In the print edition of TIME this week, my column is about how rock-and-holy-roller Mike Huckabee has used, and been used by, pop culture this election cycle: In the popular and political mind, pop culture and conservative Christianity are separated like church and state. Britney, The Da Vinci Code and MTV are here; homeschooling, Left [...]

Yesterday, the directors’ guild and the AMPTP announced they had reached a contract agreement, which, if it’s accepted as the template for negotiating a writers’ deal, is our best shot at ending the strike in weeks rather than months. I’m not a lawyer or a contract negotiator, so I won’t pretend to say whether it [...]

Tito Ortiz gives it the hard sell. / NBC Photo: Tommy Baynard Last night on Celebrity Apprentice, disaster struck the Hydra team when Stephen Baldwin fell onto a table, knocked a cup of coffee onto a laptop, and… oh, dear God, just settle the strike. Settle it now. How far apart are you people, anyway? [...]

I just finished a taping for Headline News’ Glenn Beck show, in which I talked for what seemed like three and a half seconds about American Idol and the writers’ strike. (To viewers, I’m sure it will seem like an eternity.) The American health-care system’s failures never came up. Before the taping I had the [...]

This year Super Sunday falls just two days before Super Tuesday. (Feb. 3 4 will be known as Mediocre Monday.) To deal with the insuperable superness of it all, Fox, broadcaster of this year’s Super Bowl, plans to meld its political and its sports coverage, adding a morning Fox News segment to the top of [...]

There’s been a lot of speculation about the possible long-term side effects of a writers’ strike: that the disruption might change the development process or move the networks away from debuting most of their new shows all at once in the fall. Here’s another: will the strike burn viewers out on reality shows? Idol, this [...]

Linda Cardellini and Steve Zahn, in the waning days of the West(ern miniseries). / Robert Voets/CBS An unusual breed has been spotted on the vast prairies of CBS this week: the Endangered North American Miniseries. They used to be a majestic and revered creature, bred big and muscular, feted with big budgets and celebrated regularly [...]

…you’ll looooooove the strike-era Oscars, which, Variety reports this morning, are going on whether you like it or not. Plans are in the works for an “alternative” ceremony, for which details are vague but might involve “industry heavyweights penning their own speeches and presenting the awards.” Ooooh! Can’t wait to hear that Jeffrey Katzenberg speech! [...]

Idol auditions in Philadelphia. / FOX The devil won. Strike or no strike, though, even I don’t have much stamina for the American Idol audition rounds week in and week out, so I probably won’t rejoin Idol in earnest until the Hollywood round. After seven seasons, we may have wiped the country clean of Idols, [...]

Little Devil Sitting on My Shoulder: He’s watching American Idol. Little Angel Sitting on My Other Shoulder: How can you even say that? He’s watching the Democratic debate on MSNBC. Devil: [Snorts derisively.] Angel: Don’t mock me! American Idol is just two hours of bloated audition footage milking cheap laughs out of bad singers, 95% [...]

FOX At some point I may need to consider putting The Morning After on hiatus, considering, well, we’re starting to run out of TV to discuss the morning after. In the meantime, I’m going to delegate Prison Break to you, since I’m hopelessly behind on it. Or talk about the second night of Sarah Connor [...]