Lance Staedler/CBS To understand why The Mentalist is on CBS’ fall schedule, you need to understand three basic things: 1. CBS got burned with shows like Viva Laughlin and Swingtown last year 2. A lot of people apparently like Psych 3. CBS is singlemindedly convinced that Simon Baker is destined to be a big TV [...]

…but evidently Sarah Palin isn’t avoiding all media questions on her visit to New York: This notice just in from CBS News: Katie Couric will conduct an exclusive interview with Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin tomorrow (24) as Palin meets with world leaders in New York City coinciding with the meeting of the United Nations [...]

“You can’t blink,” Sarah Palin told Charles Gibson earlier this month, describing her resolute nature. In a showdown with her media pool today in New York, however, Palin—or at least her press handlers—did. Before Palin met with her first foreign head of state (always such a special moment), her staffers laid down some conditions: cameras [...]

Hey, parents! Want to teach your kids about American democracy in time for the election but are afraid of revealing your own ignorance? Well, fear no more! Today brings the DVD release of Schoolhouse Rock: The Election Collection, featuring each Bicentennial-era ABC Saturday morning short—from No More Kings to Three-Ring Government—plus a few other government-related [...]

If you are reading this, I am already dead. That, or, more likely, I am mid-deadline, pulling my lack of hair out over my column, and have not yet gotten around to writing up a review of the season 3 premiere of Heroes, the second half of which I had to watch on live TV [...]