I wanted to like the Mort Sahl 80th birthday tribute event Thursday night at the Wadsworth Theater much more than I did.

The biggest problem was that most of the comics who moved through the turnstile Thursday night didn't offer anything close to political humor in the spirit of Mort. And that really shouldn't have been a surprise -- it's not as if Drew Carey, Jay Leno, Kevin Nealon, Richard Lewis and Paula Poundstone are known for their incisive social commentary. Neither are Jonathan Winters, Norm Crosby or Shelley Berman, but at least they were funny, particularly Winters, who trotted out his Leland Buckhorn dumb-baseball-player persona.

Lewis' time on stage in particular felt like a small eternity of jokes all about himself -- parts of himself that I'm guessing no one in the room wanted to hear that much about. George Carlin was funny with his now-familiar buzzword-rap routine, and he brought along a great clip of himself doing a Mort Sahl imitation from a CBS variety show in 1962.

Bill Maher at least felt like he belonged at a Mort Sahl tribute, with a few good Bush-bashing lines and the observation that among the GOP presidential heat, the only contender who isn't on his second or third marriage is Mitt Romney, the Mormon. But Leno and his not-funny jokes about Africa and obesity, Mel Gibson and Michael Jackson just fell flat, as did Carey and his "Paris Travel Lodge" schtick. (Maybe that was the point, to highlight how vapid most of standup comedy has become since the days when Sahl was riffing on Nikita and Ike, the arms race, civil rights, voting rights, etc.)

For me, Albert Brooks delivered the all-around funniest performance with his "I was told Mort Sahl had died" routine, complete with a eulogy that he delivered anyway. Emcee Jack Riley (aka "The Bob Newhart Show's" Mr. Carlin), who subbed for Larry King, had a good line about needing to do the event "to get a credit from this century."

By the time, Sahl came up on stage for the obligatory "this has meant so much to me," even he was underwhelming, red sweater and all. His best bit was noting the causal connection between subpoenas being delivered to key Bush administration figures and Dick Cheney's visits to the D.C. area hospitals.

"They're reconstructing Cheney, a Halliburton corporation," Sahl quipped, "and they're overcharging!"

In closing, audience members -- a crowd that included Hugh Hefner, Tommy Chong, Rob Reiner, Larry Gelbart, George Schlatter, George Shapiro, Fred Willard and Dick Van Patten -- serenaded Mort with "Happy Birthday" (never mind that Sahl's 80th was seven weeks ago). Event raised more than $100,000 for the Heartland Comedy Foundation, which aids older comics who have hit hard times financially.

Pictured above, back row from left: Richard Lewis, Jay Leno, Norm Crosby, Kevin Nealon, Hugh Hefner, event organizer Ross Shafer, Drew Carey and Albert Brooks. Front row from left: Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Mort Sahl and Harry Shearer.

Photo credit: Derek Goes/GOES PHOTOGRAPHY

Wow, this is a really good, well-rounded view of Rupert Murdoch -- the man, the mogul, the dealmaking machine, by Time magazine's Eric Pooley. It feels like an objective take on a guy who is unfairly demonized at times, overly lionized at others. It's clearly Rupe's PR antidote to the New York Times series that rean earlier this week, and it's surely a much more interesting read.

"We're very proud of what we do at all our papers," (Murdoch) says on another day, in another mood. "And we just feel insulted by the coverage. We've got more than 50,000 people [in News Corp.]." We're sitting in his New York City office on a June afternoon. "We make mistakes here and there. But there's nothing wrong with the Post — most people would prefer to read it before they go to the Times. There's such a thing as a popular newspaper and an unpopular élite newspaper. They play different roles. We have both kinds. Just like we have the Fox network with American Idol and 24, and we also have the National Geographic Channel. It's hard for outsiders to understand that."

This just in...

Erstwhile "CBS Evening News" anchor Bob Schieffer (we were just talking about him a few items ago, see 'Rosie wasn't right for 'Price' anyway") is making an appearance on tonight's "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," delivering a faux news report about Craig's ongoing campaign to become a citizen of the United States.

Earlier this month Craig began soliciting cities and towns across this fair land of ours for honorary citizenship status. According to CBS, so far the mayors of some 7,200 hamlets have responded, along with the governors of North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Nevada, Montana and Texas, with letters giving Craig his red-white-and-blue due. As they should.

We are a nation of immigrants, and by my yardstick Craig's one of the better ones to have arrived on these  shores in the past 15 years or so. Think about it. The pride of Glasgow's many talents -- actor, writer (and not just short scripts but he pens the trifecta of TV, films and fiction tomes) , producer, host, father, motorcycle rider, keen-eyed pop culture observer, etc. have helped keep people in employed (stagehands, typesetters, craft services, mechanics, etc., etc. ) and he's contributed to the Clean Air Act by maintaining high standards for his double-entendres despite his past-the-FCC's-indecency-policing-jurisdiction time slot of 12:35 a.m.

So by the decree of On the Air, the People's Republic of Variety.com grants Craig lifelong honorary citizenship. He can come hang out in our Miracle Mile digs anytime. After all, Craig's home-away-from-home-away-from-Scotland, CBS Television City, is just around the corner.

Also, as Variety's Joe Adalian reported today, "Late Late Show" is committed to seeing the U.S.A. in a Chevro-..er..Ford this summer by sending two staffers on a road trip full of Ford logos. Maybe afterward one of them will get hopped up on ...coffee... and write the great American buddy-road novel of the early 21st century on one long continuous roll of paper in a sweltering one-room apartment in New York...

POSTED BY ERIN MAXWELL, NEWS EDITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE OF VARIETY.COM.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is dead and gone (several times if you count the number of times she perished on the 1997-2003 TV series) but her spirit lives on in many ways, most recently via "Buffy-oke."
Yes, it's just what it sounds like, karaoke, "Buffy" style, based largely on the "Once More with Feeling" musical extravaganza episode that ran during the show's sixth season.

Now touring the country, "Buffy-oke" is a "Rocky Horror"-esque sing-along features audience participation, hand puppets and a fair amount of Dawn-bashing to create a new reason for "Buffy" fans to cheer since their Tuesday nights are now free.

For those who need a recap, the episode features a hoofer-loving demon named Sweet who puts a spell over the beloved denizens of Sunnydale, forcing the Scoobies to sing their innermost thoughts and perform complicated dance numbers.
On June 27, the Los Angeles Film Festival brought the show to the Crest Theater in Westwood, where fans were treated to not only their favorite episode, but fan-made videos that paid tribute to Buffy mom Kristine Sutherland and boy-toy Riley, played by Marc Blucas. A bit of trivia and a two-minute recap of the entire series was thrown in for good measure.

The screening came with an instruction sheets and goodie bags that allowed the audience to fully partake in the showing, such as blow bubbles for Lawrence Welk-inspired ballet numbers and kazoos to help "Buffy" star Sarah Michelle Gellar with the high notes.

At the end of the screening, Marti "Parking Ticket Lady" Noxon (pictured right) took the stage to thank fans and introduced series creator and surprise guest Joss Whedon (pictured above, as if you didn't know that already). Whedon was overcome by the fan response to the episode he wrote and directed, and thanked the audience for the keeping the episode from disappearing into rerun oblivion. He also shared his thoughts on Buffy's younger sis: "Come on. Dawn isn't that bad." (Erin Maxwell)

To investigate "Buffy-oke" further just click right here on this link.

In this week's installment of "On the Lot," we say goodbye to Jess as the competition slims down to the not-terribly-dirty (it is broadcast TV, after all) dozen. And Zach's stock climbs even higher with the judges after he unveils his latest crowd-pleaser, "Die Hardly Working." (Zach is pictured at left at work on the short.)

Once again, the elimination part of the show is dispensed with quickly at the top, following a bit of recap clippage, as judge Garry Marshall and host Adrianna Costa surprise the contestants by showing up unexpectedly as the group huddles on an outdoor patio in one of their "gee I'm so nervous" powwows. Actually, this time around they're all complimenting one another's work, particularly Jess and Jason, who took a pounding from the judges for their films last week.

"Brooklyn girls never give up," Marshall advises Jessica Brillhart as she does the requisite round of hugs before exiting the scene.

I feel compelled to post a note of hugely heartfelt thanks to all of those who have read and responded to this week's "Supernatural" column. First off, it validates my feeling that this show is an overlooked gem. But more selfishly, from a business perspective, the hundreds and hundreds of good folks who have checked out my post have spiked the traffic for this blog exponentially. Before this week, the above image of guest star Emmanuelle Vaugier from the "Supernatural" seg "Heart" from this past season was a pretty good representation of how frustrated I was in trying to get any real traction for this blog since its soft launch in mid-May. But the response to my sit-down with Eric "hell of a nice guy" Kripke has restored my faith in humanity, television and my ability to do meaningful work in this new medium. It's one of the perks of the job to be able to talk to interesting, thoughtful, creative people like Eric. So thanks muchly to everyone, especially those who left kind words behind. And for all of you rabid Jensen and Jared fans, here's another cute pic of the guys, just for good measure.

and congrats to Warner Bros. Television for fielding the smallscreen winners in both the 60-minute ("ER") and 30-minute ("The New Adventures of Old Christine") categories. Duty called in the office today or I would have attended the luncheon instead of staying back at the Wilshire Boulevard ranch and writing up the winners from the press release (not nearly the same as being there). Soon as I can find some pics from the event and get a download or two from folks who were there, I'll put something up. If anyone who did attend wants to weigh in, why, that's what the 'Comments' section of this space was made for...

(Wednesday update: OK, so today was busier than I thought and didn't have a chance to really update this. But thanks to Berliner Studios/BEImages for the Larry Gelbart pic at left.)

Wow. I know some broadcast networks that would like to have these numbers right about now. Disney Channel's earnest "Hannah Montana" is on fire, drawing its highest-ever number on Friday at 7.4 million viewers. That powered Disney Channel to its most-watched day of all time on Friday. Can a "Hannah Montana" theme park be far behind? Somewhere south of Billings, perhaps? It's also a sure bet that by next development season the sitcom offers will be flying fast and furious for "Hannah" star Miley Cyrus, who overcame the "gee, she's Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter" curiosity factor to prove that she's got acting chops all on her own.

According to the AP, Rosie O'Donnell posted an item on her blog Sunday saying that she has formally bowed out of the running to replace Bob Barker as host of "The Price is Right." If she has, I can't find it, so here's a link to the AP story.

I humbly submit, with due respect to Rosie, that she's not right for the gig. Can you say "mellifluous" (I can't but love the word anyway)-- well, that's what Bob Barker was. A total broadcasting pro whose voice never grated. Like I said, with all due respect to Rosie, Bob was someone you could stand to have in your house every weekday before noon. He was cool, never overheated, no matter how hard the contestants were jumping up and down on him....Come to think of it, given these job requirements, I wonder what Bob Schieiffer thinks of Plinko?

The return of "Monk" is always one of the highlights of summer, and this season's opener, "Mr. Monk's Biggest Fan," is particularly entertaining thanks to a good guest-star turn by Sarah Silverman. She reprises her role as the crazed fan Marci Maven from 2004's "Mr. Monk and the TV Star," only this time around it's Adrian Monk who is the focus of her obsessive fandom. Silverman steals the episode from star Tony Shalhoub (which is hard to do) with a role that pushes her beyond the general Sarah Silverman-ish character that she usually plays. She even gets to show off her guitar strumming skills with a folksy ditty she's penned for her beloved:

There's a man in California/
if you're ever in a funk./
He may not be F. Murray Abraham/
but I think he's a hunk./
And his name is Aaaayaaaadddrreeeeiannnnn

The seg, penned by "Monk" creator-exec producer Andy Breckman and directed by Randy Zisk, is packed with in-jokes for "Monk" freaks and other goofy delights. Bows July 13 on USA Network.

Now this outta be good, clean, liberal fun.

A strong lineup of good-hearted comics are set to deliver an 80th birthday tribute to Mort Sahl on Thursday at the Wadsworth Theater in Brentwood. Sahl turned 80 on May 11, and sadly, word in comedy circles is that he's hit some hard times financially. It's understood that Woody Allen, George Carlin, Dick Cavett, Robin Williams and others have opened their wallets to help out, and the Wadsworth Theater tribute is part of the fund-raising effort for Sahl, who resides in the Valley these days and at http://www.mortsahl.com/. There's no pension plan for pioneering, politically charged humorists who only did sporadic film and TV work, especially during the past few decades.

Comic Ross Shafer helped instigate Thursday's tribute at the Wadsworth, with everybody donating their time and services (including the venue). There was talk of trying to turn it into a TV special but as of now there were too many contractual conflicts among the roster of performers (a high-class problem indeed). Larry King is set to emcee, and performers lined up include Shelley Berman, Albert Brooks, Drew Carey, Jay Leno, Richard Lewis, Bill Maher, Keavin Nealon, David Steinberg and Jonathan Winters. Allen and Don Rickles have also contributed kudos on tape, plus there will be special guests, according to helmer Howard Storm, who gave publicist Warren Cowan a hand in getting the word out on the event Friday. Tickets are on sale to the public and can be bought half price at the Wadsworth box office by using the code "Mort 80."

Muscle cars. Classic rock. Scary monsters and evil demons. Chain saws. Handsome guys and hot girls. Jeffrey Dean Morgan dying. "Supernatural's" got it all, including a hard-core fan base who have built elaborate website shrines to the series. So why isn't it a bigger draw for the CW, especially among the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "X-Files" demo?

This is a question that keeps "Supernatural" creator-exec producer Eric Kripke up at night listening to things that go bump. Not that he isn't happy and grateful to just to have his spawn live for another season, its third, in the 2007-08 season. But he'd like to get the word out that there is hope in the Thursday 9 p.m. slot for people who like more other-worldly entertainment than the docs of "Grey's Anatomy" or the forensics of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." Hell, actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the cardiac-challenged martyr of "Grey's Anatomy," even died in the first episode of "Supernatural" last season, after cutting a deal with the devil to allow his older son to live.

"Because I believe in the humanity of man, I believe there's a wider audience out there for this show," Kripke joked over breakfast (brioche and coffee) the other day, down the street from Warner Bros. where "Supernatural" is produced. "I don't think we have to live on 'Grey's' and 'CSI's' scraps. But we do have to find a way to get the word out that this show is out there. The people who used to watch 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' are not watching anything else on the CW."

Can only imagine the TLC Jimmy Kimmel is receiving from g.f. Sarah Silverman after undergoing an emergency appendectomy on Wednesday, per the AP. Kimmel's mouthpiece Lewis Kay says the whole thing was over and done with in 18 hours and that he's expected back on the show on Tuesday. Repeats 'til then. I was hoping for a quip about exploding organs or something delivered via Kay but sadly, no, or at least not yet.

(At left is the goofiest picture I could find on the ABC press site from a "Jimmy Kimmel Live" seg last week. Have no idea what these hunks of Marine-dom were doing on the show -- I'm guessing it was a band perf? All the caption tells me is that it's Sgt. Major Neil O'Connell and Staff Sgt. Timothy Dutton flanking Jimmy when he still had his appendix.)

Now we know how Neil Patrick Harris is going to spend at least some of his summer. The "How I Met Your Mother" star will make his stage directing debut with what's billed as a "private premiere" rendition of Amanda Rogers' "I Am Grock" on July 17 at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood.

Play revolves around "a monumental moment in the life of Phoebe Broman, a family therapist, mother and author. Her successful new book promoting raw, uncensored honesty within families has netted her an interview on a national news broadcast. However, things go awry when her entire extended family shows up at her front door an hour before the interview. Phoebe is left with no choice but to heal her own family before the newswoman and cameras arrive."

Sounds like Harris out to have fun with it, given the entirely overblown tabloid circus he faced a few months back over questions of his sexuality. I mean, who really cares? In this day and age? He's a hoot as the lascivious Barney on CBS' "How I Met Your to Mother" -- that's really all we need to know. Harris also is no stranger to the footlights, having appeared on Broadway in "Assassins," "Proof" and "Cabaret."

Marty, your drive-on has been revoked.

Marty Martin (pictured left) is this week's casualty on "On the Lot." After last week's surge of attitude from Martin, we could have seen that coming as easily as the hackneyed plots of one of his shorts. A more surprising development this week is the crowd turning on judge Carrie Fisher - who had the memorable "you're a big fan of yourself" exchange with Mr. Martin last week.

As few times in this week's episode, Fisher's criticisms of the contestants drew catcalls and boos from the crowd behind her. Fisher took it in stride, as you might expect from a thick-skinned showbiz vet.

Interesting that Variety's Peter Bart and the New York Times' David Carr (Carpetbagger no more) had much the same take on the recent restructuring at HBO that saw five executives expand their domains in the wake of Chris Albrecht's hasty departure as CEO.

Says Carr:

Still, the co-presidency seems far more like a Hollywood sort of solution, where titles are handed out like bonbons, than an effort to maintain a network’s reputation for artistic and commercial decisiveness. In a telephone interview on Friday afternoon, Mr. Bewkes seemed amazed that people who watch the company would assign so much meaning to titles.

Says Bart:

I have nothing against teamwork, but I worry about the consequences of group-think in businesses that are dependent on risk-taking. Tastes are changing, technology is shifting and the gambles on movies and TV shows are becoming exponentially more expensive. Doesn't that suggest that bold leaders are needed to make tough decisions? Or does it suggest the exact opposite: The only way to survive in corporate Hollywood is to hunker down amid a thicket of committees so that no single individual takes the heat for bad decisions? Or, more probably, for indecision.

Book Hell is more than just a state of mind. It's an actual place, I'm thinking it's somewhere south of Downey, Calif. (home of the Blasters and the Carpenters), where decent hard-working writers/wives/mothers go to get singed by the flames of burning manuscript pages that demand to proofed/revised/de-hyped/rewritten for the $%^&*^-th time. You don't actually drive to Book Hell, you descend there, sometime between the time you finish the line edit and the copy edited manuscript arrives. You show up with a blindfold on thinking, "C'mon, how long can this pass through the manuscript take?" and "What was the show that replaced 'Savannah' on Sunday when the WB launched its Monday night slate in 1996?" So that's where I spent my weekend, and probably most of next weekend too. I'm lucky my husband and daughter haven't thrown me out for good.

I'm in entirely too snarky of a mood right now to go anywhere near penning a jokey item about the announcement from NBC today that it has picked up the rights to a Colombian telenovela "Without Breasts There is No Paradise." Keeping tongue-in-cheekiness in check, the deal is interesting for what it says about the global-mindedness of the biz these days. NBC Universal is snapping up rights to a property that was a smash hit in Colombia, and will develop it in English for the Peacock and in Spanish (with a separate cast and production team) for Telemundo. And NBC's newly minted programming chief Ben Silverman deserves all the credit in the world for being smart enough to look beyond Hollywood's ethnocentric snobbery to ferret out creative ideas and concepts that originate beyond U.S. borders, as he did with another Colombian novela hit, which became ABC's fair-haired "Ugly Betty." Still, I had to chuckle at some of the Ben-speak in the press release, as reported by Variety's Joe Adalian.

I have yet to succumb to, or even sample, the whole Second Life thing, which seemed to be all the rage about three months ago. But it would seem the Jump the Shark moment has already arrived. Yes, there was much dither a few months ago about Second Life iterations becoming a "new revenue stream" and product-placement promo platform for nets and studios, yada yada yada. But you know that all of the cool has rushed out of a thing when it's being adapted purely for corporate-branding branding purposes. "Comcastic Island" (pictured above) as a Second Life prospect!?! Good grief. Per the press release heralding this example of cable biz marketing savvy: "Comcastic Island extends Comcast's award-winning marketing initiatives to the rapidly expanding virtual-world environment. The island features a collection of 'speed'-themed entertainment experiences designed to illustrate the benefits of Comcast's high-speed Internet service. Second Life residents can compete against their friends-or their own best times-in several venues" such as a custom race track, jet ski track, etc. I don't know for sure but I'm guessing you can go suit up with the (Comcast-owned) Philadelphia 76ers, perhaps even rap (or scrap?) a bit with Allen Iverson. With apologies to the Roberts clan and Comcast, a company well-regarded as best-of-breed in the cable biz, it's all over when the Next Big Thing goes "Comcastic!"

"On the Lot" sees some sparks fly in its fourth week as the ever-cocky Marty Martin and judge Carrie Fisher scrap a bit as five more of the remaining 15 contestants screen their three-minute wonders for judges Fisher, Garry Marshall and this week's guest, David "The Devil Wears Prada" Frankel.
By the end of this week's live seg, the group has slimmed down to 14 as Trever James, whose short "Teri" screened last week, is sent packing. Don't ask me why, but "America," as "Lot" host Adrianna Costa is fond of saying, spared Hilary Graham, who delivered the un-funny "How I Met the Finkelsteins" short, but threw over James who delivered the best of last week's batch, IMHO. Worse, Trever and Hilary (pictured above) had to spend all of this week's episode sitting off to the side in director's chairs while Costa plucked this week's contenders from the larger group. Memo to Hilary: Don't wear miniskirts/minidresses on show taping days.

Here's hoping Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff didn't get their new business cards and letter head yet.
NBC Universal Television Studio is no more, per the news released this a.m. by the Peacock. The studio arm is being renamed Universal Media Studios, doing away with the mouthful of a moniker (and its unfortunate acronym, NUTS) that emerged after the formal merger of NBC and U in May 2004. (UMS may sound like a bank or something but at least it's harder to make fun of.) So now Silverman and Graboff are co-chairman, NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios. The NBC-free name may also be more conducive to the studio producing for non-NBC U outlets, though with NBC, USA, Sci Fi, Bravo and a growing number of digital platforms to feed it would seem that studio prexy Katherine Pope and her team have plenty to do in-house. Or as Ben says with characteristic modesty:  "NBC Universal is the premier content company on the planet and this name change reflects our TV studio's natural evolution as digital distribution expands and more platforms need premier ideas and programming."

Here's a perfect match for primetime. John Larroquette is going to lend his talents to ABC's "Boston Legal" in the upcoming season. He'll play a senior partner from the New York office who transfers to Crane Poole & Schmidt's nuthouse Boston office. Larroquette is no stranger to David E. Kelley-land, having done guest shots on multiple episodes of "The Practice" during its ABC run. Larroquette's always been a favorite of mine, and I'm not too sheepish to admit that I've even enjoyed his romps as maverick lawyer/gumshoe in the series of "McBride" telepics that Hallmark Channel has been running since 2005.

Can't say I have first-hand memories of watching "Watch Mr. Wizard," but I do appreciate the role Don Herbert played as a TV pioneer and in introducing explosive baking-soda-and-vinegar science experiments to the youth of America. By all accounts, Herbert, who died Tuesday at the age of 89, was as nice a guy as he seemed on the air. He was famously one of the first guests on David Letterman's "Late Night" show in the early 1980s, and he was one of those guests who Dave seemed genuinely excited to meet. The vintage TV wonderland that is www.tvacres.com has a fantastic "Watch Mr. Wizard" page, including a full-page ad in Variety touting the NBC show airing on "118 stations of the NBC-TV Network" when it was still airing from Chicago prior to Herbert's move to New York.
You know that somewhere up in the Seattle area, Herbert's kindred spirit Bill Nye (the Science Guy) is feeling a little sad today...

It's only fitting that "Sopranos" creator David Chase would give his first post-finale remarks to TV scribe Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger. In a nutshell, Chase (pictured left) says he'd never say never regarding a "Sopranos" movie, but don't hold your breath. And as far as the clincher scene that has stirred such ire among some viewers, Chase offers: "I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there...No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God." Chase adds: "We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people's minds or thinking, 'Wow, this'll (tick) them off.'"

Meanwhile, the numbers are in and Sunday's finale drew about 11.9 million viewers. A little surprising that the closer didn't generate a bigger bounce, given all the breathless anticipation leading up to it last week. But you can be sure that number will spike, if not double, after HBO runs the sprockets out of the finale during the next week or so.

Journey!?!

Not Tony Bennett? Not The Voice? Not Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons? Not Bruce Springsteen, or even Bon Jovi? Journey!?!

Oh well, maybe that was the point. Mundane. Typical. Pedestrian, even. Maybe it's just right that the series that was so often over-hyped as the best thing television has ever produced would go out on a this-could-be-anyone's-family-gathering-at-a-neighborhood-joint note.

David Chase clearly had fun messing with our minds in building all of the Hitchcock-ian tension into the final scene in the restaurant, as we waited for any one of the suspicious-looking characters that seemed to be circling Tony Soprano's nuclear family (remember what they looked like in season one, as pictured below) to erupt with violence or something that felt finale-ish and fate-sealing. But no, it was a typical family scene, typical, that is, if dad's a New Jersey crime boss on the downside of his career and mom's an overprotective but ruthless enabler. And let's face it, parallel parking is a bitch, no matter who your daddy is.

The instant chatter in the blogosphere on the (not so) fateful episode No. 86 of "The Sopranos" seemed to tilt toward the negative, with many remarking that the abruptly cut-to-black ending first made them think their cable/satellite had gone out just at the money-moment. But perhaps those who were angered or unhappy with the closer were just more motivated to run to their computers to blast away at David Chase, HBO, and anyone else they could think of. There was a lot of insta-speculation that the deliberately-vague ending was motivated by a greedy desire to tee up a "Sopranos" feature film down the road. (Some were even pegging the release date as spring 2009! Everybody wants to play Exhibitor Relations these days.) I've got to believe that David Chase has more creativity integrity than that. If not, somebody show him "The X-Files" feature, quick.

It may sound a stretch but perhaps Chase came to something like the same conclusion that Phil Rosenthal did two years ago with the "Everybody Loves Raymond" finale. The best way to honor a beloved series and the fans who made it so is not with pyrotechnics or gimmicks beyond belief but a tribute to the core character relationships that make or break any TV series. (Then again, there's the "Newhart" ending to beat all endings, which could be called gimmicky, but c'mon...) Appropriately enough, nobody has ever gotten "The Sopranos" better than Alan Sepinwall, the hard-working, hell-of-a-nice-guy TV critic from the Newark Star-Ledger, and he had a smart take on the finale posted barely an hour after it aired. Variety's Phil Gallo also did a good job of sizing up the finale, from a reasoned, not fanboy, perspective.

Furthermore, as On the Air's significant other astutely pointed out, it could have been a whole lot worse. David Chase was at the helm of "Northern Exposure" when that once-great series bowed out in mid-1995 with a finale episode, co-written by future "Sopranos" soldiers Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess (along with Jeff Melvoin). We'll never forgive any of them for the worst-plot-twist-ever in having Janine Turner's Maggie and John Corbett's Chris "suddenly" discover that they're soul mates and destined to be together....yeeecchh! (Having that happen is worse than the public-domain music NBC Universal has put in the modern-day DVD sets of NoEx seasons to save money on licensing.)

So aside from the use of "Don't Stop Believin'" in the closing moments, Chase redeemed himself tonight with this finale that he wrote and directed. Despite the level of over-praising that "The Sopranos" has endured during its eight-year run (give or take a few loooong hiatuses), there's no denying the impact it has had, on pop culture, on television, on writers and on what networks and studios are willing to accept in the way of anti-heroes, less than tidy endings, etc. etc. I'll never forget attending an HBO-sponsored screening of the first two episodes (either it was the first two segs or it was a two from early in the first season) at the DGA theater in Hollywood. When the screening was over and the DGA lobby filled with industry cognizati, the buzz was positively electric. People literally could not stop talking about how good -- how different -- the show was.

No one can claim more credit for this than David Chase, for sticking to his vision and his derring-do, and for assembling the company of talented scribes, directors, actors and producers he enlisted to tell his tales. There aren't enough adjectives in the dictionary to express how well James Gandolfini and Edie Falco (oh boy, did she shine this season?!) embodied their alter-egos in a way that ....well, again, not enough superlatives or time to give them their proper due....

By now, the story of how Chase struggled for years to get his baby on the air is well documented. But it bears repeating the names of a few of the suits and such who helped the show along before it found a welcoming home at HBO -- particularly one exec in particular who just faced his own real-life whacking (albeit with no lethal consequences), Kevin Reilly, late of NBC who was a "Sopranos" booster during his time as head of Brillstein-Grey Television. Lloyd Braun, late of ABC, Yahoo and now of NBC Universal-based BermanBraun, was also pivotal in the series' development during his tenure at Brillstein-Grey. Also meriting a shout-out are Robert Greenblatt and Danielle Gelber, now of Showtime but formerly with Fox Broadcasting Co. during "The Sopranos'" time in development-hell there, and of course, Peter Benedek, Chase's loyal rep at United Talent Agency.

Salute.

Still don't know what to make of what's going on at ION TV, the erstwhile Pax TV, and haven't for a while now. The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company seems to have been held in limbo by payments it owed to NBC Universal that the former Paxson Communications couldn't possibly have paid back. (Back in 1998 NBC struck a doozy of a deal that called for Paxson to essentially reimburse NBC for its minority-interest investment in a few years if the Peacock wasn't happy with the company's progress.) Now it's being bought out and taken private by a Chicago-based investor group, Citadel Investment Group, but they're still giving NBC U a chit to buy back its stake in ION at a later date. Another investor group with the funny name of Contrarian Capital Management was also trying to bid for the company in May but were beaten back without much of a fight, apparently, given that Citadel and NBC U are friendly partners in their transaction. The latest press release on this buyout process is comical for its sheer confused-ness, take a look. A lot of the convolutedness in NBC U's dealings with the company has to do with station ownership limits -- NBC U would be over the FCC's 39% national household reach limit if it took full control of ION too (considering that the Peacock already has NBC and Telemundo O&Os). It's just always struck me as strange that a station group with 60-odd outlets with decent signals in top markets can't make a go of itself as a network, or even an ad-hoc group of stations doing interesting things on the local level. I suppose it is all about the programming, local, national or whatever. So we'll see what the rest of this year brings for the company. Until then, if you're looking for less-than-stellar prints of repeats of "Kojak," "Green Acres," "Battlestar Galactica" and "Mama's Family," you know where to turn. (Besides, now I have an excuse to have a "Kojak" shot on my blog.)

First of all, he gets no points for originality. Isaiah Washington, the loose-lipped ex-"Grey's Anatomy" co-star, makes himself look like even more of a jerk after receiving the news that Dr. Preston Burke's services are no longer needed at Seattle Grace. It's true that it did seem like he'd crisis-managed his way through the storm after the dust-up earlier this year over his anti-gay remarks. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," Washington says in a statement, as Variety's Stuart Levine reports. I couldn't help but note the contrast to Washington's fussy fit in this AP story on Kristen Bell deals with the CW's cancellation of "Veronica Mars" in the classiest way possible, not by bashing the network or pointing fingers but by noting how much she'll miss the character and her co-workers. "It feels sort of like graduating high school. You really only recognize how special it was once it's gone away," Bell tells the AP. Seems the doctor could take a lesson from the girl gumshoe.

For Bryan Fuller, it all started many years ago, on a hot summer's day in his home town in eastern Washington state, during one of his first attempts at T-ball.

His team was up, and Fuller was caught between first and second base, with no hope of being anything but an easy out for a cocky second baseman. So young Bryan pulled a Kobayashi Maru, long before he knew there was a name for such a maneuver (for the uninitiated, see "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."). He ran into the outfield. And when the umpire hollered "out," Fuller was incensed.

"I figured if the person who has the ball has to tag you, they should have to chase your ass wherever you go," Fuller recalls, shaking his head. "Why do you have to be locked down to just one way?"

From that long-ago injustice came a good deal of his motivation to build a career on coloring outside the lines, bending the rules of space and time to his own delight as a storyteller. In just a few years Fuller has developed a loyal following among a certain breed of TV junkies and a growing reputation in the biz as the writer-producer behind such stylish drama series as Showtime's "Dead Like Me" and Fox's "Wonderfalls." Fuller spent most of the past season as a staff scribe on NBC's "Heroes," except for when he was off developing his latest creation, "Pushing Daisies," for Warner Bros. Television, which landed the Wednesday 8 p.m. berth on ABC's fall sked.

As of about 3:10 p.m., the scare is over. The yellow tape is coming down and foot and auto traffic are returning to our little chunk of Wilshire Boulevard. Police tell us that the briefcase left outside a take-out place across the street from the Variety offices was empty, or at least devoid of anything dangerous to others. Thank goodness.

No kidding, folks, there's a bomb scare that's choking off a chunk of Wilshire Boulevard right outside Variety's offices in the 5500 block of the Miracle Mile. Near as we can tell, a stray briefcase was left outside the Organic to Go eatery on the the north side of Wilshire, right next to Screen Actors Guild headquarters, and that has the police hauling out the yellow Do Not Cross tape and blocking traffic at the intersection of Wilshire and Curson Avenue and for at least another two three blocks east on Wilshire. Yes, there are plenty of jokes flying around the Variety newsroom right now about people angry about one of our reviews, or a disgruntled SAG board member, etc. But the police are taking it all very seriously. Most surprisingly, to this observer who was buying a salad at one of the eateries as it was being shut down, is the fact that there's nothing about this shutdown of Wilshire on the Web sites of either all-news stations KNX-AM or KFWB-AM, despite the fact that they are right next door to Variety and thus right in the center of all the action. Now that's local news coverage for you.

Latest here is that police officers came through the Variety offices on the other side of the street from where the suspicious package is sitting, urging people to move away from the glass windows, just in case....

Congrats to all the Humanitas Prize finalists. The Humanitas honors some times are the subject of a little ribbing for focusing on feel-good and Explicitly Uplifting fare, but the truth is most writers covet these awards, if only because they are so focused on scribes. Plus, these laurels come with cold, hard cash attached, which never hurts.

There are some oddly pedestrian choices on the list this year and some interesting picks. The biggest surprise is the nod to Fox's "The War at Home." It's hardly unusual for the Humanitas to shine a light on a canceled show, but it is in this case. "War at Home" wasn't exactly a critical darling in its two-season run on Fox. I can't really comment, having never watched beyond the pilot seg. I couldn't find an image from the episode "Kenny Doesn't Live Here Anymore," which earned the nom for series creator Rob Lotterstein, but I did find a shot, posted above, of an episode with a guest shot by George Segal. And since I've always loved "Where's Poppa?"...A full list of Humanitas noms, or finalists in the org's parlance, can be found here courtesy of Variety's hard-working, TV-loving Stuart Levine.

This week's guest judge Michael Bay added some star power to On the Lot and very clearly turned up the pressure for the remaining 15 contestants.
The plugs for Bay's new summer tentpole "Transformers" were pretty consistent, which underscored his heft in the biz that our hopefuls are trying to crack.
Format this week found five of the 15 -- Sam, Trever, Adam, Hilary and Shalini -- getting the chance to showcase their latest productions, three-minute shorts that had to be completed in five days, using mostly their own wits and connections for sets, actors, lighting, etc.

(pictured above: Adam, standing in back. L-R: Sam, Trever, Hilary and Shalini)

Good for "Jericho" fans. It's great to see fan-dom pull some "Cagney and Lacey" muscle and make a network do an about-face. CBS' decision to pickup seven more episodes also comes as a sweet victory to many at the show's studio home, CBS Paramount Network TV, where there was a ton of love for the show and mega-disappointment when it was axed. Here's CBS Entertainment chief Nina Tassler's open letter to "Jericho" fans, posted today on CBS' press Web site.

Good-bye Museum of Television and Radio, hello Paley Center for Media. It's no secret the NY- and LA-based institution has faced some hard times of late, like many a non-profit these days. (Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for the erstwhile MT&R, an org that has always been gracious to me in terms of offering me classy panel-moderating gigs, my pick of Paley Festival sessions, etc.) The MT&R has always had support from the industry's top movers and shakers -- just take a look at its board of directors -- but nonetheless the handful of major media giants that rule the biz can only write so many checks a year. So I suppose the donor base will be greatly enlarged under the larger Center for Media umbrella. MT&R founder William Paley, who was a businessman through and through (he formed the institution in 1975 as the Museum of Broadcasting), no doubt would have approved. Besides, his name's on the door now.

Let's just make sure they keep up the MT&R's one-of-a-kind program archives. I mean, it's always comforting to know that somewhere in the world, someone has a climate-controlled vault preserving rarities like "You're In the Picture," the Jackie Gleason hosted game show from 1961 that was so bad that the Great One apologized to viewers in its second airing for "that bomb," bagged the game show format and turned it into a talk show that ran a few more weeks on CBS under the "Jackie Gleason Show" moniker.

(pictured above, L-R: Queen Noor of Jordan, CBS Corp. CEO and Paley Center board member Leslie Moonves and Paley Center prexy Pat Mitchell were on hand to toast the name-change Tuesday evening at a reception at the Paley Center's Gotham HQ.)

"If we can't restrict the use of the words 'fuck' and 'shit' during primetime, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want" -- so says Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin (pictured left) in a heated statement released today after the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals completely and totally smacked down the FCC's hyper-protective policy on four-letter words uttered on TV.

The decision in question stems from the FCC's ruling that the use of "fuck" and "shit" by Cher and Nicole Richie, respectively, during Fox's telecast of the Billboard Music Awards in 2002 and '03 constituted an indecency violation. But it's part and parcel of the FCC's scarily-groundbreaking decision that the use of "fuck" in any context, in any circumstance during the 6 a.m.-10 p.m. time frame is an indecent, fine-able offense -- unless of course it's in a patriotic war movie a la "Saving Private Ryan," in which case the commish will relent.

I'm wading through the 53-page decision right now, looking for the money quotes from the ruling applying appropriate scrutiny of what broadcasters have decried as the FCC's nonsensical and arbitrary application of its indecency rules. Variety's William Triplett does a fine job explaining the ins and outs of what it all means. I just had to poke some fun here at the line above from Martin's reaction statement. What part of the First Amendment does the commish not get? Of course, the notion that "Hollywood" can now run amok with salty language is laughable. Television networks are private, for-profit businesses, equipped with standards and practices departments. "Hollywood" can only go as far as its advertisers and viewers will allow -- that's the wonderfully democratic part of the invisible hand that guides free-market capitalism, remember?

But Martin, who's said to have aspirations to run for elected office, seems bent on framing the defeat he was just handed as a case of evil urban centers sending the children of heartland-America down the road to ruin with...dirty words on B-grade awards shows! In his statement Martin notes that he finds it "hard to believe that a New York court would tell American families that 'shit' and 'fuck' are find to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience."

Oh, it's getting good.
Last night's penultimate "Sopranos" installment laid down more unraveling threads for what will undoubtedly expected to be a monster of a finale this Sunday. "Sopranos" capo David Chase is indicating that he's going to spare no fan favorites. Bobby Bacala, Tony's brother-in-law (played by Steven Schirripa, pictured left), survived actually punching Tony out at the start of this season but couldn't escape Phil Leotardo's wrath in last night's episode. But the most dramatic moment came when Tony's lifeline to sanity, Dr. Melfi, sternly decided to cut him loose. Tony's so desperate at this point he can't even hang on to a truly professional shrink-client relationship. He sounded beyond pathetic in citing the "progress" he feels he's making. Melfi seemed to speak for viewers in pointing out the obvious: It's been seven years, and he's still a sociopath. Yet as always, you couldn't help feel sorry for him in the last shot after he's sent his family off into hiding and he's left to curl up with a gun. Now we've only got about 150 hours to ponder what will be Tony's ultimate fate, coming this Sunday night.

It's almost official. Katherine Pope is expected to say with NBC but get her wish to move back over to the studio side, this time as president of NBC Universal TV Studio, as Variety's Joe Adalian reports.

Not a bad turnaround for someone who reportedly wasn't sure what her next move was going to be this time last week. But it's not unexpected. She's known to be well-regarded by NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker. Her rise at NBC during the past few years has been impressive, from joining the network as an entry-level development exec during the waning months of Garth Ancier's tenure as NBC Entertainment chief, to serving as No. 2 in development to freshly ousted NBC Entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly for the past 18 months. For about 18 months before that, Pope served on the studio side in a hands-on development role that she clearly preferred. Shows that have been touched by the hand of Pope during the past few years include, of course, this year's breakout "Heroes," "Friday Night Lights," "Medium," "Boomtown," "Crossing Jordan," Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" and USA Network's "Psych."

Like the rest of the Peacock's senior management, Pope's got her work cut out for her in leading the studio operation under newly anointed co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff. But by all accounts Pope is whip-smart, and she had to have moxie to get where she is already in her career. In the new world order at NBC U, Pope's talents and skills will be even more valuable to her new bosses who don't have nearly as deep of a background in the nitty gritty of development. And good development is the one thing, some would say only thing other than losta luck, that NBC needs most of all in order to pull out of its fourth-place trench.

So it was all a big hoax.

"The Big Donor," the Dutch reality TV show in which a woman who purported to be dying of a brain tumor supposedly was looking to donate one of her kidneys to a worthy person in need of one. The show drew brickbats from doctors and ethical orgs around the world for making an elimination-style gameshow out of a life-or-death medical decision. On Friday, according to the AP, "Big Donor" wrapped with the hosts revealing that the dying woman was an actress and that the whole thing had been an elaborate stunt. No matter how much producers try to wrap themselves in the justification of doing it for the lofty goal of affecting change in Dutch public policy -- forget it. The show was built around a mockery of the very serious business of organ donation, and it was done to cause a stir, draw an audience and make money. It's no surprise it came from Endemol, given that production company's track record for crass and cruel programming. You just know execs at some desperate network (or two) in this country had already reached out to Endemol about licensing it for the U.S. market.

As a certain wicked witch once said on her watery death bed...."What a world...What a world."

Now this is beach reading.

TV and film director John Rich tells tales of his adventures behind the camera in his recently published memoir "Warm Up the Snake: A Hollywood Memoir" (University of Michigan Press). With a career that stretches from "Our Miss Brooks" (Rich is flanked above by "Brooks" stars Eve Arden and Gale Gordon) to "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to "The Brady Bunch" to "All in the Family" to "MacGyver," he's got the stranger-than-fiction stories to make this a delightful and easy read for anyone with an interest in the biz. There are stories of bad (really bad) or curious behavior by actors, producers, executives, writers and the like that fall into the category of the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same-in-this-town. And there are plenty of once-in-a-lifetime anecdotes like the time Rich had the high-class problem of having to choose between directing the pilot for "All in the Family" and the pilot for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." (The calls from Norman Lear and Moore came on the same day.) "Snake" also offers Rich's personal perspective on how TV directors came into their own at once was once known as the Screen Directors Guild, in no small way thanks to Rich's rabble rousing, and other milestones in DGA history during the past half-century.

Been slowly making my way through the pilot screeners that have been piling up on my desk for the past two weeks. In all good conscience, I won't violate the sacred not-for-review covenant of not weighing in too heavily on the understanding that these pilots are still works in progress that undoubtedly will be tweaked, nipped, tucked and in some cases, recast, before the fall season starts. But some big-picture observations are starting to come together on what I've seen so far.

First off, Jim Parsons is a TV star. He's way-charming as the off-lead buddy opposite Johnny Galecki in CBS' Chuck Lorre sitcom "The Big Bang Theory." "Big Bang" is breezy fun, thanks in large part to Parsons (pictured left), even for someone who wasn't particularly in the mood for a geeky bud-com at the moment that I popped the disc in. But as usual, Lorre delivers the goods, starting with the names of his lead characters, "Sheldon" and "Leonard." (This town doesn't pay enough homage to the late producer Sheldon Leonard, a giant of the TV biz who helped birth "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Andy Griffith Show," "I Spy" and other gems.)

"Big Bang's" supporting cast is good too, particularly Simon Helberg as one of Sheldon and Leonard's geeky friends. Galecki's character (pictured right) is definitely channeling the J.J. Abrams geek-hip look. But Lorre's not just poking fun at others. Helberg's character is fer sure satorially inspired by the Lorre look (Davy Jones moptop hairdo, dark turtleneck sweaters) of the late '80s.