National TV Reviews & News

Courteney Cox is dead-eyed Hollywood muckraker Lucy Spiller in FX's Dirt. Her star shooter, Don Konkey (Ian Hart), is way off-center.
Premiering: Tuesday night, Jan. 2nd (9 central, 10 eastern) on FX
Starring: Courteney Cox, Ian Hart, Josh Stewart, Laura Allen, Jeffrey Nordling, Shannyn Sossamon, Rick Fox, Alexandra Breckenridge, Timothy Bottoms, Grant Show, Carly Pope, Will McCormack
Created by: Matthew Carnahan

By ED BARK
Hooray for Hollywood? Slam on the brakes, shift into reverse and out come the horrid of Hollywood in FX's Dirt. It's the biggest slap at Tinseltown since Fox's ahead-of-its-time Action, which started and stopped in fall 1999.

Dirt star Courteney Cox is the first female protagonist in the network's signature line of provocative dramas. The Shield, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Lucky and Over There put flawed, combustible men at the hearts of their darkness. Cox's Lucy Spiller, editor-in-chief of Drrt and Now magazines, stalks her prey with a ruthlessness reminiscent of Faye Dunaway's aggressively amoral Diana Christensen in Network.

A scene from Dirt's third episode gets us a bit ahead of ourselves but illustrates the point. Lucy's chief assassin, a schizophrenic photographer named Don Konkey (Ian Hart), has just returned with a money shot of a Christian pop star who burned her face while freebasing heroin.

"She said it was like touching God," Don dishes, causing his boss to quiver down below.

"She actually said that? I think I just came a little," says Lucy, who otherwise favors a small electronic device or an occasional human boy toy.

In video press materials, Cox touts Dirt as deliciously "salacious. This is FX . . . It fits in with their other shows."

Cox's 10 seasons on Friends rendered her fair game for the ravenous paparazzi, even more so after she and husband David Arquette had their first child. So Dirt in part is payback, although its so far merciless portrait of Hollywood hardly prompts sympathy for either side.

The show's Drrt magazine (that's not a misprint) and its sister publication, Now, count on the weening ambitions of your basic celebrity commodity. Tuesday night's premiere introduces an easy mark in actor Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart), who's lately made a string of big-screen bombs. His wife, Julia Mallory, (Laura Allen), is faring better at the moment as the star of both a hit sitcom and a just released feature. So Holt is easily reeled in, divulging the pregnancy of actress Kira Klay (Shannyn Sossamon) in return for a puff piece on him in Now.

Events take a tragic turn, though, prompting Holt to feel a semblance of remorse until Lucy and Don treat him to a little video of what his wife's been up to lately.

"You can give your dirt to Don whenever," Lucy then tells her hollow-eyed fish-on-a-hook. "Just make sure it comes in regularly."

Dirt occasionally drops a real-life Hollywood name ("Mr. Clooney") or show (Dancing with the Stars). But it so far is cutting too close to Hollywood's rotten core to induce any cameos from stars playing themselves. Entourage this isn't.

Not even the Los Angeles Lakers want their their name to be used. So former Laker Rick Fox wears his old team's colors but plays for the L.A. Rock under the name of Prince Tyreese. He's a sleazeball, too, an erstwhile family man photographed au naturel in a hot tub with a tart. The pics are then used to blackmail him.

Cox's Lucy is under the gun, too. Her magazines' overbearing publisher, Brent Barrow (Jeffrey Nordling), thinks she wants his job. On the contrary, she says. "I like to get dirty."

Boss of bosses Gibson Horne (Timothy Bottoms) simply wants cost cuts. "Or so help me I will bury you."

It can all be more than a little overbearing. Cox strives to be super-steely, but summons a stricken look whenever someone tells her she's soulless. Neither demeanor is entirely convincing yet, but she seems to be settling in as the show goes on.

Ian Hart as crazed Don Konkey is Dirt's most intriguing character. His best friend, a cat with cancer, isn't around long enough to get its equity card. Don then channels a beauteous imaginary friend whose identity won't be given away here. Meanwhile, he'll do just about anything to get the shots that Lucy demands. That includes lopping off a piece of his pinky.

Later episodes will introduce Mariette Hartley as Lucy's "exacting" mother, Dorothy. Lucy also has a younger gay brother, Leo (Will McCormack), first seen in Episode 3.

Those who think the absolute worst of Hollywood will find much to like in Dirt. None of its characters can be accused of being honorable or decent. Instead it truly is a land of make believe populated with liars and cutthroats. This is a show where Lucy prepares her staff for the kill by showing video of sharks eating their siblings in the womb.

But that's not until Episode 3. In Dirt's case, it means the best is yet to come.

Grade: B

By ED BARK
Even in jail he felt good -- like he knew that he should.

"If I saw you, brother, I'd hug you," James Brown told me by telephone from the State Park Correctional Center in Columbia, S.C.

Likely he didn't really mean it. But it's nice to have that lasting memory of the "Godfather of Soul," who's being laid to rest this week after a hard-driving life that in 1988 found him on smoking tire rims after leading police on a two-state car chase.

That's why he was in prison when we spoke in March 1989. Serving the third month of a later commuted six-year term, Brown talked in passing about an upcoming Legends of Rock 'n' Roll TV special that had been taped less than a month before his sentencing. But the business end of the interview quickly gave way to how he felt about being behind bars and on the receiving end of numerous jokes at his expense.

"They've treated me great since I'm in here," Brown said. "The one thing is, I needed a rest from all the labor I've been doing. The first two or three days I got here, I slept. Look, we do get tired. If you don't rest, you break down. I've had some time to really put myself together."

Just the night before he'd watched Eddie Murphy lampoon him in a CBS special titled What's Alan Watching? Murphy, newly hot again in the feature film Dreamgirls, had concocted a bogus movie, Soul on the Rocks. Its star, "the hardest working man in prison," performed "It's a Man's World" in a shower room full of inmates.

Murphy also played a crackpot fan protesting Brown's imprisonment.

"James Brown is the man that placed Sirhan Sirhan at the Grassy Knoll," the fan asserted. But such unassailable truths of course wouldn't be printed in "white-dominated" newspapers.

"I loved it," Brown said. "There's a lot of things that can come out in jokes. I love America . . . I'm talking to my wife about different things. I'm a colorblind man. I want to be that way. How can you love God if you don't love your brother?"

Reports that drug abuse led to his incarceration "are a problem that the press started," he contended. But he rebooted a few minutes later. "Any news is good, as long as they spell the name right. I remember Nixon went through Watergate. I know it was hard times for them, too."

Brown otherwise yearned to be onstage again, where he planned to resume his rightful place as "the hardest-working man in show business" no matter what toll it took on him.

"Why can't I perform for an hour-and-a-half or two hours a night?" he asked. "I don't mind working. I thank God for it. I thank my fans. I have a duty to humanity. My organization's very sharp, very clean, very well-dressed.

"It's going to be reality when I get to that bandstand. I'm going to give them their honest day's money's worth again. Believe me, you're going to see something fantastic."

He was paroled in February 1991 after spending a little over two years behind bars. But James Brown was a guy who knew how to make up for lost time. He did so until the end.

Jordana Spiro and Kyle Howard air it out on TBS cable's My Boys
By ED BARK
Kyle Howard's won-loss record wasn't getting him anywhere fast in Hollywood. At age 28, he'd already slogged through a quintet of quickly canceled TV series, beginning with 1998's The Love Boat: The Next Wave.

But he kept working, guest-starring and believing that few producers blame the actor for a series that doesn't stick.

"Because if that's the case, I'm screwed," Howard says during a recent stop in Dallas.

At the time he didn't know the fate of TBS cable's well-received My Boys, in which he plays a Chicago sportswriter moving within the orbit of series star Jordana Spiro. Now he's having a particularly happy holiday season after TBS announced it had ordered nine more episodes of its first unscripted comedy series. The last of the show's initial 13 episodes premieres Thursday (Dec. 28) at 9 p.m. central time. My Boys then is scheduled to return in the summer.

Howard's character, Bobby Newman, had a start-stop romance with Spiro's PJ Franklin before they went all platonic. She's likewise a sportswriter who covers the Cubs, plays poker, collects sports cards and drinks beer.

"At the same time she's sexy and beautiful and 'girly' in her own way," Howard adds.

In real life, he prefers the company of a woman who's willing to go to third base, but doesn't necessarily know the intricacies of a pitcher's earned run average.

"I'm not like a big sports guy myself. For the real guy's guy, maybe PJ is the perfect girl. But I'd probably fall somewhere in between. I don't want a girl that's like an idiot. You had mentioned Paris Hilton . . ."

"Thanks for confirming that for me," his interviewer interjects.

"I don't think that's a secret to anyone," Howard rejoins, wisely foreclosing any future opportunity to go Parisian.

His favorite sport is surfing. Some girlfriends have waved him off.

"I'd sit down and watch a surfing video and she'd be so bored. It'd be like, 'I don't get it. Every wave looks the same. Why do you even watch this?' But for me it's like super-interesting. Then we'd go shopping and she'll want to spend, like, $1,200 on a handbag. And I'm like, 'I don't get it.' It must be basic differences in wiring. You've kind of got to just meet in the middle."

Howard's character in My Boys is more straight-ahead and serious-minded than any he's ever played.

"I love to be the goofy best friend or the sort of nerdy guy or the dumb stoner guy," he says. "This is as normal as I've been in anything."

Besides that quickly capsized new version of Love Boat, he's been a regular on Opposite Sex, Grosse Pointe, Run of the House and Related, none of which lived to see a second season. Howard also has guest-starred on a wide variety of successful TV series, including Friends, CSI: Crime Series Investigation, Nip/Tuck, The Drew Carey Show, Providence and Boston Public.

"At times it's been a frustration. But at the same time I feel lucky to stay busy," he says. "I've grown so used to it that it's almost normal to me. It doesn't necessarily freak me out that much when a pilot doesn't get picked up or a series gets canceled. Of course I'd love to have a little job security for a few years."

It's now looking as though he'll finally have that. And although first impressions can be misleading, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Jessica Simpson and Carrie Underwood: One blonde had more fun.
By ED BARK
Some have it, others don't. As 2006 gets ready to be ancient history, let's look at some of the stars, shows and networks with or without momentum on their sides. For short, we'll call it MO' and NO MO.' Ready, set, go.

MO' -- Carrie Underwood. She functionally performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to Dolly Parton. And on Christmas Day she got on the Texas Stadium field with boy pal Tony Romo, even if the Dallas Cowboys QB has a little case of No Mo' at the moment.
NO MO' -- Jessica Simpson. She dysfunctionally performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to Dolly Parton. So much so that she asked to be cut from the Dec. 26th CBS telecast. And her rumored fling with Romo turned out to be an incomplete pass.

MO' -- Dancing with the Stars. Buoyed by Emmitt Smith's upset win, ABC's hoof and puff extravaganza became TV's most-talked about reality show, at least until Fox's American Idol returns in January.
NO MO' -- Survivor. The Cook Island edition generated next to no buzz. How many can name its winner? Ratings remain decent, but CBS no longer has a juggernaut.

MO' -- Charles Gibson. ABC's newly installed World News anchor is gaining on Brian Williams' top dog NBC Nightly News, and lately has been edging it among advertiser-coveted 25-to-54-year-olds, the principal target audience for non-entertainment programming.
NO MO' -- Katie Couric. The thrill is gone, with her CBS Evening News slipping to a distant third place after early viewer windfalls. It's going to be very tough for Couric to dig out.

MO' -- Heroes. NBC's new serial drama has burst into the public consciousness, already ranking a heady No. 5 for the season with 18-to-49-year-olds, the key advertiser target audience for entertainment programming.
NO MO' -- Lost. Ratings are down and the storytelling is getting just a bit drowsy. Add a long layoff that stretches until February and a later Wednesday night slot that will pit ABC's twisty-turny against CBS' still potent CSI: NY. Diminishing returns are likely.

MO' -- The CSI franchise on CBS. All three editions rank in the top 10 with total viewers and in the top 15 among 18-to-49-year-olds. That's despite CSI: Crime Investigation sustaining a few dents on Thursdays from ABC's competing Grey's Anatomy.
NO MO' -- The Law & Order franchise on NBC. None of the three editions ranks in the top 15 in either Nielsen measurement. The granddaddy, Law & Order, has sunk to 41st place with total viewers and 52nd among 18-to-49-year-olds.

MO' -- Seinfeld alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Her New Adventures of Old Christine sitcom on CBS has won her a best actress Emmy and a pair of Golden Globe nominations.
NO MO' -- Seinfeld alum Michael Richards. His profane, racial diatribe at a Los Angeles comedy club has sunk his career like a two-foot putt.

MO' -- YouTube. The hottest media property in the land spurred Time magazine to name "You" its Person of the Year. A staggering $1.65 billion purchase by Google was the year's biggest business story. Now we'll see if the site is corporate-ized and therefore compromised in 2007.
NO MO' -- Yahoo. The Avis of web servers fell further behind Google, prompting another executive shuffle. Will it eventually go the way of Betamax?

MO' -- Showtime. The No. 2 premium cable network made great strides creatively with standout series such as Weeds, Dexter, Sleeper Cell and The Brotherhood. Audience levels remain low, but Showtime at least cracked the 1 million viewer mark with its recent Dexter finale. It also had more Golden Globe nominations for its series than HBO.
NO MO' -- HBO. Premium cable's longtime kingpin is struggling to find its next landmark series. Big Love made a pretty big impression, but Lucky Louie was pure stinkum. Rome will return for its second and last season on Jan. 14, Deadwood is all but gone save for a possible movie or two and The Sopranos will have its last gasp starting in March. The pump needs replenishing.

MO' -- Ugly Betty. ABC's loose but lush adaptation of the hit Spanish language telenovela has done well against Survivor and looks like a sure returnee next fall.
NO MO' -- MyNetworkTV's telenovelas. Cheap English language adaptations starring the likes of Morgan Fairchild, Bo Derek and Tatum O'Neal have done next to nada in the Nielsens. The fledgling network may have to do a complete course correction by next fall.

MO' -- The Today Show. NBC hasn't missed a beat by plugging Meredith Vieira into the slot vacated by Katie Couric. Today remains No. 1, with no end to its reign in sight.
NO MO' -- The Early Show. Perennially last, it's in the midst of another makeover. Co-host Rene Syler unjustly became the first to walk the plank. But how will CBS boss of bosses Leslie Moonves handle holdover host Julie Chen's future? Possible sticking point: she's his wife.

MO' -- Rosie O'Donnell. Ratings for ABC's The View are up since she replaced Vieira and began braying insults and strong opinions. Her feud with Donald Trump afforded the opportunity to flip her mane in an imitation of his. Nice touch.
NO MO' -- Donald Trump. The billionaire blowhard's been pounding away at O'Donnell by calling her fat, ugly and unfit for television. But Trump's The Apprentice is on fumes and so desperate for attention that next month's edition will originate from Los Angeles, not New York. Bad move. He'll be fired by NBC after this one.

MO' -- Univision. The Spanish language network has moved into fifth place in prime-time with the three key advertiser demos -- 18-to-49, 25-to-54 and 18-to-34-year-olds.
NO MO' -- The CW. Arising from the ashes of The WB and UPN, the new network's blend of the old networks' programming is running behind Univision in those aforementioned key demographics. And it's barely ahead of Univision in total viewers despite spending a ton more money on its nighttime attractions.

MO' -- NBC's Thursday comedies. They're not racking up the big-time ratings of predecessors such as The Cosby Show, Seinfeld and Friends. But the Peacock's new quartet of My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs and 30 Rock is starting to make a solid impression with 18-to-49-year-olds. Additionally, all four received Golden Globe nods.
NO MO' -- CBS' Monday comedies. Only Two and a Half Men does well with both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds. Old Christine also will be a keeper for next season. But The Class is a sure goner and How I Met Your Mother remains an under-performer despite CBS' big promotional effort on its behalf.

MO' --Tom Bergeron. The host of both Dancing with the Stars and America's Funniest Home Videos could make a fence-painting competition teem with excitement. Glib with an ad lib, he'd be the perfect answer for CBS' The Early Show. Then again, why would he want to do that?
NO MO' -- William Shatner. Shat's Show Me the Money on ABC flopped despite the host's recurring dance fevers with a bevy of beauties. That tarnished his alleged "Shat-tastic" mystique, although Denny Crane on Boston Legal is still in his bag of schticks.

MO' -- MSNBC. It was the only cable news network to gain viewers this year, with acid-tongued Keith Olbermann's Countdown leading the charge.
NO MO' -- Fox News Channel. Percentage-wise, it led the cable news league in audience erosion. Are President Bush's continued low approval ratings and the Democrats' mid-term election successes starting to turn heads?

Boy, this Donald Trump-Rosie O'Donnell feud has really heated up. And just in time for the holiday season, too. Rosie struck first on The View. Then "The Donald" sprayed invective from a variety of media platforms. This CNN highlight reel, courtesy of Anderson Cooper 360, leaves the host reeling. Have a look.
Ed Bark

Breaking up with making up has done Rod Stewart some good.
By ED BARK
It's Christmas Eve 30 years past. Do you know where Rod Stewart was?

In heavy makeup and harem pants, he's onstage at London's Olympia Theatre for a BBC concert previously unseen on these shores. Its American debut is Thursday night (Dec. 21) at 7 central on VH1 Classic. As time travels go, it's time well-spent. Backed by a well-oiled 6-piece band, Stewart gives full voice to some of his best-known ballads ("Tonight's the Night, Maggie Mae") and one of The Beatles' better rockers ("Get Back").

"Yeah, this is a good number," he says of the latter before slipping into his own inventive version. Stewart's a prancer and a poser throughout the one-hour performance. But he also bequeaths a good deal of time to his band, which includes former Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice and Chuck Berry disciple Billy Peek, a duck-walking exhibitionist who's dressed like a big teaspoon of The Lovin' Spoonful.

Appice's sticks it to the crowd with a furious drum solo on "Losing You." You don't see these much anymore. But pound for pound, Appice is a beast. His extended bout with the skins also gives Stewart time to leave the stage and change only his pants. You don't see that much anymore either.

Emcee Bob Harris wishes the packed-in crowd a Merry Christmas before bringing Stewart into view. It's the first and last reference to the season. Stewart, not a small-talker, is on a tight time leash as well. So he gets right to it without a speck of ado: "All right, let's sing 'Tonight's the Night,' shall we?" And so they shall.

Sound quality is reasonable if you pump the volume way up. And the presentation is refreshingly spare and straight-on, meaning there probably are fewer cameras than band members.

Stewart also is accompanied by guitarists Gary Grainger, Jim Cregan and Philip Chen, and keyboardist John Jarvis. Jamming is a big part of the show, particularly during "Sweet Little Rock 'n' Roller" and "Losing You." On the former it's fun seeing the guitarists form a four-member front line while wielding their swords in unison.

Everything ends in a pretty big hurry, with Stewart quickly launching into "Sailing" after noting, "All right, we've got three minutes on the air."

The crowd sings along as a white curtain closes behind him. They got an encore, apparently. But viewers then and now don't. The show's allotted TV time runs out just as Stewart and the band look ready to re-take the stage. Guess you had to be there.

By ED BARK
Divining the origins of Christianity is always fraught with peril. CNN ventures forth anyway with After Jesus -- The First Christians, a handsomely mounted, compellingly told alternative to news of holiday season revenue projections.

Narrated by actor Liam Neeson, the two-hour production premieres Wednesday (Dec. 20th) at 6 p.m. central time and will be repeated that same night at 9 p.m. Additional telecasts at those hours are scheduled for Dec. 23rd and Christmas Eve.

CNN calls on nine biblical experts, all of whom seem to steer clear of any overtly controversial observations. Then again, one person's truth can be another's heresy in such matters. So forgive this former Catholic altar boy for missing any flashpoints.

Whatever one's religious beliefs, CNN deserves credit for mounting an ambitious effort that never seems holier than thou. Its frequently stunning visuals make ample use of 3D-like tableaus that transform Biblical paintings into the TV equivalent of a pop-up book. The documentary tracks Christianity's many ups and downs from the crucifixion of Christ to the legalization of the faith in 313 A.D. by Roman emperor Constantine.

The late Peter Jennings also covered much of this ground in his two extended specials on Jesus and the followers who carried his message forward in the face of repeated and brutal persecutions by the Roman empire. All these years later, martyrdom for one's faith is still with us in a jarringly different context. And its non-Christian believers are every bit as fervent.

After Jesus -- The First Christians is a valuable viewing experience at a time of year when value systems should amount to more than how much we spend on gifts. CNN should be commended for instead devoting considerable time and money to an article of faith.

Grade: B+

Emmitt Smith put his feet to good use on Dancing with the Stars. Rush Limbaugh put his foot in his mouth by ragging on Michael J. Fox.
By ED BARK
Men behaved badly and a woman went where mostly men had gone before. New networks rose from the ashes of others. And an NFL great repositioned himself as a footloose "Sir Shimmy." Let's unwind by rewinding through the top 10 national TV happenings from an eventful 2006.

10. Michael J. Fox's campaign ad in support of stem cell research drew fire from Rush Limbaugh, who told his radio listeners that the Parkinson's-afflicted actor appeared to be putting on an act for the cameras. Limbaugh later backtracked and more or less apologized. Even some of his longtime acolytes thought he had gone too far.

9. Broadcast networks went coo-coo for serial dramas last fall before quickly becoming serial killers. Only NBC's Heroes broke out as a bonafide hit while a raft of others dug death valleys in the Nielsen ratings. Gone and already largely forgotten are CBS' Smith, NBC's Kidnapped, ABC's Day Break, The Nine and Six Degrees and the new CW's Runaway.

8. ABC's ratings rich Dancing with the Stars crowned an unlikely champion in Emmitt Smith, who teamed with pro partner Cheryl Burke to floor 10 other couples. They ranged from utterly inept Tucker Carlson to country singer Sara Evans, who quit the show in mid-rumba while in the throes of a nasty divorce.

7. NBC harkened back to its mid-1980s glory years by pouring forth a wealth of high-quality dramas and comedies. Even more impressively, the Peacock has shown patience with ratings-starved newcomers such as Friday Night Lights, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and 30 Rock, all of which have received full-season orders. 30 Rock is newly a part of NBC's rebuilt Thursday night, which also houses three other Emmy-caliber comedies -- The Office, My Name Is Earl and Scrubs. Add ER, which in its 13th season has been a pleasant surprise both creatively and in the ratings.


Michigan J. Frog's out of the TV biz but Dan Rather is still punching.
6. UPN and The WB folded their tents and shipped some of their better received series over to The CW, which debuted in September without Michigan J. Fox in tow. This gave Fox an excuse to launch MyNetworkTV, a prime-time vehicle for inexpensive English telenovelas starring the likes of Morgan Fairchild, Bo Derek and Tatum O'Neal. Neither new venture has set the world on fire. Instead they're still rubbing two twigs together.

5. Deducing he was no longer wanted, Dan Rather abruptly left CBS News and then surprisingly joined forces with Mark Cuban's HDNet as the man in charge of the weekly Dan Rather Reports. The one-hour program premiered on Nov. 14 and is still a well-kept secret to most. But the 75-year-old Texas troubleshooter is back in the saddle and being given free rein.

4. TV sometimes seemed to be going nothing but net in 2006, with numerous networks greatly expanding their broadbrand reaches. NBC.com, the best broadcast network site, is prime territory for viewers looking to catch up on complete episodes of their favorite series at any time of day or night. The net also is where canceled shows expire anew via web-exclusive death marches. CBS' partnership with you.tube.com and Google's purchase of the site for an eye-popping $1.65 billion were further evidence that conventional tube viewing could be heading the way of print newspapers.


O.J. Simpson and Michael Richards created their own storms.
3. Fox announced plans to give O.J. Simpson's new book a big push with a pair of late November specials titled If I Did It, Here's How It Happened. Universal condemnation, including from Fox star players Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera, then prompted the network to cancel both the specials and the book. It was a colossally dumb idea all-around. Or as Fox boss of bosses Rupert Murdoch put it in a rare public statement, "an ill-considered project."

2. Seinfeld star Michael Richards forever altered his image for the worse with a profane racial tirade at a California comedy club. Caught on video by TMZ.com, it made Richards look like a closet Klan member just as the sixth season DVD of Seinfeld was being released. Damage control interviews on Late Show with David Letterman and Jesse Jackson's radio show seemingly were of little help to the once beloved Cosmo Kramer. Possible silver lining: Jackson's concerted campaign to stop people of all colors from using the n-word. It's about time.


Woman of the year: CBS had its eye trained on Katie Couric.
1. A massive promotional blitz preceded Katie Couric's post-Labor Day debut as anchor of the storied CBS Evening News. Marking the first time a woman had soloed in "The Chair," her first flight drew more than 13 million viewers in decimating the competition. Audience levels since have dropped to half that level as Couric seeks to make good on CBS' $15 million yearly investment in her. The year ends with her in third place.

Meanwhile, Meredith Vieira slid seamlessly from The View into Couric's old Today job while Charles Gibson took the helm at ABC's World News. That easily makes NBC's Brian Williams the dean of network news anchors after barely two years of service.

Reliable Rob Lowe turns out his third holiday film in five years.
By ED BARK
Lowe and behold, it's him again.

If Rob Lowe doesn't get the part, then John Stamos does. Or so it seems. Consider them the small-screen's dependable, plug-in Dudley Do Rights, even if they're not always big box office in the Nielsen ratings.

Stamos, 43 and recently added to the cast of NBC's ER, hasn't missed a beat since the two-time failure of ABC's Jake In Progress comedy series. Last week he starred in the A&E movie Wedding Wars. Now he's also working on an ABC remake of A Raisin in the Sun.

Lowe, 42 and recently added to the cast of ABC's Brothers & Sisters, hasn't missed a beat since turning down the "Dr. McDreamy" role in ABC's Grey's Anatomy and also flopping in NBC's The Lyon's Den and CBS' Dr. Vegas. Now here he is in another made-for-TV Christmas movie, his third in five years.

TNT's A Perfect Day, premiering Monday, Dec. 18th (7 p.m. central, 8 eastern), gives Lowe another chance to rediscover what's important in life. You'd think he'd have learned from The Christmas Shoes (2002) and its 2005 sequel The Christmas Blessing. But no, he's back for another life's lesson, this time as a suddenly famous author who loses contact with his wife and their lovable little daughter.

Lowe plays Rob Harlan, a contented radio sales guy until learning he's both been bypassed for a promotion and fired. His wife, Allyson (Paget Brewster), urges him to revisit a book he'd been writing. It's a very personal account of how she coped with her father's death from cancer. Several prototypical rejection slips later, Rob gets a call from an incredibly benevolent book agent named Camille Bailey (Frances Conroy). She plans to get him published, and does. And this is a good thing because poor Rob had been digging septic tank ditches to help make ends meet.

He's soon a veritable Mitch Albom, wringing tears from grateful readers and starting to "feel a bit like a rock star, I guess." The spoils even include an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live, where his wife admonishes him for sounding a "little pompous."

One problem with A Perfect Day is that Rob's wife isn't as sympathetic a figure as the movie intends her to be. He's caught lightning in a bottle and is merely trying to "max out while I can." But she all-too-quickly grows impatient with his holiday season book tour and a strong-willed agent (Regina King) who pushes him to capitalize while he can. Frankly, the guy's entitled. So it rings a little false when Allyson rages, "I wish you'd never written that damned book!"

Damned if there isn't an angel named Michael (Christopher Lloyd), too. Or at least that's what he presents himself as while Rob's life fishtails toward what looks like a very blue Christmas.

Lowe looks cute and soulful throughout, never quite selling himself as a cad in need of redemption. Still, some of the film's homestretch scenes are touching enough to trigger the lump in the throat they seek. As Christmas movies go, A Perfect Day rises to the level of a gift card. Not particularly imaginative, but all in all it gets the job done.

Grade: B-minus

Penn temporarily shucks Teller to be a big-money game show host.

By ED BARK
Torn between two worlds, NBC launches another rags to riches game show Monday night in hopes of amortizing its high-quality contingent of new scripted shows.

At one end of the teeter-totter are Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100 and the new Identity, premiering Monday (at 8 p.m. central) and then scheduled to run an hour earlier on Tuesday through Friday. The first two are cost-efficient ratings successes despite their big-money dangles.

NBC also is home to four character-driven, Emmy caliber freshmen series. Heroes, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Friday Night LIghts and 30 Rock have all been picked up for full seasons. But only Heroes is drawing big crowds, and all four series cost far more to make than NBC's games people play.

Maybe it's not a question of which faction wins out, though. If NBC can make enough money on quizzes then maybe it can afford to stick longer with its critically acclaimed loss leaders. Anyway, it's enough to make one pull for Identity, a ramped-up version of To Tell the Truth in which contestants try to divine who's who among 12 "Strangers."

Penn Jillette is NBC's latest fish-out-of-water host, joining Howie Mandel and Bob Saget as a new generation's Bob Barkers. The Peacock is big on known commodities as game show emcees. Fox tried a no-name Brit earlier this season on The Rich List. It went down after just one episode, meaning its host shall remain nameless.

NBC publicity materials note that Deal or No Deal was launched in exactly the same way last December. The consecutive night strategy worked beautifully in that case, or suitcase if you prefer. Not mentioned is last spring's Celebrity Cooking Showdown, which was supposed to run five nights in a row. Wretched ratings instead prompted NBC to shut down its stoves after just three episodes.

Monday's premiere of Identity features another of those standard issue, jump-up-and-down, panic-stricken, oh-my-God contestants. This one is called Nicci Guzik, and she's from Streamwood, Ill.

"This show is about snap judgments," proclaims Jillette before the game's 12 posers are introduced via a light show and music that otherwise would never be played in your home. Nicci can win half a million bucks if she can correctly identify, one-by-one, a sushi chef, alligator wrestler, bouncer, opera singer, fitness model, break dancer, CSI investigator, kidney donor, Vegas showgirl, the world's fastest man, the creator of Spider Man and the youngest of the bunch.

The first correct ID is worth $1,000, and Identity's early degrees of difficulty aren't too daunting. In other words, it's about as tough as separating The Village People from a group of accountants.

Not to give too much away, but just about anybody should recognize Stan Lee as the creator of Spider Man. Nicci is up to this challenge, but only after Jillette drops a big, fat hint.

As in Deal or No Deal, contestants eventually are joined onstage by a threesome of friends and/or family. This turns out to be a pretty dull group of Nicci's husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law, who at least brings Jillette a home-baked pecan pie.

Identity also borrows from 1 vs. 100, which in turn borrowed from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Contestants are given three figurative crutches. They can miss one ID and keep playing. They can consult a group of three behavioral experts. And they can have an occupation narrowed down to three possibilities.

Most of the "Strangers" stare stonily from pedestals, particularly the women. Meanwhile, Jillette seems to have a good time varying his tagline. Instead of "Open the case," it's "Is that your identity?" As the money builds up, so do his pregnant pauses. "Is. That. Your. Identity?" Something like that.

It's hard to know whether any of this will work. Identity isn't as fast-paced as Deal or No Deal or 1 vs. 100. Nor does the studio audience seem as involved, although NBC can always fix that in the editing room.

Finally, as hosts go, Jillette definitely is no Howie Mandel.

Yes, it's come to that.

Grade: C

Golden Globe best actress nominees Helen Mirren and America Ferrera: Each in their own way has both style and substance.

By ED BARK
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe nominations are out, and you can see the full list here. This time there'll be no jokes about their validity because, frankly, the choices in TV categories mostly aren't too bad.

In fact they're better than we've been getting lately from those bumblers at the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences, the ones who hand out the Emmys. The HFPA's relative handful of nominators have been clearer-eyed in recent years, even if we still don't know who the hell most of these people are.

The biggest loser in this year's TV mix is HBO's much-lauded The Sopranos, which has a lone nomination for Edie Falco in the best drama actress category. Remember, though, the Emmy people ignored Falco altogether.

Another HBO darling, Deadwood, came up completely empty, but the premium cable network's freshman series Big Love deservedly made the cut in the best drama series division. Bill Paxton, who plays the show's lead polygamist, also is cited. Oddly, though, the actresses who play his three wives got no love at all. I would have substituted either Jeanne Tripplehorn or Chloe Sevigny for Patricia Arquette of NBC's Medium.

Two other new series also broke through in a big way. NBC's Heroes and ABC's Ugly Betty respectively are finalists in the drama and comedy series categories. Betty star America Ferrera got a lead actress nomination and fan fave Masi Oka rightfully is in the best supporting actor hunt.

Esteemed thespian Helen Mirren is all over the place. She's competing against herself as the nominated star of both PBS' Prime Suspect: The Final Act and HBO's Elizabeth I, with the productions also cited in the best miniseries/made-for-TV movie category.

On the big-screen, Mirren has a nomination for The Queen, a finalist in the best motion picture/drama category as well. Can she be crowned twice as Elizabeths of different eras? It's certainly possible.

Showtime, longtime Avis to HBO's Hertz, made a good deal of noise with four nominations for Weeds and one apiece for Dexter and Sleeper Cell: American Terror. That's a strong half-dozen nods in the series categories, where HBO had just five. That's got to be the first time Showtime has outpointed HBO in anything.

The movies and miniseries categories again largely belonged to HBO, though, with the HFPA having the good sense to nominate several strong performances in the network's Tsunami, The Aftermath, whose second part won't even premiere until this Sunday. Those advance screener copies sometimes really pay off.

NBC Universal already has locked up a Globe for best actor in a TV comedy series or musical. The Peacock's broadcast network has four of the five nominations, including Alec Baldwin for the new 30 Rock. And the fifth goes to perennial Tony Shalhoub of USA's Monk, which NBC Universal owns.

NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which really could use a boost, got just one nomination for Sarah Paulson's performance. Unjustly ignored was the show's Matt Perry, whose consolation prize is a nod for TNT's The Ron Clark Story.

CBS got just one nomination, for Julia Louis-Dreyfus in The New Adventures of Old Christine. Its three major broadcast rivals comparatively cleaned house. ABC led the way with 11, followed by NBC (9) and Fox (3).

The awards ceremony is Jan. 15 on NBC.

By ED BARK
Perhaps you like your holidays shaken and stirred a bit. If so, yule be very entertained Thursday night (Dec. 14) with The Office's one-hour Christmas show and then the guest star-soaked, still vibrant Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special.

First up is NBC's best comedy (7 p.m. central, 8 eastern), with ever-callow Michael Scott (Steve Carell) grief-stricken over girlfriend Carol's (Nancy Walls) easy decision to dump him.

"I'd like everyone's attention. Christmas is canceled," he tells his resilient Dunder-Mifflin staff, which lately has been divided but not yet conquered by a corporate-mandated merger.

Suckup newbie Andy (guest star Ed Helms) seizes the opportunity to take Michael to Benihana, where they get blitzed on sake-spiked Nagasakis. Meanwhile, warring office parties are making everyone even more crazy. Persnickety Angela (Angela Kinsey) insists on going through the proper party planning committee channels for her prim, proper Nutcracker-themed get-together. But receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer) and newcomer Karen (guest star Rashida Jones) are promoting their own renegade margarita/karaoke throwdown.

Subtitled "A Benihana Christmas," it's another inspired Office episode. But aren't they all? Oh what fun it is to finally hear Angela kick out the jams on "The Little Drummer Boy" while sycophant Dwight (Rainn Wilson) provides the ba-rum-bum-bum-bum downbeat.

There's something about that song. David Bowie and Bing Crosby oddly put it out there on his last Christmas special in 1977. And a breast-plated Grace Jones gives "Drummer Boy" a decidedly different interpretation during Pee-wee's 1988 Christmas show, which lives again Thursday on the "Adult Swim" arm of Cartoon Network (9:30 central, 10:30 eastern).

The Saturday morning Playhouse series is still the hippest in the history of CBS. And Pee-wee's one-hour holiday extravaganza remains a sight to behold. Guest stars galore drop in and out, including a slim, lightly bearded Magic Johnson and a very butch looking k.d. lang in a contrasting royal blue cowgirl skirt and shirt. You also can spot then unknowns Laurence Fishburne and S. Epatha Merkerson as regular characters Cowboy Curtis and Reba the Mail Lady. Furthermore, Conky the Robot sometimes was voiced by Gregory Harrison.

The show's running gags are the rock-hard, brick-shaped fruitcakes Pee-wee (Paul Reubens) keeps getting as unwanted gifts. He'll eventually put them to good use, but not before a wealth of guest stars zip through. Besides the aforementioned, they include Cher, Little Richard, Oprah Winfrey, Dinah Shore, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Whoopi Goldberg, Joan Rivers and Charo. Only Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello stay for a spell. They're stuck making Christmas cards until taskmaster Pee-wee finally relents.

Most of the special effects are still impressive nearly two decades after they first knocked our socks off. This is a Christmas show that definitely knows how to be merry, bright -- and mondo. Nothing since has been anything quite like it.

John Goodman and Delta Burke have Clauses in their contracts.

By ED BARK
John Goodman as Santa Claus? Now weight just a minute!

The veteran actor really needs to take much better care of himself. But in the interim he's perfectly fit for the lead role in NBC's The Year Without a Santa Claus, a live-action remake of the 1974 animated tale. It premieres Monday night, Dec. 11 (8 central, 9 eastern) and will be repeated on Dec. 23rd.

These kinds of productions used to come in blizzards during December. But the demise of variety shows and the virtual shutdown of broadcast TV movie divisions leave this two-hour presentation as the only new stand-alone holiday special from any of the Big Four networks. NBC hasn't exactly put a big promotional push behind it, though. The Peacock's Sunday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints came and went without a single blurb for Year Without a Santa Claus. There was a commercial, though, for the slasher feature film Black Christmas.

Goodman is first seen in the company of his PR-minded elf, Sparky (a hard-trying Chris Kattan), who recommends both gastric bypass surgery and a new, green "Extreme Santa" costume.

"The world's changed," he reasons. "We need to change with it."

Santa's pretty much shot anyway. Goodman plays him as a wheezing old grump who laments to Mrs. Clause (Delta Burke), "I'm not Santa Claus anymore. I'm a toy delivery version of Santa-co."

Demonstrably "sick of Christmas," he impulsively cancels it. This sends dedicated elves Jungle and Jangle (Ethan Suplee and a scene-stealing Eddie Griffin) on a mission to find a wide-eyed kid who still cares about the "true meaning of Christmas." They find him in cute-as-a-button Iggy Thistlewhite (Dylan Minnette), whose Dad is the all-business mayor of sunny South Town.

Year Without Santa Claus also accommodates a trip to The Great Divide, where warring brothers Heatmiser and Snowmiser (Harvey Fierstein, Michael McKean) continue to run hot and cold. There's a fun production number here, with the two of them singing and slinging fireballs and icicles. In the spirit of the season, NBC also has worked in some scantily clad dancing girls. And cameos abound, with Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Carson Kressley, Carol Kane and Jack La Lanne chipping away at the movie's outer fringes.

Through it all, Goodman's full white beard varies from semi-scraggly to perfectly rounded. It always looks pretty fake, though. Did they simply stretch a rubber band around his neck?

Stock characters include an airhead TV reporter and a pair of devious developers who want to turn cutely distinctive South Town into a mall-dominated Anywhere, USA.

But guess what? Goodness prevails and Santa steps it up again. The movie is merry, bright and sometimes edgily funny enough to make it watchable if not exceptional. Besides that, it's all we've got.

Post-Santa Claus, Goodman now needs to get very serious about slimming down. Otherwise he might not get to be a jolly old soul in real-life.

Grade: C+

A couple with child, and then without, in Tsunami, The Aftermath.
By ED BARK
It struck on the day after Christmas, 2004, taking the lives of more than a quarter million people caught in the clutches of an out-of-the-blue flash flood.

HBO's Tsunami, The Aftermath affectingly telescopes the human toll via a small group of fictional characters whose stories are drawn from true accounts. It builds very slowly over two Sundays (Dec. 10th and 17th at 7 p.m. central), requiring considerable patience and dedication during this otherwise most wonderful time of the year. Splitting the three hour, 15 minute drama into two parts a week apart won't make it any easier to stay the course. HBO would have been wiser to trim the running time by a half-hour or so and then unfold this drama in one sitting.

Filmed in Phuket and Khao Lak, Thailand, Tsunami isn't your typical boom-crash broadcast network disaster epic. Very little time and money are spent on special effects, with shaky, hand-held camera footage fleetingly used to suggest the devastation at large. The point of the story is what follows. And for the purposes of this drama, no one is more haunted or heartbroken than Ian Carter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who stayed ashore with his six-year-old daughter, Martha (Jazmyn Mabaso), while wife Susie (Sophie Okonedo) joined a few other vacationers on a boat trip.

Ian survives but is separated from his daughter after she slips out of his hands. Little Martha is last seen clutching onto a tree. Did she survive? The Carters' desperate search for her, with Ian shouldering enormous guilt, gives Tsunami its overriding emotional pull. Next Sunday's Part 2 is especially compelling, with the couple both estranged and united by a shared grief.

The miniseries also stars Tim Roth as investigative journalist Nick Fraser, a hard-bitten hound whose editor primarily is interested in body counts. Toni Collette plays relief worker Kathy Graham, a junkie in times like these.

"Chaos is my natural habitat ... I'm having the best time of my life. Is that terrible?" she wonders.

There's also a young Thai survivor named Than (Samrit Machielsen), whose small coastal fishing village is wiped out. Developers quickly seize on the opportunity to bulldoze its remains and build another resort hotel. It's still paradise, after all, and people are quick to forget.

Tsunami, The Aftermath doesn't entirely come together, with some characters only minimally registering. As a whole it's not exactly a dynamic film. Instead we have an undeniably well-meant one, with the Carters' story making a lasting impact.

The miniseries will be repeated throughout December. In a couple of instances, it will be shown in its entirety on the same night (Dec. 23rd on HBO and Dec. 18th and 28th on HBO2.

Lest we forget, an estimated 227,073 people died in this tragedy, one-third of them children. More than 50,000 bodies have never been recovered. It already seems so long ago. In fact it wasn't.

Grade: B

Let her good times roll. Ex-Dallas anchor Rene Syler begins anew.
By ED BARK
CBS News' official press release had been served sunny side up. Rene Syler would be leaving The Early Show to "pursue other media opportunities."

The hard-boiled reality is another version of the same old TV story. Syler got word late last week that her time was up on the No. 3-rated program. The news came as she prepared to face another crossroads. On Jan. 9, the 43-year-old former Dallas anchor will undergo a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy rather than live in constant fear of breast cancer, for which she's at high risk. She had been preparing a story on her impending surgery, with CBS News management approval. Instead her last day with Early Show will be on Dec. 22nd. No one said life is fair.

"They called me in and told me, 'We've been thinking and we want to go in another direction,' " Syler says in a telephone interview with unclebarky.com. "I'm really kind of surprised myself at how well I'm handling all of this. I've just come to realize that these things happen. I've been in television for almost 20 years, and what are you gonna do?

"New management comes in and they have new ideas. You pick up the playbook and you try your best. And if it doesn't work, you move on . . . It's a little bit tough, because you try to be a good soldier. Still, there are times when you're sitting in your office, and your self-esteem is a bit battered."

She joined Early Show in October 2002 after anchoring and reporting for five years at CBS11. Before that she spent five years at Belo8, where Syler met her husband, Buff Parham.

They now have two children, daughter Casey, 10, and son Cole, 8. She's determined to stay in their lives. That's why Syler is having her breasts removed in a three-and-a-half-hour procedure that will require followup surgery four to six months later. She made the decision after some agonizing soul-searching with her doctor. Her work with the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation also played a role. At its annual "Race for the Cure," she has seen many women running in memory of others who died of breast cancer.

"I can't do that, and I don't want to do that," Syler says. " I have a young family, a family that needs me. And the thought of leaving my children and my husband when I could actually do something . . . Yes, it's radical, no doubt about it. But it's a price I'm willing to pay so I can reduce that risk."

Both of her parents had breast cancer, and in 2003 Syler was diagnosed with atypical ductal hypoplasia, in which cells in the ducts of the breast "grow rapidly and not in a uniform fashion," she explains.

Her risks of getting breast cancer have been almost off the charts since then, even after surgery that she describes as "very scarring and disfiguring." Yearly biopsies and mammograms have been required ever since.

"They're very painful and the recovery was very difficult," she says. "When my doctor told me I'd never have to have another biopsy, another mammogram or MRI, that's very appealing to me. Right now there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about breast cancer -- several times. So it's been tough, and I would like to do something real and substantial to reduce that risk."

Syler's other priority is her first book, Good Enough Mother, scheduled to be published in March. It's intended to rebut the super mom syndrome. One of her sounding boards has been CBS11 anchor- reporter Ginger Allen, who's also the mother of two young children. Allen had felt guilty about working overtime on Halloween and missing out on her kids' trick or treating.

"We had a conversation about it, and she was so stressed," Syler remembers. "I explained to her that my whole philosophy was that I didn't have to be perfect as a parent. I just had to be good enough. My kids are going to be fine, upstanding citizens, even if I'm not perfect."

Her TV days, now something of a TV daze, at least temporarily will end in just two weeks time. Syler says she has no idea whether her three Early Show colleagues, Harry Smith, Hannah Storm and Julie Chen (wife of CBS Corporation president Leslie Moonves), will survive whatever makeover is coming.

"I don't think they would tell me. I'm pretty much out of the loop now," she says. "You go through something like this and you think, 'God, I'm never gonna work again.' You feel horrible. But here's the difference between Rene at 33 and Rene at 43. I want to take it easy for just a second. I want to jump off the treadmill. I have a lot of diverse interests, and writing this book has been incredibly liberating. The words couldn't get out of me fast enough, and I want to see if I can turn it into a screenplay. But yes, I think of myself as a TV person, so I'm sure at some point I'll be back in TV."

Perhaps her road will lead back to a Dallas anchoring position. Syler says she's open to that, but her son and daughter might not be.

"They're getting older. They're not going to be willing to uproot again and again. Right now I think I'm going to chill a bit. The example I want to show my kids is that your character is not about who you are when times are good. It's when times are tough. They've heard me talking about my surgery. But what's so great about being a kid is they then say, 'OK, can we get some ice cream now?'

"They're so resilient. they just hop around and always think everything is going to be OK. I have to be careful about the cues I leave for them, so they think that I'm not afraid. I'm not going to let them see that, because they don't need it. The big thing is they can't imagine their lives without their mommy.

"And that's why I'm going to do this."

By ED BARK
The broadcast networks' three flagship newscasts posted their anchors in Washington Wednesday for some sobering show and tell on the war in Iraq.

It reinforced both the importance of the day's news and the imprint of America's dinner hour newscasts. Cable news obviously is more immediate, as is the Internet. But for a solid meal and a civil conversation, keep turning to the NBC Nightly News, the CBS Evening News or ABC's World News.

They're still simply the best at distilling and imparting information that really matters. Antiquated they're not. Fair and balanced they try to be. If that's a revelation, then that's a shame. Too many people dismiss their relevance in an information age that increasingly feeds on crap. Brian Williams, Charles Gibson and Katie Couric resolutely want us to eat our vegetables.

Yes, Couric has tried to mix in a little cotton candy since taking over the Evening News in early September. But none of these newscasts are even remotely guilty of substance abuse. They've left that to the local newscasts and cable's growing legions of news blowhards and provocateurs.

Topic A on Wednesday's network newscasts was the long-awaited release of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's report to President Bush and the nation. It wasn't pretty, and the anchors certainly didn't try to make it so.

The report "read a bit like a report card on the Bush administration's conduct of the war," Gibson said at the top. "And the marks were not good."

Williams labeled it a "grim assessment" while Couric began with the news that 10 more U.S. soldiers had died in Iraq on Wednesday. She then personalized the report's potential import: "With each death, with every passing day, so many of us ask, 'Is there any way out of this nightmare?' "

The Study Group's co-chairmen, Republican James A. Baker III and Democrat Lee Hamilton, provided plenty to chew on in both their public remarks and during individual interviews with all three anchors.

Baker hit one nail squarely on the head. The Iraqi people "have been liberated from the nightmare of a tyrannical order, only to face the nightmare of brutal violence," he said at Wednesday's official presentation.

More than two-thirds of each newscast was spent on the report's findings, recommendations and reactions to same. U.S. troops in Baghdad weighed in, as did citizens back home. Baker, for his part, was bluntest during his interview with Couric.

The newly installed Iraqi government must know that "we could bug out of there" if chaos continues, he said. "We have a damned difficult situation on our hands, and we need to deal with it."

CBS analyst Bob Schieffer, still a force on the Evening News, made the boldest prediction of how Bush will react to the Study Group's tough love proposals.

"You're going to see American troop levels begin to be cut next year," he told Couric. "The President's going to do that. Will it work? Who knows? But I think at this point he really has no other choice."

Wednesday's newscasts differed strikingly from one another only in the way they ended.

NBC's Williams briefly interviewed largely overlooked Republican congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia, who championed the idea of forming a bipartisan group to look long and hard at Iraq.

"So you feel good today?" Williams ask rhetorically. Yes, he did.

CBS ended with reporter Cynthia Bowers' interview of a tearful Illinois mother whose son was killed in Iraq two months after his unit had been scheduled to leave.

ABC's Gibson tried a little peace on earth, closing with a shot of the just-lit White House Christmas tree.

When he covered Congress, "I always loved the lighting of the tree," he told viewers. "Political arguments are forgotten. All members of Congress joining in the joys of the season."

Yes, the three network newscasts have their faults. On Wednesday, none of them were readily apparent. Content-wise, their best days are still in the here and now. Every once in a while we should give them credit for that rather than always writing their obits.

By ED BARK
Your TV probably hasn't found MyNetworkTV yet. For the most part, neither has mine. Still, the fledging, Fox-owned enterprise is slogging forward with two more English language telenovelas after Desire and Fashion House pooped out as scheduled Tuesday night.

The idea is to foment foamy, cost-efficient, serial entertainment that runs non-stop five days a week for a 65-episode arc. It doesn't have to do a big rating to be profitable. And so far the ratings have been teenier than a teacup bra or Paris Hilton's book collection. Choose one.

The better of the two newcomers -- OK, the less worse -- is Wicked Wicked Games (premiering Wednesday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. central on KDFI/Ch. 27 in Dallas-Forth, puff-puff). It stars a shot-through-gauze Tatum O'Neal as cackling avenger Blythe Spencer. In an upcoming episode she'll declare, "I will smack that smirk right off of your face!"

In the first episode she mostly plots the ruin of race track owner Theodore Crawford (Clive Robertson), who had the temerity to dump her 25 years ago. Her vassal is Cain-like twin son Aaron (Jack Krizmanich), who's sent to infiltrate Crawford's empire.

"I want Theodore Crawford's head stuffed and mounted on my wall," mom instructs.

Aaron, disguised as Daniel Karol, quickly seduces Theo's babe-alicious daughter, Brooke Crawford (Kate French), first seen on the beach in considerable splendor. French, who's making her TV acting debut, has a resume that perfectly suits the demands of this role. She's a model, both of her parents were models and her step-father is a fashion photographer. All that's required of her is to look good. This she knows how to do.

Also in the mix is Able-like Josh Spencer (David Smith), a goodly ER doctor who's duped into being Aaron's stooge. The apple of his eye is Theo Crawford's oldest daughter, Emma (Jessie Ward), who's a "sucker for classic literature," namely Hawthorne. Are we having fun yet?

O'Neal, who's a long, long way from that 1973 Oscar for Paper Moon, has a big, broad go of it, particular when talking to herself on a computer cam. But there's some class afoot. Robertson, as Theo, is a classically trained British thespian with a degree from the Oxford School of Business. His acting in Wicked, Wicked Games actually is pretty wicked good. One wonders how it came to this for him, but maybe he'll get noticed and eventually be sent up to the big leagues.

MyNetworkTV also is offering Watch Over Me, which follows at 8 p.m. central. Little me watched the first episode. It beat a poke in the eye, but in a photo finish.

The hero here is jaunty Jack Porter (Todd Cahoon), an ex-Special Forces operative who's now driving a cab. He's still haunted by the death of the only woman he ever loved. But Jack soon meets Julia Rivera (Dayanara Torres), the well-kept fiancee of ruthless tycoon Michael Krieger (Marc Menard).

"I felt something today between us, and you did, too," he tells Julia.

Snore, Jack eventually becomes Michael's bodyguard after saving his daughter from a kidnapping in a terribly choreographed action scene. This sets up a triangle, with Jack spread-eagled between his duties and his desires. Dynasty vet Catherine Oxenberg and her real-life husband, Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers) co-star as Michael's chief aide and "top assassin."

Both melodramas will be going against mostly reruns in December. Then again, America at large is going to be otherwise occupied with various Christmas preparations and parties. Wicked Wicked Games at least has a little holiday punch to it, and a better promotional campaign, too. Says a pitchman, "Revenge is a dish best served -- crazy." Pass the ham.

Grades: Wicked Wicked Games -- C; Watch Over Me -- D

Stepchild: WE tv gloms on to a certain ABC show.
By ED BARK
Everyone now wishes they'd gotten in on the ground floor. But no one could have foreseen the phenomenon that Dancing with the Stars has become.
So what to do? Follow in the same footsteps, but with a different spin. WE tv's eight-episode Dirty Dancing, premiering Wed., Dec. 6 (9 p.m. central, 10 eastern), cannily double-dips by also seizing on the evergreen appeal of the hit 1987 feature.

The show's Tom Bergeron is a chubbed-up Cris Judd, survivor of both a marriage to Jennifer Lopez and the 2003 ABC reality series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Which he won!

"Who better to host this sultry dance-off?" WE (Women's Entertainment) asks in press materials. Oh I dunno. Joe Piscopo maybe?

Dirty Dancing the movie starred Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as gyrating Johnny Castle and G-rated Frances "Baby" Houseman. The 18 women finalists in the TV series would never settle for a dowdy old name like Frances. WE only reveals their first names, which include the likes of Charlie, Isis, Jia, Klair, Liwen Stuart, Szilvi and Vakisha.

Six "hot" male pros, including "professed perfectionist" Artem, each get three women to train in the art of sweatily seductive bump-and-grind. The show's Jan. 24th finale, already taped, will find the six surviving female partners competing for an unspecified professional dance contract.

Instead of a full premiere episode, WE sent only a brief "Sizzle Reel" that begins with Judd pitching the show from a horse farm.

"Their journey will not be easy," he says of the 18 competitors, sifted from an initial field of 30.

The penultimate Episode 7 (on Jan. 17th) sounds positively heart-pounding, in print at least. It's said that "haughty hip-hopper Brandon takes fireball Katie, easygoing Jia and determined dreamer Isis through a unique form of hip-hop with bad-ass choreographer Eddie Garcia. After the girls endure Brandon's abusive, competitive and pompous attitude, Brandon is forced to face the music. It's an unexpected turn of events in the end that shows him that it may be time to loosen up and tender a few props!"

To which we say, "Ooh WE!"

Look for DD to light up the li'l network's ratings, though. Even a relatively paltry one million viewers an episode would make this a mega-hit in WE's ongoing throwdown with Lifetime and Oxygen. They're all scratching and clawing for the hearts and minds of today's discriminating women viewers. Sometimes you have to play a little dirty.

Warning: There's some serious world-saving at work on Heroes
By ED BARK
It's getting better all the time on Heroes, even as things grow ominously worse.

NBC's magically mysterious comic book epic has a stunning 11th hour Monday night (Dec. 4) before leaving fans hanging until Jan. 22. You'll be dying to find out whether one of the series' most appealing characters indeed is dead. And if not, wouldn't he/she be far better off that way knowing what he/she knows now?

Oh the intrigue, much of it lately between Odessa, TX superteen Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) and mild-mannered Manhattanite Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), who are pictured above. He'd been hell-bent to "Save The Cheerleader, Save The World." But now he's been jailed for the murder of Claire's cheerleading nemesis, mean girl Jackie Wilcox (Danielle Savre).

Monday's night's episode (8 central, 9 eastern), subtitled "Fallout," returns to the present after last week's six-month backtrack. You'll learn more about what drives the serial killer Sylar (Zachary Quinto), formerly a nondescript watch repairer named Gabriel Grey. Claire's duplicitous but possibly well-intentioned father (Jack Coleman) finally has Sylar at his mercy, or so it seems.

Meanwhile, apocalyptic painter Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera) journeys from Brooklyn to Midland, TX to meet his time-traveling acolyte, Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), at the mouth-watering Burnt Toast Cafe. NBC is spending considerable time in West Texas this season, with Friday Night Lights set in fictional Dillon, a pseudonym for Midland-Odessa. Better yet, the townies aren't all a bunch of broadly drawn hicks. Those are pretty much network TV firsts.

Heroes is the only new serial drama to build a strong following this season. It's moved all the way up to No. 6 with advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds, outranking the likes of CBS' Survivor: Cook Islands and CSI: Miami and ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Terrifically cast and beautifully shot, it bends viewers' minds without getting totally obtuse. Following along is fun, even when it's not easy. In a season of otherwise underappreciated new NBC series (Friday Night Lights, Studio 60, 30 Rock), give Heroes credit for paying the rent and keeping the Peacock from collapsing under the weight of too many critically praised ratings losers.

Monday's episode, the last new one for seven weeks, delivers one of those big twist endings that have become Heroes' trademark. Internet chat rooms no doubt will be humming deep into the night. Feel the buzz, NBC. It's been a while.