A new President with high approval ratings is taking on a national crisis that no one wants to see him screw up. Can the media cover him toughly and critically? It didn’t do so hot when the President was George W. Bush and the crisis was the 9/11 attacks. Whether it can do any better this time around—and whether Obama will end-around …

Though it’s currently buried in the news cycle by the plane crash in New York City, news has also broken today that scientists have discovered methane in Mars’ atmosphere. The significance of the news, evidently, is that methane is often generated by life, “because organisms release much of Earth’s methane as they digest nutrients.” In …

On CNN right now, Wolf Blitzer is talking by cell phone to survivors of the plane crash in the Hudson River. For all the technology on The Situation Room, sometimes the most powerful communications device is a human voice on a phone.

Update: From a reporter in the press scrum surrounding a survivor, the last question plugs the …

I’m not sure I would be writing about The Beast, debuting tonight on A&E, if it did not star Patrick Swayze, which is to say, if star Patrick Swayze did not have pancreatic cancer. The grimy, Chicago-set cop drama itself, of which I’ve seen two episodes, is sort of The Shield lite—which is to say, The Shield dark, but not as …

Headlines and announcements from and around the Television Critics’ Association press tour:

* JAG spinoff NCIS will itself get a spinoff. Apparently CBS will keep milking its military-law success until it runs out of alphabet. Also, looks like John Mayer is getting a TV show. (The title Wonderland was already taken.)

* OMG GOSSIP …

Maybe that’s the true gift of “Lost”: In this digital, multimedia age, in which we’re all allegedly off in our own, solitary worlds, pursuing our own interests, loving “Lost” is a communal, interactive experience. It doesn’t matter if your water-cooler is virtual or real — this is a show that you just have to discuss with

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First came news that Patrick McGoohan, star of The Prisoner, had died. Now comes the passing of the star of another seminal, but entirely different, TV fantasy set in a surreal, beautiful yet menacing resort locale. Ricardo Montalbán, who died at age 88, was known, among other roles, as Star Trek’s Khan and the pitchman for the rich …

Somewhere on my would-have-been-nice-if-I’d-had-time list this week: Review Make ‘Em Laugh on PBS for Tuned In. That fell by the wayside, along many other matters work- and personal-hygiene-related, but the first installment aired last night on public television stations.

The premise is a sterling example of one of those solid, …

Flight of the Conchords returns to HBO Sunday night, along with Big Love. Last fall, I sat down with Bret, Jemaine and co-writer James Bobin on the set of the Conchords’ apartment (which is devoid of furniture because of a plot development—long story). Time.com has the video. With clips from the show. And big Inside the Actors’ Studio …

You asked for it—or at least a couple of you did—in this morning’s Idol post, so here’s an open-comment thread for tonight’s audition round of American Idol. Work it out, dawg.

Patrick McGoohan, the creator/star of the brilliant and elliptical series The Prisoner, has died at age 80. His best-known work, which aired in the States on CBS, was a disturbing but engrossing mystery, exploring Cold War themes of paranoia and totalitarianism; in it, McGoohan played Number Six, a former spy who is imprisoned in a …