The TV networks are making critics feel less special all the time. Here I thought I was all that because I’d seen a DVD of 30 Rock’s (very good) premiere episode airing next week. And then NBC goes and puts it on Hulu / MySpace Primetime:

NBC also sent me the second episode. So I still have that to cling to.

The death of the network evening news has been postponed, at least until after the election. Riding an increase in buzz (if not in actual ratings), Katie Couric will be hosting a double-sized hourlong edition of the CBS Evening News. Well, for one night, anyway, the day before Election Day:

Katie Couric will anchor an extended, one-hour

…

I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this, but I have seen the series finale of The Shield. For fear of spoilerizing anything, I’m not going to so much as fleetingly characterize it for now—sorry—but anyone who watched this week’s episode can see that Shawn Ryan is paring down the storylines and setting up the final episodes for …

…and thanks to chelsea15jk in an earlier thread for pointing out that the Dark UFO website has posted a promo for season 5 of Lost:

[Update: I haven’t actually seen this air on ABC, by the way—I don’t watch a lot of ads generally, thanks to Tivo—but unlike some of the homemade “trailers” floating around YouTube, this pretty …

Last night, most of America watched the first game of the World Series on Fox. Some of the less athletically minded of us watched Stylista on The CW, in which young fashion aspirants compete to become an assistant at Elle magazine. Being a go-fer for a fashion magazine is actually probably about exactly as …

I’m tempted to just post that headline and let the Comments section fill up by itself. But there’s an actual news peg. The Pew Research Center has done a study of campaign coverage since September, and found that 36% of stories about Obama were positive in tone, 29% negative and 35% mixed. For McCain, it was 57% negative, 14% positive, …

Nielsen has released a nifty breakdown of America’s favorite cable-TV shows by political party, as measured by the viewers’ “engagement” with the show, or how much attention they pay to it. It’s so tantalyzing I’m not even going to stop to question whether or how it is possible to measure how hard a person watches TV.

The top shows, by …

Have a screening and some other business this morning, so I leave you to talk among yourselves. First order of business: Fringe. Didn’t you have Chris Eigeman pegged for a sci-fi villain the moment you saw him in those Whit Stillman movies?

Credit where it’s due time. Tuned In has poked its share of fun at Sarah Palin and her cosseting from the press these past few weeks. But man, is the woman making up for lost time! She’s talking to CNN’s Situation Room today, doing an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams and has begun fielding questions from the reporters in her press …

On the new 90210, a black guy raised by a white family attempts to fit in to the exclusive, largely white world of Beverly Hills teen society. In the Nov. 4 election, a black guy raised by a white family attempts to fit in to the exclusive, largely white club of U.S. Presidents.

Worried that you’d have to choose between the two stories? …

For a full season. It may not have the ratings or the critical praise, but the ’80s talking-car remark remake has one thing going for it: the fact that NBC can’t cancel everything it’s put on the air this year at once.

Update: In unrelated but happier news, Showtime just announced that it’s bringing Back Dexter for a fourth and fifth season.