Dick Enberg meets every sports challenge

By Diane Holloway

Oh my. Dick Enberg -- arguably one of the best and certainly the most versatile sportscaster ever to grace televised sports -- turned in another brilliant performance during ESPN's Wimbledon tennis coverage.

Seriously, is there a smarter, more subdued, yet more enjoyable communicator working in sports today? I don't think so. And as many of you know, I'm a big-time sports watcher. But I'm happy to hear alternative nominations . Just click on "comments" below. (Please keep the additions to current sportscasters.)

Enberg is my clear-cut winner, and has been since he hit the national stage in 1975 calling college basketball for NBC. Nobody holds a candle to him. Not Al Michaels or John Madden or Marv Albert or even Bob Costas.

I think it's time to send out a hearty appreciation to Enberg, who at 74 hasn't lost a step in terms of energy or knowledge. He's still very much at the top of his game. And he still looks like he's having more fun than any working professional should be allowed to have. The smile is wide, genuine and permanent. But I feel kudos are in order.

I interviewed Enberg several times over the course of my tenure as TV critic for the Austin American-Statesman, mostly for his coverage of the NFL and the Olympics. But I've watched him exude quiet excitement during many TV sports events. He's a true sports Renaissance man.

Let's see, where to begin the Enberg story? Before he signed with NBC, Enberg was the voice of the California Angels, the Los Angeles Rams and UCLA basketball. And before that, the Michigan native was an academic. He has a master's degree and a PhD in health science from Indiana University. Armed with book smarts, he became an assistant professor and baseball coach at California State-Northridge.

On-air experience? Oh my! Enberg has covered NFL games for 41 seasons, the Super Bowl 10 times, the Rose Bowl nine times, the Olympics four times, Wimbledon 25 times, the French Open 22 times, the U.S. Open Tennis Championship five times, U.S. Open Golf Championship five times, the World Series and heavyweight boxing championships five times, NCAA basketball championship 13 times, the NBA playoffs numerous times . . . there's more, but my fingers are tiring.

Succinctly put, Enberg knows his stuff in tennis, football, basketball, baseball and golf. Oh, and he has put in time calling horse races, track and field, gymnastics and even figure skating. In 2000, he switched from NBC to CBS and remains much in demand. Who knows what NBC was thinking when they let him go.

What makes Enberg so good? Well, obviously he's smart and articulate. But he also knows when to analyze and when to shut up. Knowing when to talk and when to be quiet takes confidence and years of experience. And it signals to the viewer that he thinks we're smart enough to recognize a magnificent moment when we see it.

For his efforts, Enberg has raked in so many Emmys he's lost count, and he's won them for sportscasting, writing and producing. He nabbed a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2000. Not that it matters in the overall scheme of sports on TV, but Enberg also has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I once asked Enberg if he had a favorite sport among all he has covered, and he shrugged with that shy grin and said, "Oh my, I love 'em all." When you enjoy your work that much, it seeps into the broadcast booth and into living rooms all over America. What a joy for us.

(ESPN2 has the Wimbledon semi-finals Friday 7 a.m.-noon ET. Then NBC takes over Wimbledon coverage Friday noon-5 p.m. ET. NBC has the women's finals Saturday 9 a.m.-2 p.m. ET and the men's finals Sunday 9 a.m.-3 p.m. ET.)

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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.

Bianculli here: TV critics, almost by definition, have to be optimists ("With all this horsesh**, there must be a pony in here somewhere!"). Finding the good shows is more difficult, but more rewarding, than trashing bad ones. Sometimes that means displaying saint-like patience, and giving shows a second or third chance -- as contributing columnist Diane Holloway does today by revisiting TNT's Raising the Bar, a Steven Bochco law show that stumbled badly coming out of the gate...

'Raising the Bar' raises its quality

By Diane Holloway

With the notable exception of Cop Rock, that way-too-wacky musical police drama of 1990 (grimace, shudder, gag!), I've always been an admirer of Steven Bochco's work.

From Hill Street Blues to L.A. Law to NYPD Blue, he created super-quality dramas that became long-running hits. Even his good-but-unpopular shows were commendable: Bay City Blues (1983), about a minor league baseball team; Hooperman (1987), an offbeat comedy-drama with John Ritter as a run-down San Francisco cop; and 2005's brilliant but shunned Over There, FX' chilling drama about Iraq war soldiers.

So I was deeply disappointed last year when TNT's Raising the Bar debuted as such a dud. Unfocused, ill-defined and just plain clumsy, the legal drama landed with a thud. I feared that Bochco had come to the end of his creative run.

The series about young lawyers defending and prosecuting criminal cases starred Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a long-haired, full-of-himself crusader and Jane Kaczmarek as the ridiculously over-the-top judge who hated him. It came off as old-fashioned and formulaic in today's climate of edgy dramas.

But here's the good news (and what makes this show an acceptable TV Worth Watching topic) -- the second season, which arrived June 8, has returned Bochco to his rightful place as a creator of really good television. Check it out for yourself Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on TNT. (Or streaming anytime here.)

Just about everything that was wrong with the first season has been fixed in the second. Bochco has always taken thoughtful criticism to heart, and it looks like that's exactly what he did here.

Gosselaar's disconcerting mane was the topic in the season opener earlier this month. OK, the silly hair is dirty and distracting. No serious lawyer would walk into a courtroom looking like that. So a juror actually told public defender Jerry Kellerman (Gosselaar) that he would be less likely to trust the attorney's presentation of the case because of his unkempt appearance. The next time we see rumpled Jerry, he has been to the barber and donned a decent-looking suit. Voila! Credibility returns! A small point, perhaps, but indicative of larger previous problems.

More importantly, the characters have all been tweaked with nuance. Kaczmarek's Judge Kessler is no longer shrieking and stomping around her chambers. She's still politically ambitious and cold, but now she shares bench duties with Judge Farnsworth (John Michael Higgins of Boston Legal and Best in Show fame, and Kath & Kim infamy). He's probably not intended to be comic relief, but he has some genuinely funny moments.

The overly serious and painfully sincere Jerry has lightened up. Finally. Too much idealism made Jerry a dull boy last season. And this season, co-stars have been given a chance to shine. Gloria Reuben (ER) and Currie Graham (NYPD Blue) are especially promising in supporting roles as a defender and a prosecutor, respectively. In other words, the ensemble is now a true ensemble.

As is typical with Bochco shows, there are plenty of sexy secrets bubbling beneath the surface. And the legal cases, dealing with everything from hate crimes to kiddie porn, make for compelling storytelling. The tantalizing blends of shock and awe, heartbreak and humor are back where they belong.

So if you've been avoiding Raising the Bar because of last season's sour taste, give the second season a second chance. Bochco has earned it.

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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.

Bianculli here: Celebrity culture has never been more obvious or inescapable than right now, as TV covers -- blankets, smothers -- the death of Michael Jackson, with Farrah Fawcett's death in second place, Ed McMahon's death a distant third, the unfaithful South Carolina governor a rapidly sidelined fourth, and the poor protesters in Iran wiped off the attention grid almost entirely. So what does the celebrity of Jon and Kate have to do with all this? According to contributing columnist Tom Brinkmoeller, a lot...

'Jon & Kate' Just Ate America's Lunch

By Tom Brinkmoeller

How many times did Moe tell his Three Stooges partner Curly to pick two fingers, and then poked him in the eyes with the fingers he picked? How many times did Moe tell the bald Stooge to hit his hand, and then swing his arm in an arc to land his fist on Curly's head?

If you think the Stooges are history, think again. Television's play-callers are pulling the old Moe trick on us more often and more brazenly lately than its namesake ever did. They think of us as a collection of Curlys. And lots of us have offered our eyes as willing targets.

The largest offender, to date: TLC, for the way it has suckered so many into the spider web called Jon & Kate Plus 8. Maybe you remember how Moe would clamp a huge pliers on Curly
s nose and pull him around? See any similarity in the way TLC has been yanking us around?

With an amount of manufactured excitement its Learning Channel predecessor would have considered offensive, the unabashed new TLC used a giant stick to stir up the waters as it led up to Monday's D-I-V-O-R-C-E episode. Fresh photos of the telegenic parents with eight children got published. Unattributed rumors got printed. Clips showed up on the star-sycophant programs. Emeril Lagasse and the American Chopper comedy trio made guest appearances.

People who once sold pet rocks and mood rings must be the VPs of hype at TLC. They said, "Pick two!" and the viewing Curlys let themselves get poked in the eye.

Following Monday's melodramatic conclusion -- as the public response morphed into "How could anyone victimize those sweet children?" -- there's a lot of handwringing going on in some of the same fields where the first seeds of hype started growing a few weeks ago. Why isn't someone wringing TLC's neck, instead, for selling more sideshow tickets than Barnum ever dreamed of peddling?

More evidence of stink: The night after the momentous episode aired, it aired again. And now, as the series is on a so-called hiatus, the TLC schedule is amply populated with maudlin promos inviting viewers to revisit the better days, as the network works to make sure the upcoming reruns pull better ratings than the originals. Parent-company Discovery's e-mail list sent out an offer Wednesday right: Buy the Season 1 DVD of Jon & Kate and get the second season free!

This really awful series (is there ever a time when one or more of the children, or Jon, for that matter, isn't crying?) is not the first to play the manipulation game. Bachelors and bachelorettes, celebrity apprentices -- and of course those celebrities who should be left in the jungle -- do it, too. But these vapid competition shows don't make children into accomplices. So in the current tally, Jon & Kate is the worst.

Does the manipulation have to rise to the Bernie Madoff level before someone finally shuts it down? This isn't a regulatory thing, like banning cigarette commercials was. Nor is it like TV's 1950s quiz-show scandals, where government officials jumped in and created an entirely different mess.

This is one for the public to change simply by waking up and realizing they're being used shamelessly. We can reverse things, and not just by tuning out of these sickly shows (though low ratings hit networks in the most sensitive body parts). When large numbers tune out and sound off by calling this the scam trend it is, the garden slugs who come up with these shows will slink out of town before they're ridden out on a rail.

Curly, take the pliers out of that numbskull's hands and let him know you're the one holding the blunt object now. Don't be afraid to use it.

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Tom Brinkmoeller -- who wouldn't
be surprised if Kate and Jon were
Joan Rivers and Geraldo Rivera in
disguise -- remembers when the most
brazen thing on television was a
deodorant ad that showed an armpit.

Bianculli here: Contributing writer Ed Martin is back, raving about last Monday's second-season premiere of ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and trying to recruit viewers in time for next week's episode two. He does a fine job, by playing the sex card...

'Secret Life': It's not just about the boobs

By Ed Martin

There is no other series with so split a personality as ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a genuinely entertaining family drama that is more wholesome and heartwarming than just about anything else on television -- and yet so sexually supercharged that it borders on the surreal. Seriously, this show puts so many hormones in play it makes Gossip Girl feel like Gidget.

True to form, Secret Life's second season began on Monday night with its main characters obsessing over breasts. The episode had the makings of a great drinking game. Had viewers of legal age downed a shot every time one character commented on another's boobs, they would have been blotto by the first commercial break.

Much of this talk was centered on Amy (Shailene Woodley), the 15-year-old who found herself pregnant at the start of the series, gave birth (seemingly without breaking a sweat) in the Season 1 finale, and is now struggling to care for her son while continuing in high school; and her mother Anne, who is pregnant by a male acquaintance, or possibly by her estranged husband (and Amy's father), George, in the unlikely event that George's long-ago vasectomy failed last year around the time the two of them hit the sheets.

Naturally, Amy and Anne are both a little top-heavy right now, prompting a broad range of responses from their loved ones. Other breasts made themselves known, too, including those of happy hooker Betty (the jubilant Jennifer Coolidge in a recurring role) and a number of Amy's teenage friends and acquaintances.

As any loyal viewer will tell you, the very likable characters on Secret Life never miss an opportunity to share their thoughts about wanting sex, having sex or abstaining from sex -- and the overkill can be problematic, to say the least. In Monday's episode, the only breaks from talking about baby-making came when talking about babies themselves -- especially Amy's 2-month old bundle of love, John, who has turned his bad-boy baby-daddy Ricky (Daran Kagasoff) and Amy's too-understanding-to-be-real boyfriend Ben (Kenny Baumann) into buckets of gooey man-mush.

One subplot veered from talk about sex to talk about abstinence to an actual act of intercourse (occurring off-screen) as sensitive jock Jack (Greg Finley) bedded cheerful cheerleader Grace (Megan Park), a devout Christian who prayed for months before deciding to lose her virginity. In a scene that I am almost certain was not intended to be amusing (but was), Grace couldn't stop complimenting Jack after they did "it," sounding not for a second like a teenage first-timer as she told him how "skilled" he was at lovemaking.

The only other time that the cloud of all-consuming sex talk parted was for the delivery of devastating news -- the sudden death of Grace's dad, Marshall (John Schneider), which happened at approximately the same time she was having sex with Jack. Grace's character trajectory promises to be the most dramatic on the show this season.

The many responsibilities that come with and consequences that may result from youthful sexual activity have always been the driving forces of Secret Life. I watched this episode in the company of adults and young teenagers, and while the old folks were slack-jawed at all the sex talk, the kids (all of whom had seen every episode of this show at least twice) just brushed it off and made clear (to the adults' collective relief) that real life is nothing like Secret Life (a series they nevertheless love more than any other).

Apparently, tweens and young teenagers have other things on their minds, like music and video games and social networking and school and sports. A healthy curiosity about sex fits in there somewhere but it doesn't dominate -- no matter what ABC Family would have us believe.

As over-the-top as it can be in its strident determination to explore all facets of teen sexuality, there is something strangely comforting and gently appealing about Secret Life. It may be the storytelling, which, if one puts aside all the super-frank sex talk, resembles that of a soap opera during the glory days of daytime drama. (That would be the '70s and '80s, when record numbers of tweens, teens and twentysomethings fixated on the genre.)

It's all about a complicated community of ordinary people making their way through life. The characters screw up constantly, but when one gets in too deep, he or she is rescued and comforted by family and friends. Teens and their parents are often at odds, but they just as often find themselves connecting, even when they don't expect to do so. (On this week's episode, Ben's dad Leo, aka the Sausage King, brought happy hooker Betty home after dinner and had to rouse his son out of bed to borrow condoms. "I'm optimistic," geeky Ben offered as his dad opened his overstocked condom drawer. "So am I," Leo smiled, grabbing a fistful.)

Secret Life is greatly enhanced by its simple production values, which are as retro as the show's approach to storytelling, if not to the stories it tells. In other words, it looks like a beloved television drama from decades past: There's no hand-held camera work, no rapid-fire editing, and no elaborate on-location shooting. People refer to it as edgy and contemporary, because of all the sex stuff. But in every other way it feels as old-fashioned as a Hallmark Channel original movie, except for all the sex stuff.

Another reason that Secret Life resonates with viewers (consistently bringing ABC Family some of its highest ratings ever, and often outperforming competing broadcast and basic cable fare in teen and young adult demos) is that while the narrative focus is clearly on its multi-dimensional teen characters, the adults on the show are similarly well-drawn.

There isn't another couple on television quite like ever-quarreling Anne and George (played to comic perfection by one-time box-office teen queen Molly Ringwald and the always appealing Mark Derwin), nor a single dad as genuinely grounded as Leo (Steven Schirripa, in a perfect turnaround from his Sopranos role as hit-man Bobby Bacala). These are just a few of the many grown-ups who add so much to this show and avoid every cliche about TV moms and dads while doing so. They're as much fun to watch as the kids.

I'll end with a question for Brenda Hampton, the creator of Secret Life and the producer of the long-running WB hit 7th Heaven, another family-focused drama that appealed to young people. Why is this series titled The Secret Life of the American Teenager? No matter how intimate or potentially embarrassing, the kids on this show have no secrets from each other or the adults in their lives -- none that last, anyway. That may be the most laudable of its many fine qualities.

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Ed Martin is the television critic and programming analyst for the media industry Web site JackMyers.com. The former senior editor of the award-winning, much-missed television and advertising trade magazine Inside Media, Ed has also written for USA Today, Advertising Age, Television Week, Broadcasting & Cable and TV Guide.

Bianculli here: I'm still working under manic deadlines for another week or so (don't ask), so contributing columnist Tom Brinkmoeller bails me out by reviewing a new PBS music and science special, Wednesday's The Music Instinct: Science and Song. It answers lots of your musical questions -- not necessarily "Who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong?," but plenty of others. Here's Tom's review...

PBS Special Explores Brain-Music Harmony

By Tom Brinkmoeller

You may want to try the following elimination rounds in deciding whether to invest two hours in the new PBS special The Music Instinct: Science and Song (Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET -- check local listings).

Are you fascinated by how the human brain works and its potential as science discovers more of its secrets?

Does it catch your interest that music may have preceded speech in early humans?

Does evidence of a complex relationship between the brain and music make you hungry to learn more?

Are you curious to find out about people like:
* Accomplished percussionist Evelyn Glennie [above], deaf since birth, who performs by "hearing" the vibrations of the instruments she plays?
* An accomplished surgeon who, after being struck by lightning, decided to study music and developed an impressive ability to compose and perform?
* Stroke survivors who regain some speech by using the singing portion of their brain to form words?
* Or Parkinson's disease patients who learn to coordinate their movements better with the help of rhythmic assists?

Still here? Then know that if you opt in to The Music Instinct, you won't be gently fed. It's a thoroughly researched, intriguingly produced program that at times dispenses its facts at a supercharged pace. But maybe it's appropriate that a program taking on the intricacies of the brain expects its viewers to have well-tuned brains, as well.

The subject matter actually seems pretty comprehensible -- reminiscent of that philosophy course you never could afford to sleep through.

You'll learn that fetuses begin to hear between 17 and 19 weeks, that music is audible to and affects them, and that humans are born with what the producers call "a music module." In people who learn to play an instrument when they're young, that module pays off with improved long- and short-term memory through life.

Blind musicians commandeer the part of the brain usually used for sight and transform its forces into musical ability. And there appears to be universality in music effects, even among cultures unknown to each other. People living in a remote part of Cameroon, who never have heard Western music, respond to emotional parts of a piece of music much the same way as people who are familiar with it.

Musicians Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR, at right) and Bobby McFerrin lend the program interesting insights in demonstrating brain-music links.

It's only when the neuroscientists take the spotlight that those of us who swim in shallow water, so to speak, start to look for a lifeguard. I hope I'm in the minority, but these super-cerebral elements seemed to add at least 15 unneeded minutes to the program. Even so, it's a two-hour investment with a good payoff.

Dr. Jamshed Bharucha -- a cognitive neuroscientist, musician, and the provost and senior vice president of Tufts University -- offers some important takeaways for the non-neuroscientists among us. Though many musicians say it's a "heart" function, the brain has a major role in the perception and appreciation of music, and music plays a key role in the development of the brain: "The brain changes as you learn, and it can change in any point in your life through exposure to music."

And then there's the evolution of music into speech: "Music derives from a very primordial form of communication . . . that today's languages have drawn upon."

Considering what the other networks are offering tonight (America's Got Talent, I Survived a Japanese Game Show, So You Think You Can Dance and a Criminal Minds repeat), The Music Instinct: Science and Song may be the only offering guaranteed to make your brain hurt in a good way.

---------

As a child, Tom Brinkmoeller was
successfully urged by his piano
teacher to take up sports instead --
and yet he remembers that incident.

Bianculli here: Having a problem finding an entertaining show to watch, even with the help of TV WORTH WATCHING? Oh, well, there are always the ads -- and contributing columnist Diane Holloway hones in on on ad campaign that comes through loud and clear, like a Sonic boom...

Pete and T.J. create a Sonic boom

By Diane Holloway

If Sonic would post a schedule for the Pete and T.J. commercials, fans like me could enjoy their 30-second chuckles on a regular basis. Think of it as the perfect summer comedy for folks with no time to spare -- or sadly short attention spans. Whatever . . .

While the majority of today's 30-minute sitcoms fail to produce a single laugh, these little snippets of the tater-tot-loving buddies never fail to produce hilarity.

For eight years now, the Second City-trained duo from Chicago have been pushing steak-and-egg burritos and pancakes-on-a-stick while building the kind of popularity rarely seen in commercials. These guys overshadow the Coke bears and the Budweiser Clydesdales. They're simply silly, offbeat and fun.

Even the new generation of TV fans who only watch recorded shows and thus skip the ads will stop for these -- or, even more amazingly, the spots are sought out and enjoyed online. (You can watch a compilation here.) You know those ridiculous drunken-buddy movies people pay big bucks to go see? They pale in comparison to these improvised half-minutes.

The Sonic Guys, as they are widely known, have been around so long you may already know the basics about them, but in case you don't:

Both are rather non-descript thirtysomethings, and they came to the Sonic auditions already friends. Their chemistry is instantly obvious.

T.J. Jagodowski is the blonde doofus who gets the punchlines; Peter Grosz is the dark-haired straight man. Both are trained actors, writers and improv specialists. T.J. has popped up in guest starring roles on TV series; Pete writes for and occasionally appears on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. And they appeared together in Will Ferrell's 2006 movie Stranger than Fiction.

Barkley, Sonic's ad agency, concocted the campaign to promote the drive-in chain's distinctive fast-food items, such as corn dogs and the aforementioned breakfast-on-a-stick.

Initially the spots were pure guerrilla theater. The Sonic Guys would drive through a competitor's window and pull some outrageous prank to promote the brand. An early attack found the guys asking an unsuspecting window worker to microwave their popcorn (Sonic doesn't use microwaves). Coconuts were cracked, and parking lots were invaded. It was mayhem.

The undercover spots had a Saturday Night Live feel to them, and thus appealed to hipsters everywhere. But as Pete and T.J. became famous, the pranks had to stop. They were increasingly recognized before they could pull off a stunt. No surprise, no fun.

That's when the ads moved into Pete's car, where the foolishness continues.

T.J. and Pete typically are seen stuffing their faces with whatever they're promoting. Clueless T.J. usually goes off on some tangent, knocking a tater tot out of Pete's hand as he's riffing about basketball, or wondering why Sonic chose to put raspberry and mango in iced tea instead of soda or coffee. Pete usually responds with frustration or amazement at his friend's flights of fancy. (They have sort of a Tommy and Dicky Smothers feel.) Then "smack!" The slapping noise means the ad is over.

The spots are clearly not scripted. You get the feeling the ad agency just tells Pete and T.J. what to hawk, and the improv guys go to it. They've made well over 100 separate spots.

Recent Sonic spots have also used a man-woman couple and a couple of lady friends, but Pete and T.J. rule. Besides YouTube, their online presence has included a game, maketjdrink, that let fans manipulate the front-seat action. Fans even posted their own versions of the ads on YouTube.

The Sonic Guys make us realize advertising still is an art form -- and that funny is funny no matter what the venue.

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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.

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...

Bianculli here: TV critics are like treasure hunters, sifting through mounds of worthless junk in search of the occasional sparkling treasure. No wonder contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller finds lots to like about the long-running PBS series Antiques Roadshow...

Waiting in Roadshow Line Sometimes Pays Off

By Tom Brinkmoeller

Maybe the most impressive fact about Antiques Roadshow isn't that it still finds amazing treasures after 13 seasons, or that it has been the highest-rated PBS weekly series since its second season on the air, regularly attracting 10 million viewers.

It just may be that, having set up in more than 90 halls over that time, and having done thousands of appraisals during each stop, not once has an appraiser broken an object, the producers report. Not one piece of glass that got slippery while being held more than an hour in the nervous hands of its hopeful owner. Not one brittle piece of antique paper kept in the family for hundreds of years. Not a fragile carving that's older than this country.

It's truly an unbroken record.

Rarely, viewers will hear something break off-camera, said Marsha Bemko, executive producer of the series since Season 5. But that's been at the hands of the owners, she said, and never anything valuable.

Bemko knows a lot more than that about Antiques Roadshow -- so much, in fact, that she has turned her knowledge into a 256-page book, Antiques Roadshow Behind the Scenes, to be published in November. Bemko happily shares some of her fun facts from the road: The most six-figure appraisals were in Palm Springs, Calif., followed by Baltimore. People used to camp out during the first four seasons of the show, hoping to get in ("We had people sleeping out overnight," Bemko said). In 2000, the WGBH production staff started handing out appointment times, with 3,200 tickets available for each city. The most ticket requests were for the Raleigh, N.C., show (34,000); the easiest ticket was in Phoenix (20,000).

Shows are shot on Saturdays, when the doors open at 8 a.m, and it's at least 11 or 12 hours before the sets are struck and the hall is empty again. Most of the Roadshow crew of about 45 people arrive in the host city on Thursday and return home Sunday. While there, they're joined by 15 local crew members and 110 volunteers (each of whom receives lunch, a T-shirt and an appraisal in appreciation).

The appraisers always pay their own expenses, and out of a pool of 150 appraisers, 75 attend each show. Most arrive the day before, but some come in early to socialize with each other. Antiques Roadshow has helped tear down a wall: Employees of Sotheby's and Christie's had historically avoided each other. "We've changed that, they tell us," Bemko said. "We've become something like a summer camp for grownups."

People bring their would-be valuables for three reasons, she said -- to learn about the object; hoping to hear it's valuable (usually, it's not); and/or to be on television. When an appraiser sees something that seems worth an on-air appearance, Bemko or another producer is called in to make a ruling. The guest is never told if the object is valuable or not. Each appraisal takes at least 10 minutes to shoot.

Over the course of a day, 55 formal appraisals will be shot; 30 more will be shorter versions done at the appraisal table. Of those, up to 60 will show up in the three shows made from each Roadshow visit. In all cases, the show's producers refrain from revealing the owner's last name (though guests sometimes do so themselves).

"Most of our guests do not sell their objects. We ask them to let us know if they do anything. In most cases, it's not about the money," Bemko said of people who bring in family heirlooms. The sale ratio is a bit higher if the appraised object has been found at a yard sale or trash bin.

There was also a spinoff show, Antiques Roadshow FYI, which followed the stories of appraised items later sold. (It lasted just one year because underwriting couldn't be found.) Expanded information about some of the objects is available on the Roadshow web site.

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For a number of years, Tom Brinkmoeller was paid to watch and write about television. That seemingly ideal situation can't match his current one: watching only what he enjoys -- especially in the lesser-hyped areas of television, where he finds some wonderful gems. Sharing those finds is even more fun than watching.

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.

Bianculli here: One of the most exciting things about having other TV critics share space on this website is opening up whole new arrays of small-screen passion. In fighting off the dog days of TV summer, contributing writer Diane Holloway goes way beyond my usual BEST BETS to recommend enjoyable TV
alternatives on the fringes of the TV dial.

Here she goes...

Try these cures for the summertime blues

By Diane Holloway

Appointment viewing is swell, isn't it? We look forward with anticipation to the new season of Mad Men or the next installment of Dexter.

But there are times when our prime-time hours have no appointments whatsoever. Even the DVR can empty out and leave you lonely. Anyone with extra hours and a splendid high-def TV is faced with a gaping viewing calendar this time of year -- especially on Friday and Saturday nights.

But if you're like me, you probably have a fallback channel or two. Almost any time of the day or night, you can punch in the number and find something worth an hour or two of couch potato (non-)activity.

For me, it's often the History Channel or Discovery or Animal Planet.

I can be perfectly happy with an afternoon marathon of History's Modern Marvels. Everything from bulldozers to the Hoover Dam gets an up-close-and-personal look that's fascinating. I had no idea I was interested in presidential limos until I stumbled upon a recent episode about "presidential movers."

Trust me, the knock on History that it's nothing but wall-to-wall World War II documentaries is totally wrong. Though the channel still boasts lots of historical docs, it's also got Expedition Africa and Extreme Trains.

Unfortunately, like so many formerly high-brow cable channels, History is slapping us in the face with the reality genre. More about that in a sec. But if you suddenly find yourself facing a night of Ice Road Truckers, you can click onto another network.

On Discovery (especially Discovery HD), you can wallow in the beauty of Inside Planet Earth and Out of the Wild. Or you can embrace your inner nerd and watch How It's Made. Think you don't care how aluminum foil or Crayons are made? Think again. How It's Made is fascinating. Even Discovery's sea-going reality show Deadliest Catch is surprisingly compelling.

Critter lovers can always find pleasure on Animal Planet. Installments of Whale Wars and Blue Planet: Seas of Life can perk up any bored summer viewer. On the lighter side, you can watch doggie makeovers on Underdog to Wonderdog and thrill to a touch of graphic animal violence on Untamed and Uncut. (Grrrrr.)

Back to the sorry state of former high-brow cable nets. Remember when A&E really stood for Arts & Entertainment? People in public television actually worried that A&E, with its British plays, classical music concerts and ballets, might cut into PBS's audience.

Well, that didn't happen, did it? Now A&E is famous for such elite cultural experiences as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Gene Simmons Family Jewels.

Similarly Bravo, which started out with grand schemes to elevate basic cable with live performances and classic fare, now toots its horn for The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Kathy Griffin: Life on the D List. Ick and eeew.

National Geographic Channel still has Explorer, The Dog Whisperer and glorious documentaries on Stonehenge and the mysterious Druids. But NGC is fast becoming famous for its fascination with the decidedly freakish. The Girl With Eight Limbs and China's Elephant Man spring to mind as recent examples.

And unless you've been orbiting Mars lately, you know that The Learning Channel is now TLC and home to the ubiquitous Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht, along with its fair share of freakish fare such as The Woman With Giant Legs, The World's Tallest Children and The World's Strongest Toddler.

If you're asking yourself what the "learning" value is of Jon & Kate, you know just how far the network has drifted from its original promise.

But there are safe harbors. Visit History or Discovery when a hole opens in your viewing schedule. If all else fails, you can catch endless reruns of Law & Order (the classic original) on TNT and CSI (again, the classic original) on Spike. Just surf to the right wave.

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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.

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.

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...

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?)