Boob Tube

When people get together and talk about the latest happenings on "The O.C." or "Two and a Half Men" (although, I imagine, not getting together with the expressed purpose of discussing these shows), I remain quiet. When asked, I tell people truthfully that I don't watch sitcoms and can hardly stand the latest trend in nighttime soaps.

But I'm not one of those television doomsayers who decry the vast wasteland of programming and pine for the days of "The Twighlight Zone," "Hill Street Blues" or whatever. Which isn't to say that it isn't a vast wasteland.

My cable package features some 500 channels of varying pay levels--many of which offer 24-hour programming. If 90 percent of this programming resembles hairy clumps of elephant crap, well, that leaves a lot of good stuff out there if you know where to look.

My DVR might be a good place to start:

"Penn & Teller Bullshit!" on Showtime -- Watch Penn and Teller debunk the war on drugs, second hand smoke, recycling, PETA, college, circumcision, bottled water, hypnosis and family values. Almost foolproof arguments delivered with biting wit and scathing contempt for self-proclaimed "experts" who are often emasculated on camera. If you can't stand John Stossel's smarmy manipulation of the facts or ever wanted someone to vanquish any guilt over your failure to embrace recycling, this is the show for you.

"Charlie Rose" on PBS -- Yeah, he can be as sycophantic as Larry King when talking to actors or Nobel Prize winners. Yeah, he can expound forever about the craft of acting like James Lipton. Yeah, he can't even crack a simple joke without clubbing it to death first. But there is no other destination on TV for an hour-long conversation of substance with people worthy of that attention. It was on Charlie Rose I first saw an actual interview with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It was Charlie Rose who helped confirm that an hour spent with Carson Daly is an hour of your life, lost and erased-- never to return again. It's on Charlie Rose where you can see Sean Penn reminisce about Marlon Brando, obscured in cigarette smoke like he's on "The Joe Franklin Show" in 1956. Or where I learned how sublty seductive that communist dirtbag Noam Chomsky can be. Indispensable television.

"Dinner for Five" on IFC -- Simple concept. Like "Politically Incorrect" with food and without the politics. Watch Burt Reynolds tell stories punctuated by Richard Lewis's cracks. See Carrie Fisher tell a story about tripping on acid in 1978 with John Belushi at Disneyland. Watch Kevin Smith bullshit with George Carlin. It's hit or miss, depending on the guests. Just like any dinner party.

"Ebert & Roeper" on ABC -- Agree or not with their opinions, but this is still the best written and delivered film review show of all time. Smart, witty and often humble. And they don't always stick to the big releases, providing lots of good ideas for DVD purchases and rentals.

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Comedy Central -- Nothing I can say about this show that hasn't been beaten to death by the mainstream media's uniform praise. Simply could not have survived the election without this one.

"Family Guy" on Fox -- It's back and maybe not as great as ever. But you must show some respect for the show that left "The Simpsons" in the dust long ago and last week aired a show in which baby Stewie hung from Annika Sorenstam's scrotum sack. No, seriously.

"Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN -- The quickest, most easy-going, wittiest and enjoyable sports discussion show on TV or radio. PTI's Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon make "Mike and the Mad Dog" look even more like "Blow Hard and the Retard." I never understood sports talk radio and shows about know-it-all hosts shouting down and hanging up on call-in losers griping about home team coaching decisions. Kornheiser and Wilbon keep things fast and light, kibbutzing back and forth like an old married couple or a Borscht Belt comedy team. It doesn't even matter that neither of them knows the first thing about hockey. Unlike Mike Francessa and Chris Russo, they don't pretend anything.

IFC, Sundance, Trio, Turner Classic Movies, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz and Fox Movie Channel -- Even overlooking the expensive pay channels that come with five sub-channels each in a package along with my internet connection, these other channels kick ass. This year alone, I've been able to see dozens of classic movies I hadn't gotten around to seeing: The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Ben Hur, The Evil Dead, Seven Samurai, Boxcar Bertha, Being There, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Das Boot, Do the Right Thing, Raising Victor Vargas, Some Like it Hot and The Station Agent. And more where that came from, all unedited and constantly replenished. Peruse these channels with your DVR guide, cross-reference with my film list and enjoy.

Let us not neglect "South Park," which is still razor sharp, timely and consistently outrageous. Evidence: In an episode from this season, Mr. Garrison's boy-toy Mr. Slave takes Paris Hilton and deposits her in his ass to prove a point. Need you ask what this point might be?

I'm also a big fan of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim show "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law," a surreal courtroom drama populated by Hanna Barbara characters. A dead-before-its-time Adult Swim show is "Home Movies", the squiggle-vision misadventures of a trio of prepubescent filmmakers, which you can catch on DVD.

If it ever reappears, "Cheap Seats" on ESPN features twin wry comedians Randy and Jason Sklar cracking wise a la "Mystery Science Theater 3000" at ABC/Disney's b-roll properties like 1970s "Wide World of Sports" shows about board breaking and cheerleading competitions. Hilarious.

"30 Days" on FX looks promissing, with Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock indulging in different social science experiments like trying to live for a month on minimum wage and having a Christian move in with Muslims. Good times socially conscious fun.

I'll also be happily watching "Six Feet Under" kill itself off after five seasons. A great, daring, uneven show. May it die as it lived.

And if you missed the E! News Michael Jackson trial reenactments, man, I just feel sorry for you. Too much fun. Forget the Jay Leno and Chris Tucker impersonators and the Michael vanilla pudding-face stand-in. The real show came during commentary segments with Jackson shills (rightfully) lambasting the prosecution. Phil Spector can hardly hope to be this entertaining.

Then there are those shows that won't be back for a bit, but can mostly be caught On Demand in the meantime: "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Chappelle's Show," "Inside the NFL," "The Sopranos," "Deadwood," "Real Time with Bill Maher," and "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel."

Summer is a good time to catch up on stuff in repeats you might have missed. I'm picking up "House" on Fox, which stars a lovable bastard doctor solving medical mysteries and isn't even as cheesy as that sounds. Solid writing of a complex, entertaining character in medical stories that don't get bogged down in the soapy drama that has destroyed "ER" since the 4th season.

But I must warn anyone who who might be tempted to spend 20-something wasted hours with ABC's "Lost." I knew exactly what I was getting into this fall, but stuck it out as an exercise in self-abuse. "Lost" is "Land of the Lost" meets "Giligan's Island" meets "Survivor" meets "24" meets "The X-Files." And like "The X-Files," "Lost" thrives on the tension created by seemingly intricate plot secrets that CAN'T EVER BE REVEALED OR THE SHOW IS OVER. So you get a season of writer's writing themselves into corners and then moving on to write themselves into another corner. Why, oh, why can't networks agree that a great premise, like the survivors of a plane crash on a creepy island told more-or-less in a compressed time-frame, should only exist for a season or two? Like "24" or that girl you know from high school, shows like this can only tease and never pay off.

Let her play with herself, I say. There is too much good on TV to bother.