June 2009 Archives

What's On YOUR Wish List of TV Shows That Ought to Be Out on DVD?

June 30, 2009 7:37 AM

[Bianculli here: I'm leaving this up for another day, because the responses have been so wonderful. Even if you've posted your own wish list, check back to read everyone else's comments. He & She! Frank's Place! The Trials of O'Brien! Holy good taste, Batman! Oh, yeah -- and Batman, too!...]

Diane Werts' recent column -- a great-news post about the just-announced forthcoming full-series release of Fox's Ally McBeal on DVD -- ended with her prodding for the releases of other not-yet-available series, like ABC's brilliant 1988-93 The Wonder Years. I'm taking her ball and advancing it a little, by giving my own list of TV shows I'd love to see released on DVD -- then asking for yours...

Yes, I'd love to see a full-set Wonder Years, too, so start there. But here are six other series that absolutely, positively deserve full-set releases, and are significant enough in terms of TV history to warrant the honor.

ST. ELSEWHERE, 1982-88, NBC. 20th Century Fox released Season One of this brilliant, groundbreaking medical drama three years ago, then stopped there. Huge mistake, because the show got better, bolder and more audacious in every successive season. Terence Knox as a doctor turned rapist? David Morse as a doctor turned rape victim while taken hostage as a visiting physician in prison? (For series writer-producer Tom Fontana, it was a short step to his subsequent Oz. Denzel Washington? Howie Mandel? That infamous ending? C'mon... I adored this show. And every edgy cable series of the past 10 years owes a major debt to this program, period.

THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, 1992-1998, HBO. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released a no-frills Season One collection in 2002, very early in the TV-shows-on-DVD game, and an outstanding Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show set, with lots of frills, in 2007. But still no complete-series run -- and this show, almost as much as Seinfeld, holds up so well to repeated viewings, and is so distinct in its comic tone, it should be available as a complete-series set. Garry Shandling, Rip Torn, Jeffrey Tambor -- if HBO had video rights to this, instead of Sony, it would have given Larry Sanders the royal treatment long, long ago.

THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD, 1987-88, NBC, 1989-91, Lifetime. If you're tracing the history of working single women in TV history, Blair Brown's Molly Dodd is one of the most significant, and charming, figures. (The lineage goes something like this: Our Miss Brooks in the 50s, That Girl in the 60s, Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 70s, Molly Dodd in the 80s, Ally McBeal in the 90s and 30 Rock today.) Jay Tarses wrote this fabulous comedy -- no laugh track, major New York sensibility -- with a great supporting cast that included a then-unknown David Strathairn. No episodes have ever been released on DVD -- a major TV crime.

THE GREAT AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE, 1971-72, PBS. This anything-goes, liberally biased anthology arts and documentary series was a variety show in the truest sense. Andy Rooney, before moving to 60 Minutes, did reports for this one-season PBS showcase. So did Marshall Efron, whose lecture on the topic "Is There Sex After Death?" was, in its entirety, one word ("No"). Chevy Chase was one of the mime "singers" who contorted their faces to the sound of music, and short films were provided by, among others, Albert Brooks. It's never, ever been on home video, not even a single episode. So where is it?

THE BOLD ONES: THE SENATOR, 1970-71, NBC. Two years after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, Hal Holbrook starred as Sen. Hays Stowe in this one-season rotating drama in the umbrella series The Bold Ones. Only eight movie-length episodes were made, so it would be a perfectly manageable DVD boxed set. I remember this series as having more heart and guts than any series on the air at the time -- but my memories are fading, because this series hasn't been seen since, or repeated anywhere, much less released on home video. Yet Holbrook was magnificent as an idealistic young senator, so now's the time. Yes we can.

THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS, 1963, 1964-65, NBC. This was the short-lived, amazingly daring U.S. offshoot of the British satirical hit -- and David Frost, who hosted it in England, eventually held court on the American version as well. Henry Fonda presided over the 1963 special, which led to a brief but brilliant run: Nancy Ames singing about the week's current events, Tom Lehrer providing topical songs like "Pollution," Buck Henry and Alan Alda providing pointed comedy, puppeteer Burt Tillstrom using nothing but his two hands to enact a touching drama about the history of the Berlin Wall. And how about this: At a time when cigarette ads were still pervasive on TV, TW3 showed X-ray images of diseased lungs while singing, from "Smoke gets in Your Eyes," the lyric "Something here inside cannot be denied." This NEEDS to be on DVD.

Those are some of my missing favorites, my TV Holy Grails. What are some of yours?

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My Smothers Brothers Book Now Has a Cover -- And I Love It

June 19, 2009 7:35 AM

This is the fun part of book writing -- selecting photographs, editing the manuscript, finalizing the notes and bibliography and acknowledgments and stuff. But one part of the process doesn't involve me at all: designing the book cover.

Well, the cover design for my Smothers Brothers book is in, and I couldn't be happier. When the book hits stores the first week of January, this is what it will look like.

Let me know your reaction, even if it's not as bubbly as mine...

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TNT's "HawthoRNe": Is Cable TV Trying Too Much AND Too Little?

June 16, 2009 10:01 AM

There is much to salute about TNT's HawthoRNe, the new drama series premiering tonight at 9 p.m. ET -- first and foremost, that this program about a dedicated nurse stars Jada Pinkett Smith, making it one of the still-rare weekly series centered around a black lead. But there's much to regret, too, in how ordinary, rather than extraordinary, its first installment comes off..

The triumph is that Smith's role is part of the sadly short continuum of solo starring roles by black women. Start in 1950, with Ethel Waters as the first of three actresses to play the role of the maternal maid in ABC's Beulah. Jump to 1968, with Diahann Carroll playing a widowed nurse and single parent in NBC's Julia. Then to 1974, with Teresa Graves as a sassy undercover cop in ABC's Get Christie Love -- the first drama, rather than a sitcom, to he headlined solely by an African-American woman.

And then, what? I adored Regina Taylor's role as Lilly Harper in NBC's 1991 civil rights drama I'll Fly Away, but, like Cicely Tyson opposite George C. Scott in 1963's East Side/West Side on CBS, she was a co-star (with Sam Waterston), not a solo lead. Most other meaty dramatic TV roles for black women, similarly, have been part of equally strong ensembles.

So HawthoRNe (how I hate that cutesy upper-case RN), with Smith as both star and executive producer, is significant, without question. Two things, however, bother me.

One is that Smith's Christina Hawthorne is such a noble, flawless character, she may as well be Julia 2.0, 40 years after Diahann Carroll's picture-perfect registered nurse. This was acceptable in the days of Marcus Welby, M.D., when TV medical practitioners were god, but not more recently, post-St. Elsewhere, when they've been flawed.

The other troublesome aspect is that this series comes from John Masius, who was Tom Fontana's writing partner ON St. Elsewhere. He broke the mold then, but is settling for filling the mold now. HawthoRNe is not a bad series, but it's average. And if cable TV is going to pick up the ball that broadcast TV is dropping, it shouldn't do average.

TNT, this year, may be overreaching, and trying to add too many new series without making each of them distinctive and outstanding. FX and AMC, so far, have maintained the proper balance by presenting few original series, but making each of them count. For TNT, less may be more -- and Hawthorne, at first glance, adds to TNT's total, but not to its luster.

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"True Blood": Once Again, a Bloody Good TV Treat

June 13, 2009 10:59 AM

Last year's introductory season of HBO's True Blood established the characters, and the swampy Louisiana setting, of the Sookie Stackhouse novels written by Charlaine Harris. Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, adapting the vampire novels for television, amped up the sex and the wit, making it a fun summer TV ride.

This season, the now-familiar characters divide and conquer, getting their own tantalizing story lines in a sophomore season that's even better than last year...

Season two of True Blood begins Sunday night at 9 ET, and picks up right where last season left off. The serial killer who had terrorized Bon Temps is caught, but there are plenty of new subplots to go around. Sink your fangs into these, for starters:

Sookie (Anna Paquin), the telepathic waitress, and Bill (Stephen Moyer), her brooding vampire lover, are living together happily -- well, one's living, one's undead -- but with one catch. Bill has been saddled with a new charge, Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll, with Moyer in the picture above), a brand-new teen bloodsucker who's equal parts vampire and vamp.

Sookie's brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten), has fallen under the influence of a cult -- a cult of vampire haters -- and finds himself distractedly attracted to the cult leader's wife, Sarah (Anna Camp).

Sookie's best friend, Tara (Rutina Wesley), has fallen under the influence of someone, too: Maryann (Michelle Forbes), a mysterious and powerful woman who has the ability to, among other things, project emotions outward like a virus, so that everyone in her vicinity becomes aroused, angry or animalistic.

A cook at Sookie's diner, Layafette (Nelsan Ellis), was dragged away and presumed dead in the season finale. But as we very quickly learn in this new batch of shows, Lafayette isn't dead, or undead, yet.

Eventually (HBO provided the first four season-two episodes for preview), many of these plot threads intertwine. Immediately, though, they grab you with the force of their individual momentum.

Michelle Forbes is doing her best work since Homicide: Life on the Street, and she's absolutely unleashed here, portraying a woman who may prove to be the most powerful and destructive force on the entire series.

And young Deborah Ann Woll, as the vampire's apprentice (a phrase that's an in-joke only a dozen people on the planet may get), could have had the series built around her. Learning to recognize and use her abilities as a vampire gives her something in common with the emerging mutants of Heroes -- but with more bite.

And Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, as the lead couple, are just right for each other (in real life, too, apparently, having announced themselves as an off-screen item as well). He's exasperated and parental when either his human girlfriend or vampire "ward" act up, which would be the proper reaction of a 173-year-old man. And she, thanks to her telepathic powers, is a lot more independent and strong than she might otherwise be.

Each episode this season, of the ones screened, ends with such an addictive cliffhanger, you can't wait to see what happens next. It's the TV equivalent of a juicy summer read -- except that the juice, in this case, is AB-positive.

If you tune in, I'm DB-positive you'll enjoy it.

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Re-Entry to Real Life: Today "Fresh Air," Tomorrow the World...

June 12, 2009 7:42 AM

Burrowing out from my basement this week after completing my Smothers Brothers manuscript has proven trickier than expected. Today, for example, I resume my Friday duties as guest host for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. I'm even giving a report on today's analog-to-digital TV transition, so please tune in.

But I actually slept a few hours last night, which means I won't be able to post today's BIANCULLI'S BEST BETS, or my review of Sunday's season premiere of HBO's True Blood, until mid-afternoon. Forgive the tardiness, and please return.

Or, if you're that upset with the delay, you could cancel your monthly payment to TV WORTH WATCHING. Oh, wait. It's free...

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TV Ratings Tell Many Compelling Stories: Conan is Slipping, "Harper's Island" is Sinking, "Daisies" Wipes Out, But "Wipeout" Doesn't

June 10, 2009 12:02 PM

Audience figures for current shows are telling some surprising stories, from a late-night turnaround to some obvious summer losers and winners. Dave has caught Conan, Wipeout is doing surprisingly well, and so is Obama.

The most significant ratings news of late is what's happening in late-night. It's very early, and there's a difference between overall audience figures and the demographic breakdowns -- but since Conan O'Brien took over NBC's The Tonight Show from Jay Leno, the euphoria over his premiere-night ratings has sagged nightly. As have his ratings.

Tuesday's Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, in which Julia Roberts proved a delightfully feisty talk-show guest (she even busted Paul for reading a song list instead of paying attention to her as she spoke to Dave: "Am I on NIGHTLY?"), ended up beating O'Brien in the overall overnight ratings for the first time. Since the Tonight Show switched hosts last week and started with a 7.1 rating, the nightly trajectory has been all downhill: 5.0, 4.3, 3.8, 3.5, 3.1 and, Tuesday night, 2.9, compared to Letterman's 3.4.

O'Brien still claims younger demographics, and it's very, very early in this game. But the if trend projected by those figures makes anyone at NBC anything other than panicked, that person, most likely, is Jay Leno. Meanwhile, at CBS, Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times have reported that Letterman has all but signed an extension deal with CBS. If true, that's good news for him, for CBS, for viewers, AND for Craig Ferguson, who stands to gain from this latest round of late-night plate tectonics as well.

--

Another downward-trending bit of ratings news has to do with Harper's Island, which premiered in April and was supposed to be CBS's big, Survivor-meets-Saw summer TV event. After a few outings on Thursday, CBS banished the Island dwellers to Saturday, where audience levels have dwindled ever since. One month ago, an hour of the grisly murders on Harper's Island drew 4.6 million viewers. The most recent installment drew 3.6, a substantial drop. Good news, because Harper's is horrendous.

--

Unfortunately, the ratings for ABC's Pushing Daisies have been horrendous, too. Also banished to a Saturday summer slot, the penultimate episode of Daisies drew only 2.3 million viewers, ranking it in 90th place for the week. For one of TV's best and most entertaining shows, that's a sin. But it's the fault of ABC, not the show's creators or stars, because the network scheduled it abominably during and after the writers' strike.

This Saturday is the very last first-run episode of Pushing Daisies. After that, sadly, the show will be... pushing daisies.

--

Also, there's ABC's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, which has drawn less than half the audience, so far, that ABC did when it ran its own version of the series in six years ago. Viewership went from 6.4 million to 5.5, 4.8, then bounced back to 5.2 Thursday and 5.3 yesterday.

But the bump probably was because Heidi and Spencer were so unbelievably rude and self-absorbed, they were almost perversely intriguing. They're gone now, and the show, which was wretched to begin with, is no better for their absence.

Put it this way: With all their pious and brainless blather about praying to Jesus for guidance, Heidi and Spencer -- and castaway co-star Stephen Baldwin, who baptized Spencer in a nearly stream (honest) -- have done to promote atheism than anyone on TV this side of Bill Maher.

--

And, finally, there's this to ponder. ABC's Wipeout, the show with human crash-test dummies (emphasis on both crash and dummies), isn't wiping out in its sophomore season, but last week drew 8.4 million on Wednesday and another 3.7 in a Saturday rerun, for a total of 12.1 million viewers for the week. The Wednesday showing was good enough for a Top 15 finish in the week's ratings.

Meanwhile, NBC's two-part documentary on the Obama White House drew 9.2 million the first night and 9 the second, good enough to land both installments in the week's Top 10. So when America votes for both Obama and Wipeout, what's a network to do?

Answer: Whatever it wants. With that kind of data, a network can justify taking either the high road or the low road. Watch which way they head this fall, and you'll know which networks are more tasteful -- and which are more cynical.

(Any bets on which way NBC lands?)

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Neil Patrick Harris Slam-Dunks CBS Tony Awards with Naughty Musical Finale

June 9, 2009 10:40 AM

Completing my book left me a day behind, so watching and reacting to the CBS Tony Awards is a day tardy. But I have to do it anyway, because the closing number by Neil Patrick Harris, as wickedly funny as anything served up by a real musical in years, deserves praise, annotation, and a revisit. You can read the lyrics, parse the references, and even watch and listen to a clip of the finale, by reading on.

In my Best Bet in advance of Sunday's Tony Awards, I wrote that Neil Patrick Harris had done so well as host of the TV Land Awards, musically as well as comically, that I expected good things out of him as Tony host. Plus, having seen him on Broadway in both Assassins and Cabaret, and loved him as the lead in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I knew he had the right stuff.

But now, after the Tonys, I'm thinking even bigger. If Justin Timberlake doesn't want to be the guy to single-handedly save the TV variety show, maybe Neil Patrick Harris does.

On the Tonys, Harris held back his biggest star wattage until the credits were about to roll, and kept singing even as they DID roll. It was a closing number tweaked until the last minute to reflect who did and didn't win, with a video montage to match, and was a brilliant piece of instant theater.

The music was provided by Leonard Bernstein's "Tonight" from West Wide Story, with a middle break set to the tune of "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" from another of the night's musical revival nominees, Guys & Dolls. The wonderfully witty lyrics were written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, of Hairspray. And also, it should be noted, of Harris' TV Land parodies, and of Billy Crystal's still-memorable Oscar medleys.

Crystal opened the Oscars when he sang, whereas Harris closed the Tonys. But what a closing.

Harris, in the lyrics, recognized that Angela Lansbury picked up her fifth Tony, and that the three young actor-dancers from Billy Elliot, who rotated performances in the difficult lead role, won by sharing a single Tony. He name-checked several other winners -- Geoffrey Rush, Karen Olivo, Alice Ripley, Liza Minnelli, the cast of Hair -- and even mentioned several people who didn't win, but who played a part in the evening's festivities.

Elton John, for example, who wrote the score for Billy Elliot but didn't win, was mentioned. So was Bret Michaels, the Poison frontman who was one of several guest stars during the massive opening production number (Elton John took part there, too, as did Dolly Parton, who had written music and lyrics for 9 to 5).

Harris even poked fun at one actor, Chris Sieber, whose role as the mini-tyrant in Shrek: The Musical required him to play part of it on his knees, with a costume designed to make it look as if he had very tiny legs.

All of this, and more, made it into the lyrics, which Harris began singing at 11:03 ET, starting to the tune of "Tonight"...

Tonight, Tonight
The Tonys were tonight
and Elton's Billy was all the rage

What class! What drive! Now Angela's won five!
And she hooked up with Poison backstage

With heels as sore as poor Achilles
three tutu-wearing Billys
were such a winning sight

Tonight, all three
won Tony, plus they hit puberty

[At this point, the music shifts to "Luck Be a Lady"]

And Geoffrey won a Tony tonight
Karen won a Tony tonight
Liza at the Palace, Mr. Ripley's daughter Alice,
They all won a Tony tonight...

[The music shifts back to "Tonight," and the credits begin to roll. "Credits? That's not going to stop me!" Harris shouts. And he continues:]

Chris Sieber. Please!
Performing on your knees?
Dude, that only works to win Golden Globes!

[Spontaneous applause from the black-tie audience for that risque in-joke.]

I hope tonight
when they're high as a kite
to be there when the Hair cast disrobes.

This show could not be any gayer
If Liza was named mayor
and Elton John took flight --

[More applause]

The curtain falls,
I'm off to hit some big Tony balls
Goodnight!

[Big applause and ovation, with good reason]

Wow. Harris, who came out in the last few years and saw his career suffer no repercussions whatsoever, not only gets to host the Tonys, but to sing about going out to "hit some big Tony balls." And truly, the gayer/mayor couplet about Liza Minnelli... Whatever your sexual orientation, that IS entertainment.

Here's a link, I hope, to a clip of the complete Neil Patrick Harris closing number. Click HERE to watch it.

Enjoy it, then ask yourself: When How I Met Your Mother is over, couldn't THIS guy host a variety series?

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Frozen Hell! Flying Pigs! Peaceful Middle East! My Smothers Brothers Book Is Done!!

June 8, 2009 6:15 AM

It's been 15 years since I conducted my first interview for my book on the Smothers Brothers, and over a year -- May 1, 2008 -- since my 100-page proposal sold the idea to Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, for a book to be published this November.

This morning I emailed the final chapter to my astoundingly patient, but understandably nervous, editor. I have been researching and writing this thing FOREVER, and now I can surface from solitude and begin to reclaim what's left of my life. For an exclusive first peek at the manuscript over which I've been toiling since 1994, read on...

A First Look at DANGEROUSLY FUNNY:
The Uncensored Story of
'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour'

By David Bianculli

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play

work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes

and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack

no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a

play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull

makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work

a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and

dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no

boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play

work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes

and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack

no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a

play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull

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TV WORTH WATCHING Has a Father's Day Treat, If You're Shopping for Dad (Or Are One)

June 5, 2009 2:06 PM

Thanks to Diane Werts (thanks, Diane Werts!), TV WORTH WATCHING is presenting its latest holiday page gift guide. This time -- JUST in time -- it's for Father's Day.

Need a gift suggestion or two for what to get dad, at a good price, that will bring a smile? Diane has assembled a whole page of suggestions old and new, with direct links to discount sales on Amazon. Until and unless we get a nifty home-page Father's Day banner on which you can click, visit the Father's Day guide by clicking HERE.

I'd tell you to tell them Diane and I sent you... but Diane and I, in this case, ARE them. Or they...

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On the Same Night, NBC Glides with Conan, But Not Before Crashing with "I'm a Celebrity"

June 2, 2009 11:04 AM

NBC honored its history and tradition Monday night by presenting a polished premiere of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

A few hours earlier, it betrayed that history and tradition by presenting a wretched revival of a six-year-old ABC disaster, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

The curious viewers came out in strong support of Conan, notching unusually strong numbers in the top overnight markets. Leno, though, drew better for his farewell show Friday, and the real test is the smaller, rural markets. That's where Leno won the late-night war and where Conan will be most severely tested.

For my review of Conan's Tonight Show debut, and a look at NBC's late-night moves in general, click HERE after 5 p.m. ET today, or listen to today's Fresh Air with Terry Gross on your local public radio station, for my review. You'll hear, for one thing, my favorite part of Conan's first show: his trip aboard the Universal tour tram.

Earlier, in prime time, NBC presented the premiere of the worst show it's presented all year. Everything about I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! was hideous, from the juvenile misbehavior of Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag from The Hills (especially Pratt, which may rhyme with Brat for a reason) to the utter live-TV incompetence that had the only live element involving the contestants -- a final gross-out battle in which they basically were waterboarded with insects -- cut off partway through.

"It's okay to breathe now, America," one host said earlier, after what, I guess, was supposed to be a breathlessly dramatic moment. But it wasn't okay. Any time you breathed during I'm a Celebrity, you smelled the same stench of horrible, irredeemable, unwatchable television.

The worst thing of all, in a program that was a veritable parade of worst things, was when poor, petulant Spencer wanted to take his Heidi and go home -- and got on the phone with the chairman of NBC Universal, Ben Silverman, who interceded to try to get him to stay.

"I'm too rich and I'm too famous to be sitting with these people," said Spencer, distancing himself from such other alleged celebrities as Sanjaya Malakar and Stephen Baldwin. "The cast is devaluing our fame right now." Somehow, both of these young brats got to sit out the final bug-infested challenge, but I don't care about that, or about them.

What I care about is what you can see in the photo at the top of this column. Ben Silverman's phone call with Spencer didn't have to be part of the program, but it is. Prominently, so that Silverman's name and title are superimposed on the screen.

Here's my point: Most former NBC executives (let's just invoke Grant Tinker's name as the best example) never would have put I'm a Celebrity on the air, much less attach their name to it. Ben Silverman -- that's Ben Silverman, everybody, the same man who revived Knight Rider and Bionic Woman -- has proudly done both.

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NBC: "I Used to Be a Network... Get Me Out of Here!"

June 1, 2009 8:05 AM

In late-night this evening, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien premieres (11:34 p.m. ET), continuing a proud NBC tradition that goes back to 1954.

But before that, NBC fills two hours of prime time with I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, reviving a vile ABC tradition that should have stayed buried in 2003. NBC plans to show this live reality show not just once, but nightly, gobbling up hours of prime time all month.

NBC may have just stumbled upon its next branding slogan: "I Used to Be a Network... Get Me Out of Here!"

ABC's "old" Celebrity, based on a British show, wasted time in the jungle, and the time of anyone who tuned in, by alternately flattering and torturing such "celebrities" as Nikki Ziering, Alana Stewart and Downtown Julie Brown. The only thing I remember about it, six years later, has something to do with leeches and Melissa Rivers -- which may sound redundant.

The new series makes room for Sanjaya Malakar from American Idol, Stephen Baldwin from the first Celebrity Apprentice, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag from The Hills, and former WWE diva Torrie Wilson, shown in the photo atop today's column. Isn't this edition of I'm a Celebrity missing a question mark?

Why revive such an obviously awful idea? Because that seems to be NBC's taste-dead playbook these days. Why else revive Knight Rider, The Bionic Woman, and now this?

What's next? NBC's new version of Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People? (Don't laugh: ABC presented that piece of guano, too, the same year as I'm a Celebrity.)

This is the same network that once brought us Must-See TV, and Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, and Cheers and Seinfeld?

No, not really. Not even close.

And over the summer, that will become more evident than ever. NBC may be saving money with its new programming approach, but it's losing something more valuable: its reputation.

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