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Deadline day, which means (1) I probably should be working on that, not this post and (2) I have cable news on in the background, on mute. All morning, CNN has been airing a picture-in-picture inset of the NYSE big board, focused on the numbers for the Dow Jones Industrial average (down about 250 points as I write). At the same time, it …

It’s graduation day here at Lost Summer School–I’m on vacation the next two Thursdays, and after that I think we can use a nice little de-Lost-ification break for a while as fall premiere season gears up.

So one last question, and probably the biggest one: What role are the Numbers going to play? I don’t mean What do they mean? in the …

MTV

It’s Laguna Beach. But no Laguna. And a different Beach. Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County, debuting tonight on MTV, moves the Laguna Beach formula up the coast. The original Laguna, of course, also gave us The Hills, whose third season debut–which I still have to catch up on–drew around three and a half million viewers, a …

Well, that was quick. John from Cincinnati aired its last episode Sunday, and, never one to resist a Christ parallel, David Milch has risen again three days later to start work on his next series for HBO, according to Variety:

Sources said the creator will develop the project about a Vietnam veteran who returns to the U.S. in the early

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…wondered, whatever became of My Father’s Word? The geniuses at VH1’s Best Week Ever have the answer. HBO could have saved John from Cincinnati by borrowing a little from a certain Queen City workplace comedy.

Arguably, David Milch beat them to the joke by actually casting Howard Hesseman in JFC. But you still have to give it to the …

I’m not sure if I have it in me to do a weekly Damages Watch. Not that it’s a bad show–as a thriller, anyway, it’s still doing its job–but it’s not the kind of show that really lends itself to a week-by-week breakdown, because its appeal is all about the plot. Four episodes in, for instance, I don’t feel that Patty Hewes’ character is …

Don Imus has settled his breach-of-contract lawsuit with CBS over his firing in the spring and reportedly is negotiating to return to the radio this fall, perhaps with WABC. (Now his lawyers are freed up to deal with the defamation suit a Rutgers player has filed against him and his former employers.)

With Imus’s return to radio looking …

I’ll admit, I have not watched Dan Rather much since he went to HDNet for his post-CBS gig. (For that matter, I didn’t watch Dan Rather much at CBS.) But tonight, he offers up a Dan Rather Reports longform investigation of problems with electronic touch-screen voting machines; including reports of machines being hustled off the line in …

You no longer need to keep 9/11/14 cleared on your calendar; HBO has cancelled John from Cincinnati.

The question, as asked in the comments here and elsewhere, is whether this now means we get those oft-promised two wrapup movies for Deadwood. (To anticipate: forget seeing the whole series again. People have moved on.) As of this …

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, I want you to celebrate my indomitable will to survive by watching Big Love.

I don’t think we’ve discussed this here, but this season David Byrne has been serving as musical consultant on Big Love. (Continuing a trend of alternative rockers migrating to TV: Trent Reznor is reportedly turning a …

The CNN/YouTube debate for Republicans is back on, rescheduled for Nov. 28. Or at least the YouTube debate for some Republicans: Mitt Romney, reportedly, is still holding out, having said–in reference to the Democratic debate last month–that “the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a …

In what counts as major news mostly to TV households with minor dependents, Nickelodeon’s spinoff channels Noggin (commercial TV for toddlers in the daytime) and The N (tween and teen shows by night), which now share a channel, will become separate channels at the end of the year. (It’s the TV equivalent of finally getting your own room …

SPOILER ALERT: Watch John from Cincinnati before you read this, or we’re all going to be toast.

HBO photo: John P. Johnson

Leave it JFC to conclude–and in the absence of miraculous intervention from Cincinnati, we’ve got to consider this a series finale–with a wrap-up, what-happened-to-them epilogue that left the show more puzzling, …