11 attacks, Jackson's death occurred after Memorial Day, when network primetime is free and easy. In fact, it's considerably freer and easier today than it was when the decade began, what with network ratings at historic lows, making a hasty news special look infinitely preferable to rerunning "Private Practice" or burning off episodes of "The Unusuals." (Even leading anchors have gotten into the act, with Katie Couric fronting "Michael Jackson: Picking Up the Pieces" under the "48 Hours" banner on CBS.)

Let's face it, documenting the unfolding events in Iran -- especially with the government cracking down on journalists -- and explaining the Obama administration's effort to reform health care is complicated and difficult. And South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford simply isn't known well enough on the national stage to compete with a personality like Jackson, though as Stephen Colbert noted earlier this week, the Republican would have been even luckier had he publicly admitted cheating on his wife one day later.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism summed up the obvious with its running tally of news coverage (excerpted below), and I have a feeling the figures for the current week will be even more jaw-dropping, if sadly predictable.

Bottom line: When it comes to feeding the media beast, even Obama and Iran currently can't lay a hand on the gloved one.

In Just Two Days, Jackson’s Passing Nearly Passes Iran in the News of the Week

 With unrest in Iran and a new political scandal, the media had its pick of stories to report on the week of June 22-28. But by week’s end, the death of Michael Jackson quickly dominated the media agenda, according to a report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Early last week, ongoing attention to protests over the Iranian election continued to dominate the news narrative, and by week’s end Iran filled 19% of the newshole, making it still the No. 1 topic of the week. But much of that came early. Indeed, in the first two days of the week, nearly a third of all coverage (31%) was devoted to events in the country. But as the protest movement moved underground, and the story became harder to cover, coverage subsided. By Wednesday attention shifted to the third biggest story of the week—the controversy around South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who admitted to an extra-marital affair after having gone missing for several days (11%).

But it was the late Thursday afternoon reports that Michael Jackson had died that captured the essence of the media narrative last week. The passing of the “King of Pop” was the No. 2 story last week, accounting for 18% of the newshole. From the time of the announcement of his death through the end of day Friday, more than 28 hours (60% of news coverage studied) was dedicated to Jackson’s passing. Cable news led the coverage, devoting 93% of airtime to the icon on Thursday and Friday. The story captured 55% of online coverage and 37% of front-page newspaper coverage. All other stories vied for attention amidst the biggest celebrity story in a decade.

Frankly, I understand why director Michael Bay wouldn't particularly like critics. If I made movies like "Transformers" and its sequel that raked in tons of money and received reviews like the delightfully entertaining drubbing administered by Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal, I'd do all I could to dismiss them as well.

Still, had to laugh at this quote attributed to Bay, perhaps not coincidentally, also in the Journal: "Critics have always torn me down. But I make movies for people, not critics."

OK, please say there's a missing adjective there: "Normal" people. Ordinary people (good movie, by the way). Regular people. Well-paid people. Perhaps even "people that actually have a life" or "People who aren't jaded and bitter." Having spent enough time around critics, I can certainly understand and even vouch for most of those characterizations.

But implying that critics aren't actually people? Hey, I saw "The Island" (and I'd like those two hours of my life back, by the way), and none of the critics I know look anything like the non-people in that.

The Los Angeles Times also tapped into the critics disconnected from audience theme, which makes the false assumption that because something is popular it must be brilliantly executed, while giving Bay additional opportunity to marvel at how "vicious" the reviews were. From what I read, though, most of the reviews were pretty clear that "Transformers" would be commercially successful and sought to review the movie in the context of what it was seeking to achieve -- nobody expected a toy-based summer popcorn pic to be "Masterpiece Theater" -- and still labeled it a big, noisy mess. The fact that some movies are review-proof is hardly news, any more than the fact that some movies and TV programs adored by critics hold little interest for a mass audience.

Bottom line, methinks somebody's been spending a little too much time hanging around the Autobots, until sorting out flattering people from critical people becomes something of a blur. Either that, or Bay might have just been a little lazy with his language. In that case, then one could truthfully say that there's less to his statement than meets the eye.

Rosie O'Donnell famously flopped with her attempt to revive variety series on NBC, but Ellen DeGeneres has exhibited the right stuff -- twice -- with her last and now latest special for TBS, tied to the "Just for Laughs" comedy festival.

The new hour, with the made-for-pay-TV-sounding title "Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show," premieres June 27 and opens with a brilliant sequence of DeGeneres (actually, an extremely talented stunt double) racing through Chicago, followed by a brief stand-up opener and then a variety of acts.

Taped in Chicago (the previous installments were shot in Vegas), the special actually features some celebrity appearances -- including Kanye West and David Blaine --but the best bits involve a Cirque du Soleil-style contortionist, a moderately revolting stupid human trick (I won't spoil it) and some nut that balances himself on precariously stacked pipes. It could just as easily be the old "Ed Sullivan Show," yet feels strangely fresh given how unabashed and un-cynical the whole exercise is. Besides, how often do you get to see somebody fire a crossbow with their feet?

Thus far, the networks have made a mess of variety (see "The Osbournes Reloaded" as well as O'Donnell's crime against television), but this Telepictures production (exec produced by Mary Connelly, Ed Glavin and Andy Lassner of DeGeneres' daytime show) captures just the right tone -- and I say this, by the way, as at best a marginal fan of her stand-up routine.

DeGeneres closes the hour with questions from the audience. The one question I left with is how long it will be before somebody tries to replicate the simple charms of "Bigger, Wider & Longer" on a weekly basis -- assuming, of course, that they can find a worthy host who, unlike DeGeneres, isn't presently encumbered by a day(time) job.

Give credit where it's due: TMZ.com, the web site and TV franchise run by Harvey Levin, approaches wading through celebrity trash cans with the sort of conviction once reserved for the Pentagon Papers. Small wonder that it was TMZ that broke the Michael Jackson story (as even the Los Angeles Times no doubt grudgingly acknowledged) and which will surely be everywhere over the next several days as new revelations about Jackson's strange life and death emerge.

Meanwhile, good luck seeing any other serious news over the next few days. Iran? Hang on folks, we'll catch you later. Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina? Lucky break, pal.

Even when CNN cut to Capitol Hill, it was to catch a "moment of silence" for Jackson. When it turned out that the "moment" had already occurred and they actually were discussing what appeared to be legislation, the network quickly cut back to Jackson-related news. CNN then found a woman who is "one of Michael Jackson's biggest fans" (I'm not sure who hands out those awards) on Hollywood Boulevard.

Frankly, when TMZ made its debut, I had my doubts about the viability of a web-based service devoted to nothing but celebrity gossip and news. After all, we had seen plenty of similar dot.com ventures rapidly go bust. But Levin -- who has a background in local Los Angeles TV news -- clearly got where the marketplace was heading, that even national news was drifting toward the tabloid sensibility that TMZ represented.

So congrats, Harvey. For better and mostly worse, it's your journalistic world now. The rest of us that cover entertainment just live -- hanging by our fingertips -- in it.

President Obama can forget about getting much attention for his health-care reform efforts over the next few days, as two celebrity deaths -- Farrah Fawcett, which had been anticipated; and Michael Jackson, which came out of the blue -- seem destined to dominate the conversation for a few days.

While the onslaught of coverage tied to Fawcett's death at 62 after a long illness felt more than a little excessive, the 50-year-old Jackson's sudden death warrants the wall-to-wall coverage that local TV and cable news are already showering upon it.

Few public figures over the years have been more tragic, bizarre or fascinating than Jackson, a cautionary tale about the effects of child stardom if there ever was one. Enormously talented as a singer and songwriter, Jackson's legacy will forever be sadly tainted by his personal quirks and excesses as well as allegations of abuse and child molestation that repeatedly dogged him.

For years, Jackson has been most famous as an oddity, and in that context, the instant media spectacle surrounding his death -- the frantic search for news, insight and analysis, as well as the crowd surrounding UCLA Medical Center -- seems strangely appropriate. There was CNN's Wolf Blitzer, left soberly introducing clips from the "Beat It" and "Black or White" videos like some aging, bearded veejay.

ABC and NBC had already announced Fawcett specials, but one suspects those plans are in flux. It seems inevitable that Jackson will be primetime news on the major networks tonight and -- given the treasure trove of high-rated interviews conducted with him over the years -- perhaps for days to come.

Having grown up with the Jackson Five, I would love to say that I'll remember Jackson for the sweet-voiced little boy that he was. There is, after all, a strong impulse not to speak ill of the dead. Unfortunately, no comprehensive discussion of Jackson's legacy can hold to that gauzy, nostalgic image for very long.

Update: And tonight's lineup: CBS News has scheduled "The Life and Death of Michael Jackson" for 10 p.m. NBC will air a two-hour "Dateline" devoted to both Jackson and Fawcett, bumping its previously announced Fawcett encore, "Farrah's Story," to Friday. ABC has set its own hour, also titled "The Life and Death of Michael Jackson," for 9 p.m.

Second Update: I went to Westwood on Thursday night to see the play "Farragut North" at the Geffen Playhouse. Not only was traffic mucked up by all the satellite trucks surrounding the UCLA Medical Plaza, but a group of a-holes were standing on the corner adjacent to UCLA selling Michael Jackson memorial T-shirts. Then again, what's the point of having a media circus without a bunch of parasites to sell concessions?

At times, the dueling spin coming from networks begins to approach the level of alternative realities -- a bit like flipping back and forth between MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Fox News' Sean Hannity, or scanning the lead items on the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post.

So it is with the David Letterman-Conan O'Brien derby, where NBC is frantically touting "The Tonight Show's" younger demos while CBS crows about Letterman drawing a larger audience than his latenight counterpart for the first time in more than three years.

The most interesting figure being pushed by NBC is the median age of the audience -- namely, that O'Brien's viewers clock in at just under 46 by that measure, while Letterman's posse perhaps not unexpectedly skews significantly older, at 57. That's reasonably close to the age gap between the two hosts.

That means that the O'Brien audience is more attractive to media buyers chasing younger men, but also that the older contingent that had been watching Jay Leno has pretty quickly abandoned him -- as evidenced by the just-released total audience figures for the week of June 15-19: "Late Show With David Letterman," 3.5 million; "The Tonight Show," 3.3 million. Even with a clear boost for Letterman thanks to the fabricated, media-stoked flap involving Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, that's a fairly steep decline for O'Brien from "Tonight's" overall average under Leno.

The truth is latenight is no longer a zero-sum game given all the options that are available, so both shows can thrive in slightly different quadrants. Yet NBC has been perhaps understandably fierce about proclaiming O'Brien the "new king of latenight" and madly spinning to reinforce that impression. (See my earlier column on this.)

The real mistake would be reading a shift as a failure somehow on O'Brien's part. If anything, both shows are doing a pretty good job of defying gravity, given how mediocre the primetime ratings for the major networks have been since Memorial Day.

Meanwhile, the ratings breakdown of the two programs puts the consumer press, in particular, in an awkward spot: In terms of cultural sway, total viewers is the obvious number to go by, as well as the easiest for lay people to understand, as in "X million people watched." From a business perspective, though, staying ahead among younger demos is significant. So at this point, who wins the war of spinning the referees, as it were, is far from an inconsequential point.

So you be the judge. Here are a few key passages from the respective releases.

CONAN HAS INCREASED 'TONIGHT'S' DEMO DOMINANCE, WINNING THE WEEK BY A 67 PERCENT MARGIN OVER 'LATE SHOW,' UP FROM A 53 PERCENT WIN LAST YEAR AND A 34 PERCENT LEAD EARLIER THIS SEASON

CONAN DELIVERS DECISIVE DEMO MARGINS OVER ALL BROADCAST AND CABLE COMPETITION FOR THE WEEK 

CONAN'S AUDIENCE IS 11 YEARS YOUNGER THAN 'LATE SHOW'S,' AND CONAN IS EVEN YOUNGER THAN HE WAS ON 'LATE NIGHT' FOR THE SAME WEEK LAST YEAR

The median age of Conan's audience last week was 45.8, more than 11 years younger than Letterman's 57.0.  Conan is also younger than he was a year ago on "Late Night," where the median age of his audience for this same week one year ago was 48.5.

In the younger half of the key 18-49 demographic, adults 18-34, Conan won the week by a towering 164 percent margin (930,000 adults 18-34 vs. "Late Show's" 352,000), up from 103 percent for the same week last year and up from 50 percent for "Tonight" this season through the end of May.

Meanwhile, from CBS' press department, a more straightforward assertion -- and a "first time since 2005" breakthrough, which ought to command tomorrow's headlines:

"LATE SHOW" BEATS "THE TONIGHT SHOW"

"Late Show with David Letterman" Tops "The Tonight Show"

Among Viewers in a Full Week of Original Broadcasts for the First Time Since 2005

"Late Show" Continues To Narrow the Gap in Adults 18-49

"The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" Closes the Gap

with "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"

            CBS's LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN beat "The Tonight Show" in viewers for the first time in a full week of original broadcasts since December 2005, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week ending June 19, the third week since Conan O'Brien took over as host of "The Tonight Show."

LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN delivered a 2.5/06 in households with an average of 3.46m viewers, up +14% in households (from 2.2/06) and +13% in viewers (from 3.05m) compared to the same week last year. 

LATE SHOW beat "The Tonight Show" in households (2.5/06 vs. 2.3/06, +9%) and viewers (3.46m vs. 3.32m, +4%).  LATE SHOW beat "The Tonight Show" in viewers against an all-first run week of "Tonight Show" broadcasts for the first time since the week ending December 2, 2005 (the week Oprah Winfrey appeared on LATE SHOW). 

When the news broke online that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had admitted to an extramarital affair, one of my colleagues brightly chirped, "Sanford and Sin."

"That's going to turn up elsewhere," I said, right after I finished laughing.

God bless the Internet.

By the time I saw that exact headline on Wednesday's edition of "Countdown With Keith Olbermann," a Google search yielded 281 hits for the governor's name paired with "Sanford and Sin," including the Christian Science Monitor and Huffington Post. Not to be outdone, Olbermann conducted a reading of Sanford's salacious emails to his Argentinian girlfriend, while the music for "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" played softly in the background.

Frankly, everyone seems to be having too good a time with all these Republican officials (I realize times are tough for the party, but do any Republicans still sleep just with their wives these days?) getting caught in sexual peccadilloes -- especially those who lambasted Bill Clinton and John Edwards for their extramarital dalliances. "The Daily Show" as usual got the hypocrisy factor just right, calling Sanford, "Just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis."

On Fox News Channel, Sean Hannity and Karl Rove both sounded almost funereal discussing Sanford's plight, while quickly trying to deflect the discussion to Democrats (see Spitzer, Eliot) who have been embroiled in their own sex scandals.

Meanwhile, in a final tribute to "Sanford and Son," I suppose this means that Sanford's wife can now say to Edwards' cheated-upon spouse, "Hang on, Elizabeth. I'm comin' to join ya!"

Although I first made this observation some time ago, the upcoming release of "Bruno" reminded me of the similarities between Sacha Baron Cohen and Stephen Colbert, beyond just the SBC-SC abbreviations.

Both have adapted comedy to a kind of made-for-the-reality-TV age performance art, improvising withing character in order to elicit reactions from the people (some famous, some not) with whom they interact. And they do so fearlessly -- at what occasionally appears to be risk to life and limb, from Baron Cohen visiting the Middle East to Colbert's shtick at the White House Correspondents Dinner a few years back or his recent trip to Afghanistan.

Inevitably, this approach is far more hit-miss than more conventional comedy, which is why I generally find Colbert to be less amusing on a night-in, night-out basis than its lead-in, "The Daily Show." Part of it just ends up being uncomfortable. But when it hits, the results can be explosively funny.

In some respects, this hunger for a sense of spontaneity resembles the comedic underpinnings of the old "Candid Camera," just recast for our more cynical times. Even in the awkward moments, though, it's difficult not to admire the concentration and skill required to improvise that rapidly when the other party's response is so unpredictable.

Since Baron Cohen likes to do his promotional appearances in character, the mind boggles at the prospect of a Bruno-"Colbert Report" faceoff, but alas, it won't be happening this time around. According to a rep for Comedy Central, Baron Cohen will be doing his push for the movie in July when the latenight tandem will be taking a well-deserved hiatus week, so the logistics didn't work out.

Too bad, because it could be a duel for the ages -- or at least, one perfectly suited to our current age.

Jon Gosselin said he hadn't signed up to have his life pored over by tabloids, and that he couldn't leave his house without being harassed.

His wife Kate was shown walking to the supermarket while photographers snapped pictures.

The next day, on "Today," People senior editor Kate Coyne insisted that the media coverage had nothing to do with the couple's breakup.

Over on "Good Morning America," they seemed to want to use the media circus as a teachable moment, promising to explore what parents should do at this stage of a marital split that's best for the children. "The experts weigh in," said Robin Roberts.

Ah, Diane Sawyer, behind that smile, it's hard to imagine what must go through your mind at times like these.

As for what's best for the kids, hmm. Maybe not turn them into props who grow up on television in the first place? Can't wait for the "E! True Hollywood Stories" on this group around 2023.

"The great Jon & Kate debate is over," they said on CBS' "The Early Show."

If it is, why are you all still talking about it?

The real winner here, obviously, is TLC, which stumbled into a pop-culture/tabloid sensation when its series about a couple raising eight kids saw their marriage begin fraying, throwing off rumors of affairs and launching a thousand US Weekly covers. Hell, I felt compelled to watch (OK, TiVo and zap through) Monday's big "Divorce, American Style" episode, a small triumph for a series I had previously managed to pretty much ignore until now.

The trick now will be how to continue mining that mini-gold mine as the story inevitable cools. Both parents have indicated a willingness to keep taping segments, mostly because at this point, what else do they have? The program has overtaken their lives and become a cash cow. Besides, the title "Kate Plus Eight ... and Maybe a new Man-friend?" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Meanwhile, here's some advice to the parents on "Raising Sextuplets," WE's new "Jon & Kate" knockoff: Start bickering. A lot. Sure, it'll be unpleasant initially, but just keep reminding yourself that in the world of tabloid TV, you'll actually be doing it for the children.

Celebrities do all kinds of unfortunate things when it comes to their kids, like giving them ridiculous names and using them as promotional props when convenient. Still, to me the children of celebrities should be off-limits unless they grow up and become celebrities themselves -- say, once they're as old as Bryce Dallas Howard. Or Michael Douglas. Call me wacky.

Nevertheless, Oxygen sucks the air out of good taste with the following announcement regarding an upcoming special about "Celeb-U-Tots." I know, others have gone down this road, but it strikes me as "If US Weekly jumped off the Empire State Building...."

I can't really improve on the release -- if by "improve" you mean auditioning to write for the Onion. Anyway, here's the Oxygen announcement (more like carbon dioxide) that went out today, with a few parenthetical comments. And I chose the color specifically because the mere idea makes me kind of nauseous.

THE CHILDREN OF CELEBRITIES ARE TAKING OVER! "OXYGEN'S 25IEST: CELEB-U-TOTS" TAKES A LOOK AT ALL THE ONES WE ARE OBSESSED WITH

(A thought here: If you are "obsessed with" the children of a celebrity, please seek help from a mental-health professional. Immediately. Please continue.)

One-Hour Special Premieres Tuesday, July 14 at 11pm ET/PT

New York -- June 22, 2009 –The offspring of celebrities are infiltrating Hollywood and Oxygen is counting down all the kids that everyone is talking about in "Oxygen's 25iest: Celeb-U-Tots," premiering Monday July 14 at 11PM, immediately following an all new episode of "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood." Tot-phenomenon is taking over Tinseltown with seemingly every top list star popping out a kid and every magazine at the checkout counter running baby bump alerts. On this edition of "The 25iest," Oxygen's counting down the Celeb-U-Tots we can't get enough of.

"While Stella and Liam are our personal favorite Celeb-U-Tots, we are interested with the children of all celebrities," said Amy Introcaso-Davis, Senior Vice President of Original Programming, Oxygen Media. "'25iest' will cover our favorites –from the twinkle-eyed two year olds to the trend-setting teens."

(OK, ew.)

The one-hour special will feature everyone's favorite celebrity's kids, including the "Family Business Celeb-U-Tots" Trey, Jaden and Willow Smith –who are following in their parents' footsteps and working in showbiz. With a $40,000 nursery, Emme and Max Muniz (J-Lo and Marc Anthony's children) come in as the "Definitely-Not-From-the-Block Celeb-U-Tots." And the list wouldn't be complete without "Trendsetting Celeb-U-Tot" Suri Cruise –so fashion forward that she is constantly filmed and photographed.

(Double ew.)

"Oxygen's 25iest" is a series of fast-paced pop-culture filled countdown specials of today's hottest people and trends. Whether it's the "25iest Power Couples," the "25iest Bad Girls Gone Good," or the "25iest Celeb-U-Tots," Oxygen lists the favorites, with added trivia and gossip.

Wait, I get it -- this is Oxygen's latest diet-related programming for its female viewers. Watch "Celeb-U-Tots" and you won't get your appetite back for days. Brilliant!

My weekend reading included Robin Givhan's Washington Post piece, "Echoes of TV's First Lady," which concluded that Michelle Obama's only real cultural antecedent is Clair Huxtable, the lawyer mom on NBC's iconic 1980s comedy "The Cosby Show."

The only problem, as was evident throughout the piece, is that supporting and propping up that premise meant ignoring or discounting examples that might inconveniently undermine it. And given that "Cosby" signed off 17 years ago, there are plenty of characters and personalities -- beginning, most glaringly, with Oprah Winfrey and Tyra Banks -- that Givhan was forced to omit or significantly diminish in order to buttress her theory.

Of course, to make her case that "the last similarly accomplished and wholesome black woman to enter the homes of TV audiences" was the "Cosby" character played by Phylicia Rashad, Givhan had to downplay African-American female doctors on "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice," just to cite a few high-profile current examples, as well as series such as "Girlfriends." Nor does the article exhibit any recognition of how the TV world has changed -- that no comedy or drama circa 2009 approaches the broad reach and cultural heft of "Cosby," which premiered a full quarter-century ago in a media landscape that bears scant resemblance to today's highly fragmented marketplace.

Such disclaimers would clearly soften such a story's hook. But it doesn't make them any less obvious, or any less accurate.

Frankly, I see this as an increasingly common affliction in some of our major newspapers -- a product of reporters too willing to please their editors, too harried to make an extra call, or too ambitious to entertain conflicting information that might dilute a gee-whiz pitch. The aggravating part is that it's a short hop from the Post's Style section or the New York Times' Arts & Leisure pages to the ravenous maws of network morning shows and cable news, virtually ensuring that a half-baked or bogus concept can circle the media globe, as the saying goes, before the truth can get its pants on.

Throw in the prevailing fascination with all things Obama, and it's a prescription for all the non-news that's fit to print ... and link to ... and copy.

This really is something of a renaissance for science/nature-type programming, and not just because Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" is coming up in early August -- always timed to scare the living shit out of us right before we start thinking about going into the ocean.

Before then, BBC America will air the fascinating "Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life," a June 21 documentary from Sir David Attenborough; and Animal Planet offers "Monsters Inside Me," a pretty great title for an otherwise-nondescript July series about parasites. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll admire CGI imagery of disgusting microbes, and you'll see a guy who has bloated feet and viscous fluid dripping out of his pores. Good times!

Discovery's "Shark Week" is by this point struggling to come up with fresh ways to serve fin soup, but the centerpiece appears to be the documentary "Blood in the Water," about a series of 1916 attacks off the New Jersey shore that provided inspiration for "Jaws." Whenever the topic is sharks, here's a tip: Anything that references "Jaws" has a big leg up (with apologies to that poor guy in the pond) in my book.

Still, the real standout here is the 83-year-old Attenborough's stately Darwin special, which -- drawing upon the filmmaker's earlier wildlife productions -- meticulously documents how Darwin conceived his theory of evolution to commemorate the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and 150th anniversary since he published "On the Origin of the Species."

Watch it with some Intelligent Design devotee that you love. Then try to get them to read a book other than the Bible.

Happened to tune in Craig Ferguson on Monday night (I was doing due diligence on the David Letterman-Sarah Palin flap), and caught this very funny bit at his desk where he talked about why media buyers covet younger demographics.

 The theory, Ferguson said, is "If you buy a product when you're 18 or 19 years old, you'll stick with that product your whole life. And I'm like, 'Are you crazy? I was buying cocaine when I was 19. I'm not buying it anymore."

Interestingly, that really is part of the reasoning behind the infatuation with adults 18-34 and teenagers -- that marketers hope to hook them young and reel them along throughout life, moving them on to more expensive brands within the same corporate family. We can all see how well that worked out for General Motors.

Ferguson doesn't strike me as a suck-up-to-the-boss type, but mocking the whole young-adult-target thing on the oldest-skewing of the major broadcast networks isn't a bad career move. After all, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has joked that the only "upscale" 18-to-34-year-olds that he knows are his kids -- and they're getting their money from him, an "upscale (and then some)" 50-something.

Mostly, though, what really impressed me is just how loose Ferguson is. Not everything works, but unlike, say, Jimmy Fallon -- who essentially tries to foster the illusion of spontaneity -- he does seem to be creating a lot of the show on the run, riffing freely and at least appearing to fly without a net.  On Monday, that included a silly gag about gay penguins in a German zoo -- with Ferguson particularly tickled by the fact that the penguins were German, not gay.

Fortunately for Ferguson, this satisfied customer still falls within a couple of important demographics. Now if only I could stay up that late on a weeknight.

Right before the game ended on Sunday night, Laker players and coach Phil Jackson appeared in public-service announcements asking fans to "celebrate with dignity" and be safe. Well, so much for that.

Instead, TV viewers were treated to the by-now predictable spectacle of "fans" lighting fires, shaking moving cars and looting in response to the NBA franchise's 15th championship. It looked a little like the video coming out of Iran, only the issue wasn't about Democracy, other than the freedom to drive around with flags hanging out of your car windows.

Of course, local stations covered these unseemly events but didn't want to let them detract from the celebration. Sports guys made no mention of the unrest, leaving that to the news anchors -- who busily exulted over the big win themselves. Meanwhile, it was all "How does it feel, Kobe?" and the usual post-game blather. KCBS-TV's Jim Hill is always utterly vacuous in his interviews -- I can't remember the last time he actually articulated a question -- but the rest of the gang at competing stations gave him a run for his money.

What nobody mentioned -- and the NBA and Lakers certainly have no interest in identifying -- is the weird disconnect that exists between pro sports and the fan base in terms of economics. Los Angeles is suffering through double-digit unemployment rates, and the area surrounding Staples Center -- where the Lakers play their home games -- is economically depressed. Yet the team charges hundreds of dollars per ticket for those playoff seats -- and thousands for the celebrities and agents that line the court to rub elbows with Jack Nicholson. Pro sports isn't a family excursion anymore, but a trip behind the velvet ropes of a very exclusive club.

As a consequence, most fans will never experience actually being inside the arena for a game, which is just fine with the league, since owners derive much of their revenue from television rights. The result is a modern-day electronic Roman Colosseum, with the peasants relegated to the cheapest of cheap seats -- in this case, on the couch.

They watch the games on TV, some of them get liquored up, and then a bunch of yahoos take to the streets. The expected news outlets express disgust -- "Hey, we won! Let's have a riot!" chortled Fox News' Jon Scott on Monday morning -- but the dynamics are unlikely to change, and no one has the slightest interest in addressing or exploring them. Indeed, a passion for the Lakers and Dodgers is about the only civic glue that L.A. possesses, traditionally cutting across class and ethnic divisions.

Meanwhile, the acts of what L.A.'s police chief dubbed a few "knuckleheads" are quickly forgotten. It's simply rinse, repeat. And for some lucky city, see you after the World Series in October.

Although I've referenced this before, this seems like an appropriate time to point out again how "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" appears to be a more fruitful incubator of comedy talent these days than "Saturday Night Live."

Stephen Colbert just completed a deservedly buzzed-about week of USO shows in Iraq channeling the spirit of Bob Hope. Ed Helms is co-starring in the breakout theatrical comedy "The Hangover," which is hanging on and then some. Steve Carell stars in "The Office" on TV (in which Helms co-stars) and has a thriving film career. And Rob Riggle and Aasif Mandvi turn up in small roles in "The Hangover" and "The Proposal," respectively.

Two of "SNL's" highest-profile alumni, meanwhile, coincidentally happen to be starring in boxoffice disappointments -- Will Ferrell in "Land of the Lost" and Eddie Murphy's latest, "Imagine That." Granted, more recent "SNL" graduates have birthed comedies for NBC -- Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in primetime, and Jimmy Fallon sliding into latenight. Yet while "30 Rock" has drawn deserving critical plaudits, it remains borderline in terms of ratings, and the jury's still out on the commercial prospects and creative merit of those other endeavors. (Of course, one could expand the discussion to include "SNL's" Maya Rudolph, currently co-starring in "Away We Go" with The Office's" John Krasinski, whose TV co-star Oscar Nunez also turns up in "The Proposal," but let's table that part of the discussion before my head explodes.)

The bottom line is that given all the noise "SNL" created during the 2008 campaign with Fey's dead-on impersonation of Sarah Palin -- as well as the occasional viral video sensation -- the show's fabled eye for talent hasn't necessarily kept up with the Joneses. Or at least, the Stewarts.

So chalk this up as a rare instance (for me, anyway) of accentuating the positive -- with apologies to Colbert, less a wag of the finger at "SNL" than a tip of the hat to "The Daily Show" and its progeny.

With so much attention focused on NBC and CBS -- and the former prematurely proclaiming Conan O'Brien "the new king of late night" based on one week, which is sure to piss off David Letterman -- the folks at ABC's "Nightline" have been clamoring not to be forgotten in discussions of the latenight ratings race.

I'm happy to oblige, but perhaps not in the way they intended.

Surveying the show, I increasingly find the once-laudable notion of a latenight news alternative to be evaporating as the ABC News program stirs up a cocktail that's invariably about two parts fluff to every shot of hard news.

During the current week, "Nightline" delivered a breathless piece about Bravo's "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and a hard-hitting (heh heh) examination of "sexual addiction" with Martin Bashir in the anchor seat. Surely it was happenstance that the latter aired the same night that ABC broadcast the NBA Finals, feeding a large number of men into its latenight block. (In Los Angeles, KCAL-TV often runs what's derisively nicknamed the "sex news" following Lakers games, full of strippers and such, pandering to the male audience.)

On Wednesday, with Terry Moran at the helm, "Nightline" opened with the Holocaust Museum shooting but gave the troubling story short shrift in order to do a feel-good piece about a children's choir. In similar fashion, instead of discussing the brewing battle over health-care reform on Thursday, the show led with a soft piece about calorie-counting at restaurants, followed by a South American animal preserve. Nice scenery, but little substance.

Although I can understand departing from the single-topic approach associated with Ted Koppel's storied run -- attention spans being what they are these days -- "Nightline" proves consistently irritating in its habit of short-changing major stories in order to make time for soft lifestyle or celeb-faux-tainment segments. On slow news days, that's fine. But when something truly major happens, do we really need the piece on the "word nerd" (as they quaintly dubbed him) who calculates how many words there are?

In short, the hand-wringing that once greeted the prospect of ABC bumping "Nightline" in favor of talk/comedy no longer seems quite so dire. The reason critics felt compelled to fight for the program when ABC pursued Letterman a few years ago was not to preserve latenight news per se but a true hard-news show -- an increasingly rare commodity. The current incarnation simply doesn't rise to that description often enough to merit such support.

To give "Nightline" its due, as ABC has noted, the ratings continue to be more than respectable. It's just the show itself that's a lot less respectable than the incarnation that began as "America Held Hostage." I just spent the better part of a week watching the new "Nightline," and for now, my own hostage ordeal is over.

Back to the funny guys.

The harsh truth: If you do not have cable or a satellite dish at this point (more than 85% of U.S. households do), you are either A) economically disadvantaged or B) don't care enough about watching television to ante up. Either way, you're not of much use to the television business -- and thus not a priority to them.

Of course, there are other sub-sets of the non-cable camp, including those who consciously choose not to have a TV set (though they account for only about 1% of U.S. homes) or those who have fallen in love with Netflix, DVD rentals or watching video on their computer who can bypass cable or a dish. Those people, however, won't be inconvenienced by the transition from analog to digital transmission.

Nielsen's latest survey found that only 2.5% of U.S. households are still unprepared for the digital switch, which still amounts to about 2.8 million homes. Intuitively I suspect the actual number is somewhat higher than that, and that several million people will be left howling and confused when the TV they've been getting with rabbit ears goes dark on Friday.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the NBA Finals, Los Angeles is among the least-prepared markets based on percentage of population at 4.46% (or sixth among the 56 metered markets), which is going to leave some ticked-off people with Lakers flags attached to their car windows when Game 5 rolls around Sunday. By contrast, Orlando is the 12th best-prepared market at 1.45%.

So cheer up, Magic fans. You can chant "Beat L.A." and be right on at least one level.

Does this mean I will no longer see a parade of picketers each time I walk down Wilshire Boulevard to Baja Fresh or Koo Koo Roo?

If they started negotiating right now, is there any chance that the Screen Actors Guild and studios will agree on a new deal by the time the just-ratified one has expired?

How long before A) the conspiracy theorists start demanding a recount, and B) Jon Voight finds a way to blame the whole thing on Obama?

Does the 78% "Yes" vote prove once and for all how representative blog comments are?

Given all the finger-pointing that both sides have had to endure, could someone please explain to me why somebody would want to run for office in this guild?

On a more serious note, I watched an elaborate demonstration today of the Windows Media Center -- Microsoft's latest innovation to govern the TV-viewing-on-your-PC experience -- and I'm still utterly mystified about precisely where the future of new media is heading.

As the directors determined, the guilds weren't going to get any more out of the studios this time around -- especially in this financial environment. Given that -- and the way the economic winds shifted against SAG as the talks dragged on -- about all you can say to talent is to pray that the economic situation improves, and better luck next time.

Barack Obama is certainly distinguishing himself as the coolest latenight TV president ever, though with things so screwed up, you sort of wish that the U.S.' comedy troops would stop making so many conspicuous demands on his time.

First, NBC News' Brian Williams got the president to send a shout out to Conan O'Brien on his first week hosting "The Tonight Show." Then on Monday, Obama made a cameo appearance on "The Colbert Report's" first in a week of programs from Iraq, "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando." In a stern voice, Obama ordered General Ray Odierno to shave Colbert's head, much to the delight of the throng of military personnel on hand in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.

Presidential politics aside, Colbert appeared with a golf club in hand like a latter-day Bob Hope. The troops ate it up -- even a gag about generals hitting the golf course that seemed to resonate a lot more heartily in the room than it will back home.

Then again, Iraq's status as the increasingly invisible war was a big part of Colbert's opening-night shtick, though Odierno was clearly not completely amused by the host's decision to take it upon himself to officially declare victory.

Colbert is near-unparalleled in his ability to ad-lib so seamlessly in character, but there were several other highlights to be found in latenight on Monday -- none better than Jon Stewart's follow-up takedown of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" regarding its product-placement deal with Starbucks. At some point, NBC cable-network hosts should learn to quit while they're behind instead of engaging "The Daily Show" host and being made to look like total assholes, as first Jim Cramer and now Joe Scarborough have done. (OK, they did a pretty good job of that even without Stewart, I grant you.)

David Letterman also hosted Howard Stern on Monday, and Stern stated right up front that Letterman's producers were excited backstage about the prospect of beating "The Tonight Show" with Stern -- historically a solid ratings draw -- as a guest. Always eager to provoke, Stern then proceeded to trash Jay Leno (never mind his occasional appearances there) and deliver a pitch for Letterman -- who did his best to look like he wasn't eating the whole thing up -- over O'Brien.

All told, a pretty busy, vibrant few hours in latenight (thank God for that West Coast time difference on the Comedy Central duo) that should yield plenty of YouTube-worthy clips in its wake. Notably, the latenight mayhem also far eclipsed any of the shenanigans in primetime, where the train wreck called "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" keeps chugging along. (Oh, and speaking of Leno, NBC aired a weird promo for "The Jay Leno Show" mocking the network for wanting to make a mess of the new program.)

Based on his debut push with "Operation Iraqi Stephen," anyway, Colbert's show has the makings of fire-up-the-TiVo, must-see TV this week. And as he proved at the White House Correspondents Dinner a few years back, whether he's "going commando" or not, in terms of utterly fearless comedy, it's hard not to admire this guy's balls.

New York Times TV critics Alessandra Stanley and Ginia Bellafante both submitted Emmy picks on Sunday under the headline "And the Nominees Should Be..."

Only for about a third of their choices for lead actor and actress in a comedy and drama, the nominees can't be -- because those performers weren't submitted in the lead acting category.

Stanley gave a well-deserved promotion to supporting actor Michael Cudlitz ("Southland"), but it was the actresses that received the most bumps up: Hope Davis ("In Treatment"), Portia de Rossi ("Better Off Ted"), Chloe Sevigny ("Big Love") and Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men"). The biggest head-scratcher, though, might have been Chris Rock as the narrator in "Everybody Hates Chris," which suggests she must have thought the comedy category was really slim pickings this year.

For her part, Bellafante also elevated Sevigny to lead status, along with Justin Kirk ("Weeds"), Jeremy Piven ("Entourage"), Lisa Edelstein ("House"), Jane Lynch ("Party Down"), and Madeleine Martin ("Californication").

Granted, there's a fair amount of strategy and politicking in deciding how performers are submitted, but some of these are clearly supporting players. Although I understand the impulse to simply single out those actors that you liked, the fomal way in which the choices were presented within the paper's special "Emmys section" sort of muddied the waters, especially if Emmy voters fill out their ballots the way California primary voters do -- you know, read the ballot recommendations in the polling booth and make up your mind at the last minute.

So consider this effort to set the record straight a public-service contribution to the TV academy, ensuring that the Emmy voting process is handled more smoothly than the standard election in Florida or Ohio.

A bit of Socratic logic:

Neil Patrick Harris has proven himself to be a talented host of award shows.

CBS -- the network upon which Harris stars in "How I Met Your Mother" -- will broadcast the Emmy Awards this fall.

Is Neil Patrick Harris the logical choice to host this year's Emmys?

In addition to the Tonys -- which he opened with some very funny stuff and closed with a riotous song, including a joke about how "singing on your knees" is the way to win Golden Globes -- Harris did a yeoman's job hosting the TV Land Awards recently. He obviously likes this stuff -- he actually told the New York Times that "I love the hosting thing" -- which separates him from the many who rightfully view award shows as a sort of thankless task.

After last year's misguided experiment with a quintet of reality hosts, the Emmys are likely to try and get back to basics a bit. Yet while that might augur going with Craig Ferguson -- host of CBS' "The Late Late Show" -- Harris could be a more logical fit. He's been nominated for "Mother," and it's a show CBS would like to prop up as the series slides down to 8 p.m. in the fall.

Actually, the really logical choice would be David Letterman, assuming that someone could convince him that the exposure would do him good in his goal of becoming No. 1 in latenight again. But getting Dave to attend the Emmys, much less host it, has always been a problem, and I suspect that Oscar-hosting "Uma-Oprah" thing still sticks in his craw a bit. Then again, the pitch to Dave could be about achieving a measure of redemption in more ways than one -- reminding the TV world why he's so highly regarded by critics and helping promote his program in the process. Just think of all the "Leno at 10 o'clock" jokes he could do on the night before Leno premieres.

At the least, CBS and producer Don Mischer have some interesting options. And I'm pretty sure that after last year, Jeff Probst isn't one of them.

One of the great things about the insatiable capacity of basic cable is that it doesn't take much to get them to blow out entire lineups for an act of corporate synergy. So it is with Universal's Chiller network, which is running a 24-hour "Land of the Lost" marathon today (June 6) to coincide with the studio's release of the movie.

Having not seen the series for years (and never much liked it -- or virtually anything else from the Sid & Marty Krofft stable -- back when I was a kid), it was interesting to see how those cheesy special effects look to grown-up (OK, older) eyes.

My real problem with the show back in the '70s wasn't so much that the effects looked cheap, but that the dinosaurs never got to do anything. Every so often the T-Rex would show up and everyone would run like hell, but he never got to eat something -- or somebody. I understood that the central trio were off limits, but couldn't he swallow a Sleestak, or one of Cha-Ka's tribe? A smaller dinosaur or a stray mammal? For all we knew, the T-Rex was a Vegan.

Of course, the acting was awful, but in hindsight that seems like less of a problem, mostly because the cardboard performances were sort of perfectly suited to the paper-mache sets. And even then, I think I sensed that there was something creepy about forcing that little kid to wear all that makeup and that uncomfortable-looking fur suit.

Reviews of the movie have been pretty awful (for a sampling see the Metacritic scores), and it looks like the opening-weekend results will be disappointing. But watching a few episodes of the TV show I was again utterly mystified by one key creative choice in the film: Not including any kids in the movie. Frankly, I can't think of anything more ripe for parody than the acting by those kids, and having them around would have increased "Lost's" appeal to a younger audience, which seems like a no-brainer when dealing with a project derived from a Saturday-morning children's property -- even one that's 35 years old.

Instead Universal made a deservedly PG-13-rated movie for teenage boys and stoned young guys that people in their 30s and 40s -- who watched the program as kids and thus might feel a sense of nostalgia -- would rightfully balk at taking a kid under 13 or 14 to see. In fact, the narrow appeal is completely summed up by the poster: Will Ferrell + dinosaur. As marketing hooks go, that's a pretty slim one.

I doubt seriously that there was a great movie to be made from a mediocre '70s children's series, but there was probably a more commercial one. By that measure, as the Chiller marathon demonstrates, something was clearly lost in translation.

We get letters. Occasionally I'm mystified how they find us, but the Internet is a strange thing, and it's nice to help when you can. So if anyone knows the answer to this query -- from a member of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Baghdad -- please post a response, or let me know directly and I'll pass along the information.

Yes, that's right -- we do it all here for the troops.

Where can I purchase the Wicker egg chair in the movie????

I do not want the one that is similar and sold at pottery barn….I want the exact chair like the one in the movie.

HELP….I need that chair!

Alec Baldwin has been a bright spot for NBC will his brilliant performance as a TV (and microwave oven) executive on "30 Rock." Now NBC is exhibiting a commitment to employ the less-talented members of the acting Baldwin clan on the reality show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!," bringing in Daniel Baldwin in Wednesday's episode to join his brother, Stephen, in the Costa Rican jungle.

Can Billy Baldwin be far behind?

Of course, both Stephen and Daniel have past reality-TV experience -- the former in "The Apprentice," the latter in VH1's "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew." Billy was last seen as a regular on the ABC drama "Dirty Sexy Money," which seems appropriate, since it's difficult to think of a way for a celebrity to make money that's any dirtier than this.

Apparently, NBC also stands for No Baldwin Control. On the plus side, the Baldwin invasion does suggest the title for a potential spinoff, tentatively titled, "I'm an NBC Star ... Please Get My Relatives Off My Network!" Or maybe "The Brothers McMorons." We'll have to see which one clears legal.

There have been multiple attempts to do a show that draws upon all the video available on the web -- essentially to allow a big fat corporation like Viacom to inject itself into the viral process and try to make a profit off all that free content. Add Comedy Central's "Tosh.0" to the list.

Premiering June 4, the show has a light, breezy, willfully stupid quality, which is probably exactly what this sort of enterprise requires. But it's still an awfully thin, hit-or-miss gruel, the kind that can be consumed in such bite-sized bits that it's hard to imagine anyone -- no matter how stoned they are -- sitting still through a commercial break, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Basically, host/comic Daniel Tosh plays silly videos and riffs on them, from fetishist fare to a guy swallowing a teaspoon of cinnamon and promptly barfing. The commentary is wry and at times reasonably amusing, but there's no escaping that you're watching cheap, grainy-looking crap that you could just as easily be watching on a computer (minus Tosh, of course) at work -- assuming that you're still lucky enough to have a job. Indeed, Tosh kept saying that fuller and less edited versions of the videos were available on the show's website, which made me wonder why I wouldn't just watch it there and skip the TV-edition middle man.

Among the regular features is something called "Web Redemption," in which Tosh finds someone featured in a humiliating video and gives them a second chance. That's actually a pretty clever idea, although it assumes that everyone likely to tune in would be familiar with "Afro Ninja," who wiped out and ate floor trying to executive a back flip.

On the plus side, it's hard to imagine a more inexpensive concept, and Comedy Central obviously has the latitude and even the mandate to play around with ways to bring its web-connected young-guy audience into one tube, as it were.

Still, the channel's development often strikes me as a missed opportunity, seldom approaching the smarts that "The Daily Show"/"Colbert Report" deliver nightly, which would be a real way to fortify the channel's brand.

Instead, Comedy Central went searching for a bright new format and basically came back with a latter-day version of "America's Funniest Home Videos" -- more proof that even on the web, if you wait a few years, everything old is new again. 

Conan O'Brien's second night on "The Tonight Show" exhibited signs of improvement but indicated that the host is still finding the new program, the raucous audience response and extended ovations notwithstanding.

The monologue again proved slightly uneven, as did a taped piece in which O'Brien went on a shopping spree through the Crenshaw district. Oddly enough, the real highlight came courtesy of Brian Williams' interview with President Obama, who spoke earnestly about the Leno-to-Conan transition, promising that there would be no bailout.

The one major area of improvement on Tuesday had little to do with the host, as Tom Hanks did pretty much everything you can ask of a talkshow guest: He was witty, engaging, prepped with good stories (including a Ron Howard impersonation that made the director sound like an early Jerry Lewis), and even expressed human-sounding enthusiasm for a local burger chain.

O'Brien also showed flashes of his ability to create the show at the desk, with a small bit about his California driver's license photo that generated solid laughs. The more he can do that -- without feeling the need to rely on elaborate taped pieces -- the better off he'll be. By contrast, a spoof about Twitter had promise but went nowhere.

Still, if you were scoring on points, the referee's decision again went to David Letterman. He delivered a firstrate monologue and again joked about the latenight turmoil over at NBC, including an aside about North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il being offered "the 10 o'clock slot" to make him go away.

So all told, a pretty good night for Conan -- but a better one for Dave. The real question will be how well the "Tonight Show" numbers hold up from Monday after the initial burst of curiosity. O'Brien has a golden opportunity to woo fringe voters, as it were, over the next few weeks -- but the real test for NBC will come in the fall, when Leno shakes up the 10 p.m. hour.

Until then, savor those ovations.

To no one's surprise, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly managed to find four guests who completely agreed that he bore absolutely no responsibility for the murder of Dr. George Tiller -- the Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions -- to open Monday's "The O'Reilly Factor."

To no one's surprise, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann devoted a sizable portion of his own "Countdown" program to leveling precisely that charge, showing video of O'Reilly saying in regard to Tiller, "There's got to be a special place in Hell for this guy."

O'Reilly said any criticism of his attacks on Tiller were being mounted by his enemies -- Fox News "haters" and "vicious individuals" on "the far left" -- implying that no rational person could find the heated and repeated rhetoric emanating from the channel toward a private citizen troubling.

Saying that viewer and advertiser boycotts would be ineffective, Olbermann suggested a "quarantine" of Fox News Channel, saying that O'Reilly's verbal attacks against Tiller were "blindly irresponsible" and "set the stage for his assassination."

Flipping back and forth between the two programs, I kept thinking that these kind of charges and counter-charges are too serious to be thrown around blithely as part of a cable-TV feud, and that maybe it's time for self-reflection -- for both sides to take a deep breath. Perhaps more than anything, it's time for the bosses at each of these networks to sit down their star talent and calm them down -- for management to actually try managing these mercurial personalities. What a novel thought.

On Tuesday, O'Reilly was back at it, urging an email campaign to GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Seriously, does anybody at Fox think this childish finger-pointing benefits anyone? Sure, conflict sells, but someone needs to say that with these platforms comes a need for at least a measure of restraint.

This all started with Olbermann jabbing up at his rival, and O'Reilly has taken the bait more fabulously than the MSNBC host ever could have hoped. But now it has gotten to the point of absurdity, and you get the feeling -- a bit like the HBO movie "Weapons of Mass Distraction" -- that it's going to continue until somebody gets hurt. At that point, even "The Daily Show" won't be able to make this electronic-age Punch and Judy show amusing.

Like I said, a deep breath is in order on both sides. But based on past performance, I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.