FOX

The Amazing Race has been in a bit of a ratings slump the last couple seasons, but the show is not beyond rescuing. Say, for instance, you made Phil Keoghan a murderous, criminal S.O.B., the front for a shadowy organization that ran the race for the entertainment of powerful interests. Say some of the racers had their family …

One of the points I tried to get at in my Imus story was that it was an example of a new kind of media explosion that technology has helped to make possible:

We may be more inured to shock than ever, but when someone manages to find and cross a line, we’re better able to generate, spread and sustain offense. … Every public figure

…

Danger–other shoe falling! Some thoughts:

* So he doesn’t get to finish the telethon? Will someone be reimbursed?

* Which satellite-radio exec won the speed-dialing contest to Imus’ agent?

* My Time story, of course, went to press before the announcement. I’ll see about having the magazine mail pens to the print subscribers, so they …

…because you knew there had to be a TV-decency angle, right?

In the midst of closing my epic about Imusgate yesterday, I received an email press release from our friends at the Parents Television Council:

The Parents Television Council renewed its call for the cable industry to provide true cable choice to consumers so that those who

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SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched last night’s Lost yet, drink this glass of orange juice…

ABC/ MARIO PEREZ

Oh, Juliet! You naughty girl! I had been worried that last night’s Lost was going to try to win us over to Juliet’s side, making her a sympathetic new member of the gang immediately. Fortunately, the writers realized that …

Posted on time.com this morning, my big fat story on the I-man’s I-plosion and its I-mplications, which will be the cover of the next print TIME magazine. I try to spin the story forward, as we say in the biz, by looking at the big picture of public and pop-culture discourse today. (“Discourse”! Yes, I was an English major! There’s a …

Upside for MSNBC: People are forced to write headlines with MSNBC in them. CBS Radio, meanwhile–which has a larger financial stake in the show–released a statement that they’re sticking to a two-week suspension for now. Meanwhile, they “will continue to speak with all concerned parties.” (Mmmmyeah: the concerned parties who keep their …

My Idol review is up; you know what you must do.

My predix for the bottom three: Phil, Haley, not Sanjaya, which leaves room for one of the front-runners to get the traditional “shocking” bottom three scare… I’m going to roll the dice and say LaKisha but Melinda is not outside the realm of possibility. Going home: Haley. Extra credit …

NBC/Bill Records

Friday Night Lights on NBC has had the dubious pleasure of being a show whose story parallels its existence as a TV show: a highly regarded, big-hearted, setback-plagued underdog fighting every week against the prospect of elimination and hoping some Hail Mary will save it. (Despite some encouraging hints, there’s been …

Larry Birkhead, you are the winner! Let the cable-news frenzy commence!

An apology, by the way, to longtime Tuned In readers, for our suddenly having become Swampland over the course of the last two days. I promise to return to my regular program of esoteric TV musings and extremely low traffic as soon as possible.