"Scrubs" has risen from the dead so many times that it's starting to resemble a zombie movie, "Night of the Living Comedy." The show resurfaces Dec. 1 on ABC, reloading with new cast additions and a revised format that shift the focus to medical students. (The subtitle "Med School" -- which series creator Bill Lawrence wanted -- has been left off thus far, presumably for syndication purposes.)

Zach Braff is back for the first half-dozen episodes, but he's going to pass the voiceover baton to another self-doubting young doctor to be, Lucy, played with stammering cuteness by Kerry Bishe. The real draw, though, remains John C. McGinley as the now brutal-on-the-med-students Dr. Cox, in what amounts to a kind of "The Paper Chase" reboot.

The show still possesses amusing flights of fancy, from a reference to former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo -- which certainly wins points for sheer obscurity -- to Lucy's fantasy Lifetime movie in the second of Tuesday's back-to-back half-hours.

Still, now that the one-time NBC show has been saved (again), I sort-of wish ABC had put the paddles away and let it pass gently into the night. "Scrubs" was never a great comedy, but it was a pretty good one; that said, the series never really possessed the must-see qualities -- or for that matter, the kind of ratings -- that would warrant trading off the name in this fashion. Moreover, now that ABC finally has a little traction in the comedy arena with "Modern Family" and Lawrence's "Cougar Town," keeping "Scrubs" on life support seems more unnecessary than ever.

In his message to journalists at the front of the online screener, Lawrence talked about bringing the show back and, to those scribes who were going to give "Scrubs" a second chance, said, "Thanks for bothering."

The episodes were pleasant enough, so watching them was no bother. Even so, it remains something of a mystery why ABC did.

On Monday, ABC aired "Find My Family," a show that helps adoptees and parents who gave away their babies reconnect with missing biological relatives.

Since the program was announced, Variety's website has received dozens of emails from people who for some reason think leaving a message with us will help them become participants in the show. I've received a handful more personally.

So as a public service, let me say clearly and definitively: Variety is not associated with "Find My Family," has no pull with the producers of "Find My Family," and cannot help you, um, "Find Your Family." One would think that would be fairly obvious once people come to the website, but whatever.

If you are interested in using the show as a tool in finding your family (and I should add letting them use you in kind), there's information regarding the program and how to apply at ABC's website. Here's the link.

Now go find your family, and good luck with that. Just leave us alone so that we can get back to the business of spending the holidays like everyone else -- namely, complaining about our families.

Had to laugh at a comment posted on my review of "Merry Madagascar," the NBC animated special from DreamWorks that aired this week.

"You friggin scrooge," wrote "santa@thenorthpole.com." "It's a holiday special for kids not the next Mona Lisa! Geesh get with the season."

Sorry, Santa, but I grew up on a diet of great holiday kids shows: "A Charlie Brown Christmas." "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- stuff that has withstood the test of time. And given all the advantages that are available today from a production/technology standpoint, there's no reason that the modern versions ought to be dreck -- or get a free pass for it.

In fact, there is a terrific animated holiday special coming up on ABC -- not surprisingly, one produced under the aegis of Pixar's John Lasseter, "Prep & Landing," about Christmas elves. (As opposed to, I guess, "Lord of the Rings" elves.) A more detailed review will come later (the show airs on Dec. 1), but it's precisely the kind of holiday offering I fondly remember -- one that both kids and adults can enjoy.

Children consume enough junk food as it is, and that includes a lot of the TV they watch. The holiday confections served to them ought to be held to a higher standard.

And if you don't like it, Santa, then at the risk of winding up with coal in my stocking, I suggest you stick it up the chimney with care.

Although the second episode of "V" put up perfectly fine ratings -- 10.7 million viewers in the updated Nielsen nationals, and a 3.8 rating among adults 18-49 -- ABC ought to be somewhat concerned about the fairly sizable drop from the premiere.

As other networks were more than happy to point out, "V's" decline of more than 25% marked the steepest week-to-week falloff for any new scripted series this season -- trailing CBS' "NCIS" in demos as well as total viewers. And that was despite a premiere that generally drew strong reviews -- including from yours truly -- with a very respectable score of 67 on metacritic.com.

The second episode held up reasonably well creatively, though not surprisingly, it lacked the pace and urgency of the front-loaded pilot. Still, the show seems to have some a number of solid elements in place, though I could seriously do without the subplot involving the love-lorn teenager pining after the hot blonde Visitor (except for maybe the hot blonde part).

As scheduled by ABC, "V" will air for two more weeks in November, then take a break and return next year. The network has to hope now that the declines don't cut much deeper during this mini-run so that it can bring the series back with a degree of momentum.

"V" also might illustrate what ABC appears to be discovering with "FlashForward" -- namely, that viewers set the bar quite high for series they know are going to be heavily serialized and will bail out fairly soon if they're not pleased with how the shows are progressing. I'm sticking with "FlashForward," but I seem to spend more time reading the newspaper as I watch with each subsequent airing.

In both cases it's clearly too soon to press the panic button, but that thrill of victory that ABC doubtless felt after the premiere could be short-lived if much more of that first wave of valiant "V" viewers vanishes before Thanksgiving. Take it as a reminder that in primetime, there's a fine line between "victory" and "vacancy."

Well, at least there's nothing rogue about Sarah Palin's book-promoting machinery.

The former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate already has a much-anticipated Nov. 16 date with "The Oprah Winfrey Show" -- anticipated, mostly, because Winfrey publicly supported Barack Obama. Now Palin is set for a multipart interview with Barbara Walters starting Nov. 17 that will spill across "Good Morning America," "Nightline" and "20/20" through that week.

Given that Palin's pre-election interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson were instrumental in painting her as being in over her head on the national political stage to much of America, it will be interesting to see how she fares in the softer focus of what amounts to the celebrity interview, all in the service of her book "Going Rogue: An American Life."

Walters probably won't elicit tears, but I suspect Palin will do much better in this format -- although whether that prepares the Wasila native more for life as a media darling than future political runs is anybody's guess. And while additional broadcast stops have yet to be announced on the book tour -- "The Jay Leno Show?" Maybe even (gasp) David Letterman? -- Palin is also set to visit with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Nov. 18, the host with whom the candidate spent many a softball-filled hour while on the campaign trail.

Even a Maverick-y rogue knows it's smart to play to the base.

Random thoughts from a full evening of Thursday TV viewing:

-- "FlashForward" does a nice job with its end-of-show cliffhangers/teasers. It's everything leading up to those moments that has significantly dragged the last two weeks. The ratings continue to hold up reasonably well, but the series had better pick up the pace or the audience is going to start getting antsy -- in the same way that critics at Slate and Salon took recent potshots.  

-- Best "Grey's Anatomy" of the year. Taut, smart and compelling, pulling the viewer along through the mystery of what happened to a patient. The merging of the two hospitals has brought a welcome burst of energy and drama to the show -- centering around (gasp) concerns about medical costs instead of the staff's personal lives -- after last season's often absurd bouts of melodrama.

-- Worst "The Office" of the season so far. Listening to Michael and Pam shriek at each other got boring pretty fast. (In the "different strokes" dept., critic Alan Sepinwall disagrees.)

That said, the series remains terrific overall -- and deserves credit for doing as well as it is (8.7 million viewers on Thursday, with a 4.4 rating among adults age 18-49) given the relative weakness of the NBC comedies surrounding it.

-- Watching the dude faint on "Survivor" wasn't as harrowing as I was lead to believe it was going to be. But I did enjoy the part where Jeff Probst acted like he was making all the decisions for the show on his own, without consulting the producers.

Well, critics had better get used to squinting into their computer screens instead of plopping on the couch to watch network screeners.

NBC has joined ABC by announcing that it will make its screeners available online, touting that as a "more 'green' way to review NBC Universal shows." It's also a "more green" way, presumably, for the networks, in that posting programs online is cheaper than having to mail them out to critics and reporters. Plus it blunts piracy concerns about people selling DVDs.

Of course, critics don't love this, and producers have reason not to be thrilled either. Although I previewed ABC's "V" at Comic-Con with an audience, I just went back and re-viewed the pilot online. Those shots of people staring up in awe as great big spaceships hover over cities don't look quite as imposing on my 15-inch monitor as they would on my 46-inch TV.

Personally, I don't mind watching a pilot online, provided it's a half-hour or an hour (really only about 43 minutes). But watching anything longer than that is (literally) kind of a pain in the ass -- and sort of like consuming a 15-page New Yorker article online, when printing it out and reading it is much more convenient.

Although I sympathize with the networks about mail being slightly passe and even appreciate their environmental good citizenship, in some respects, "Godzilla" had it right: Size really does matter.

ABC just put out a "My audience can beat up your audience" press release, bragging about the fact that the network ranked first during premiere week among adults age 18-49 in homes with annual income over $100,000.

Of course, my guess is CBS kicked the crap out of them in upscale homes with adults over 50, but since nobody wants to talk about them, nothing to see here, move along.

It's probably just me, but I find these kind of stats fascinating -- mostly because it feeds my premise that as network audiences dwindle, they have to be more creative in carving out areas where they can claim to be first. If nothing else, it's also reassuring to see that the well-to-do don't automatically have any better taste in TV programming than anybody else.

Here's the key portion of the release:

ABC Claims 7 of the Top 15 Non-Sports Shows for the New Season Among Adults 18-49 in Homes with $100k+ Annual Income

“Grey’s” is the No. 1 TV Show Overall, "Cougar Town," “FlashForward” and “Modern Family” Stand as TV’s Top 3 New Shows with Upscale Young Adults

Premiere Week National Audience Demographics

In addition to winning season premiere week among Adults 18-49 based on Nielsen’s Total U.S. rating, ABC finished as the No. 1 highest-rated network during the first week of the 2009-10 TV Season among key Upscale demographics, leading its competitors by wide margins.

Among Adults 18-49 in Homes with $100k+ annual income, ABC (3.74 rating) outdelivered No. 2 CBS by 17% (3.21 rating), No. 3 NBC by 21% (3.10 rating) and No. 4 Fox by 34% (2.79 rating).

ABC claimed 7 of TV’s Top 15 highest-rated non-sports programs during the season-opening week with high-income young adults, including the No. 1 show overall with “Grey’s Anatomy,” and each of the top three new programs with "Cougar Town," "FlashForward" and "Modern Family."

Oh, and here's the top five (and a pretty good bunch they are) in that upscale demo. (For the record, the three new ABC shows ranked Nos. 7, 9 and 11.)

"Grey's Anatomy" (ABC) -- 8.43

"House" (Fox) -- 6.28

"The Office" (NBC) -- 6.23

"Desperate Housewives" (ABC) -- 5.39

"The Big Bang Theory" (CBS) -- 5.36

Networks do all kinds of things now to try and prevent people from selling DVD screeners on eBay. ABC, much to the chagrin of critics, only makes its programs available online, meaning you get to see a big lavish pilot like "Eastwick" on a 15-inch computer monitor, not a 46-inch flat screen, like God intended.

HBO took to imprinting codes on the discs, so they're in the corner of every frame. Sometimes they use initials, meaning there's a "BL" etched in, which always reminds me of "The Odd Couple" line where Oscar says that it took him awhile to figure out that "FU" meant "Felix Unger."

"Mad Men" now has a numerical code that pops in and out. It's less intrusive, but still slightly distracting -- though admittedly, that's a small price to pay for getting to see those episodes before the rest of the unwashed masses.

Fox puts a disclaimer on the front of its DVDs, telling us that piracy hurts everybody and that if we don't abide by the rules, the network won't be able to supply us with advance screeners. I know, there are a lot of sleazeballs out there that have violated these guidelines, but still, there's nothing like a relationship predicated on trust.

So I was amused to see the following warning on the latest screener that came from Comedy Central: "Don't even think about posting, swapping or putting this up for sale to the highest bidder or karma, not to mention the FBI, may come and get you."

I only wish more of their shows were that clever.

A tale of two medical dramas....

Despite my consistent admiration for Hugh Laurie's brilliant work in the title role, I've been only an intermittent viewer of "House" the last couple of seasons, having grown somewhat weary of the medical procedural format. (For starters, I could barely get my health insurance to approve an MRI for a sore shoulder; these guys think nothing of running about a million dollars worth of tests every week, just for the hell of it.)

All that disappears, however, during the excellent two-hour season premiere on Sept. 21, with Laurie's Dr. House doing time in a mental-health facility for his painkiller addiction and running into an equally formidable adversary in the form of the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital's administrator (guest Andre Braugher). Although House plots to bend his keepers to his will, the two hours explore the character in a compelling way and showcase some of the best acting you're apt to see on television this year.

It's an extraordinary departure, the sort of creative lark (inasmuch as other series regulars go largely unseen) in which established procedurals occasionally indulge, but seldom this well.

A few days later, "Grey's Anatomy" returns, having painted itself into an unfortunate corner in last spring's cliffhanger, which left both George (T.R. Knight) and Izzie (Katherine Heigl) hovering near death, less in the service of drama than backstage shenanigans about who would be leaving the series. (It remains to be seen whether "The Ugly Truth" will scare Heigl straight, as it were, but it's no secret that she'll be hanging around at least for a little while.)

Without giving too much away otherwise, the episode's highlight comes when the doctors indulge in a bout of gallows humor that finds them laughing uncontrollably over all the improbable things that have happened to them in a short span of time. Of course, that also exposes the fact that "Grey's" has indulged in too many plot twists that border on the absurd, in part driven by what appears to be a potentially unhealthy amount of off-screen angst.

There are still fine moments in the premiere -- primarily courtesy of Chandra Wilson and Sara Ramirez -- and there's an introduction of some corporate hospital politics that the program could certainly use, if only to take some of the focus off A) death; B) chronic bed-hopping; and C) marriages, or the lack thereof.

For the most part, though, "Grey's" feels like a cautionary tale about where a good show can go bad. That likely won't prevent the series from running successfully several more seasons, but even so, some new cast additions can't arrive fast enough, since this is a series that needs help, stat.

If you want to know why Diane Sawyer wanted to jump from "Good Morning America" to "World News Tonight," look no further than the completely inane segment that the ABC morning program devoted on Tuesday to the "trend" of overweight people in reality shows -- focusing entirely on the Fox dating show "More to Love."

A few problems here: Nobody really watched the show. The show was merely an attempt to do a plus-sized version of "The Bachelor," by the producer of "The Bachelor." And while they found someone from a fat-acceptance group to complain about the series, there was no controversy to speak of, no heat, not much of anything.

Of course, there are several other dieting-related shows about the overweight, like "Ruby" and "The Biggest Loser," but those are about fat people trying to become less fat. Besides, one suspects the network wasn't eager to plug the latter -- an NBC series -- on the night that it's premiering. So they went with "More to Love," like this is burning issue now?

In other words, some "GMA" producer stumbled across the show and thought this was "news," or at least irresistible to the morning audience -- "Hey, struggling with obesity, and reality TV! Win-win!"

Sawyer gamely threw in a comment about all the discrimination that the overweight have to face, but inside, it sure felt like she was thinking, "A little while longer and I'm done with this BS! Woo-hoo!"

Or maybe I'm projecting.

Before anybody gets too excited about the Daily Beast reporting that Charles Gibson is "livid" about Diane Sawyer succeeding him, let's remember reporter Rebecca Dana's last major TV news-related "scoop."

During her tenure at the Wall Street Journal, Dana reported -- back in April 2008 -- that Katie Couric would likely part ways with CBS before that year was over.  That story, too, was based on an anonymous source, and last I checked, Couric is still anchoring "The CBS Evening News."

This isn't meant to pick on Dana, only to point out that there is a rather irritating trend lately -- especially among some younger reporters -- of not wanting to let the facts get in the way of a good story, or at least taking the time to see if they actually pan out. Because of the pressure to feed the web, stories are rushed into circulation, and a headline like "Gibson's livid" is sure to be picked up elsewhere, whether it's true or not. (In this case, that aspect of the story doesn't appear to pass the smell test, based on all the other coverage I've read.)

Although the pace of journalism has forever changed, that shouldn't change the fundamentals. Yet the bottom line is that "get it first" appears to be taking precedence over getting it right.

But hey, the Beast got itself a Huffington Post link trumpeting the headline, and that means circulation, baby. As for the accuracy of it, well, we can always sort that out later, right?

The announcement that Diane Sawyer will replace Charles Gibson at ABC's "World News" desk speaks far less to shifting gender politics -- as some would like to couch it -- than a change in the balance of power at the network news divisions.

Although old-line news talent still see anchoring nightly news as the premiere jobs in broadcast journalism, they're living in the past. The real power now resides in the morning programs, which thanks to sheer volume -- that's four hours of "Today" each morning for NBC's sales department to peddle, compared to a half-hour of "The NBC Nightly News" -- have become the primary focus of the news divisions. (Update: The New York Times cites the profitability of "Good Morning America" in this piece regarding the hunt for Sawyer's replacement.)

Moreover, the morning mix of infotainment -- a news recap, followed by giddy cooking segments and soft interviews with network reality stars or actors plugging upcoming movies -- has also triumphed over the hard-news approach traditionally embodied by the evening newscasts. So while Sawyer might understandably see this move as a step up in class, it's actually a step down in the current news pecking order. (Katie Couric has probably discovered as much, whether she'd acknowledge it or not, since vacating "Today" for her leap to CBS' anchor chair.)

Anyone of a certain age doubtless thinks first of the late Walter Cronkite, followed by the 20-year reign of Rather, Jennings and Brokaw as the apex of TV news. Those men (and yes, then it was all men) not only invested the anchor chair with gravitas but also set the standard for their respective networks.

But those days are over. And while most of the reporting has proclaimed Sawyer "the leader of ABC's network news division" (New York Times) or occupying "the top news spot at ABC" (Los Angeles Times), the Wall Street Journal was closer when it noted that she is "inheriting a diminished throne." Despite the romance surrounding the evening news, the tone is now largely set between 7 and 9 a.m. by the likes of Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira -- and it has also filtered into latenight, where the surviving "Nightline" has morphed into a program as apt to lead with pop culture as global politics.

By that measure, having Sawyer and Couric anchoring nightly news after their stints in the morning merely reinforces what's been apparent for quite awhile -- that they might still call it "evening news," but in terms of morning-TV values, the sun never sets.

Update: From the "Mediocre minds think alike" file, the LA Times' Joe Flint draws pretty much the same conclusion.

There was a strange omission in my Sunday-morning reading, found within a New York Times Business section feature, "The Boss," focusing on Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong.

The piece -- an "as told to" first-person account -- oddly skips over Wong's tenure as Disney CEO Robert Iger's executive assistant. Instead, Wong goes directly from being a researcher at ABC News to the following: "A couple of years later I got lucky at ABC: I became vice president, alternative programming, specials and latenight."

The passage struck me because it's so well-known (if perhaps not to the Times) that Wong served as Iger's assistant and that he subsequently promoted her into programming, as executives often do with promising assistants. Here, for example, is a recap of that interlude from a Los Angeles Times profile of Wong that ran last year:

She was hooked and decided she wanted to be a news producer. After graduation, Wong took a job as a researcher for ABC's "Primetime Live." When Robert Iger -- then the president of ABC, now the president and chief executive of Disney -- was looking for an assistant with an MBA to groom, she got the call.

"I was so fortunate, because I really got to learn how a television network works," said Wong, who worked for Iger for four years.

Not really a big deal, I suppose, except that a piece with the headline "A Long Road to Television" conspicuously omits what was likely the most significant turn that Wong took along the way, as well as one of the most familiar methods of breaking into the entertainment industry's executive ranks -- namely, paying your dues as an assistant before being promoted.

In case you're thinking the same thing I am, no, you are not nuts: An incredibly small percentage of the women, many of them over 50, who watch "Dancing With the Stars" give a rat's ass that former congressman Tom DeLay is joining the cast of celebrities for the upcoming season.

So who cares? Newspaper editors, that's who.

There's still an inherent tension at most papers between the arts/entertainment areas (provided they still have the staffs to field one) and the news sections. So anything that allows entertainment to cross over into news -- like a controversial politician appearing on a primetime reality show -- is the epitome of a no-brainer.

So yes, the Texas pol they once called "the Hammer" is indeed being used, with the producers exhibiting some savvy in terms of ways to get journalists writing about their show at this stage of the game. Meanwhile, DeLay is using the network right back to soften his image amid various legal troubles.

This is known as the old Texas two-step.

Somebody at ABC has a real fascination with Shaquille O'Neal. If only the well-traveled NBA center actually translated to reality TV.

After a previous stab at primetime stardom with "Shaq's Big Challenge," a feel-good concept in which the sometimes-out-of-shape big man tried to help kids lose weight, he's back with "Shaq Vs.," in which the basketball star faces off against other athletes in their sports. Pittsburgh Steeler QB Ben Roethlisberger is featured in the premiere, with Olympic volleyball stars Kerri Walsh (pictured) and Misty May-Treanor, baseball slugger Albert Pujols, tennis' Serena Williams, swimmer Michael Phelps and boxer Oscar de la Hoya  in subsequent episodes.

It's actually a really cool, interesting idea -- the notion of seeing athletes compete across disciplines. If only it wasn't being done with O'Neal.

The full pilot wasn't available for review, but the clips posted by ABC reinforce the perceptions that while O'Neal is (literally) a larger-than-life figure, he's also a somewhat boorish one who has an untelegenic propensity for mumbling and isn't nearly as funny as he seems to think he is. Whatever his future after basketball -- which he and his reps obviously seem to be planning for with gusto -- becoming a TV personality seems like a bit of a reach.

ABC didn't fare particularly well with a recent "Superstars" revival, but I like the basic template of doing reality shows with actual athletes engaging in genuine competitions. They have a sense of reality that's often lacking in manufactured competition series. So let's hope if "Shaq Vs." goes the same route as "Shaq's Big Challenge" that it doesn't scuttle a promising concept.

See ya in Cleveland, big guy. Oh yeah, and just between us: Anybody who plays basketball for a living ought to be able to hit more than 50% of their free throws.

Update: Watched the show, and it's what I feared -- a good idea but terribly executed. The final "game" pitting Shaq against the QB was so undemanding that I could have stood back there lobbing balls to receivers. And O'Neal's antics got old very, very quickly.

Finally, O'Neal simply isn't in the kind of shape to make this interesting. Doing it with another basketball player -- or even O'Neal in his prime -- might have been more compelling, but the concerns about a player getting hurt in this sort of silly competition limit what the producers can do. All I know is I'm really glad I wasn't one of the fans sitting in the stands to watch the lame finale.

It's been a cruel summer for original network programming, and Sunday was no exception based on preliminary results, as two of reality TV's most prominent producers -- Mark Burnett and Mike Fleiss -- went to battle against each other and were both sacked by a preseason football game.

Burnett's ABC series "Shark Tank" averaged a mere 4.2 million viewers coming out of the premiere of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," which at 7 million looked a bit bitter but didn't exactly exhibit a Midas touch. On CBS, Fleiss' latest "There Goes the Neighborhood" (5.1 million viewers) outperformed "Tank" but slipped further off its 8 o'clock lead-in from "Big Brother."

A quick capsule review of "Millionaire," by the way: Regis Philbin remains quick and fresh as the host, but few of the stylistic changes helped matters, including a silly celebrity segment at the end with Katy Perry. And the new "phone a celebrity" lifeline left poor Sam Donaldson looking like he was orbiting the Earth in a space shuttle -- which, come to think of it, isn't a bad idea.

One more artistic note: ABC's space soap "Defying Gravity" (which clearly didn't live up to its title, with 2.8 million viewers) tanked even worse than "Shark Tank," which is sort of a shame. The third episode (after a two-hour launch) continues to drag too much in terms of its storytelling, but the show boasts a solid cast and the premise is intriguing. Too bad the series appears unlikely to fulfill its summer run, much less a "six-year mission."

ABC's 10th anniversary edition of "Millionaire" still seems like a good idea, especially because Sunday's hour was filled with promos for the network's new fall series. If ABC can gain any traction with the gameshow, in other words, that will assist its marketing campaign heading into the fall.

Still, as ABC Entertainment Prez Stephen McPherson acknowledged last week, the major networks are still fumbling for the right programming balance (original, both scripted and unscripted, and reruns) during the summer. And despite the get-rich themes of "Millionaire" and "Shark Tank," nobody's gonna retire off the kind of numbers they posted on Sunday night.

Among the pilots screened in their entirety (an increasingly common Comic-Con occurrence) was “V,” the re-imagining of the earlier 1980s miniseries/series that ABC has ordered for midseason -- although actually, the producers said that the program will beam down earlier than expected, in November.

The show looked extremely intriguing at ABC’s upfront presentation in May based on a short teaser – and particularly well-timed for today’s slightly crazy, conspiracy-prone environment. And as producer Scott Peters noted on Saturday, a lot has happened in the last 25 years that, indeed, feed the program's sense of post-Sept. 11, "who can you trust?" paranoia.

The pilot is certainly busy and has a couple of flat patches, but it has enough promising moments to hook an audience and played quite well with the (admittedly prone to like it) Comic-Con crowd. Although the hour features an overt reference to "Independence Day," the closer parallel is "The Twilight Zone" episode "To Serve Man," where seemingly benevolent aliens might have a more nefarious plan in mind for humanity.

Coupled with "Flash Forward," another serialized concept with an underlying sci-fi-style mystery, and the summer fill-in "Defying Gravity," ABC appears to determined to find its next "Lost" and might be the most sci-fi-iest broadcast network schedule-wise in awhile. Of course, ABC also produced the short-lived "Daybreak," so such endeavors are always a high-wire act, but "V" exhibits considerable commercial potential.

Meanwhile, Morena Baccarin -- who plays the model-pretty alien leader with the big brown eyes -- delivered what might have been the best line I've heard all weekend, and one that actresses might be tempted to quote in the future. Referring to the rodent-eating aliens in the original series and the prospect of having to do that herself, she said that she would rely on her producers to "not make me put furry things in my mouth."

Clearly, she must be new to Hollywood.

"Lost" producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have managed to turn their Comic-Con sessions into a kind of elaborate stage show -- all the more remarkable considering that they never really give anything away about the direction of their impossibly dense series.

Saturday's Comic-Con event featured a "fan appreciation" theme, complete with appearances by a number of the cast members (Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Nestor Carbonell, Michael Emerson and finally, Dominic Monaghan) and a visit the night before to the fans who camped out in order to ensure themselves a seat at the filled-to-capacity presentation.

The highlights included a "Brokeback Mountain" spoof featuring the characters of Jack and Sawyer put together by fans as well as Holloway referring to Lindelof as "J.J. Abrams." The producers noted that co-creator Abrams hadn't been involved with the show since the first season. They also read from a page of the final script that sounded a lot like "Heroes."

Mostly, the show runners promised that all questions will be answered in the final season, capitalizing on the fact that they have had three years to plan and build toward the finale. Lindelof noted that he's constantly out to prove that the producers weren't just "making it up as we go along."

ABC will surely miss the show, but it's no longer the breakaway hit it initially was, having settled into a more comfortable orbit for such a demanding sci-fi premise. As Cuse stated, the audience support has been ample enough to allow them to make a show that isn't "lowest common denominator" programming and doesn't have to compromise its storytelling.

True enough, and for that, the fans do deserve some appreciation.

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.

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.

No one will admit it, of course, but the NBA and ABC are really, really hating the Orlando Magic right now.

Any hopes that the league and network have for a high-rated NBA Finals rest largely on a Lakers-Cleveland/Kobe Bryant-LeBron James showdown. Can you imagine the sound of air whishing out of the ball if the faceoff ends up being between Orlando -- which has taken a 3-1 lead over Cleveland in their series -- and Denver, which is currently tied 2-2 with the Lakers?

Granted, the best cure for ratings, even with a non-marquee matchup, is a close, seven-game series. And this year's playoffs have been inordinately entertaining (see the earlier Boston-Chicago series), which has boosted tune-in for ESPN and TNT.

Still, it's pretty obvious that the NBA has been salivating for LeBron-Kobe, along with all those sponsors pushing the two all-stars. If Orlando (a humid hell-hole in June, by the way) spoils those plans, then the home of Disney World will absolutely not be the happiest place on earth for ABC.

New York Times columnist David Carr was too polite, apparently, to formally slap someone working for his own paper, but his latest column not-so-subtly debunked Times contributor Dave Itzkoff's take on Jimmy Kimmel's performance at ABC's May 19 upfront presentation.

As I stated in an earlier post, Itzkoff seemed inordinately shocked that Kimmel could keep his job after ridiculing ABC's failure rate with new series during a brief standup turn at the event. Of course, the latenight host reserved his most pointed gags for NBC, saying the network was destroying itself by moving Jay Leno to primetime, but never mind.

Like me, Carr has been to the rodeo a few times before, so he pointed out that "some reports" about Kimmel were wrong -- without indicating that said reports were disseminated under the aegis of his own paper.

"Contrary to some reports, he killed," Carr wrote of Kimmel. "The room, stuffed to the gills with people who have been force-fed upfront claptrap for years, shook up and down with convulsive laughter. In years past, networks have been subjected to friendly fire from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Drew Carey and Conan O’Brien as a knowing nod to all the hyperbole, so everyone there was in on the joke."

Not a big deal, really, except A) I think the Times probably should have spelled out the fact that Carr was presumably taking exception to the paper's own coverage; and B) this is another small sign of what can happen when reporters are assigned to a beat who lack perspective or history. Suddenly, Kimmel's barbs at ABC are a story because the familiar blather associated with the upfronts is all minty fresh to them.

So kudos to Carr for setting the record straight. Sort of.

Much as I hate to completely agree with Deadlinehollywooddaily's Nikki Finke, she's absolutely right about Dave Itzkoff's New York Times piece, which sounded utterly shocked by the "withering, blistering monologue" that Jimmy Kimmel delivered at ABC's upfront presentation on Tuesday.

Itzkoff must be a complete neophyte to upfront blather, since comics have been getting up and poking fun at their own networks for years at these events. And while Kimmel joked about ABC's shows, I'd contend (as I did in an earlier post) that Kimmel's most pointed barb was aimed at NBC, who the latenight host accused of destroying its own network by virtue of its determination to prevent Jay Leno from leaping over to ABC.

Funny and very smart stuff, perfectly suited to an insider-savvy audience. As for Itzkoff pondering whether Kimmel is lucky to have a job, my guess is that he not only has one but will be doing it a half-hour earlier sooner or later, if ABC pulls the trigger on moving him to go directly opposite Conan O'Brien.

This is, in other words, a completely bogus non-story, receiving attention only because people like to assume that the New York Times knows what it's talking about. In this case, the paper didn't.

Let's hope they're doing a better job on how they cover Washington.

Using its upfront presentation to maximum advantage, ABC showcased one of the best comedy pilots to come down the pike in a long time with "Modern Family," shrewdly airing the program in its entirety.

Yielding several laugh-out-loud moments, that half-hour helped dispel some of the skepticism surrounding the Alphabet network's decision to schedule five new programs -- four sitcoms and the hourlong "Witches of Eastwick" adaptation "Eastwick" -- on Wednesdays during the fall, which at first blush sounds like a prescription for disaster.

Still, after a weak development crop this spring, ABC appears to have some of the goods to rebound in the coming season, and ABC Entertainment Prez Stephen McPherson rolled the dice not just with "Modern Family" -- a Christopher Lloyd-Steven Levitan comedy that features a top-notch cast, among them Ed O'Neill -- but also by screening the entire first act of the sci-fi hour "Flash Forward." The latter features a strong narrative hook, though as always with these things, it's difficult to tell at this stage whether it's the next "Lost" or just another "Daybreak."

McPherson promised to continue "taking the chances that we need to take," and the lineup appears to accomplish that -- getting away from some of the sameness that has plagued ABC's recent development. The mix includes a CBS-style procedural from Jerry Bruckheimer ("The Forgotten"); a midseason reboot of the 1980s sci-fi series "V" that looks primed (a la "Battlestar Galactica") to tap into present-day paranoia; and the mystery "Happy Town," which in its promo actually referenced "Twin Peaks."

As for more of the same, there's the youthful legal drama "The Deep End," which at first glance looked a bit too much like "Grey's Attorneys."

But hey, you can't have everything, as latenight host Jimmy Kimmel reminded the audience during an extremely clever stand-up set. "Everything you're gonna hear this week is bullshit," Kimmel began, joking about ABC's past failures before skewering NBC -- which decided, he said, "We will not allow Jay Leno to go to ABC, even if we have to destroy our own network to keep him." Sure, it's a joke, but buried wiithin that punchline is a pretty devastating assessment of how the Leno move could play out in a worst-case scenario. (McPherson also couldn't resist a swipe at NBC counterpart Ben Silverman's earlier statement about "managing for margins.")

The final garnish to ABC's presentation featured clever promos that mixed and matched characters from established ABC series -- putting "Lost's" Matthew Fox, say, with "Desperate Housewives'" Teri Hatcher. The spots fostered a sense of cohesion across the network's primetime roster, making some of what has been a negative attribute feel -- for a moment, anyway -- like an asset.

ABC still faces some tough sledding after a rough 2008-09 campaign, and it renewed a few new programs that haven't done much as yet to justify that vote of confidence. Still, if the network can get just a couple of these latest seedlings to take root -- which after Tuesday's preview sounds less far-fetched than it might have before -- that Wednesday gamble could pay off, which would be a major coup.

Overall grade, subject to revision: A-

Nielsen's Monday ratings finally came out after a protracted delay, which perhaps explains why I looked them over a little more closely than usual. And what stood out was the pronounced if seldom-mentioned older skew of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

One would think the considerable overlap between the adults 18-49 and 25-54 age brackets would be enough to keep the swings between those groups within a relatively modest range. But the disparity in viewing habits separating the poles of those segments -- 18-24 and 50-54 -- is enough to produce extremely wide deviations.

This is true practically across the board, with every series that aired on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox on Monday posting markedly higher numbers among 25-54 than 18-49. The only exceptions to buck that trend were the CW's "Gossip Girl"-"One Tree Hill" block.

Yet the jump on "Dancing" -- from a 4.8 rating among adults 18-49 to a 6.2 in 25-54, or nearly 30% -- was the night's most noteworthy. By way of comparison, the latest "American Idol's" 25-54 rating was a more modest 21% bump over 18-49 (10.1 to 8.3), while "The Biggest Loser" exhibited a mere 11% improvement, suggesting that the preoccupation with fat knows no boundaries.

Then again, the majority of "Dancing's" 20.3 million viewers actually fall within the 50-plus category, which would be no big deal if older eyeballs weren't still treated like pariahs on Madison Ave., despite the occasional lip-service that's paid to the notion of showing a little more respect toward those eligible for AARP membership.

So what does the 18-24 vs. 50-54 schism prove? Only that Steely Dan got it right with that old song, "Hey Nineteen": No, we really can't "Dance" together.

Amid today's summer scheduling announcement ABC unveiled the following airdates for several canceled series. From the network's release:

Airdates for the remaining episodes of “Pushing Daisies,” “Eli Stone” and “Dirty Sexy Money” were also announced, with “Pushing Daisies” returning to the schedule as of Saturday, May 30 through Saturday, June 13 at 10:00 p.m.; Eli Stone” on Saturday, June 20 through Saturday, July 11 at 10:00 p.m.; and “Dirty Sexy Money” on Saturday, July 18 through August 8 at 10:00 p.m.

Saturday -- the night with traditionally the lowest HUT (or homes using TV) levels -- thus becomes "Night of the Living Dead" Theater, burning off remaining episodes of programs that have already been canceled.

This announcement follows my latest column about DirecTV striking a deal with Warner Bros. to air the unseen episodes of several canceled series, including ABC's "The Nine" and "Eyes" and CBS' "Smith" (which co-starred Simon Baker before he broke through -- in an "If at first you don't succeed" way -- with "The Mentalist").

Nobody should expect big ratings from any of these deceased series, but it's nice to see ABC finish out the runs, even if it's in the scheduling equivalent of the dark side of the moon. Networks have a habit of wanting to hide from their failures, but the truth is each of these shows possessed some kind of following (in the case of "Daisies," an especially loyal one), and there's an element of wisdom in not sending them away grumbling, if only from a customer-service standpoint.

Meanwhile, for those who can't wait for ABC, series creator Bryan Fuller will present the final episodes at the upcoming Los Angeles Paley Festival. The details are here.

It should be a festive occasion, but I'd still suggest being tasteful and wearing black.

It was hardly a perfect ending, but at least the producers of ABC's "Life on Mars" were able to give the show's puny audience some closure with Wednesday's reasonably clever (if -- SPOILER ALERT -- a trifle literal) series finale.

In hindsight, the same mix of ingredients that had the original program huffing and puffing just to get through two eight-episode cycles on BBC America upended the U.S. version, but the stellar cast made the show watchable, even when it's primary mystery regarding the fate of the time-traveling detective ground to a frustrating halt.

Bottom line: Score this as another one of those instances where a promising pilot doesn't really have anywhere to go. The problem is that ABC has indulged in one such laudable dice roll every season over the past few years -- "Pushing Daisies" comes to mind -- and come away with very little to show for it. Meanwhile, CBS continues to plod ahead with one procedural after another, which doesn't bode well for a lot of risk-taking by the networks as they harvest their 2009-10 development crop.

Strictly from a customer-service standpoint, though, there's much to be said for crafting a legitimate ending on a serialized show whose cancellation seems preordained early enough to do so. Fans have griped for years about such series disappearing without so much as a fare-thee-well or a wrap-up episode on a DVD boxed set, which hasn't done much to sway studios that are understandably reluctant to throw good money after bad once it's clear a show has failed.

So for once, ABC in essence did everything right and still walks away on the short end, gazing into another post-"Lost" hole to fill as a less interesting hour, "The Unusuals," prepares to beam down in "Mars'" place.

Welcome to the TV biz.

Although I didn't care for the new sitcom "In the Motherhood" (and most critics, other than Tom Shales, seemed to share that opinion), I apparently missed a sin that prompted one reader to label the show "vile." Here is the angry letter that he sent to ABC and was kind enough to copy to Variety:

"I am outraged at ABC for the comments made on 'In the Motherhood.'

I was watching this vile show with my young son this evening when out of the blue it is announced that Santa is a made up character and parents are lying to their children about Santa being real.

The look on my son‘s face was one of shock & disappointment. I was outraged that this could happen. Outraged more that a network would allow this shameful act to take place at 8pm when families are gathered together watching TV in primetime. There was no innuendo or pretense here, just straight out that parents are lying to their kids and Santa is made-up.

How utterly cruel, senseless & disrespectful to every child and parent watching this awful show. You can be assured that ABC will never cross my screen again.

I am so upset considering what damage this has caused to the fantasies of young imaginations across the country, not to mention my own household.

Shame on you."

Several reactions come to mind, but for some reason I can't get past this one: Why on earth was anybody watching "In the Motherhood" with his or her child? And do families really still gather together to watch TV at 8 p.m.? I thought the kids pretty much were in one room watching Nickelodeon or playing video games most of the time, while they're parents watched something else in the other.

As if to underscore this point, here's a ratings tidbit that ought to make the outraged parent sleep a little easier: According to Nielsen data, 99.3% of U.S. children age 2-11 mercifully missed "In the Motherhood," with young kids accounting for less than 5% of the program's 6.7 million viewers.

There is, however, an interesting underlying issue here: My guess is network programmers have become so accustomed to expecting that kids have abandoned them that virtually nobody even raised the question of whether dissing the existence of Santa Claus was potentially problematic in a show that wound up being scheduled at 8 o'clock.

That said, with apologies to the outraged parent, I have to give ABC a pass on this one. Nothing in "Motherhood" was particularly believable, so it would seem easy enough to tell the kid, "It was just a stupid TV show, honey. Ignore it." Besides, most parents recognized that the best thing for their kids would be to watch something else -- like "American Idol," which teaches them that hard work is for saps and their real ambition should be to find a way to get on a reality show.

So "vile?" Hardly. Trust me, I watch TV a lot, I know "vile" when I see it.

Oh, and for the record, I'd keep junior away from those "Peanuts" specials. At least one of them strongly implies that there's no Great Pumpkin.

Silly item of the day, regarding this upcoming Writers Guild Foundation event:

LOST - INSIDE THE WRITERS ROOM WITH THE WRITING STAFF OF LOST
Thursday, March 26 - 7:30-9:30 pm
***AT THE WRITERS GUILD THEATER - 135 S. Doheny Dr., 90211
***PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE
Free parking & light reception included.

What's that, you say? The venue is changing? Hell, the whole island is moving! And how can we really trust what time this is? I mean, 7:30 p.m., sure, but in what year exactly? And if I go, is there a chance I'll see a blinding light, begin bleeding from the nose and run into myself as a child? And what can we infer about these "135" and "90211" numerical sequences?

Joking aside, the series delivered another mind-blowing episode on Wednesday, and not entirely in a good way. "Lost" has tackled the time-travel conundrum with more intellectual rigor than most programs would dare attempt, but this season has nevertheless become so coiled in the "When are we?" question that you can either give up asking and succumb to it entirely or start wondering if "Lie to Me" is improving. Perhaps the only benefit in this is that the narrative has raised so many new questions that I've forgotten what some of the old ones were. (For another interesting take on this, see USA Today critic Robert Bianco's thoughtful analysis recently on the strong creative years registered by both "Lost" and "24.")

At any rate, I suspect this writers forum will be well attended, entertaining, and completely devoid of substantive answers. Sort of like a political news conference.

It's too bad that ABC was forced to squander a solid episode of "Desperate Housewives" -- which is actually in the midst of a pretty terrific season creatively -- up against the Grammy Awards on Sunday night. But a few things about the hour should be mentioned.

Interestingly, the show weighed in directly on the terrible economy, exploring the strain that financial troubles can take on relationships in the suburbs. There was also a credible thread about how Susan (Teri Hatcher) and Mike (James Denton) were going to afford private school for their kid. The episode underscored that TV can respond to such matters with far more immediacy than movies, subtly and not-so-subtly addressing people's concerns in the context of ongoing series.

Yet the timeliness of that plot was offset by the irony of containing one of the clunkiest product-placement sequences in recent memory. Specifically, Bree (Marcia Cross) shows up with a shiny new car that's the envy of her struggling friend Lynette (Felicity Huffman). It's a Lexus! And to reinforce the point, the sequence not only highlights the car's many wonderful features but ends with a shot that zooms in on the Lexus logo.

Hey, I get it -- desperate times call for desperate measures. But the product-placement thing breaks down precisely at that moment when you're completely conscious of the fact that you're being sold something. By that measure, ABC and the producers have let their "Housewives" look a little too desperate.

Maybe I was bored or something, but reading what really looked like a non-story in the New York Times about the possibility that ABC might move Jimmy Kimmel up a half-hour -- combined with another non-story about the alleged popularity of "hard news" the same day in the Wall Street Journal -- got me wondering if there isn't some kind of virus currently plaguing the TV beat.

The Times story cited only anonymous sources, but they might as well have asked me, since I'd have told them that it's kind of a no-brainer for ABC to maybe possible consider moving Kimmel opposite "The Tonight Show" with Conan O'Brien taking over, even though the network offered rather mealy-mouthed denials that anything official was up.

Then there was the Journal piece, which lumped the watered-down "Nightline" and MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" in with the genuinely hard-news "60 Minutes" and "The Newshour With Jim Lehrer" to make the not-terribly-convincing case that serious news is suddenly rising from the ashes. Having sat through a "Nightline" piece days ago that was about how other media outlets were covering the Obama children -- which is about as sneaky a way as I can think of to back into covering the kids -- well, I guess reporter Rebecca Dana needed one more example to make a trend.

Let's just say that I won't be surprised if those two headlines -- "Hard News on TV Draws Major Ratings" and "ABC Said to Consider 'Kimmel' in 'Nightline' slot -- join a few other memorable ones from last year, starting with just about everything that speculated about the imminent departure of NBC Entertainment co-chair Ben Silverman.

My personal favorites remain "CBS News, Katie Couric Are Likely to Part Ways" (bylined by the aforementioned Ms. Dana in the Journal on April 10) and "Jay Leno Hints That ABC Is In His Future" (from deadlinehollywooddaily.com on July 15).

Who knows, these latest items might eventually be proven true, but for some reason I'm reminded of that old joke about the reporter for the Yeshiva Journal, who runs in to his editor's office yelling, "I've got a scoop! I've got a scoop! Hold the back page!"

ABC has now gone the same route as NBC by placing oversight of its network programming and TV studio under a single executive, vertically integrating those operations. But please, let's not spin cost-cutting and corporate politics as an altruistic gesture toward the creative community.

First, NBC insisted that laying off layers of development executives would make the network more talent-friendly. Now, Disney-ABC TV Group chief Anne Sweeney said in a statement that consolidating ABC Entertainment with ABC Studios would produce "a unified, cohesive vision" for the network's programming.

Yes, a unified vision and fewer executives to give writers notes are swell in theory, but any thinking producer would prefer a little more creative mayhem if it meant working for studios that will aggressively pitch their projects to multiple buyers, as opposed to being so closely aligned to just one. And somehow, my guess is that employing fewer executives won't completely eradicate stupid network notes.

Everyone is in a belt-tightening mode right now -- witness NBC's decision to strip Jay Leno in primetime -- and it's understandable that ABC's Stephen McPherson would want to expand his control over the network's product. Given that, the main irritant here is the tendency to put a transparent spin on such announcements to make them sound like a boon to talent.

Writers and producers don't necessarily have to like the truth, but wouldn't it be refreshing, for once, if studios acted like they could handle it?

It seems impossible, but maybe the gang on ABC’s “True Beauty” is every bit as dumb as the show makes them look.

How else can we assess the email that came from a publicist representing Billy Jeffrey, one of the contestants featured on the yes-hate-them-because-they’re-beautiful reality show. Apparently oblivious to the fact that the program is largely a goof on the vanity of the featured "cast," Jeffrey -- who gives redundancy new meaning by billing himself as "Chippendale dancer, entertainer, performer" -- has launched his own website and retained a flack to pitch him "regarding his experience in the house." (The email referred to the show as "True Romance," so one suspects their hearts aren't fully in it.)

OK, we get it, everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, and why shouldn’t publicists separate fools from their money? Still, the general rule of thumb is that reality players are kept away from the press while their “characters” remain active to insure they don't spoil any surprises. Then again, when the show you’re in is attracting a disappointing 5.8 million viewers -- as it did for the third episode, based on Nielsen data -- why not strike while the iron is as hot as it’s probably gonna get?

     ABC Entertainment Prez Stephen McPherson closed out the TV Critics Assn. tour on Friday, reflecting a firm grasp on the challenges facing network television and a little more difficulty trying to alibi for the current season of "Grey's Anatomy."

McPherson was dead on when he said that "the world has shifted underneath these businesses" -- a sentiment with which print reporters can surely identify -- and that the failure of a terrific show like "Pushing Daisies" shouldn't dissuade programmers from taking big swings, instead of being tentative or cautious. "What I really worry about ... is that I and everybody who works with me is going to stop taking chances," he said.

On the down side, the ABC exec didn't have much of an answer for the "ghost sex" plot line involving Katherine Heigl and her late boyfriend that has deflated recent "Grey's" episodes creatively, referenced out-of-home viewing (which only seemed to confuse most of the reporters) and committed what amounts to a verbal miscue by including an unnecessary modifier and inadvertently referring to "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes as "the most talented woman writer out there."

To his credit, McPherson did resist the temptation to pile on NBC for its decision to schedule Jay Leno throughout the week at 10 p.m., saying only that the Peacock network's absence will leave fewer bidders for that beachfront real estate -- a pretty clever analogy.

Style note: The ABC microphone minions wore dark jackets, ties and white gloves during the question-and-answer session, which is a little formal for my taste, unless you're bringing me Grey Poupon. Grade: B-