As part of my ongoing effort to use my video iPod to ensure that I never have to read on the subway again, I’ve been sampling video podcasts–this morning, the Mosaic newscast from linkTV.The Peabody Award-winning show, which compiles news reports from around the Middle East, has been available for some time on satellite TV and …

The things I learn watching CNN with the sound off on the elliptical trainer in the morning! The above clip comes via a report this morning that Delta Airlines has been using short video to indoctrinate passengers about airline courtesy. This clip is called “Middleman”–you’ll see why when you watch–and the Planeguage campaign’s …

This time they’ve gone too far! The writers’ strike has officially crippled TV critics’ ability to sit in a hotel ballroom in L.A. and ask questions of the stars of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The Television Critics Association has officially announced that it has cancelled its planned January press tour, owing to a lack of networks …

NBC Photo: Trae Patton

Deal or No Deal was Two. Freaking. Hours. long last night, as the show padded itself out with a twist involving three players at once. Welcome to the writers’ strike, folks–it just gets better from here! (Though Mrs. Tuned In–who belongs to the Bella Voce Singers, due to rock Saint Saviour’s in Park Slope this …

Craig Blankenhorn / AMC

…along with 48 other top tens ranking pretty much every aspect of human (and possibly nonhuman) endeavor, at time.com. Here are my top ten new shows, and here are my top ten returning shows.

Elsewhere, other critic’s lists are starting to trickle in, with an eclectic list from John Leonard at New York …

So much for settling the strike by Christmas. On Friday, the producers’ side walked out of the negotiations as the writers dug in their heels over the Writers’ Guild demand, which they until recently had not been stressing, that it get to represent reality-TV and animation staffers.

Seeing as how the usual purposes of a negotiation are …

How happy it is that, after its post-Family Edition lull, The Amazing Race–the only situation in the world where it’s a bad thing to get inadvertently bumped up from coach to business class–is worth watching again. I won’t spoil last night’s episode, but read the comments at your own risk. All I know is that I suddenly, badly want to …

HBO photo: John P. Johnson

If the blog is reading particularly lame lately, my excuse of the week is that I’ve been buried in end-of-the-year projects, including, but not limited to, the year-end 10-best lists that we post every year on time.com. And this year, there are going to be more than ever! Lists upon lists upon lists! It’s …

You may have already seen the Speechless Hollywood series of videos, produced in support of the writers’ strike, in which celebrity actors demonstrate the dangers of working without a script:

The message: Actors are nothing without the words that writers put in their mouths. The meta-message: You will look at anything if it has a …

Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS

Because of a TV backlog and life in general, Survivor: China is still sitting in my TiVo queue. What kind of idiot invites people to spoil a show he hasn’t watched for him on his own blog? This kind! Share your thoughts, on this or any other of last night’s rerun-heavy December TV, in the comments. I’ll be reading …

Bravo Photo: Trae Patton

If you’re a fan of Bravo’s Project Runway and Top Chef, then you are possibly a fan, but not nearly quite as big a fan, of Top Design and Shear Genius, the home-decor and hair-styling counterparts of those reality shows. If so, then there’s slightly good news for you today! From the network:

Bravo,

…

I should let Swampland handle the political analysis of Mitt Romney’s religion speech, but I suppose my rant yesterday obligates me to follow up.

I should disclose that Romney was not speaking to me, as a nonreligious American: he made that pretty clear with “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” (Joe Klein …

Today in writers’ strike news:

* The upside of the strike is that it has freed up Hollywood talent to devote some quality time to their passion projects. Like going to jail. Kiefer Sutherland gets 24 days, times two, for a DUI infraction and probation violation.

* I get the same press releases as the Washington Post’s Lisa DeMoraes, …