The TCA Winter Press Tour is an event which never quite seems to live up to the TCA Summer Press Tour...but, then, that stands to reason, as the mid-season series rarely match the ones which hit the airwaves in the fall, right? Still, the experience never fails to be one which I enjoy, mostly because you never know what's going to be around the corner, and Day 1 really set the stage for that: during the course of 12 hours, I interviewed Betty White, Henry Rollins, and Bruce Jenner, and, thanks to National Geographic, I wore a giant snake around my neck. Not a bad way to begin things...

It felt like there was more star power on hand than usual for a winter tour...but, then, having Oprah in your midst kind of skewers your perceptions on that sort of thing. I suppose it's a testament to how many famous people I've met over the years, though, that one of the biggest reasons I look forward to the tour is not because of who I might interview but, rather, because I'll get the chance to hang out with the friends I've made within the TCA. All told, it was another great time, but, as ever, when it was over, I was more than ready to get back home to my family and share my memories with them...and with you, too, of course.

Well, let's get on with the reminiscing, shall we?

Oh, but one word of warning: if you followed my daily dispatches during the tour, then a couple of these stories will sound strikingly familiar, but please rest assured that the majority of the material has not been copied wholesale and is, in fact, 100% new. Swear to God.

Most entertaining panel by a broadcast network: “Made in Spain” (PBS)

Not being a foodie, I wouldn’t have known José Andrés prior to his kick-off of PBS’s first day at the TCA tour if he’d been standing next to me…and, even then, I wouldn’t have known that I was supposed to care who he was. After several minutes of clips from the first season of “Made in Spain,” however, I was already in love with the series, and when Andres himself took the stage, it was impossible not to be charmed by him. He’s a sweetheart of a guy for whom food truly is life, but he’s also a hoot.

Most entertaining panel by a cable network: “An Idiot Abroad” (Science Channel)

I was seriously bummed when I heard that no one from “An Idiot Abroad” was going to be in attendance for the show’s panel, but I figured, “Okay, at least they’ll be there via satellite.” In retrospect, there’s no way they could’ve been funnier if they’d actually been onsite. Naturally, just being in Karl Pilkington’s presence was enough to inspire Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant to dissolve into a fit of giggles, but they were utterly warranted this go-round.

Here, see for yourself:

Most annoying panel: "Platinum Hit" (Bravo)

Between Kara DioGuardi handling a question about "American Idol" about as poorly as she possibly could have - read more about that here - and Jewel dropping names like they were hot potatoes (“I was talking to Steven Spielberg…”), I'm hard pressed to think of any panel that left a worse taste in my mouth.

Panel which had the least need for an audience: “The Best of Laugh-In” (PBS)

It wasn’t entirely surprising that a panel consisting of Lily Tomlin, Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Gary Owens and George Schlatter would be able keep things moving along without any of the critics in attendance actually needing to ask a question, but they kept passing the conversational ball back and forth until someone in the crowd finally had to stand up and ask if it was okay to ask a question. Schlatter instantly shot back, “We’re trying to talk here!” Laughter ensued, as did plenty of questions about the history of “Laugh-In.” “Are you guys having fun?” Schlatter asked later. “Because we're having a ball!” Must be what keeps them looking so young: you’d never in a million years believe that Worley - that's her in the feathered boa, in case you hadn't guessed - is 73 years old.

Funniest panel that you probably had to be there to appreciate: “Community” (NBC)

The only person not in attendance was Chevy Chase, who was described as being “very under the weather,’ but his co-stars more than made up for his absence. If I tried to tell you about it, though, you’d probably just stare blankly at me. Some of the funniness came from the giggling of the various panelists, some it involved one-liners which would require a lengthy amount of set-up for you to appreciate, some of it was totally visual, and…well, you get the idea. But it really was hilarious, I swear. The most easily-translatable moment is probably Donald Glover’s story about how they had to teach Betty White the lyrics to Toto’s “Africa” on the set. “I assumed she knew ‘Africa,’” he said. “I was, like, ‘Everybody knows that song!’ But, like, that song was out when she was already old. She was already 50-something.”

Greatest Moment of Complete Honesty During the Tour: When I approached Jack McBrayer (“30 Rock”) to ask him a question, he agreed, but then he looked down at my recorder and said, “Oh, my! You’re not going to record this, are you? I’d rather you didn’t.” At this point, he performed a perfect mock aside, holding a hand to his mouth and whispering, “I’m a little bit tipsy!” So I turned off my recorder. Kudos to you, Mr. McBrayer. Would that more actors had that blend of good humor and common sense.

Most common recurring question during the panels: “Who’s the moral center of your show?”

I am at a loss to understand why this vaguely pretentious-sounding query suddenly became the must-ask of the tour, but I’m sure I heard it asked half a dozen times, maybe more.

Most promising new cable program that I didn’t know much about before going into the tour: “Too Big to Fail” (HBO)

Even without knowing the subject matter of the film (it’s about the whole Lehman Brothers financial saga of a few years ago), just seeing the list of cast members is enough to make the title seem apropos. Dig these names: William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Topher Grace, Billy Crudup, James Woods, Bill Pullman, Matthew Modine, Tony Shaloub, Cynthia Nixon, Michael O’Keefe, Dan Hedaya, Kathy Baker, and Ed Asner as Warren Buffett. Seriously, how can this thing go wrong?

Least promising new broadcast network program that I didn’t know anything about before going into the tour: “America’s Next Great Restaurant” (NBC)

One of the critics asked, “Do you remember Rocco’s DiSpirito’s TV show, ‘The Restaurant’?” I do not. And I won’t remember to watch this one, either. Who cares?

My best opening salvo for an interview: telling Malcolm McDowell that I really loved his audio commentary for “Caligula.”

It could’ve backfired horribly on me, but given that it’s one of my all-time favorite commentaries (and given how thoroughly amused he seems to be throughout the proceedings), I had to lead with this unique piece of praise. As it happens, his eyes lit up immediately as he informed me that he’d wanting for years to do a one-man show about his experiences working on the film, assuring me that he’d saved a few stories for just such an occasion.

Favorite moment during a one-on-one interview: Phil Morris channeling the spirit of Lord Buckley.

We were talking about the character of Jackie Chiles, which Morris played on “Seinfeld” and has recently revived for FunnyOrDie.com. Morris - now on TV One's "Love That Girl!" - was trying to explain how Jackie’s delivery was what made the character funny, but while trying to come up with a name, he kept saying, “F. Lee…F. Lee...” F. Lee Bailey? “No, I mean, uh, Buckley.” Before he could clarify that he meant William F. Buckley, I laughed and suggested that he might be referring to Lord Buckley. At this reference, Morris raised his eyebrows and launched into a perfect impression of the mustachioed hipster comedian, which just about knocked me backwards. “Come on now, how often do you get to break that out?” I asked. Morris burst out laughing and offered a fist bump, praising me for “digging deep,” but I dare say the same praise could be lavished on him as well.

Favorite one-on-one interview overall: Tyler Labine, “Mad Love” (CBS)

I’ve got to go with Mr. Labine on this one. I met him during my first TCA tour in 2007, back when he was pimping the premiere of “Reaper,” and between Facebook, phoners, and further TCA events…well, I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to say we’re friends, but we’ve definitely built a comfortable rapport when it comes to our conversations. As such, his first words involved apologizing for the fact that we couldn’t kick back and drink scotch this time (that’s what we did when he was promoting “Sons of Tucson” for Fox) because he had to be back on the set in a few hours. Still, he’s a nice guy, he’s got a nice beard, and, once again, we had a nice – if woefully alcohol-free – interview.

Most intimidating roundtable interview: Tommy Lee Jones, “The Sunset Limited” (HBO)

Everyone warned me. They said, “He’s not a good interview, he hates doing press, and if you’re not planning to bring your A-game, then you might as well not come at all.” But, dammit, it’s Tommy Lee Jones. How do you turn down the chance to sit in the presence of that guy? Better yet, I’d watched and really enjoyed his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s play, “The Sunset Limited,” which he’d directed for HBO and starred in as well, along with Samuel L. Jackson. Sure, I was intimidated, but I’d done my research, I had my questions, and I was ready to roll.

As it turns out, Mr. Jones was everything I’d been promised and more, but while I had gotten out without having any of my questions insulted or dismissed, my original perception of the experience was heavily colored by one of my fellow journalists being informed at one point, “You know, I’ve already said that. I’ve already answered that question.” Listening back to the recording, though, I actually did better than I’d recalled: of the three writers who were there, I was the first to get a halfway decent answer out of him, and if I never really hit any out of the park, at least none of my questions resulted in a full-fledged swing and a miss. Still, if there’s such a thing as a badge of courage for TV critics, I feel as though one should be sent my way post-haste.

Least successful one-on-one interview: Mike Tyson, “Taking on Tyson” (Animal Planet)

When he swaggered into the evening event which was held by the OWN Network but encompassed all members of the Discovery Channel family, I thought, “Okay, I work for a guys’ website: I have to talk to Mike Tyson.” I approached him and asked him a question revolving around how he’s suddenly a media presence again, first with “The Hangover” and now with this new series. Before he could answer, one of his “handlers” ran up and said, “Hey, Mike, I found ya some food!” At this, Tyson grabbed himself something to eat and walked away, my question unanswered.

Later in the evening, it had become de rigueur to go up to Tyson and ask if he’d be willing to let you take your picture with him. I restrained myself at first, but then I finally decided, “Well, maybe I’ll just try again with my question, then someone can take a picture of me while I’m talking to him.” So I approached him once more and said, “Hey, Mike, can I ask you a quick question about the new show?” He glanced at me…and said, “Nah.” No less than 10 seconds later, he was taking more photos with people. That’s what I get for trying to work.

My 7 Favorite Cheap Thrills of the Tour:

1. Meeting the Fonz. Yeah, I know, Henry Winkler hasn’t been the Fonz in decades, but he’ll always be the Fonz to me. I’m thrilled for him, though, that the work offers are coming in fast and furious: he was at the tour as a cast member for both Adult Swim’s “Childrens Hospital” and USA’s “Royal Pains.”

2. Breathing the same air as Oprah. I’m pretty sure this means I’ll never get cancer!

3. Calling Elijah Wood on fucking up my shopping at Amoeba Music last tour. Wood was at the Fox party to promote his new FX series, “Wilfred,” and when I found a chance to chat with him, I said, “First, I’ve got a photo I want to show you.” I broke out my iPhone and showed him a shot I’d taken of him at the turntable at Amoeba. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I was DJ’ing that day!” “Yeah,” I replied, “and you were also totally blocking the bargain bin. I only get there once, maybe twice a year, dude. That totally sucked.” He laughed, but he still looked appropriate chagrined, and he apologized. Given how much of a music geek he is, I think he probably even meant it.

4. Interviewing Paris Hilton. What can I tell you? She’s hot.

5. Successfully asking Jerry Rice a question about football, despite the fact that I don’t know anything about football, let alone Jerry Rice. Let it never be said that I’m not up for a challenge.

6. Spending 20 minutes with Bruce Jenner talking about nothing but his acting gigs from the late '70s and early '80s. I don't keep up with the Kardashians and don't plan to start anytime soon, but I do enjoy the chance to ask people about projects that they haven't been given the chance to talk about in awhile. And that is why I have 20 minutes of anecdotes from Jenner about serving as a defacto replacement for Erik Estrada on "CHiPs" for several episodes, working with Harry Belafonte, LeVar Burton, and Dennis Haysbert on "Grambling's White Tiger," and, of course, all the dirt he cared to dish on the experience of working with Valerie Perrine and the Village People on "Can't Stop the Music." The only time his family's TV series came up was when one of his daughters called to tell him that they'd won the People's Choice Award for Guilty Pleasure...and it didn't even occur to me to ask which daughter!

7. Just being in the same room with Jeff Bridges. How could this not be on here? He's The Dude, for God's sake.

Most awesome visit to the set of a network show: "Parks & Recreation" (NBC)

I admit that it took me a little while to get past my general indifference to the first season of this show, but having devoured the Season 2 set and quickly moved on to the six episodes of Season 3 that were sent out to critics in advance of the tour, I was psyched when I heard that we'd be visiting the nerve center of the Pawnee government. I was bummed that Chris Pratt wasn't in attendance, but I was part of the group which was toured around the set by Adam Scott and Michael Schur and given up close looks at the offices of Lesley Knope and Ron Swanson, along with some of Pawnee's most (in)famous murals. Plus, I...well, at the moment, if I told you that I had my picture taken with Li'l Sebastian, it wouldn't mean anything to you, but I promise you that when the time comes for the episode revolving around the Harvest Festival, you'll be all, like, "He got his picture taken with Li'l Sebastian! Sweet! That dude is awesome!" Or, at least, that's what Tom Haverford would say, anyway.

Most awesome visit to the set of a basic cable show: "Conan," TBS

I guess "awesome" might be overdoing it a bit, but I'm a big Conan fan, so it was just cool to be able to check out the set. Unsurprisingly, Conan himself - flanked by longtime pal and producer Jeff Ross - had lots of funny stuff to say, much of it self-deprecating. But, then, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Best piece of swag: If you were to ask my daughter, it'd probably be the game of Jenga that was offered up during Fox's "Raising Hope" breakfast, which, although she'd never played it before I brought it home, has taken to it like a duck to water. Frankly, I thought she'd like the Mickey Mouse ears with her name embroidered on it more. Just goes to show that fathers don't know the first thing about their daughters. For my part, it would've been the Greendale Community College shirt, except that it was a large rather than the XXL that I'd need to ever wear it in public. (Note to network publicity departments: given that you're dealing with a group of individuals who spend the majority of their day sitting in front of their television sets, it wouldn't be the craziest idea in the world to upgrade the sizes you send out. I've been a member of the TCA since 2007, and I think I've been able to fit into maybe two of the 50+ promotional shirts I've gotten in that time. On the other hand, my daughter has a lot of really awesome nightshirts.) In the end, though, I've got to go with the bloody bathmat left in front of the tub for us by Fearnet. Thank God I was given advance warning that it was waiting in the room for me...

Best off-site visit that wasn’t connected to the tour: to The Vanguard for the taping of two episodes of “The Green Room with Paul Provenza.”

At the end of 2010, I pulled together a piece which featured my favorite quotes of the year. After doing so, I sent the link to all of my interview subjects who were on Facebook, thanking them for being a part of the piece and wishing us both the best in 2011. Paul Provenza immediately wrote back, saying, “Thank you! Let’s do other stuff.” A few days later, I received an invite to attend tapings for the second season of his Showtime series, and since the dates happened to be in the heart of the TCA tour, I took him up on his kind offer, bringing my friends Christine Becknell and Eric Field with me.

What an incredible evening: free food, an open bar (I don’t mind telling you that the Newcastle was going down smoooooooth), and some seriously funny people, including Lewis Black, Ron White, Kathleen Madigan, Jamie Kilstein, Richard Lewis, Margaret Cho, Jeffrey Ross, and Kumail Nanjiani. Other comedians, including Rick Overton, Doug Stanhope, and David Feldman, were in the house, as were Sugar Ray Leonard and Ron Jeremy.

I think my personal favorite one-liner came when Ron White denied being an alcoholic, explaining, “I only drink when I work,” then adding, “But I am a workaholic.” What I’ll inevitably remember most, though. All in all, though, it’s hard to top Ron Jeremy repeatedly falling asleep during the taping of the second episode. Like that wouldn’t be embarrassing enough, but the poor bastard did it directly in front of Jeffrey Ross, who ripped him to shreds every time he caught him. (“Hey, look, Ron Jeremy must have an erection! He’s passed out from all of the blood rushing to his cock!”) Good times, to be sure.

Most awesome live performance of the tour: David Foster, promoting “Great Performances: Hitman Returns – David Foster and Friends” for PBS.

PBS really did right by us on this tour. For the first of their two evening events, they provided us with a performance from Harry Connick, Jr., who blew the roof off the joint in suitably jazzy fashion. Ultimately, though, he couldn’t hold a candle to David Foster, who opened with the love theme from “St. Elmo’s Fire,” followed with a medley of his biggest hits, along with clarification as to which of his ex-wives owned the rights to them, and then brought out a couple of friends to join in the fun. Although Charice – you may recall her from her appearance on “Glee” – knocked Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” out of the park, she still couldn’t defeat Donna Summer, who minutes earlier had turned the Langham into a discotheque with a breathtaking rendition of one of her signature songs, “Last Dance.” Damn, that woman’s still got some pipes!

Best party: Fox

It’s so weird: during the summer, it feels like Fox goes out of their way to put us in the loudest, most distracting environment possible (the amusement park on the Santa Monica pier), thereby making it almost impossible to conduct decent interviews. This is the second winter tour, however, where they’ve rented out Villa Sorriso for their evening function. Why can’t they do that in the summer, too? Sure, it’s crowded, but it’s a hell of a lot more conducive to conversation. Plus, they’re not afraid to offer up 12-year-old Macallan’s, which, as it turns out, is pretty damned conducive to conversation, too.

Most pleasantly surprising party: Hallmark Channel

I know the cool kids can't in good conscience admit to watching either the Hallmark Channel or its sister movie network, but I don't mind telling you that they know how to throw a classy party. It was a sit-down affair - the only one of the tour - where the food was delicious and the wine only stopped flowing when we walked out the door, at which point we were handed a bottle of Brut champagne as a parting gift!

Worst party: ABC / CBS (tie)

I understand that the networks don’t feel the need to go quite as all-out with their winter tour functions as they do during the summer, but the ABC and CBS network families took cost-cutting to a depressing low. Okay, I understand why ABC would only offer up talent from their mid-season shows, but given that most TCA members only get out to the west coast twice a year, it was depressing not to have the chance to interview cast members from their other series. Meanwhile, CBS didn’t even have a party. Well, not really, anyway. Instead, it was all, like, “Oh, hey, we sent home everybody who was here to promote their new CBS and Showtime series, but here are the people who were just onstage for the panels for The CW, so stand in the lobby and ask them questions!” Yeah, but…they were just onstage. Oh, well, at least it gave me the chance to have a pleasant conversation with Sara Rue, right?

Oh, wait, I forgot…

Most annoying moment of the tour: having Sara Rue’s personal publicist start tapping her watch at about 90 seconds into my attempt to interview her client.

I love Sara Rue. I think she’s as cute as can be, I’ve thought so ever since she was starring in ABC’s “Less Than Perfect,” and her guest appearances on three different CBS comedies (“Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Rules of Engagement”) have only cemented my appreciation of her work as a comedic actress. As such, you can understand why I gravitated toward her during The CW’s post-panel cocktail party in an attempt to grab a brief one-on-one interview with her about her new gig as the host of “Shedding for the Wedding.” The good news: Ms. Rue herself was as sweet as could be. In fact, from what I can tell, her only real fault would seem to be her taste in personal publicists.

The publicist was standing outside of Rue’s line of vision when the tapfest began. Frankly, since I was focused on my interview subject, I only half-realized what I was seeing at first. In fact, I pretty much convinced myself that it couldn’t have been what I was seeing, and I kept right on with another question. About 30 seconds later, however, the tapping resumed, this time more furiously and now accompanied by a look which hovered between annoyance and anger. Having little choice in the matter, I wrapped the interview and thanked Rue, who seemed to have enjoyed our short time together, but my plans to do a full-length piece offering a look at “Shedding for the Wedding” as well as an exploration of Rue’s earlier career had been shot all to hell.

What happened? Best guess: the publicist didn’t know me, wasn’t familiar with Bullz-Eye, and only gave me the time she did because she was in a room filled with CW executives and couldn’t get away with refusing me altogether. Next TCA tour, though, I’m thinking about wearing a t-shirt to all press events which reads, “Just because you don’t know me doesn’t mean I suck.”

Okay, last time I ended on my most annoying moment of the tour, and it felt woefully anticlimactic, so this time I’m going to end with a few laughs and offer up…

The Top 11 Quotes from the TCA Tour (one for each day of the tour):

1. “I got a little bit nervous when they told me that I had to be speaking in front of TV critics. I knew I was coming here to share time at PBS, but all of a sudden it’s, like, ‘The room is going to be full of TV critics.’ Great: all my life dealing with food critics one by one, and now I’m going to have to be dealing with an entire room of TV critics…?” – Jose Andres, “Made in Spain” (PBS)

2. “What is this Betty White business? This is silly. Really, it is very silly. You’ve had such an overdose of me lately. Trust me. I think I’m going to go away for a while. It’s hard for me to say no to a job because you spend your career thinking if you say no, they’ll never ask you again, and if you don’t take the job, you know, that may be the end of it, but my mother taught me to say no when I was a girl, but that wasn’t about show business. So the result is I’m trying to cut down. I really am.” – Betty White, “Hot in Cleveland” (TV Land)

3. “Betty White is in the building. Did you hear that? I hope I get to touch her. I just had cataracts, and I’m still adjusting, but what I see is looking pretty good.” – Ed Asner, “Working Class” (CMT)

4. “The one note we did get (for ‘Children’s Hospital’), it was from Warner Brothers…I hesitate to even tell you this, but when we turned in our first script for the web series, Warner Brothers called us up and said, ‘Um, do you think you could cut the shot where we actually see the Twin Towers burning?’ And we were like, ‘Yeah, do you know what? That’s a great note.’” – Rob Corddry, “Children’s Hospital” (Adult Swim)

5. “My opinion don’t mean nothing. I’m here to talk about pigeons and stuff. Anything other than that, I’m a schmuck.” – Mike Tyson, “Taking on Tyson” (Animal Planet)

6. “If Oprah would have asked me to ride a unicycle naked and backwards at night, I would have asked her, ‘Where do I sign up?’ It’s Oprah.” – Mark Burnett, Your OWN Show (OWN)

7. “I wanted to be a substitute for Joan Lunden. And the agent at the time told me there weren’t going to be any more black people on network television. He said, 'They’ve already got Bryant Gumbel.' And I said, 'But that’s another channel.' And he said, 'No, no. They’ve already got Bryant Gumbel. That’s not going to happen.'" – Oprah Winfrey, Owner of OWN

8. “I think the expectation that women be attractive as well as funny has just always been there. We even need attractive news anchors who are telling us about death and destruction and they still need to be pretty. I don’t know why it is. Some sociobiological level. We need to look at females and think, ‘I would hit that.’ I think that the gentlemen may need it.” – Julie Bowen, “Modern Family” (ABC)

9. Q: Are you going to have to put Steve on a five second delay on (’American Idol’)?
Steven Tyler: Fuck, no. (Pauses) I question whether I should have done that just now.

10. “‘The Good Wife’ was always meant ironically. I think it’s actually very descriptive. I think the comment I made was it would have been nice to be ironic and call it ‘The Sexy Wife’ or ‘The Sexy Wife Whose Husband Goes Down On Her’ or something like that. That might have brought in more people.” – Robert King, “The Good Wife” (CBS)

11. “Do you guys ask questions for a profession? You’re pretty good. You don’t look like much as a group, but…good questions.” – Steve Young, “Year of the Quarterback” (ESPN)

Although I mentioned in the intro to my chat with Ben Rappaport that my encounter with him at the 2011 Winter TCA Tour was the first time I'd ever spoken with him, it was not the first time I'd talked to a cast member of "Outsourced." I had the pleasure of speaking with Rizwan Manji and Parvesh Cheena back in August at the summer TCA tour, and having enjoyed watching the ensemble of the show really come together since then, I took advantage of the opportunity to talk to them again. It was an added bonus, however, that the lovely Anisha Nagarajan, who plays Madhuri on the series (and who I'd not met previously), happened to walk up while we were chatting. All three were jazzed about the way "Outsourced" has been coming along and, perhaps more surprisingly, are actually kind of excited about their new 10:30 PM timeslot, which takes effect tonight.

One housekeeping note: there are a couple of questions within the piece which were asked by my TCA compatriot Bill Brioux, who has a great and appropriately-titled site called TV Feeds My Family. Poor Bill was forced to battle his way through the last half of the tour with an excruciating case of laryngitis, and he asked if - in lieu of trying to croak out all of his questions - he could piggyback on a couple of my interviews, so if you should happen to be one of the few people who reads both of us, let me assure you that any crossover between our pieces on "Outsourced" is totally authorized.

Bullz-Eye: You and I first met back in the summer, for the initial “Outsourced” panel. Are you nervous about being back amongst the critics?

Rizwan Manji: (Laughs) You know what? We’re very excited to be back. We’re glad that we’re still here and that we’re doing so well, so we’re very happy about that. Yeah, I think we’re a little bit more relaxed than we were in August. We were very nervous about what we were going to be asked, and we hadn’t done it before. Now, we’re sort of…we’ve gone to a bunch of different events now, so we’re a little bit calmer than we were in August.

BE: Plus, you guys are a hit now.

RM: Yes! We’re very excited about that!

BE: I liked the show from the get-go, actually. I used to work in a call center, so I had a natural affinity to the concept.

RM: So you’re the real Todd, I guess? (Laughs)

BE: Well, I did my best. In fact, I just spoke with your onscreen nemesis a few minutes ago.

RM: You did…? (Cuts eyes suspiciously around the room, then laughs)

BE: You guys really have some great chemistry together, a hero/villain dynamic or whatever you want to call it.

RM: Oh, thank you! Yeah, me and Ben, we have a tremendous time. We actually even live really close by each other, so we actually even see each other on the weekends. My daughter loves him, and whenever she sees him on TV, she’s always, like, “More Ben! More Ben!” (Laughs) She’s two, and that’s what she can come up with. You know, it’s…I’m so thankful that, as you said, the chemistry worked out, because we never auditioned together. It was one of those things where I found out really late in the game, because, as I think I might’ve mentioned to you in the summer, I auditioned for a different part. So when we actually met was the first time we were reading it for the network, and we were, like, “Oh, my God, this works!” So it could’ve gone horribly wrong, or it could’ve been this, and I’m so happy that we have a little bit of chemistry.

BE: Is it fun getting to play slimy? And I mean that in the best possible way, of course.

RM: (Laughs) You know, it’s so cathartic, I guess, because I get to say the meanest things. My wife always says, “Don’t bring that home with you!” Sometimes I get home and I’m using words that I’ve used on the set. But it’s a lot of fun. Rajiv gets to say the craziest things.

BE: Speaking of crazy things, all of us critics got a lovely Halloween gift from the show: our very own remote-controlled tarantula, a la the one Rajiv destroyed on the show. Were you fortunate enough to get your own? Because my daughter loves ours.

RM: I was not! Actually, we only had six of them on set, and they said, “If we ruin all six of them, the shot is done.” Luckily, we got it on the last take, because I had actually demolished all six of them by the end of that thing. So, no, I did not get one to take home…but now that I know you got one, I’m going to ask for one! (Laughs) I was actually out in Phoenix yesterday doing a press event, and they were giving out my favorite novelty, the toilet-bowl mug. That was great. The novelties are becoming characters on their own!

BE: Now that you’ve been working together for a few months now, who’s the easiest to make laugh and who’s the hardest?

RM: The easiest, I would probably say, are Ben and Anisha…Todd and Madhuri. They’re the easiest to break up. The one who pulls the most pranks is Parvesh, who plays Gupta. Definitely. He’s constantly doing crazy things to us on and off the set. There’s a video floating around where he’s taking a close-up video of the inside of my nose. So, yeah, he does crazy things like that.

BE: Where does Diedrich Bader fall in the ranks?

RM: Diedrich, he’s a prankster, but you’d be surprised: he’s very professional on set. He does lighten up at some points, and he’s so funny when you see him on TV, but he’s actually very, very professional. A joy to work with, but very professional.

BE: They showed us a little clip today of the upcoming Bollywood sequence.

RM: By far my favorite episode, and I’m so glad it’s on January 20th, when we move to 10:30 PM. You saw the little clip of the dancing, but you don’t actually hear the singing. Three of us sing, but only one of us can actually sing, so…

(At this point, Parvesh Cheena strolls up and joins the conversation.)

RM: I was just talking about you. We’re talking about how awful you are in the next episode.

Parvesh Cheena: Oh, shut up! You Canadians… (Referring to Manji, who is from Toronto, ON) …don’t know hell.

RM: (Laughs) So, yeah, there’s the Bollywood dance sequence, and then there’s the singing, so…

PC: Riz sings, too, by the way.

RM: I won’t tell you if I’m one of the good ones or not. I might be the terrible one.

PC: Let’s just say it’s a song by an ‘80s pop icon who’s seen better days since leaving her husband, Bobby.

RM: Rajiv clearly is a fan of ‘80s music.

PC: (Laughs) And you know that you sing in this episode (we’re getting ready to film), too?

RM: Yeah, there’s an episode that we’re about to shoot, and…I don’t know how much I can say!

PC: You can’t say anything. But I can! You sing…

RM: (Interrupts) I won’t tell you why, but I actually sing another song.

PC: From the ‘70s.

RM: It’s great.

Bill Brioux: Was there extra rehearsal involved for the Bollywood episode?

PC: Yes! We were, like, “Glee” meets “The Sing-Off.” (Laughs) Seriously! We had to lay down tracks…and I think I now have the street cred where I say can “lay down tracks”…Anisha and I and Ben. We had choreography. The choreographer, Fred Tallaksen, is one of Madonna’s choreographers from two tours, and I’m glad I didn’t learn that until the last day. Otherwise, I would’ve freaked out. I just thought, like, “Okay, I’ll do it. I’m sweating, but I’ll do it.” And then we had to film the rest of the episode, too, so we’d be filming something, table read, going to the music studio to record, coming back for dance rehearsal in this dungeon basement at CBS Radford, and then coming back to film.

RM: And the director of that episode (John Scott) has directed episodes of “Glee,” so it really just looks amazing. It’s the perfect episode to inaugurate that 10:30 timeslot.

PC: It really is. We’re really glad that they have that episode as the first one back, as a push. And to show that Anisha, who’s our quiet one, has a Broadway baby voice…? It’s a blessing.

BB: Can you speak to what the key Bollywood moves are?

PC: A lot of hips, and every so often a turn. That’s all you need to do! Hip, hip, turn. Sometimes some arms, but I wanted to keep it to the lower body for you guys.

RM: I feel like one day Rajiv needs to do some Bollywood dancing. (Laughs)

PC: You’ve got some moves.

RM: I feel like Rajiv would be awesome!

BE: So you’ve obviously got a great episode to kick off your new location, but are you guys excited or feeling tentative about the new 10:30 timeslot?

PC: No, I love it. The fact that we got to follow “The Office” before, and now we’re following “30 Rock”…? We can’t lose.

RM: And I think it’s one of those things where, because the entire night is this event now, a 3-hour comedy block, and there’s a lot of publicity for the three hours of comedy on NBC, there’s a lot of buzz about it. At the 9:30 timeslot, we had built our fanbase, and people are really obsessed with the show and love it, so I feel like they’re going to move with us to 10:30. I think our crowd is…

PC: Our fans have been really loyal and supportive, and…where have we gone? We’ve gone to New York together, and I went back to Chicago, where I’m from, and it’s just been awesome the amount of people who’re watching. Kids, even. Parents. And that’s from every ethnic group, let alone the Indian community. We’ve been so grateful to everyone.

BE: So when you guys became a hit, who was the first person to yell, “Suck it, critics”?

PC: Rizwan!

RM: (Lowers head) Oh, my God…

PC: But only because Rizwan says “suck it” a lot, generally. I’m just thinking, like, “It must be him.” He’s said to everyone at one time or another. (Laughs) But, no, we understand what purpose a pilot serves. It’s an introduction. And we were, fairly or not, under the microscope a lot more because we are the first show with a predominantly South Asian cast in America.

RM: And to the critics’ credit, there were several articles written after about the fifth or sixth episode…after the Bolloween episode, I believe…where they were saying, like, “You know what? I’m really sorry that I said all this, because I’ve changed my tune, and I just think it’s not everything I thought it was based on the clips that I was seeing at the previous TCA tour.” So to their credit, some of them took it back. And you know what? There are still some people harping about the stereotypes and all that stuff, but I feel like we’ve addressed that. And we’re so not that show.

PC: No one ever makes a problem out of, “Oh, that show about the lower income white family living in the trailer.” It’s a stereotype…or, rather, an archetype…and…

(At this moment, Anisha Nagarajan suddenly pops her head in between Manji and Cheena.)

PC: And here’s our Bollywood baby right now! Anisha, come talk to the fine gentleman!

Anisha Nagarajan: Hello!

PC: We were just talking about how…he asked the question, “Who was the first person to say ‘suck it’ to the critics?” And I said it was you.

AN: (Horrified) It was…?

PC: No, no, it wasn’t.

RM: I don’t think he believes it, anyway.

BE: I don’t think anyone could believe that.

PC: She’s too nice! I felt bad even saying that. I just imagined her starting to cry. (Laughs)

BE: So tell me about your part in the Bollywood episode.

PC: She’s my back-up dancer.

AN: (Laughs) I start out that way. But then I kind of find my voice in the episode. Let’s just say that.

BE: Was it nice to finally get the chance to use it?

AN: Yes! (Laughs) That’s for sure!

PC: And it’s an amazing voice that we’re glad we get to share with everyone, too.

AN: And his voice is really great in the episode, too. He sings an amazing song that you’ll see.

PC: We do pimp Anisha out wherever we go to sing, so now that it’s actually going to be on national television, it makes us all so happy that she’s not in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” We keep her safe. That was her back-up! If she’d done “Spider-Man,” she wouldn’t be here with us. She’d be on Broadway, soaring over people’s heads.

BE: Or in the hospital!

PC: (Mock horror) No, Anisha! I will keep you safe!

AN: (Laughs) I saw the show when I was in New York over the winter holidays, and it looks like it’s really…as my mom said, it looks like it’s finding its eight legs.

PC: It just got pushed again, though. To a March opening.

AN: Yeah, I saw that. But what I saw of it, they had no faux pas, no malfunctions. It was really well done.

PC: And Glenn Beck thought it was really good, too.

AN: I saw that!

RM: Well, if Glenn Beck liked it, let’s all rush out and see it! (Laughs)

PC: Rizwan is a big Fox News fan.

RM: Well, Rajiv is, anyway! (Laughs)

BE: What were you going to be doing in “Spider-Man”?

AC: Well, I actually did all the workshops, and the part I was playing in the workshops was the villainess part, Arachnae. But that was in the workshops. I was actually cast as an understudy for the featured ensemble of the show. Given the circumstances, though, I don’t know if that would’ve actually happened, or if I would’ve played the part, or what is going on, but…

PC: All right, she’s being very modest, but I’m going to say it: she was called by them about her availability to maybe come back in the show. So she’s being very modest and humble.

RM: Yeah, it’s a lot bigger part than she’s letting on.

PC: And I’ll also let you in on some news: Riz and I are in talks to play Doctor Octopus and The Lizard. Yes, we are a three-for-one package. I will be playing Doctor Octopus, because I’m very handsy, and Riz will be playing The Lizard because he’s just slimy.

RM: Oh, man!

PC: Sorry, I meant “reptilian.”

RM: I like that better.

BE: You’d think I hadn’t already called you “slimy” earlier in the interview.

PC: (Bursts out laughing)

RM: I can take it!

BE: So are you guys happy with the way the show is evolving?

PC: Yes.

AC: Yes!

RM: Absolutely!

PC: We get creative input, we get to improvise, we get to play…we pitch ideas. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s one scene where, like, Rizwan slapped me twice…? We just pitched it, like, “If Rizwan got on a power trip, this is what he’d do.”

AC: At this point, I think you’ve been slapped by every character in the show…including me!

PC: I think I have. Now, this slap didn’t make it.

RM: They cut it from the show. They said it was a little…

PC: Too sick for the holidays. But I do know that the working title for one of the upcoming episodes is “The Slap.”

RM: It is not!

PC: I think it is!

RM: I just enjoyed it because for seven takes I got to slap him really hard in the face. So I didn’t even care that it didn’t make the final cut. I just got to slap you…

PC: It was a stage slap.

RM: Let’s just do it.

(Rizwan slaps Parv hard enough that it is very much audible on the recording.)

PC: Ow!

BE: Did that hurt?

PC: No. (Bursts into mock sobbing)

RM: (Starts laughing)

PC: That’s stage training for you.

BE: I’m going to start wrapping up here, but, Parv, I mentioned to Rizwan that I used to work in a call center, which is why I had a natural affinity to the show right off the bat.

PC: You know, I was a box office ticket agent, and we’d have to cold-call our subscribers…like, people who are paying high-end Chicago Shakespeare theater subscriptions…and ask, “Could you give $10?” “NO! How dare you call me?” I’m, like, “Ma’am, the upstairs studio is named after you. I thought maybe we could hit you up for ten bucks!”

BE: Lastly, for all of you, where would you like to see “Outsourced” go in the future, either for your character or just in general?

PC: I really have been pleased with how we’ve been leaving the call center for a lot of episodes. One of our upcoming ones is a full-on train. We built a whole train station and a moving train, and we employed 250 background artists. I love seeing that. I love seeing more of where we go to, like, Riz’s home, and the personal relationships, too. And Madhuri…

AC: Madhuri may or may not have a special twist during the Valentine’s Day episode. (Laughs) So stay tuned!

PC: It’s very exciting!

RM: Yeah, I think my favorite part about what’s developing in the show is you finding out the background of the call center workers and…just scenes that are not at the call center but, as he said, at people’s houses, or just meeting different characters that are relationships, like her grandmother and (to Parv) your mom and my fiancée. These are people who we’re going to meet.

PC: I forgot!

RM: What?

PC: I completely forgot about the episode with my mom! (Laughs)

BE: I’ve kind of likened the evolution of “Outsourced” to that of “Cougar Town,” in that it started with a simple-to-summarize concept but soon expanded beyond that as we learn more about the characters in the ensemble.

RM: Yes!

PC: I agree. That’s a very good analogy.

The last time I was out at the TCA tour, I talked to Lucas Neff, the star of Fox's "Raising Hope," and I was surprised to find that he was fronting a prime-time comedy when his only prior TV experience involved a couple of scenes in A&E's "The Beast." Little did I realize at the time that Ben Rappaport, the star of NBC's "Outsourced," was coming in with even less of a television background. I mean, literally, it's "Outsourced," and that's it. When I was in Pasadena earlier this month, I managed to meet and chat with Rappaport for a few minutes about the way his series has been coming along and found out his feelings on the change in the show's timeslot. Fortunately, it sounds like tonight's 10:30 PM debut is the perfect way to show newcomers to "Outsourced" just how far it's come since its debut.

Bullz-Eye: I was actually a fan of the show as soon as I heard about the concept: I used to work in a call center myself.

Ben Rappaport: (Laughs) That’s so great!

BE: Did you have any call center experience yourself?

BR: I did not! My aunt works in a call center, but that’s it. I knew nothing about them…aside from, y’know, occasionally contacting one. (Laughs) But, you know, I didn’t know what was behind them, what was on the other end of that phone. It’s an office, and they have their own office politics and culture there.

BE: When the pilot came out, I know a lot of people kind of bashed it, but how do you think the show has evolved since then?

BR: I think it’s evolved big time! I mean, you know, the term “outsourced” was a way for us to get to India, and now I think everybody’s gotten to know our characters and the relationships and the dynamics. It’s stories about what’s happening between these characters. It’s not political. There’s no agenda there. It’s not sarcastic in any way. We’re just telling a story of people in India.

BE: I was impressed with the direction that it took as far as your romantic storyline. I didn’t expect you to hook up with either of your potential romantic interests quite as quickly as you did.

BR: (Laughs) It was kind of quick, wasn’t it?

BE: Yeah. It’s not bad. It was just surprising.

BR: Yeah, but while it was quick, I think there’s still lots of places to go with it. I mean, I think part of the story might be that it was too quick.

BE: I considered that. Just how long-term is the relationship going to be if they’re willing to jump into the physical side of it that quickly?

BR: (Grins) My point exactly! So we’ll see. We have a long way to go, in terms of fleshing out that whole situation.

BE: Were you surprised that it became so popular right out of the box? I mean, granted, it’s a premise that I could see viewers embracing despite the critics not really loving it…

BR: I think so, too. I wasn’t necessarily surprised that people embraced it, because I really believed in it when I signed on. I mean, when I read the script, I just laughed out loud. Like, just true gut laughter. There’s a lot of time where it’s polite laughter, but it’s just true, honest laughter. And I think it’s…you know, we’re in a place now where we’re able to watch a TV show that takes place in a different country, about a completely different culture, and still accept it into our homes every week and relate to it.

BE: It’s nice that your character is still able to have interaction with people in the States through the wonder of Skype…or some equivalent thereof. Are those weird scenes to play?

BR: The Skype scenes? Those are funny, because we’re just doing it to a blank screen, and then they superimpose it. But what’s great about it is that we have very generous actors on our show, so usually the actor will be in the room with you, reading the other text so that you’re not having to pretend to hear them or something. It makes it a lot easier.

BE: How is the camaraderie between the cast?

BR: It’s fantastic.

BE: It seemed pretty solid from the pilot.

BR: It was, and since then it’s grown even more. I mean, we’re family. It’s like going to summer camp every single day when you’re going to work. (Laughs) I wish I were joking, but I’m not! We hang out together outside of work, and we live close by to each other. I know a lot of casts that don’t quite bond like we do, but the way I feel is that if we’re having fun, then the audience will have fun watching us have fun.

BE: Can you speak to a little bit on how the rest of the season is going to go?

BR: Well, you know, they don’t… (Hesitates) I can tell you a couple of episodes that are coming up. Our first episode coming back next week, it’s January 20th and it’s at 10:30 PM, which is our new timeslot, after “30 Rock” now on Thursdays. That one starts off with a big Bollywood dance number.

BE: Yeah, actually, they showed us a clip of that today between sessions.

BR: Yeah, there’s a little clip that they just released on the internet today, and there’s a lot of stuff going on there. I get to play guitar, Anisha (Nagarajan) gets to sing, you see Parv (Cheena) dance…it’s a big way to start, so I’m really excited about that.

BE: I’m impressed that you guys waited this long to actually try something Bollywood-esque. I presume that was a conscious decision not to dive headlong into it.

BR: Oh, yeah. Why throw it all out there at the beginning? Might as well draw it all out and save the best for last.

BE: Are there any guest stars upcoming that you’re aware of?

BR: Not that I’m aware of, no. They don’t really tell us that kind of stuff as of yet.

BE: You brought up the new timeslot. How do you guys feel about that? A little skittish, I’d guess.

BR: Well, you know, it’s not really…I don’t think it’s that bad. I mean, we used to follow “The Office,” and now we follow “30 Rock.” And “30 Rock” is on par with “The Office” in terms of the quality and the people who watch it. It was an honor to follow “The Office,” and it’s an honor to follow “30 Rock,” so we’re happy. And I think this three-hour comedy block is really cool, and I think it’s a unique…you know, people haven’t tried comedy in this hour for, like, what, 15 years or something like that? And I think our show is the show to pioneer or experiment with that, because our show is such a new idea, and that timeslot is such a new idea. Hopefully, it’ll work out.

As I start this write-up of the final day of the Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour, it actually still is the final day of the Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour. Normally, I don't start these things until the next day, after everything that's going to happen has happened, but the last panel of the tour wrapped at around 2 PM PST, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm officially off-duty. The only thing left for me to do is pack my bags, grab some food, have a few drinks with friends, and catch my shuttle to LAX...and, yet, I thought about it and decided, "Since I've actually got the time to do it, maybe I should go ahead and write up the last few panels before I ever leave Pasadena."

Makes sense, right? That way, there'll be nothing hanging over my head to finish when I get home, and I can enjoy at least a day or two of much-needed downtime.

Unfortunately, none of the transcripts are online yet, so you won't be getting any exact quotes unless the fine folks in the transcription department manage to get them knocked out between now and 2:00 AM (that's when I have to head down to the lobby), so you'll just have to make do with a few random recollections for now, and I'll play catch-up when I'm home, rested, and ready to write again.

Even before John Landgraf took the time to do a teleconference with TV critics to explain why FX had to cancel "Terriers," I've thought he was one of the nicest and most approachable network presidents. Mind you, I blame this really just on one experience with him, when he made good on a promise to reveal the producer who was working on a rewrite of FX's "Powers" pilot (Kevin Falls, who may or may not still be involved at this point), but the "Terriers" move was a classy one that just helped to underline how I already felt. He sounds hopeful that "Lights Out" won't follow the same path in the ratings as "Terriers," and, boy, so do I. I've seen the first five episodes of the show already, and I'm loving it.

Next up was Louis CK, who couldn't have sounded more grateful about the way the critics have embraced his series...but, then, he was probably already beaming from the praise that had just been heaped on him by Landgraf in his introduction. We didn't really get much of an idea what to expect from Season 2, which stands to reason, since he hasn't even started production yet. The funniest moment came when FX exec John Solsberg invited all of the critics in the audience to visit the set, something which clearly hadn't been mention to Louie, who shot him a tremendous "what the fuck?" look.

Even after talking to Elijah Wood at the Fox party the other night, I still couldn't quite wrap my head around what to expect from his new sitcom, "Wilfred," about a man who, when he looks at his neighbor's dog, sees a man in a dog suit who talks in an Australian accent. (It's based on an Australian series, with the same actor - Jason Gann - playing the dog in both.) Having now seen the pilot, though, I was rather surprised to find myself laughing a lot. It's absolutely as ridiculous as it sounds, but Gann is hysterical, so I'm now curious to see if it's going to be more than just a one-off. Of the panel, I really just have one immediate observation: Fiona Gubelmann is cute as a button and has legs that go on for miles.

The last of FX's panels was for "Justified," but even with a huge panel, I couldn't help but notice one face missing: Elmore Leonard, the author responsible for creating the character of Marshall Raylan Givens. As it turns out, he's been so inspired by the show that he's now in the middle of writing a brand new novel entitled...you guessed it...Raylan. In his absence, though, Leonard offered a statement in which he raved about the show, particularly the performance of Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens. Funnily enough, though, Olyphant wasn't asked a question until well into the proceedings, a fact which he noted with mock indignation. ("It’s like they got together and said, 'Hey, nobody ask Walt (Goggins) or Tim a question. Fuck those guys. Fuck those guys. Nobody say anything to them.'”) I really need to finish catching up on this show before Season 2 kicks off, because I love all that I've seen thus far.

After FX's panel, the network provided us with a free lunch, along with the opportunity to chat with several stars of the shows. I had ridiculously bad timing whenever it came to trying to grab members of the "Wilfred" cast for interviews, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Holt McCallany, who plays Patrick "Lights" Leary on "Lights Out." Fantastic guy, and we had a really nice conversation about the show and how his character develops over the course of the episodes I've seen thus far. He swears the best is yet to come.

Okay, kids, I'm tired of waiting for the transcripts to come in, so I'm...

Dammit! That's what I get for checking: they all just came in at once. Okay, fine, I'll offer up a few quotes to close up my coverage. I hope you've enjoyed getting my perceptions of this strange event known as the TCA Press Tour. Stay tuned for my final wrap-up sometime soon...and look for further adventures during the 2011 Summer TCA Press Tour!

"What I felt about 'Terriers' was that the audience that was watching it, which included many of you and hundreds of thousands, actually, ultimately, in total viewers, millions of people at home, I knew they were going to be really disappointed it wasn’t moving forward, and I thought that they deserved as clear an explanation I could give them as to why it wasn’t, and a chance for you, as their representatives, to sort of have at me and ask why isn’t it coming back and for me to explain myself. I don’t know why networks haven’t done that before. I’ve never done it before. And I guess maybe it’s just that I’m now coming up on seven years in this job. And in seven years, you have some great successes and moments of exultation, and you have bragging rights, and then you have some failures. And I think you just get used to the rhythms of both in your work and eventually you get to the point where you’re capable of embracing your failures, learning from them, and talking about them. I think most programming executives are just fundamentally too insecure or too defensive to get to that point. And maybe I’m just old enough and I’ve been doing it long enough that I can take that tag.

"I think there’s always been a disconnect, unfortunately, between audience taste and critical acclaim. I think in those rare circumstances where you all have near unanimity and are willing to stand up on a table and shout, 'This is the greatest show of all time,' I think you guys can move the needle. But I think the reality is that you disagree with each other most of the time. Unanimity is rare, and most of you don’t feel you want to stand up on a table and shout even if you like a show, so you have to raise a huge din. You did raise a huge din on 'Mad Men,' and what that did - 'Mad Men' has become, by our analysis, literally the most critically acclaimed series in the history of television. (You have) taken it from a dismal ratings failure to ratings mediocrity." - John Landgraf

"When you get divorced in your forties, you don’t have a role anymore on the earth. Roles make it easy for people to just sort of follow a template. I mean, so many people get divorced that there ought to be a template, but there isn’t. So I think it’s fun to watch frustration, too. So, like, the rule, sort of, that I have is Louie gets laid, but he never comes. That’s basically the way it works. I’ll probably stay that way. Nobody wants to see me come. That’s awful." - Louis CK, "Louie"

"I get really, really fucking sick of my own face working on this show. I start to hate the sound of my voice. Once I’m editing episodes, I really want to vomit into a big basket with my face on it. I mean, baskets aren’t good for vomiting because it comes out the (holes). It’s actually great that I do all of it because it’s economical. I don’t have to argue with anybody, and also everything I’m doing I know, like, when I’m writing something, I don’t worry so much about how perfect the script might be because I know I’ll be on the set looking after it. So sometimes I’ll put in lines that don’t seem like such a good idea, but I don’t have to I know that, when I’m on set, I’ll remember that I didn’t really love that anyway. I just won’t say it. Then, when I’m shooting it, I know because I’m going to edit it, that I can just delete certain stuff or shoot extra stuff. It’s all kind of happening in my brain. Once I get a few episodes deep, it starts to get really hard. The acting probably suffers more than anything else because I give the least shit about it. So when I’m like producing a scene and directing it and setting up a shot and doing all this stuff, and then I sit in my role, and I go, 'Oh, God, I have to say this stuff. This is me,' and I usually don’t know my lines. It takes me the first two takes are worthless, and then I start to remember what I wrote. But I wrote it. So it’s not that hard." - Louis CK, "Louie"

"I never actually used 'Fight Club' in the pitch meetings, but I knew that we had succeeded in communicating what we wanted when, after I pitched the story to John Landgraf and the other executives, one of the executives who hadn’t been involved at all said, 'Oh, it’s ‘Fight Club.’' And I was like, oh, perfect, along with other things. I mean, I kind of thought of it as 'Harvey' meets 'Son of Sam,' the takeoff." - David Zuckerman, "Wilfred"

Q: There was, obviously, a point (on 'Justified') where you decided Boyd has to live. That’s integral to the series. What was that conversation like with Elmore? Was there a moment where you had to really steel yourself and say, “We’ve decided that he’s going to live”?
Graham Yost: No. Elmore was far more concerned about the hat. Right? I mean, we had things going back and forth and different hats and this and what kind of hat he should wear. Finally, Elmore said, 'Okay. You do what you want.'
Timothy Olyphant: He didn’t like it.
Graham Yost: You know what, I think he understands, since we had to find the hat that looked good on Tim and looked good for the show I can’t believe we’re talking about the freaking hat after all this time but in terms of Boyd, no, because he saw the pilot, saw Walton and said, 'Oh, God, yeah, that would be great.'
Q: So it wasn’t even a speed bump?
Graham Yost: No. We’ve mangled his work in far worse ways than keeping Boyd.

The TCA tour lasts for about two weeks. That's two weeks away from your family where you're spending the majority of your time sitting in a hotel ballroom, listening to panel after panel about upcoming TV shows. Don't get me wrong: I'm enough of a TV geek that I enjoy it from start to finish, but at a certain point, you find that your enjoyment begins to be regularly supplanted by the desire to just grab your shit and go the hell home. As a professional, I do my best to rise above this, which is why I invariably stick it out 'til the very last panel of the tour, but when you start considering the shit-grabbing and home-going more often than you find yourself thinking, "Say, this show sounds pretty good / awful," this is what is known in TV critic parlance as "hitting the wall."

And, baby, I have hit it.

When I woke up on the morning of Day 10 of the tour, I had a headache. It was the first time I'd had one since arriving in Pasadena, and, of course, I took it for what it was: a sign that both my body and mind were ready to return to Virginia. Little did I realize that it was really more of a portent of the evil that would cross my path on this day...but we'll get to that. With a job to do, I popped a couple of Motrin, swigged some coffee, and entered into the day's panels, which consisted of shows from the CBS family of networks, which includes, of course, CBS ("Chaos," "Mad Love," "The Good Wife"), but also Showtime ("The Borgias," "Shameless," "Californication," "Episodes") and The CW ("Shedding for the Wedding"). There were also executive sessions for the various networks, as well as one for the "Kick Ass Women of The CW," featuring stars from "Hellcats," "The Vampire Diaries," "Nikita," and "Smallville."

Looking at the talent list for the various panels, there were certainly people I wanted to chat with, but I've always had trouble picking up interviews for Showtime series, a fact which all but killed my chances with many of the most interesting actors in attendance, including Jeremy Irons, William H. Macy, David Duchovny, and Matt LeBlanc. Heck, I couldn't even pull a one-on-one with Colm Feore, although I did end up chatting with him later in the evening while pretending to be Canadian. (Don't ask.) But I did at least make it into post-panel scrums for Irons, Macy, and the ever-gorgeous Carla Gugino, so there's that, at least. And amongst the cast of CBS's "Mad Love" is the always amiable Tyler Labine, who I've been interviewing at TCA since my first tour, when "Reaper" debuted, so he and I got in a good one-on-one.

Most of my afternoon, however, was spent in a funk. Maybe it's because I'd hit the wall, but I found myself getting progressively grumpier about the way various actors' personal publicists were acting. One assured me that I could do a walk-and-talk with their client, who was in a rush to get to another appointment, only to promise the same thing to another writer moments later and leave me in the dust. Another deigned to let me do a one-on-one with her client, then - outside of her client's line of vision - starting tapping her watch ferociously before I'd even had two minutes of conversation. (This was particularly infuriating because the writers before and after me had neither a time limit nor been "chaperoned" during their interviews.) It was also a major bummer that the evening event was an hour-long cocktail party where the attendees were limited to the shows on The CW which were represented on the network's panels.

Despite my relatively grouchy attitude throughout the day, there were still some highlights on the panels that are worth mentioning, so here they are...

1. Q: Given Charlie Sheen’s antics over the weekend, how would you characterize your level of concern about him, and what is the network doing to help him?
Nina Tassler (with all due sarcasm): Well, I really didn’t expect that question this morning. So I’m just...I’m really taken by surprise. Look, obviously, we’ve thought, and I personally have thought, a lot about this, and we have a high level of concern. How could we not? But I have to speak to this personally first. On a very basic, human level, concern, of course. This man is a father. He’s got children. He has a family. So, obviously, there’s concern on a personal level. But you can’t look at it simplistically. Charlie is a professional. He comes to work. He does his job extremely well. We are taping tonight, and it’s...it’s very complicated, but we have a very good relationship with Warner Bros. I have a tremendous trust and respect in the way they are managing the situation. So, on a personal level, obviously concerned. On a professional level, he does his job, he does it well, the show is a hit, and...that’s really all I have to say.

2. Question: Jason, what about your character (in "Mad Love")?
Jason Biggs: Without giving too much away, obviously, I have sex with a sheet cake in the second episode.
Sarah Chalke: We weren’t going to reveal that!
Judy Greer: Way to go.
Jason Biggs: I don’t know if that's a spoiler alert. Sorry, guys.
Judy Greer: That’s the cake we used for what’s her name’s birthday? Just kidding.
Jason Biggs: Yes. Yes, it was.
Judy Greer: I had a piece of that!
Jason Biggs: No. There are some situations. I wouldn’t say they are exactly, you know, akin to some of the I mean, let’s be honest. Those were very R rated, and some pushing NC 17 scenarios.
Matt Tarses: He loses his pants in Staten Island.
Jason Biggs: But I do lose my pants in Staten Island. So you do see me pantsless, which I think is what my fans demand of me in general and but yeah, there are some I mean, Matt has written, for all of us, some kinds of crazy situations. I mean, it’s inherent to this format, I think, is to create situations that are quite comical and kind of crazy. And for someone who can the person that does it right, they are funny, but they are also grounded in reality somehow, and they are with characters that you like and all that good stuff. And I feel like that’s what’s happening here. So, among those situations, which I believe there are some in every episode, one of them I lose my pants in Staten Island. The other one I have sex with a sheet cake.

3. Q: Freddy, describe what happens when you read a script that says, “Next, Rick eats a scorpion.” What was that like? And when you filmed it...I’m sure you didn’t eat a scorpion, but whatever you were holding...
Freddy Rodriquez: How are you so sure?
Q: It looked realistic. You were holding something that was wiggly and scary. Just describe what it was like when you heard you were going to do it and what it was like to do that scene.
Freddy Rodriquez: Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what it was going to be when I got there. And when I got there, if you remember, Tom...
Tom Spezialy: Oh, I remember.

Freddy Rodriguez: ...it was a real scorpion. I had a slight anxiety attack, to be honest, right? And then I got over it. And then I asked Brett Ratner to hold it. I would do it if he would hold it, and he refused, and we had an exchange. And after a while I got over it, and it was fun. I mean, when I read the script, there were so many great things that my character was doing in the pilot that I had to be involved even if it had to do with holding a scorpion. It was a real scorpion. I think they put Krazy Glue on the stinger, (but), yeah, it was real.
Q: What does it look like to see that thing wiggling in front of your eyes?
Freddy Rodriguez: Scary. It’s scary.
Tom Spezialy: It peed on him.
Freddy Rodriguez: Oh, yeah, it did. At one point in the night, it just...I didn’t enjoy the experience...it started peeing on me. And I didn’t know what it was. I just thought it was, like, spraying me with some sort of poison or...I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was urine.
Eric Close: Are you sure it was urine?
Freddy Rodriguez: Yeah, it was urine. Gave me golden sunshine, I guess.

4. "Thank you for coming out, and thank you for showing the interest in the show. Michelle (King’s) and my moms keep sending us emails linking to great complimentary articles and reviews of ('The Good Wife'). So we’re very aware of what support we get from the critical community...and our moms are very aware of it, too." - Robert King, "The Good Wife" (CBS)

5. "I wouldn’t say they (CBS) ever ask us to make things more morally clear. I mean, sometimes cases need to be made clear. And in terms of what we can do on broadcast versus cable, I think we can pretty much do it all except say 'fuck.'” - Michelle King, "The Good Wife" (CBS)

6. "(The title) 'The Good Wife' was always meant ironically. I think it’s actually very descriptive. I think the comment I made was it would have been nice to be ironic and call it 'The Sexy Wife' or 'The Sexy Wife Whose Husband Goes Down On Her' or something like that. That might have brought in more people." - Robert King, "The Good Wife" (CBS)

7. I read something about Pope John the Pope John Paul, is it, the Polish Pope. And it was from a Catholic theologian who said he wrote, actually, 'Habet duos testiculos et bene pendentes.' He said, 'This man is well hung. That’s why he deserved to be Pope.' Now, certain things the Vatican will not reveal to all of us, but there is a chair, apparently, a Porphyry Chair, with a large circular hole in it to so these examinations can be made. Now, many people will deny that, but I’ve read I read reputable historians who says it happens, okay? Perhaps no longer, but then it did." - Neil Jordan, "The Borgias" (Showtime)

8. "I think (Rodrigo Borgia) is a pretty good guy just doing the best he can. I mean, power corrupts, you know. It was a time quite unlike the time we live in today. There were murders in Rome every night, poisonings most weekends. There was incest here and sodomy there. You know, it was a good old rolling, rollicking society. And if you’ve got to try and run that, which the Pope attempts to do, then, of course, you’ve got to play by some of the games, by some of the rules that society follows. I didn’t judge him at all. I just tried to hang on by the hang onto the position and do what he wanted too. I think it’s up to the audience to say what is good, what is wrong, what is right, and then think how much wonder how much has changed as you look at present day Italy or present day almost anywhere of power. I think there are huge parallels about what people get up to in order to hang on to power and in order to get their way. I don’t think anything has changed, and perhaps those thoughts will go through our minds when we judge these people. I played him. I thought I was quite a good guy. But George Bush probably thought he was quite a good guy, too." - Jeremy Irons, "The Borgias" (Showtime)

9. "As a director, ('The Borgias') is a nightmare because (the actors) all come with the books about their character. 'Hang on, I didn’t do that. Look, it says here he did this. It says here he did that.' Stop, please.” - Neil Jordan, "The Borgias" (Showtime)

10. Tom Kapinos: You know, I think we’ve always had great luck, first and foremost, (getting guest stars for 'Californication.') But as we go along, it seems we attract more people. You know, we get a lot of calls of, like, 'So and so would love to do the show.' This year that didn’t happen. We had to actually go out and aggressively find people. But we had Carla (Gugino), who I told her when we first met that I was a fan for a long time. And I don’t know if she believed me, but that was very true. And it was so awesome to get her. Rob Lowe was a complete accident. We went after him. His agent told us he was unavailable. Then David’s hairstylist somehow made it happen.
Carla Gugino: That’s Hollywood for you.
David Duchovny: It’s a long story, but my hairstylist can make a lot of shit happen.
Tom Kapinos: It’s really more of a hair ninja.

11. "It sure is fun to play someone who is toasted all the time. In my whole career, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time speaking for the little guy, the disenfranchised. And whether you like it or not at this moment, perhaps in this room, but certainly all across the country, a lot of people are really toasted right now, drunk as skunks, and I speak for them. I am the spokesperson for people who like to start the day with a couple of brewskies." - William H. Macy, "Shameless" (Showtime)

For all of the panels that NBC-Universal offered us yesterday, none of them were really chock full of memorable quotes, so I thought I'd go a slightly different route with today's retrospective and just cite some of my favorite moments from throughout the course of the day...and if you think this is mostly just a way for me to avoid having to trudge through the transcripts, give yourself a hearty pat on the back. Give me a break: it's Day 9, and I'm very tired from arguing with Kara DioGuardi fans.

And on that note...

1. Bravo's "Platinum Hit" session

You've hopefully already read my open letter to Ms. DioGuardi about my disappointment with the way she handled the inevitable question about her departure from "American Idol," but that wasn't the only part about the panel that grated on my nerves. One of the other judges on this songwriting-competition series is Jewel, and...okay, first of all, let me acknowledge that I'm not really a Jewel fan and under threat of death wouldn't be able to come up with a more recent Jewel song than 2001's "Standing Still," but even when it comes to artists I do actively like, I don't enjoy it when they slip into braggadocio. After Jewel dropped these lines during the panel...

* "I was talking to Steven Spielberg..."

* "I bought my house from all my hits."

* "Bob Dylan took me under his wing when I was about 20. My first record was considered a failure, but he liked it and he was like, 'Don’t sell out, don’t change, don’t start doing grunge, just do what you do, stay on the road, stay solo acoustic.' And I did because he believed in me. And Neil Young was the same way."

...I pretty much tuned out. I'm sure Jewel's a very talented songwriter, but as I walked away from the panel, it was more with the feeling that she's much more talented at namedropping.

2. Oxygen's session for "The Glee Project."

Actually, I couldn't tell you a thing that was said during the session. I was too busy looking at the mike girls - they bring you the microphones to ask questions, then take them to the next person when you're done - who were dressed in cheerleader outfits for the panel. Yeah, it's definitely time for me to get home to my wife...

3. Keith David talking about the development of his awesome voice during the panel for "The Cape."

"I was always a second tenor," said David. "I was never, you know, Alfalfa. But when about 13, and I was a singer before I was an actor, and all I could sing was loud, and certainly I came into this I came into that Alfalfa transition where all I could do..."

At this point, he switched into a wobbly voice... "is talk like that all the time."

Back to his regular voice. "And then something began to switch, and now I sound like I sound, you know. I’m grateful to be here because I do get a chance to use all you know, in the first episode, I say I’m using my stage voice. Well, you know, I mean, that was one of the when I read the script, that was one of the funniest moments for me because it’s, like, when I’m auditioning for things, many times I’m told, 'Can you tone that down a little bit? Can you bring that back?' So this is one of the few times I’m not always told that. That’s kind of nice."

4. The "Harry's Law" panel discussing the age of the show's star.

By the time someone asked about the fact that Kathy Bates is 60 years old, which is pretty elderly when you consider the demos that the broadcast networks tend to look for, she'd pretty well charmed most of the audience. First, she said she decided on doing the show because, in her character's first scene, "she had her feet up on the desk, she was smoking pot, and watching 'Bugs Bunny.' After that, I was in." Then, when asked if it was hard to sustain her character's grumpiness, she admitted, "I come naturally to that. Not to be flip, but I can be a naturally grumpy person...and adjusting to the long hours on the set helped that right along!"

When the topic of age was addressed, which series creator David E. Kelley took it in stride. "Not many networks have come to me recently and said, 'Can you give me a series with a 60-year-old lead?'" he admitted. "But I have to believe that, given the universe of 500-plus channels, there has to be room on the landscape for one. When we landed Kathy to play the character, (NBC) were beyond thrilled. You can say it’s one thing to have a 60-year-old lead. It’s quite another to have Kathy Bates as your lead. So they probably, with a grain of salt, said, 'Gee, do we want a series with an older actor?' But once it became Kathy, there was no hesitation whatsoever."

5. The cast of "Community" offering a panel which was hilarious and yet defined the concept of "you had to be there."

The only person not in attendance was Chevy Chase, who was described as being "very under the weather,' but his co-stars more than made up for his absence. If I tried to tell you about it, though, you'd probably just stare blankly at me. Some of the funniness came from the giggling of the various panelists, some it involved one-liners which would require a lengthy amount of set-up for you to appreciate, some of it was totally visual, and...well, you get the idea. But it really was hilarious, I swear. The most easily-translatable moment is probably Donald Glover's story about how they had to teach Betty White the lyrics to Toto's "Africa" on the set. "I assumed she knew 'Africa,'" he said. "I was, like, 'Everybody knows that song!' But, like, that song was out when she was already old. She was already 50-something."

6. Asking various cast members of "Outsourced" which of their number was, upon discovering that viewers were digging the show, the first to yell, "Suck it, critics!"

Parvesh Cheena (Gupta) said it was Rizwan Manji (Rajiv). Rizwan said it was Parvesh. Both of them then tried to pin it on Anisha Nagarajan (Madhuri), who immediately looked as though she was going to cry. Ultimate presumption: no one actually said it, but all of them thought it...as well they should have.

7. Talking to Paris Hilton.

It was weird enough to have her walk past me on two separate occasions while I was on the phone with my wife (I swear, honey, she never had a chance with me), but it was thoroughly bizarre to score a few minutes in one-on-one conversation with her. It wasn't quite as weird as talking to Kim Kardashian last year, since I could actually ask Paris about a variety of projects - her album, her movie with Jason Mewes ("Bottoms Up"), her "BFF" series for MTV - but it was still pretty odd to find myself talking to one of the most recognizable women on the planet. Oh, and if you're wondering, she is indeed quite gorgeous in person.

8. Spending more time not interviewing Danny Pudi and Alison Brie than interviewing them.

God bless the publicist for "Community," who recognized me and asked if I'd like to talk to some of the cast. I jumped at the chance, of course, and started into an interview with Danny and Alison...until Oscar Nunez of "The Office" came up. At first, I was part of a four-way, but I was quickly phased out as they continued to chat with each other. Then Yvette Nicole Brown came up and briefly joined their conversation. Finally, Danny and Alison returned and apologized for having gotten distracted...at which point Michael Ausiello and Matt Mitovich swung by. And then they left...and a few others folks popped in. Somewhere along the line, Donald Glover briefly jumped into the mix. I really can't complain about any of these "guest stars," though. The whole experience was a blast.

9. Jack McBrayer asking me not to record our end-of-the-party conversation.

When I approached the man who plays Kenneth the Page on "30 Rock" to ask him a question, he agreed, but then he looked down at my recorder and said, "Oh, my! You're not going to record this are you? I'd rather you didn't." At this point, he performed a perfect mock aside, holding a hand to his mouth and whispering, "I'm a little bit tipsy!" So I turned off my recorder. Kudos to you, Mr. McBrayer. Would that more actors had that blend of good humor and common sense.

No proper panels today, but we did a heck of a lot of driving around. It was TCA Day, which meant that we went to this studio and that, visiting the sets of various shows and meeting their casts and creators. It started bright and early with trips to "Lopez Tonight" and "Conan," then it was over to 20th Century Fox, where we were treated to panels featuring stars from "Glee," "How I Met Your Mother," "Raising Hope," and "Modern Family," divided up into men and women, with Jimmy Kimmel moderating the panel for the guys. After that, we hit the sets of "Cougar Town," "Parks & Recreation," and "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior." Good times all around, especially for someone like me, who lives in Virginia and rarely gets to enjoy these kinds of experiences. After that, I headed over to the Vanguard for the taping of two episodes of Season 2 of "The Green Room with Paul Provenza," which was phenomenal. How can you go wrong with an evening that includes appearances from Ron White, Kathleen Madigan, Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, Richard Lewis, Jeffrey Ross, and others? Can't wait to see the final cut of the episode. (They run 30 minutes, but the taping's more like an hour and a half.)

But I know, you're wondering, "Why 13 quotes?" It's a weird number, so it's a valid question. Originally, it was going to be 15 quotes, but for reasons unknown to me, we have yet to receive a transcription from our trip to the "Parks & Recreation" set, which contained at least two more solid quotes. Oh, well.

1. "I’ve said it before and I sincerely mean it, in the modern landscape of television there is only a few ways to stay on TV, and one of them is to be, you know, lucky as shit and have a huge giant hit, and everybody in the world watches you, and the other is to cultivate a loyal and hopefully intelligent audience that follows you around, and that is in no great part due to people that champion the show if they like it. First and foremost, I wanted to say that for those of you that don’t like the show, fuck you guys. But those of you who have really taken the time to champion the show and write about it and say nice things, I’m grateful. It’s not just for ego reasons, in this day and age it really means something." - Bill Lawrence, "Cougar Town" (ABC)

2. "On April Fools’, I was talking to Usher, and I said, 'You have three kids.' He said, 'No, I don’t.' I said, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'No, I don’t. Don’t you have research people that tell you?' I mean, and he looks at the audience, and he says, 'You would think that a host would do his research and know facts about a guest before he asks a question.' And then he said, 'April Fool's.' He got me, yeah." - George Lopez, "Lopez Tonight" (TBS)

3. "I’ve never considered myself particularly interested in media. I mean, I’m someone who likes to come in and do my job, and then I like to go home and play with my kids. I wasn’t used to being a media story. It was never a goal of mine. So the strangest thing about immediately after the (end of 'The Tonight Show') was my wife decided the next morning, early on, we should just drive up to Santa Barbara and check into a hotel and decompress for three days because she thought this guy needs to decompress. He needs to. So we got up really early in the morning. We got in our car, and we pulled out of our house, and two cars followed right in behind us and followed us all the way to Santa Barbara and then just hung outside the hotel for three days. And, you know, I’m not Brad Pitt. I’m not George Clooney. You know, I’ve been blessed with their DNA, but I just thought, 'Who are they following?' So that was weird.

"And there were a lot of highs. I walked into a restaurant that day, and everybody in the restaurant applauded. And I thought, 'Well, that’s nice. This is weird. And, also, this isn’t a living. I don’t see how to do this as a job, walk around and get applauded in restaurants.' So there was an initial sort of high, but then I went back to my house, and we had a lot of stuff to figure out. And one of the first things I did was...you know, this show and these shows have been the organizing principle of my life for such a long time that I thought, 'I’ve got to call my assistant and get to work.' So I called my assistant, Sona, and I said, 'We should get together and go over all of the things we need to do.' And she said, 'Okay. Where?' And my wife wanted me out of the house, and so I said, 'Okay,' and we decided to meet at a Marie Callender’s pie restaurant.

"I’m not kidding. I hosted 'The Tonight Show.' I think the last show was a Friday. I hosted that 'Tonight Show' on a Friday, and on Monday, I’m in a Marie Callender’s pie restaurant, and my assistant has a laptop, and we are sitting there. And there’s two other customers in the place, you know, stabbing at a pie at 11:00 in the morning, and this was now my new headquarters. And I pass this Marie Callender’s a lot, and I think about that shocking...I mean, it was just the juxtaposition of these insane images of 'Tonight Show,' iconic, Marie Callender’s restaurant, meeting / office. This is where I work now. And that kind of summed up the madness, I think, a little bit of that time." - Conan O'Brien, "Conan" (TBS)

4. "I think the expectation that women be attractive as well as funny has just always been there. We even need attractive news anchors who are telling us about death and destruction and they still need to be pretty. I don’t know why it is. Some sociobiological level. We need to look at females and think, 'I would hit that.' I think that the gentlemen may need it." - Julie Bowen, "Modern Family" (ABC)

5. "The guy is usually like the star of (sitcoms). The show is usually built around the guy and (you) sort of feel like...you know, even from Jackie Gleason on, his wife on the show, Audrey Meadows, was very beautiful, but she was sort of his foil. She’s sort of his straight man. And that’s usually the role of the woman in the traditional sitcom or comedy thing: the woman is there to have the guy bounce the comedy off of. She’s there to make him look like an ass. In a good way that makes us laugh." - Martha Plimpton, "Raising Hope" (Fox)

6. "Especially in late night, people focus on female writers, and I will say that from my perspective, when we started the show, we got about 120 submissions from writers to be part of the show, and of those 120, two of them were women, and we hired one of those two women. So there just aren’t as many women female writers. They’re just really aren’t as many and you don’t want to get in a situation where you’re hiring people just because of whether they have a penis and/or vagina or not." - Jimmy Kimmel

7. "Everybody is asking about not playing the girlfriend roles. I have played the girlfriend roles for years and the finger-shaker and the one that’s like, 'Oh, fill-in-the-blank comedian, when you’re done with your crazy little adventure,' and I find it a relief to finally get to play a mom. It’s like, 'Wait, so you like something about me other than you might want to bang me?' I mean, I want to get old in this business - and by 'old,' I mean real old, like, saggy old and the face old and real things drooping down into my socks old - and there’s a handful of women who have done it. Betty White. Cloris Leachman. I’m sure you can name many more, but very few women. And it’s a terrible river to cross when you’re crossing it because you’re not sure if you’re going to get to the other side. So finally playing a mother of teenagers makes me feel like I’ve got a shot. They like something about me other than prospective bangability." - Julie Bowen, "Modern Family" (ABC)

8. "I was talking to a guest last night about the idea (how) on talk shows now you have to be funny. It doesn’t matter. You could bring Dr. Kevorkian out there. It’s like, 'All right, what anecdotes does he have to share with us?' And I think it’s because it’s going to go off that path every once in a while, but really I think for the comfort of the guest, it’s nice to have an area you know you can go to to be funny and some people are better at it. Some of these stories, it’s like doing a little sketch with somebody and you’re pretending you don’t know the story. You’re like, 'Really? Wow, you went to Africa, tell me about that,' and it’s bullshit." - Jimmy Kimmel

9. "A 'Buffy' movie without Joss (Whedon)...? I would crap on that." - Alyson Hannigan, "How I Met Your Mother" (CBS)

10. Neil Patrick Harris: We film ('How I Met Your Mother') like it’s a big multi-camera show, and yet there’s no audience there. You have to do this like quasi-heightened reality as if there’s people laughing audibly at your jokes. It changes, kind of, the tempo of what it is we do. It’s a unique sort of weird hybrid style.
Jason Segel: Because there’s no audience, so you have to hold for a laugh that’s not there. You get to guess how funny your joke is. 'I’m going to give this one four seconds.' And then you see the episode, and then there’s, like, the canned laughter for three seconds, and then three second of silence. We’re all just sitting there.
Neil Patrick Harris: I think I’m going to start opening the door and then waiting for entrance applause. Start my line and then hold. Say the line, look out, finish the line.

- Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel, "How I Met Your Mother" (CBS)

11. "I think there is something about dark-haired women with deep voices of ambiguous sexuality that plays into dramatic programming." - Janeane Garafalo, "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior" (CBS)

12. "I personally think that (my character and I) dress completely differently. You might disagree. I think that we do. I can tell you that I have found some really cool dresses that I have gone to walk out the door and gone, 'Uh-uh. I look like Penelope. I’ve got to go back upstairs and change,' because she dresses really good. They borrowed in terms of...like, I think we both let our freak flags fly. I like dressing how I like to dress, and I look like a little art statement. And I think she likes to dress like that, but I think she makes her own art statement, and I have a glam squad that definitely does that. I think the part that they borrowed from is, like, 'Oh, she can pull this off because, in real life, she dresses like a seven-year-old pirate from space.'" - Kristen Vangsness, "Criminal Minds" and "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior" (CBS)

13. "I love getting to know actors, and Kevin (Biegel) does, too, and seeing what their real personalities are like and stealing from them. And one of the first things that I noticed when I met Courteney Cox is she pours herself a healthy glass of wine. She pours herself like the type that you could do wrist curls with. What did our prop guy say you could fit in (Jules's glass) officially? A bottle-and-a-half of wine per glass. And she drinks maybe five or six in one show." - Bill Lawrence, "Cougar Town" (ABC)

Dear Ms. DioGuardi:

I realize that, by virtue of our longtime Facebook friendship, I could probably go out on a limb and address you by your first name, but I wouldn't want to lean on that too heavily.

Besides, this is a serious matter.

I'm sure you've been following my coverage of the 2011 Winter TCA Press Tour here in Pasadena, so it won't surprise you that I was in attendance for your panel for Bravo's new reality competition, "Platinum Hit." Given your experiences with us TV critic folk on previous tours (not to mention all of the interviews you've done outside of the tours), you surely must have known what to expect when you sat down in front of us...

But I'm being rude to the other readers. Since this is an open letter, I should offer my readers a quick blurb about the show you were there to promote.

Here's what it has to say about "Platinum Hit" on the NBC-Universal website:

Bravo's new music competition series "Platinum Hit" showcases emerging singer-songwriters on their quest to become the next big hitmaker. The series will give viewers a front row seat to experience the journey and aspirations of these gifted songwriters and an inside look at this unique creative process for the first time. The series will follow 12 musicians as they battle through innovative songwriting challenges that will test their creativity, patience and drive. From dance track to love ballad, every episode will feature a different theme that will require the contestants to write and perform lyrics from multiple genres. Their intimate life stories and personal drama will unfold within the show and in their lyrics as they compete and live together. In the end, only one will be crowned the ultimate hit-maker and walk away with a $100,000 cash prize, a publishing deal with Sony and BMI Songwriters and The Writing Camp, and a recording deal with RCA/Jive.

So there you go.

I know you're the head judge on "Platinum Hit," Ms. DioGuardi, and I know that's what you were there to talk about. I get that. But with that said, you sat before an audience of TV critics, one of whom asked you to offer us some insight into your departure from the show you had previously been here to talk about, "American Idol."

It was a perfectly reasonable question, one which you and the executive producers of "Platinum Hit," Evan Bogart and Glenda Hersh, had to know was coming. Instead of answering the question, though, your feathers seemed instantly ruffled. You didn't want to talk about anything but "Platinum Hit," and after a throwaway one-liner (“it was an incredible experience, it really was"), the onstage conversation suddenly descended into a defense of your accomplishments as a songwriter...which, of course, we already know all about from all of the pieces we wrote about you when you were on "American Idol." Worse, when the critic who'd asked the question tried to press the issue to get something of substance on the subject, you said that you'd address it later, but when you were approached after the panel...well, my close friend and Canadian equivalent Bill Harris, man on the scene for the Toronto Sun, wrote it best in his article:

Then afterward in a small scrum, DioGuardi literally scooted away from reporters before cornering herself at the side of the stage. She was asked, "So you really have nothing to say about your memories of Idol, good or bad?”

“You know what? There’s going to be a time when you’ll know all about that,” DioGuardi said.

She then was asked, “When? In a book?” That was when DioGuardi’s personal publicist stepped in and revealed DioGuardi has a book coming out in the spring.

Wow.

Ms. DioGuardi, I don't even know what to say. You're certainly within your right to keep the focus on "Platinum Hit," and you're also within your right to save the juicy "American Idol" stuff in order to sell copies of your book, but I just have to believe that you could've handled that situation better. I mean, you got booed. Better you should've put on a happy face, offered some token tidbit, and then teasingly said, "If you want more, you'll have to read my book!" Admittedly, that would've been frustrating, too, but it still would've been better than acting like it was some sort of affront that we should've dared to ask you about a legitimate credit on your resume.

Actually, I realize I'm using "we" a whole lot. In truth, I'm really only speaking for myself. But I'm pretty sure that if I performed an informal poll among the critics in the room with me at the moment, the majority of them would agree that you didn't exactly endear yourself amongst the populace.

Sorry for the tough love, Ms. DioGuardi, but I thought you needed to hear it. Maybe you disagree with what I have to say. If so, keep an eye out for me at the NBC-Universal all-star party this evening. I'd love to hear your take on the situation. But that's mine, for what it's worth.

Best,

WILL HARRIS

Bullz-Eye.com

1. Q: Are you going to have to put Steve on a five second delay on ('American Idol')?
Steven Tyler: Fuck, no. (Pauses) I question whether I should have done that just now.

2. Q: So how does it feel to be a Latina on ('American Idol')?
Jennifer Lopez: I don’t know how it would feel to be anything else.

3. "Having done 'The Shield' and 'The Chicago Code,' I’d feel much more comfortable being pulled over by the Chicago PD than the LAPD at this point." - Shawn Ryan, "The Chicago Code"

4. Q: Can you talk about how you find the voices for new characters like this? Do you work with the producers and they say, “We kind of want this sound,” or do you look at the character sketch and say, “Hey”? How does that work?
Eugene Mirman: We went on a year long walkabout, and then it came to us.
Kristen Schaal: Trying to go get in touch with our, like, spirit animals. Like mine’s a tiger, and I studied tigers for a year.
Eugene Mirman: That doesn’t answer your question at all. We played around in the studio over a period of probably year and a half or two recording and rerecording stuff for this pilot, and sort of, with both us and direction from Loren and FOX, sort of, I think, found the tone and voice, but also I have a spirit animal too.
Kristen Schaal: What is it?
Eugene Mirman: I’m not telling anybody. No one cares.
Kristen Schaal: Sounds like a turtle.
Eugene Mirman: It’s a “minx,” if that’s an animal.

- Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal, "Bob's Burgers"

5. Q: For the showrunners (of 'Terra Nova'), I have a time-paradox question.
Brannon Braga: Oh, dear God.
Q: Aren’t the people who sent them back, who aren’t going back with them, worried about being fixed out of existence? And what exactly are they hoping to achieve by doctoring the past, and why are the people in the present not worried about being unmade by them?
Brannon Braga: I feel like we’re at a “Star Trek” convention.

6. Q: I have a question about the timeline (of 'Terra Nova'). 85 million years ago, it seems to me 20 million years from then, there’s a giant asteroid that destroys all life on Earth?
Alex Graves: Yes. The series will not go 20 million years.
Brannon Braga: Let’s just say that they’re acutely aware of that fact and have a plan in mind.
Rene Echevarria: And they have 20 million years to effect that plan.

7. "I take the subway all the time, and when I go on, the first thing I do is I say, 'Don’t everybody get up. It’s me. It’s Colonel Quaritch from ‘Avatar,’ but keep your seats,' you know, because I really don’t want to be recognized by people." - Stephen Lang, "Terra Nova"

8. "I had this idea where it was basically like...I’m pretty responsibile. I work hard at what I do, but I sometimes forget to return DVDs...back when you actually returned DVDs...or I forget to pay parking tickets. Then I realized that, if I just budgeted like $300 a year for the cost of being Bob, like a Bob Tax, that I wouldn’t beat myself up about it or whatever." - Bob Fisher, "Traffic Light"

9. "(With 'Lone Star,') we made a show that we really loved, and we thought that the creators were very talented, and they made an excellent show. I think, for the most part, you guys really believed in the show and liked the show as well. And we put the show on, and not enough people showed up to watch it. And we were very disappointed in that. And it’s the reality of the business that we’re in. It’s intensely competitive. It’s always more competitive year after year. And you make the show - the best shows that you can. The truth is that it failed. It failed to meet the expectations that we had. It doesn’t mean that that we don’t like the show, that we don’t respect the people who made it. Kevin (Reilly) and I talk about this a lot. I’d much prefer to fail with a show that we’re creatively proud of than fail with a show that we’re - I guess 'embarrassed of' would be one word - that we don’t believe in, that we don’t think has a level of originality and creativity." - Peter Rice

10. Odette Yustman: I have a love interest (on 'Breaking In'). I have a boyfriend named Dutch, who is played by the genius Michael Rosenbaum. He’s a supercool guy, and I think that they are going to try to bring him in more throughout the series, but he’s a very interesting fellow. He sells clean urine on eBay. Enough said.
Q: I’ve got to ask because I think this needs to be known: what on earth does anyone do with clean urine? Who would buy it?
Christian Slater: Drug testing.
Bret Harrison: To pass a drug test, yes.
Christian Slater: Drug testing. See, what you do is...well, we can really do a whole lecture here.

You don't find that many shows on prime-time television that can successfully capture all ages of the viewing public, but ABC's "Wipeout" is definitely one them...you know, provided that you can stand to see grown men and women bust their butts as they try to complete some very outrageous (and significantly foam-covered) obstacle courses. Although now on its fourth season, the show has switched things up a bit for its winter episodes, offering what would appear to be ice and snow - though, given that the proceedings are taped in California, it almost certainly isn't - as the contestants battle obstacles like the Wipeout Ski Lift, the Polar Bear Run, and...well, you get the idea.

Co-host Jill Wagner and series executive producer were both on hand during the Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour to talk about the show. So, for that matter, was commentator John Henson, but he always seemed to be otherwise occupied when I was free to chat, so we never successfully crossed paths. Still, if you're going to talk to someone about a show, better to go with the brains behind the outfit...and, of course, the hottest of the co-hosts.

Jill Wagner, co-host

Bullz-Eye: Well, first of all, let me just tell you that I've got a 5-year-old daughter who has made "Wipeout" appointment television for the entire family.

Jill Wagner: Yes! I love your daughter! (Laughs)

BE: Well, she is pretty awesome. So how did you come onto "Wipeout" in the first place? I presume an audition was involved, since you have to be both funny and quick on your feet.

JW: You know, it's funny, because...I was doing commercials for Lincoln-Mercury, and (executive producer) Matt Kunitz had seen me on the commercials, so they called me from them. And I was in North Carolina at the time, and they said they wanted me to fly back for an audition, but I was, like, "I'm with Grandma! I can't fly back now!" It was some holiday, so I had to stay at home...and they actually wound up having a camera guy come over and shoot my audition at my grandma's house, interviewing my brother and his two friends. So that was my audition for this show! And I knew that a lot of my friends were also auditioning for it, so I thought, "There's no way I'm ever gonna get it, because I'm doing it from Grandma's house!"

BE: Yeah, but maybe that gave you an edge, because it was so different.

JW: Well, the thing is, my brother now credits all my success to him, because he says that his interview was the best, and he made me shine. Which is probably accurate. (Laughs) But I would never tell him that!

BE: Where in North Carolina are you from?

JW: Winston-Salem. Well, my parents are in Winston-Salem.

BE: I'm in Virginia.

JW: I love it! We actually have a house in Gretna, Virginia. I was actually just home for about a month. It's so nice to just go back and get my fill of my country people... (Laughs) ...and then come back out here to La-La Land?

BE: So have you ever been watching the course, seen someone go down, and just thought, "Well, they're dead. They're not getting back up"?

JW: Yes! All of the time! I wish the camera would show that half the time I've got my hands over my eyes going... (Sucks in breath) "Just don't tell me, don't tell me..." And then the person comes up, and they're laughing! And I'm, like, "What is it, did they hit their head too many times?" You know what? You would be really surprised to see how much foam padding we have on all of those things.

BE: Yeah, Matt was saying that you guys get a bulk discount.

JW: It's unbelievable. It's, like, two feet of foam. So it really would be hard for someone to get hurt seriously, and they take it very seriously, so they have medics and everybody standing around, just hoping that no one gets hurt. And it's been very rare. I think out of 200 people, only two got mildly hurt and had to go to the doctor. But, I mean, that's a pretty good number for that show, which to the normal person watching it, who's not on the show, makes you think, "Oh, my God, people are getting really hurt!"

BE: It's ironic that it plays so well to a family demographic, since it regularly inspires me to curse. I'll see someone go down, and I'll be, like, "Oh, shit!"

JW: Well, that's funny, because that's what they do. They just have to...I can hear people on the set, and I'm, like, "Pottymouth!" (Laughs) And, of course, that's what I do out there, too. It's all in good fun.

BE: Do you find yourself frustrated for people because it's taking them so long to get through an obstacle?

JW: Oh, yeah. More times than not I'm frustrated because it's taking them too long to get through it. But I understand that it's hard, and a lot of these people aren't athletic at all. So you just have to keep that in mind. It's, like, "Oh, it's a grandma who is 53 years old, and she probably hasn't done anything like this in her life, and she probably doesn't work out, and the last time she went running was 10 years ago." You just have to keep that in mind. And then there's some people who I'm, like, "Oh, they're never going to make it through there," and then they blow through it! So I'm surprised every day. I bet on the side. I have my own favorites. Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win. (Laughs)

BE: Who was the contestant that you were most excited to see win?

JW: God, there's been a lot. You know what? I can't pick one person. Normally, I really fall in love with all of our characters. They're really all so different, and you want to root for each one for different reasons. So normally, with the four that we have at the end, usually I'm happy with whoever wins. Unless I've bet money on the other one. (Laughs)

BE: A lot of times, you go to silence in lieu of possibly saying something that might offend a contestant.

JW: You know, I have to watch my mouth. Sometimes you have people that are really, really cocky, and...I wish the audience could hear what I hear, because you guys...obviously, they don't show all of the interview. But there are really some odd comments that we get. (Laughs) To each his own, though. That's the beauty of our contestants: they're wacky, they're crazy, they're funny. That's what makes the show. Thank God for them, or I wouldn't have a job.

BE: For my money, there's nothing better than a contestant who talks a load of shit, only to slip and bust their ass before they even get to the first obstacle.

JW: (Laughs) My God, I know...and I kind of like that! It's, like, hey, karma's a bitch...

Matt Kunitz, executive producer

Bullz-Eye: I was just saying to Jill that my 5-year-old daughter has made "Wipeout" into appointment television for our family.

Matt Kunitz: It's interesting how...in the ratings last week, they said that we were the #1 2 - 11 year old show all season long so far. (Laughs) But what I love about that...because, obviously, we're not trying to target 2 - 11 year olds. Everybody wants 18 - 49. But 2 - 11 year olds are watching with their parents, which is great. And I hear that all the time. "My 5-year-old..." "My 4-year-old..." I heard it yesterday: "My 3-year-old loves the show!" And this person was telling me that the 3-year-old even gets up and...when the contestants do their shout-out and do some kind of scream, the 3-year-old gets up on the couch and does the same scream! So it's good.

BE: I keep saying that you guys should have a TCA day on the "Wipeout" set, where the TCA members run the course.

MK: You want to come run the course? (Laughs)

BE: I want to. And I think my daughter wants me to. But I don't think my wife would ever let me.

MK: Yeah. (Laughs) That'd be good stuff, though, watching the critics take a shot at it!

BE: So how often do you try to mix it up and add new stuff on the course?

MK: Well, every episode there are new stunts. For example, they start the qualifier, and the very first stunt they do is new every episode. And then there's different ways of switching it up throughout the show. The winter season is one season, and then when we get into the summer season, it's a completely different course...times two! We shoot for about five weeks, then we shut down for about a month and a half and build a completely new course, so that during the summer we have two full completely separate courses that we can mingle together and try to keep it fresh. I think it's important to keep it fresh and to keep not only the audience but also the contestants on their toes, so that they don't know what to expect.

BE: So, now, are you always on the set when they're running the course?

MK: Yep.

BE: Has there ever been a point when you've seen someone wipe out and just thought, "Oh, my God, that person has died"?

MK: No, not that, but definitely...like, I mean, this clip they're showing right now... (Points to a nearby monitor) ...where this girl is smacking her head into that beam, there are times where I'm just, like, "Ohhhhh!" But, you know, safety's a number-one concern for us, so we spend...hundreds of thousands of dollars on padding alone. Just on foam. We have a special deal with foam manufacturers now. We go directly to the manufacturers to get foam. So while everything looks like it's a hard impact, there's usually anywhere between six and 18 inches of foam that they're smacking into. So as hard as the impacts look, I know that it's safe, because we've put so much into it.

BE: My daughter is of the belief...and keep in mind that she's only five and hasn't seen every episode...that no one has ever successfully gotten past the Sucker Punch portion of the course.

MK: Here's the thing: we don't show everybody. And sometimes...I mean, the show's called "Wipeout," so if I showed everybody making it, it's not really interesting. People have made it across, for sure, and we've shown a few of them. But we don't show all of the successes because, ultimately, it's about the wipeout. So when we plan the show and design the stunts, we plan it for 90% failure. We want to see that 10% of the people can actually do it, so everything that we have out there is do-able by that one out of ten people that attempt it. Or, at least, that's the plan. (Laughs)

BE: What's the most amazing performance you've seen on the show?

MK: We had this woman who was an ex-stuntwoman who came on the show. She was on a "Blind Date" episode, and...I don't know whether she was doing it on purpose, but she was really good, and every wipeout that she had involved some kind of crazy flip in the air. I'm often impressed by the women on the course. You don't expect them to do as well, and they come out and...I mean, this woman was incredible.

BE: Has there been anyone in the Wipeout Zone who just legitimately depressed you because of how long they were taking to complete the course?

MK: Oh, that happens a lot, where you're just, like, "C'mon, please! We need somebody to finish this course!" (Laughs) It's tough. When you get to the Wipeout Zone, that's really tough. It's cold, it's dark, it's wet, it's scary...and difficult. So, yeah, we're always crossing our fingers on that one.

BE: Lastly, can you even believe how successful this show has become?

MK: I'm thrilled by the success. I mean, ultimately, we set out to do a family show, and it's turned out to be just that. And it's reaching across all demos. You can't ask for more than that.

The greatest mystery surrounding ABC's day of the TCA press tour is why they chose to make so little of it. Given that they had ABC, ABC Family, Disney Channel, DisneyXD, the outgoing SOAPNet, and the incoming Disney Junior to work with, it's absolutely unforgivable that there were only five panels the entire damned day.

Day 6 began on a decidedly solemn note, as the giant screens in the ballroom aired the national moment of silence to commemorate the tragedy in Tucson, and, perhaps appropriately, things shifted directly into the introduction of new ABC News president Ben Sherwood. Next up, Paul Lee, the president of ABC Entertainment, took the stage for his executive session. After that, we had a "Winter Wipeout"-themed cocoa break, then came back into the ballroom for two more panels: one for the return of ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars," the next for the new ABC medical drama, "Off the Map." Then came lunch revolving around the new Disney Junior animated series "Jake and the Never Land Pirates," followed by a panel for the new Disney Channel movie, "Lemonade Mouth," which - beyond the music playing during the trailer - only held my interest when the very cute and very British actress Naomi Scott opened her mouth.

And that's it.

Well, it wasn't quite it. We had a cocktail party at 5 PM which was ostensibly "Off the Map"-themed (they offered a trio of tropical cocktails, but I am hard pressed to recall any hors d’oeuvres that had any particular South American flair), but it only featured stars from ABC's mid-season shows, and even then there were several notable names missing from the guest list, the two most notable being Matthew Perry from "Mr. Sunshine" and Dana Delaney from "Body of Evidence." Now, admittedly, my experiences with Mr. Perry during the summer tour make his absence neither surprising nor overly upsetting, but it was kind of a bummer that Ms. Delaney wasn't there, as she's always been a real sweetheart.

What I want to know is, why didn't ABC offer panels for one or two of their existing shows, like CBS and NBC are doing with "The Good Wife" and "Community," respectively?

I'll give us them credit for setting up a "Cougar Town" set visit for us - that's happening on the 12th - but I would've loved a panel for "Castle," "The Middle," or any number of current ABC series.

And why not have an evening function featuring folks from all of their series rather than just their midseason material? I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the fleeting chance to speak with Allison Janney about "Mr. Sunshine." I'm just saying that the whole day felt like one big missed opportunity.

You know, I was originally going to try and offer up the top 6 quotes from Day 6's panels, but it would feel forced, so I'm not going to waste your time or mine. I will, however, offer at least one which made me laugh...

"You know, when I was invited to come here, I thought, 'I’ve been on the job for a few weeks. What could I possibly have to share with them about what’s going on inside ABC?' And then I remembered that Paul Lee at Entertainment had been on the job all of 36 seconds last year when he came and spoke before you." - Ben Sherwood, President of ABC News

Hmmm. Come to think of it, that may just be funny because I was here last year for Paul Lee's appearance. Oh, well.

Speaking of Lee, though, he did offer a few moments that might be of interest to you, so I'll offer those, at least:

* He showed us an advance clip from this week's "Modern Family." The three Dunphy kids try to bring their parents breakfast in bed as a wedding anniversary present, only to find Phil and Claire in the throes of their own celebration. Luke gets the best line, observing that he's not sure what game his mother and father were playing, "but it looked like Dad was winning."

* He confirmed that the network has already picked up a few new shows. There's a character-driven procedural from Shonda Rhimes ("Grey's Anatomy") and two comedies, one from Chris Moynihan ("100 Questions") called “Man Up” and one from Andrew Reich and Ted Cohen ("Friends") called “Smothered.”

* He's not concerned about the ratings drop-off from "Modern Family" to "Cougar Town." "Look, does the position after 'Modern Family' provide for us a great launch pad for what we consider to be strong comedies into the future? Yeah, of course it does," he admitted. "I mean, otherwise we wouldn’t have put the Matt Perry show ('Mr. Sunshine') there, and we think that’s a good place to put it. In the long term, do we have ambitions that 'Cougar Town' could on its own start an hour? We would love to see it do that. Nevertheless, nobody looks at our Wednesday at 9:00 and 9:30 and doesn’t feel that’s a great hour of television, and those are very good ratings."

* He's very excited about the network's future with Marvel Comics adaptations. "I for one am thrilled that we have Marvel within our family," he said. It’s a superb opportunity for us. And 'Jessica Jones,' which we have Melissa Rosenberg doing, and 'The Hulk,' which Guillermo Del Toro is helping us with, these are A list showrunners that we think is critical. I mean, if you’re going to bring back a franchise, I think, it’s easier to launch a well known franchise. You have the following wind of a well known name. But what really distinguishes the one that survives are the quality of the shows, so that’s why a Barry Jossen at the studio - and we have done as much as we can to really get what we consider to be A list showrunners for that. So, yeah, we’ve got a little glint in our eye that we would love to make a Marvel franchise work on the network, and we’ll see how it goes. We don’t necessarily have to do it on cycle. We certainly would like to do it with a huge amount of support and, you know, this is one of the things I think our company does better than other companies that I’ve worked for in the past, is that you can get the whole company behind an idea and that if it works, you can then make that idea live in theme parks and in retail stores and beyond. So I definitely have a glint in my eye that I would love to make that happen, and we have the properties to do it. And they probably won’t be the only two Marvel things that we do going forward."

Beyond that, though, I really can't say as I have anything to offer you of interest about the other panels. I had a nice chat with Jason George, late of "Eli Stone," who hails from my home area of Hampton Roads, so for his sake, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that "Off the Map" turns into a mid-season success. I also had brief conversations with a few "Wipeout" folks, including co-host Jill Wagner and executive producer Matt Kunitz, so look for those to turn up in the near future. Otherwise, though, I got nothin'.

See you guys tomorrow for Fox. Trust me, it'll be awesome.

Day 5 of the Winter 2001 TCA Press Tour felt mildly anticlimactic after the previous day, with its strong focus on entertainment-related panels. I still maintain my "PBS rocks" mantra, but all things being equal, it might've been nice if they'd mixed up the proceedings a bit more, maybe putting Jeff Bridges and the "Best of 'Laugh-In'" panels on different days.

Instead, we started with a panel for "PBS Newshour," moved into a via-satellite appearance by Placido Domingo for his "Great Performances" special, and then slid into several panels in a row which, God bless them, simply weren't as scintillating overall as one would've liked them to be. "Black in Latin America" did had Wyclef Jean on hand, which was kind of cool, and I'm very intrigued by the concept of "NOVA: Smartest Machine on Earth," about a computer that's going to compete on an episode of "Jeopardy," but I wouldn't go so far as to say that either kept me riveted from start to finish. Ironically, though, a panel I'd planned on skipping - "American Experience: Freedom Riders" - turned out to be so fascinating that I stayed 'til the bitter end, thrilling to every word. From there, we got a few sneak previews of future PBS projects, most notably Ken Burns' look into Prohibition, and had a long-winded but still entertaining panel from highly underrated talk show host Tavis Smiley, but after that, the triple-threat of "Frontline: Are We Safer," "Where Soldiers Come From," and "StoryCorps" was more than sufficient to leave me wishing and hoping for the evening event to arrive sooner than later.

Finally, the event did arrive, and, boy, was it worth the wait. "Great Performances: Hitman Returns - David Foster & Friends" features the imminent songwriter performing his songs with vocal help from several other artists, and we'd been forewarned that at least one of them would be turning up and joining him onstage for his TCA performance, but believe me when I tell you this: it's one thing to know that Donna Summer's going to be in the house, but it's quite another to actually have her belting out "Last Dance" only a few feet away from you. The woman turned the Langham's Venetian Ballroom into a discotheque, and it was fucking spectacular.

Best moment of the tour...? Try one of the best moments of any TCA tour ever.

And, now, on to our quotes...

1. "The world of conventional television recording has pressed down the length of a report from three minutes to two and a half minutes, to two, to one and a half, to now one minute and 10 seconds, becoming more like a radio spot on a lot of the network news, there are actually stories that need telling that can’t be told in a minute and 10. Sorry. You just can’t. You could be a clever journalist. You could be a good writer. You just can’t do it.

The (PBS) Newshour is a great place to do that, but also, because of the new online opportunities, a place to bring the tremendous cargo that you come back from the rest of the world with in your reporter’s notebook, in your camera, and find another way to tell ancillary stories, to tell stories that didn’t make it into the main report, to start a dialogue with viewers, and really to do the other part of coverage that you can’t necessarily do on television. And also because a flight from Maputo, Mozambique, takes 31 hours, you’ve got a lot of time to work on your reporter’s notebook on the way back." - Ray Suarez, PBS Newshour

2. "You live almost a life of tragedy constantly on the stage and you are rehearsing those big dramas, but, of course, you concentrate at the performance and even in the rehearsals, but doesn’t have to touch you. I know many people, many actresses, that were having problems after playing 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' for instance. And I believe that, after all, you are acting. You cannot let yourself in the suffering. That’s the reason I am a happy person.

Of course you have your sad moments in life, like we all have, like tragedies, losing dear people, dear relatives, parents, friends. But you live optimistically a life, which I like to live. But as I say, I love to be happy, but I love to suffer on the stage. On the stage it’s wonderful, the suffering. I like also the comedy, but I am better at suffering." - Placido Domingo, "Great Performances: Placido Domingo - My Favorite Roles"

3. "As Watson’s developed over the years, it’s had a lot of silly answers. There’s quite a variety of them. I guess one of my favorites is we asked it what do grasshoppers eat and the answer was 'kosher.'" - David Ferucci, "NOVA: Smartest Machine on the Planet - Can A Computer Win on 'Jeopardy'?"

4. "It was in Parchman that I had that decision that I asked to be arrested. That was when we arrived in Jackson, and we were getting off the bus. And I was up front, and I started to get off because I had to go to the bathroom. Because we had come all the way there with the bus going 60 and 70 and 75 miles an hour. And so I was waiting for that opportunity. But then, those who had gotten off the bus told me to be the rear guard because we needed to have someone of influence to make certain that everyone was off the bus and that no one was attacked from behind right without everybody else knowing.

I was in the restroom some time. By the time I came out, everybody had been arrested, Captain Ray had put everybody in the wagon, and so I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around and he looked at me. And I said, 'I’m with them.' And Ray turned. He straightened he turned back around, but I could see the other side of his face. He was just straightening out because he was smiling. So then he got his face straight and he turned back around and he said, 'Get in there.'” - Dr. C. T. Vivian, "American Experience: Freedom Riders"

5. "Harrison Ford hates being interviewed. He got sick years ago of all the Calista (Flockhart) questions because the stuff is so predictable. So Harrison Ford walks on - he didn’t even walk on the show. He just kind of shuffles onto the set. I can tell by his body language that he doesn’t want to be here, he hates doing this. He sits in the chair. He crosses his leg. I’m sitting over here. He leans away from me. So his body language is...I just met this guy for the first time, and I’m prepared to have a great conversation with him, but Harrison ain’t trying to talk to me because he hates doing this. And I just decided out the gate - once I said good evening to him, he gave me a barely audible 'Nice to be here.' And I said to him, 'You don’t really mean that.'

"He leaned forward. I said, 'You don’t really mean that it’s nice to be here, because I know, because I’ve been told by anybody and everybody who has interviewed you, that you hate to be interviewed. So I know you don’t really want to be here. So why don’t we just get that out of the way first. I mean, you’re such a huge star. You’re such a huge star, and people love you. They respect your work. You’re an icon in this town. Why do you hate being interviewed so much? I mean, you ought to revel in this. You ought to love the fact that people want to talk to you, they want to hear from you, they want to be a part of your world and have you share with them. Why do you hate this so much?'

"He says, 'Let me tell you why I hate this.' And he leans up, and before I know it, we’re into it. And that conversation took off because I followed him. I listened to his heart. I tried to get inside his head and where he wanted this conversation to go, which initially was that he didn’t even want to be there. And by the time we got through doing that conversation, that clip that you saw, at least his face, Harrison Ford - and I remember this only because it was so moving for me - at the end of the conversation, he said to me, 'This is perhaps the best television conversation I have ever had. I appreciate your candor. I appreciate your authenticity. I appreciate your honesty. I look forward to coming back on your program.'” - Tavis Smiley, Tavis Smiley

Okay, there's your top 5 quotes. Now for that great anecdote...

First, a bit of back story: in addition to my duties as an associate editor with Bullz-Eye.com, I'm also an occasional contributor to Popdose.com, and within the site's stable of writers is a gentleman named Terje Fjelde. Terje, bless him, took a bullet for all of us that, while it arguably never really needed to be taken in the first place, resulted in a really great column with a premise as simple as it is horrifying: one man spending one year listening to nothing on his iPod but songs written and produced by David Foster.

Fast-forward to the TCA Press Tour, the second night of PBS's evening events. David Foster is sitting onstage. It's my turn to ask a question.

As he sips from his water, I speak into the microphone.

"David," I begin, "a friend of mine wrote a column where he listened to nothing but David Foster songs and productions on his iPod for a year..."

At this, I watch David Foster perform an actual, honest-to-God spit take.

"I heard about that!" he shouts.

"And," he adds, with a grin, "I understand he killed himself at the end, is that right? You know, I don’t take elevators, and the reason is I’m afraid I’m going to hear my own music in there."

"Well, he made it from Celine Dion to Jaye P. Morgan," I say. "But he wanted to know if there’s any obscurities that you think he should have checked out, or even some that you may have apologized for, maybe from the early years?"

"Well, like all of you who probably read some of your reviews from 20 years ago, some of them you look at and you go, 'Holy shit, that could have been written yesterday, it’s so fantastic,' and others you just wish they would just go away," Foster says. "In particular, I produced Alice Cooper in 1979, and I had a great time producing him. It was a wonderful time. When I hear that album, I cringe, not because of him, but because the production is so dated-sounding. And, yet, in that same year, I produced and co wrote 'After The Love Has Gone” for Earth, Wind & Fire, and I hear that record, and it sounds like it could have been done yesterday. That was me in the same year doing two different projects. One I couldn’t stomach to listen to, and the other, you know, I like a lot."

After the panel, I catch up with Foster as he's literally running out the door, remind him who I am, and ask him to offer a quote about the column.

"I thought it was awesome," he says, laughing. "How could not love that? It was me, me, me!"

That I could confirm for Terje that David Foster not only knows of his column but, indeed, thinks it's awesome...? That may go down as my favorite accomplishment of the tour.

Not all of the critics who attend the TCA Press Tour care a lot about PBS's days of the tour, but I always try to attend as many of their panels as possible. For one reason, I'm a longtime Anglophile, so it's like shooting fish in a barrel to convince me that I ought to check out a new episode from one of the "Masterpiece" shows. For another, I'm a former record store clerk and music critic, so the concerts are always an easy sell. And then, of course, you've got the retrospectives of various actors, films, and televisions series. Basically, there are any number of reasons for me to get excited about PBS...and, as usual, they gave me several this tour.

Breakfast came with an introduction from and a short Q&A with Jose Andres, host of "Made in Spain," a show which I now feel like I need to watch just because he was so darned charming. After that, we got an update from PBS Kids which was surprisingly unexciting, but I stuck it out because I didn't want to feel guilty about strolling out with the "Dinosaur Train" and "Super Why" toys that were on table. (My daughter's going to love them...) From there, we shifted into the big ballroom and spent some time with Jeff Bridges as he talked about his upcoming "American Masters" special, then back to the small ballroom for the "Masterpiece" presentations on "Upstairs Downstairs" and "Zen."

Back to the big ballroom again for "Bears of the Last Frontier," but although I was fascinated, I had to slip out early in order to do a one-on-one with Rufus Sewell about his work on "Zen." Thankfully, I made it back in time for the long but wonderful panel for "The Best of Laugh-In," featuring Gary Owens, Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, and creator George Schlatter. Sadly, I missed most of the next two panels, "Forgiveness: A Time to Love & A Time to Hate" and "Independent Lens: Artists Profiles," but on the other hand, it's because I was able to help my buddy Brian Sebastian on interviews with Owens and Tomlin, even getting a few questions in myself.

The evening event was a performance by Harry Connick Jr. in conjunction with his "Great Performances" special, and I thought it was fantastic, if unabashedly jazzy. But, really, if you were expecting anything else, then you clearly haven't been listening to the man's music very much. All I know is that he tore the roof off the joint, and I loved every minute of it.

Okay, time for your top 10 quotes of the day. You'll note more repetition of shows this go-round, but all I can tell you is that there were fewer panels and less instantly memorable moments in some of them. I think you'll still get a few good laughs from this bunch, anyway, though. See you tomorrow!

1. "I got a little bit nervous when they told me that I had to be speaking in front of TV critics. I knew I was coming here to share time at PBS, but all of a sudden it’s, like, 'The room is going to be full of TV critics.' Great: all my life dealing with food critics one by one, and now I’m going to have to be dealing with an entire room of TV critics...?" - Jose Andres, "Made in Spain"

2. "There’s an element in making movies, the collage, that you give all your stuff and then the director cuts it up and makes a different piece out of it. Seeing myself as this young guy (in 'Tron: Legacy'), it rubbed my fur a little bit the wrong way. You know, it was a bit like...remember the first time you heard your voice on a tape recorder, how weird it sounded to you? Early on in my career...I don’t know if we have time for kind of a long story. You feel like a story or not?

"My first film was called 'Halls of Anger.' The movie was about busing white kids into a black school, and I was the white kid who was supposed to be, you know, trying to integrate into the sports and all these things. And the black kids keep beating me up. So now this is the scene here; what I’m going to describe is the climax of the film. And Calvin Lockhart, wonderful actor, is playing the boys’ vice principal. And the scene is; I’ve been beaten up, and now I’m there, and I say, 'I’m quitting.' And I’m in tears and everything. He says, 'No, you got to stick.' I say, 'I’ve had it. I’ve had enough,' you know. So we started shooting the scene, and we did Calvin’s side first. And all my emotion came, and I was thinking, 'God, I hope I have it when we come back to my side.' Then they shot all the coverage of all the people’s reaction, and I was there. And then they came to my side, and I kicked ass, man. I was so...it was like fresh, and I got applause from the crew. And I was, like, 'Oh, man, maybe I should do this acting thing. I’m pretty good!' Now we cut to Watts, and it’s the premiere of the show, and I’m sitting there with my brother on one side and my father on one side. And I’m saying, 'Wait till you guys see my...' Well, you know, not saying it to them, but I’m saying it inside. And here comes the scene. And here it comes. And now they’re on Calvin. Yeah, Calvin, the boys’ vice principal. Yeah. Cut to me. Cut to me. Why aren’t you cutting to me? And now they cut to me...and my face is something like (a grimace). And the entire audience laughs...and I just about had a bowel movement. And if you listened, it was the perfect opposite reaction that I wanted from the audience.

"That was like a real crossroads for me with the acting, because I thought, 'God, how do you protect yourself?' And you don’t. You just have to be willing to lay it out there and put yourself in some director’s hands." - Jeff Bridges, "American Masters: Jeff Bridges - The Dude Abides"

3. "(My performance tonight) was really weak. You know what it is, man? Like, I resorted a little bit of trickery. I haven’t sung a song in four months. I haven’t sat at a piano in four months because I was doing this dolphin movie. I’ve been a veterinarian for the last four months. So it’s unfair in a sense. But you guys didn’t pay to get in here, so I don’t feel that bad about it." - Harry Connick, Jr., "Great Performances: Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert on Broadway"

4. "Lady Bellamy (on 'Upstairs, Downstairs') was played by Rachel Gurney in the first series. The truth of the story is she came into a great deal of money. Her mother died and left her a lot of money. So she went to John Hawkesworth and the other producers and said, 'Sorry, I’ve got to go, I don’t want to do this anymore.' So she went down on the Titanic, as you’ll remember, Lady Bellamy did. And either (Rachel) ran through the money, or she got bored, and she wanted to come back, so she went to John Hawkesworth and said, 'Could you please write me back in, darling?' And he said, 'Rachel, the only person who could write you back in is Jacques Cousteau.'” - Jean Marsh, "Masterpiece: Upstairs, Downstairs"

5. “'Upstairs Downstairs' premiered in England in 1971, it went on for five years, there were probably 68 episodes, and about 15 years ago, Jean Marsh and I were at a reception with Princess Margaret, in England. Princess Margaret was notorious as a party girl, as you all know, and there were great gaps in her own personal history. So Jean...I probably shouldn’t be telling the story, but it’s too late now...Jean was introduced presented to Princess Margaret, who was there in the dress, with the handbag. And the equery sort of whispered in Princess Margaret’s ear and said, 'Jean Marsh, the creator of the very popular television series ‘Upstairs Downstairs.’' Blank, nothing. Shakes hand with Jean, and the equery says, 'You remember, the one about the Bellamy family at Eaton Place.' And Princess Margaret said, 'Oh, yes. The one about all the classes.' Now, Jean’s a very feisty piece of work, and it doesn’t go down well, things like that, with Jean. So Jean is shaking her hand, curtsies, whatever you do, whatever you people do over there, curtsy. And she said, 'How do you do, ma’am.' Jean said, 'Did you see it?' And Princess Margaret said, 'No, I was away.' And Jean said, 'For five years?' That’s our Jean." - Rebecca Eaton, "Masterpiece"

6. Ed Stoppard: Rufus has been Tom (Stoppard’s) surrogate son for about the last 20 years. I’m working through a lot of issues, actually, about this at the moment.
Rufus Sewell: This is a breakthrough.
Ed Stoppard: Yeah, and you’re all here. It’s like an intervention. Rufus, as I’m sure you’re aware, starred in 'Arcadia' in 1993. So I would have been 19. I remember going to see it - 18, 19 - and I remember going to see it and sort of slightly having a crush on him, really, truth be told. Have I not told you this before?
Rufus Sewell: No.

Ed Stoppard: Okay. Don’t print that. But basically thinking, “This is..." That was certainly one of those moments in my adolescence where I thought, 'This is something I’d like to do.' So I kind of knew Rufus from afar, and we’d sort of bumped into each other once or twice over the years. But, you know, Caterina was quoted in an interview I noted where she was asked, 'What first attracted you to this project?' And she said, 'Rufus Sewell.' And I kind of felt...I mean, that was also sort of pertinent to me. The idea of working with Rufus was...I was about to say very attractive. That’s not what I want to say at all, but...you know what I mean.
Rufus Sewell: More of a breakthrough than we need.

- Ed Stoppard and Rufus Sewell, "Masterpiece Mystery: Zen"

7. George Schlatter: I must admit, (getting Richard Nixon to appear on 'Laugh-In') was my biggest mistake, and I've had to live with that ever since he announced that that may have gotten him elected, but Paul Keyes was his closest friend, and I said, 'Let's do something. What about Nixon?' He said, 'We'll go talk to him.' So we went over to CBS, and Paul said, 'Mr. Nixon, we want you to say, 'Sock it to me.' He said, "What is 'sock it to me'?' I said, 'Just say that.' He did say that. So we got a camera. Now, his guys are still, 'He can't do it,' and we're in there, and we say, 'Just say, 'Sock it to me.'" "Sock it to me." "No, no, Mr. Nixon. If you could say, like, 'Sock it to me.'' 'Yes, I've got it. This comedy is new for me, you know. Sock it to me.' So we took six takes to try to get the one you saw, and we were out of there like a porch climber and put it on before anybody really knew what we were doing or knew the effect that it would have. Then we chased Hubert Humphrey all over the country trying to get him to rebut it...and he said that cost him the election.

Gary Owens: Well, you know, I was with Humphrey that particular day. He was doing "Meet the Press" that same day that Nixon came on "Laugh In," but not together. So I knew Humphrey from my days in the Midwest, so I said, "Let's go down and talk to him." Well, he can't do anything except say, "No," and at this point, he says, "Well, I'm just starting to do 'Meet the Press.' Can you guys come back in maybe an hour and a half, and I'll ask my advisors what I should do." Well, of course, we're waiting around thinking he would do it, and his advisors told him that he'd have his pants sprayed with seltzer and fall through a trap door...
George Schlatter: Not a bad idea...
Gary Owens: ...which, of course, you wouldn't have done. But, so, anyway, his advisors told him not to do "Laugh In."
George Schlatter: They passed a special bill in Congress that would...they had an equal time provision, a special bill that allowed a political candidate, if it was a nonpolitical statement, under five seconds to appear on a variety show so that Nixon could appear. And I've had to live with that.

- George Schlatter and Gary Owens, "The Best of 'Laugh-In'"

8. "I tried to resist...creating a strong persona because of my father, you know, with 'Sea Hunt' and Mike Nelson and all that. I saw how frustrated he was, because he was a very versatile actor, and because he was so successful as Mike Nelson. He got offered a lot of skin diving scripts. That’s about it for quite a while. So I went about not developing a strong persona, and now The Dude has sort of materialized as that. And I’m not so I’m not so stuck on not developing a persona. I figure now my persona is going to be whatever it is, and I’ve got enough material around The Dude that the filmmakers know I can do other things, so I’m not as worried as I once was about that, and I love 'The Big Lebowski.' It’s one of my favorite movies. I’m partial. I’m in it. That’s one reason. Even if I wasn’t in it, it would still be one of my favorite movies. It always hooks me. You know, I’m one of the guys who clicks on the TV, and if 'The Godfather' comes on, I’ll watch that. I get hooked. I say, 'I’ll just watch a couple of scenes,' and I get hooked. And 'Lebowski' is like that with me too. I’ll watch a couple scenes, and I’m a goner." - Jeff Bridges, "American Masters: Jeff Bridges - The Dude Abides"

9. "I remember asking Brian May, the guitar player with Queen, 'How much did Freddie (Mercury) know...like, really know...about music?” And he said he had a third grade piano education, which is fascinating to me because, when you think about the stuff he did like on any song, like 'Death on Two Legs,' whatever song you want to pick, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' would be the obvious choice, and there’s a lot of stuff going on there. You know, what I dug about him so much is he was completely uninhibited as a performer. He just didn’t care. Like, he would just go out and wear what he wanted, even with his sexuality and with the way every nothing mattered. I mean, he wasn’t afraid of anything. As a young performer, that’s what you aspire to: to be able to not care. And the more you sort of restrict yourself with the confines of established art form like jazz and when you start to become successful at it, it becomes more and more difficult to be uninhibited because you like the success, you like what’s happening to you. So you would destroy it by doing anything contrary to that.

"I experienced that when I did these funk records. People you know, they come to my shows to hear me singing 'It Had to Be You,' and then we’re playing really weird New Orleans R&B, and so it’s difficult. But Freddie Mercury was one of those guys who didn’t care. That’s extremely rare, I think, to be able to do that, and you couple that with his musical abilities, I wouldn’t say he was the greatest piano player in the world, but he’s certainly intensely musical, and his vocals...like, there’s a guy I wouldn’t want to have a cutting contest with as a singer. Like, I mean, he just...that’s just...it’s, like, silly ability. That’s unbelievable to be able to do that, and even when you listen to his vibrato, it’s erratic. You know what I mean? That’s just talent, straight up talent and creativity. That’s ridiculous. Imagine what he would have been able to do had he been trained. Like, it wouldn’t have affected his spontaneity or creativity at all, I don’t think. I think that’s a big myth when you you know, when you become educated, it takes away from the soulful part. Imagine. I mean, that’s just, like, once a century talent, I think."

10. "You know, some of (the talk show hosts) are great eaters. Charlie Rose is. Conan O’Brien is. But this is entertainment at 1:00 a.m. If you have anyone at 1:00 a.m. awake, don’t talk to them about the future of humankind through food, you know? When I go to these shows, I know I make a clown of myself. They never sit me in the sofa. I’m, like, 'What the heck?' Because I’m an immigrant? They make you cook. You know, they don’t invite Frank Gehry and they put him to make little buildings in the middle of the room. But with chefs, they still make us cook. Like, 'All right, give me a break.'" - Jose Andres, "Made in Spain"

Day 3 of the Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour ran me ragged, moreso than any day which preceded it and, I feel rather certain, than any day to follow. Very rarely has it ever come to pass that I schedule a day full of one-on-one interviews and have every single of them go off without a hitch, and you can probably already guess that yesterday wasn't an exception to that rule. I should probably just be happy that I got some of them, though: the way things were looking, I wasn't entirely convinced that I was going to get any of them.

The last day of the cable portion of the tour began with breakfast with the members of the Rainbow Networks: WEtv ("Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best" and "Braxton Family Values"), IFC ("Onion News Network" and "Portlandia"), and AMC ("The Killing"). Shifting ballrooms, we next listened to A&E ("Breakout Kings") and Lifetime ("Seriously Funny Kids" and "Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy"), but...do you detect a trend here?...we soon moved back to the other ballroom to get the scoop on stuff from Hallmark ("Goodnight for Justice") and Starz ("Camelot," "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena," and "Torchwood: Miracle Day"). Lastly, it was - oh, dear - back to the other ballroom again. This time, however, HBO kept us sitting still for the duration of the afternoon, giving us looks into "Mildred Pierce," "The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway," "Cinema Verite," "Game of Thrones," "Too Big to Fail," and "The Sunset Limited."

My problem, however, was this: I had to keep bowing out of this panel and that in order to participate in various roundtables and one-on-one interviews. Worse, one of the roundtables - stand up, please, Tommy Lee Jones - was shifted from a perfect location on the schedule into a spot which utterly disrupted almost all of the interviews that followed. In the end, though, I did manage to participate in two roundtables for "Game of Thrones," including one with author George R.R. Martin, I and two other writers sparred with Mr. Jones (surviving the encounter without having any of my questions ridiculed or dismissed outright has earned me some sort of entertainment journalism merit badge, I feel certain), and still managed to chat one-on-one with the too-sweet-for-words Eve Myles ("Torchwood: Miracle Day") as well as John Hannah and Peter Mensah ("Spartacus: Gods of the Arena").

The evening event was brought to us by Hallmark, and it took place at the Tournament House...as in the Tournament of Roses...in Pasadena. It was a pleasantly low-key event which began with cocktails and featured a classy sit-down dinner. What I'm saying, basically, is that it was old-school in all the right ways, including familiar TV faces like Doris Roberts, Marion Ross, and Marilu Henner, who regularly found herself holding court about her superior autobiographical memory. I also had an opportunity to sit down and chat with 11-year-old Kiernan Shipka, who plays Sally Draper on "Mad Men." What a little sweetheart.

Okay, that's it for the Day 3 wrap-up. Time for your daily dose of my favorite quotes...

1. "I knew that I was doing a lot of plastic surgery, because Melissa, one time, called me when (my grandson) Cooper was four years old and they had 'Return of the Mummy,' and he ran to the TV and went, 'Grandma, Grandma.' But I think plastic surgery come on, guys. You know. How many people have you interviewed...if you had a stitch for every if you had a dollar for every stitch in the face of someone you’ve interviewed, you wouldn’t be sitting here. You know what I mean? It’s part of our business." - Joan Rivers, "Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best" (WEtv)

2. "It is literally impossible to be more ridiculous than Fox News or MSNBC. It’s actually impossible. It’s happened multiple times that we’ll be kind of talking and brainstorming a joke in the writers’ room, we’ll get excited about it, and then it’s literally on the FoxNews.com website. So I think we have to kind of embrace that closeness. And the excitement for us is not being a parody of 24-hour news, but we are real news. Those are our competitors in a kind of slightly different world, and I think that believability is also part of what’s exciting about it. We’ve had online cases where, for example, last year there was a case where we published a story about Neil Armstrong now saying that the moon landing was a hoax, and all these papers in Bangladesh picked it up. There was a story about the Make-A-Wish Foundation being bankrupted by a child who wishes for unlimited wishes, which is pretty out there. It went on MySpace, which is kind of the Internet hub for morons, and we got this letter from the Make-A-Wish Foundation that was, like, 'We’re getting hundreds of e-mails every hour, people who are concerned.' So how ridiculous those things are, I think, really kind of opens up a lot of doors for us." - Will Graham, "Onion News Network" (IFC)

3. "Portland is a city that has a lot of self-esteem that’s filled with people with very little self-esteem, so we collectively we gather around a place that we love and that makes us feel good about ourselves. And Portland is full of well-intentioned, kind people that sometimes go to great lengths to be a little mean to let you know that they’re kind. But I love Portland, and I probably couldn’t live anywhere else. Seattle is a wonderful city, but they volley their inferiority and superiority complexes back and forth." - Carrie Brownstein, "Portlandia" (IFC)

4. "I love the physical comedy bit. Like I love doing all these crazy things. First of all, we have all these different boogers for me to choose from, big boogers, like runny boogers. I’m like, “Yeah. I want the big slimy, nasty booger.” I put the booger in and it gets all put in and then the kids come into my office and I turn around. I pretend I have this cold and they’re like - they’re looking at me and they don’t know what to do." - Heidi Klum, "Seriously Funny Kids" (Lifetime)

5. "There is something that happens with the cast when you’re away from the vagaries of your own life and in a place as magical as Rome, where every single place that you turn is art. And I had my children there. I home school my kids. They were like, 'Mom, let’s go to the gelato place behind the Pantheon,' and they’re saying Pantheon as if it’s the deli. It’s crazy. And then, Robert had a friend who played wonderful violin, musician, in some scenes, that you think about and read about, oh, they used to do that in the ’50s; nobody does that anymore. And you would be there and there was a beautiful artistic life that also we were allowed to be a part of and history that we were allowed to be a part of that just you know, working on location is great and I think that was in our contract. If it’s Bulgaria, no. If it’s Rome, yes." - Marcia Gay Harden, "Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy" (Lifetime)

6. "I like the 'Twilight' series. I like Robert Pattinson. I like Justin Bieber. I don’t know if I have 'Bieber Fever' or not. I do like him, but I don’t think I’m crazy over him. I’m more of a 'Twilight' person." - Kiernan Shipka, "Smooch" (Hallmark Channel)

7. "Before we started shooting ('Camelot'), we had a month of what was officially known as Boot Camp, which, being English and middle-class, I was very, very nervous about doing because we don’t really like to do much physical work." - Jamie Campbell Bower, "Camelot" (Starz)

8. "I was sitting here, listening to Russell (T. Davies) talk, and I think a lot of sci-fi that I’ve done has been with people with accents. Because I think of Roland Emmerich...and Mel Brooks has kind of an accent. It’s a big spectrum when you think 'Spaceballs' and 'Torchwood' could fit inside this realm." - Bill Pullman, "Torchwood: Miracle Day (Starz)

9. "The dark 'Pee-Wee' movie probably won’t be happening until things get a little darker. But this movie is going to be more like the traditional. Judd (Apatow) really wanted to do a reality based film that’s very much more like 'Big Adventure,' so this is a road picture, is what we’re writing right now. I’ve only got the setup to getting out on the road, and I don’t really know what’s going to happen yet. Although I’ve been greatly influenced by Russ Meyer’s film 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' And I think there’s going to probably be some influence there. I think some biker chicks will come in and aid in my getting across the country. That’s what I think right now. That could be different. I can’t guarantee that." - Pee-Wee Herman, "The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway" (HBO)

10. "It never occurred to me really beyond the moment of actually receiving those five scripts. It just didn’t occur to me, 'Wow, this is television; therefore, it’s going to be different somehow.' We have to work in a different way or...you know, sure we had more to shoot, and we had to work a lot faster, but the determination and the level of focus that we all had to have because we were limited was so much more intense, honestly, than certainly any film I’ve been a part of. I mean film, schmilm. I’m telling you, television is so much harder." - Kate Winslet, "Mildred Pierce" (HBO)

The first half of the second day of the Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour belonged solely to the Turner networks, who had been notably MIA from the summer tour. Although there were unconfirmed reports that they were not entirely thrilled with the dates that had been set for that tour, as most of their summer programming had already premiered by the time the tour kicked off, but during the opening remarks, we were assured that "we ask for time on the critics tour schedule when we can make it worth your while." Fair enough, then.

After an "Adventure Time"-themed breakfast from Cartoon Network, Adult Swim brought on a plethora of panelists for "Childrens Hospital" (everyone in the above photo was in attendance, plus executive producers Jonathan Stern and David Wain), TNT followed with "Franklin & Bash," "Falling Skies," and "Men of a Certain Age," then HLN and CNN wrapped things up by getting real and presenting the new talk shows from Dr. Drew Pinsky and Piers Morgan, respectively. Given that I ended up pulling one-on-one interviews with Malcolm McDowell, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Breckin Meyer, Garcelle Beauvais, Ray Romano (and Jon Manfrellotti), Scott Bakula, and Henry Winkler, I am hard pressed to have an unkind word to say about the Turner experience...except, that is, the fact that I diligently and politely contacted publicists for both networks and studios in an effort to nail down interviews in advance but was still ultimately left to fly by the seat of my pants and spend the morning in catch-as-catch-can mode.

Our working lunch was brought to us by the unlikely tag-team of BET ("The Game," "Let's Stay Together") and Playboy TV ("Brooklyn Kinda Love," "Swing"), and from there it was on to the Discovery family of networks: Animal Planet ("Taking on Tyson," a look into Mike Tyson's love of pigeons...yes, seriously), Science Channel ("An Idiot Abroad," with Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and title character Karl Pilkington), Investigation Discovery ("The Injustice Files"), and the mothership, the Discovery Channel ("Gold Rush - Alaska" and "Kidnap & Rescue").

By then, the excitement / cynicism in the room was palpable: it was time for the OWN Network presentations. We'd been promised a welcome from Oprah, but we didn't get one. Instead, we got an introduction from network CEO Christina Norman. She's a very nice lady, but it wasn't quite the same, and she admitted as much when she came onstage after a lengthy series of clips featuring Ms. Winfrey, saying, "I know: after all that Oprah, I am a massive disappointment to all of you." Her Majesty did indeed deign to participate in a Q&A with us, but not until after we sat through panels for "Your OWN Show" (10 finalists compete to get their own series on the network), "The Gayle King Show," and "Our America with Lisa Ling." After Oprah held court, using what my esteemed colleague Bill Harris of the Toronto Sun referred to as the George W. Bush Technique, which involved offering incredibly lengthy answers in order to minimize the number of questions actually asked.

After the Q&A came to a close (and you can believe that it only ended when Oprah wanted it to end), we were all invited to attend the evening event which, although it was ostensibly brought to us by the OWN Network, nonetheless featured attendees from shows throughout the Discovery family of networks. This resulted in my having close encounters with Mike Tyson, author James Ellroy, and...well, I didn't actually get to talk to Oprah, but I did stand very close to her (along with Carson Kressley and Nancy O'Dell, hosts of "Your OWN Show") and breathe the same air as Oprah, so my understanding is that I will now never get cancer...which is nice, of course, but, damn, I really could've used a new car.

I know, you wish I'd gotten a new car, too. Don't be sad, though, as I'm already sad enough for both of us. Besides, I'd much rather you read my selections for the top 10 quotes of Day 2 and leave me wallowing in my own car-less misery. No, don't worry about me, I'll be fine...just as long as you don't forget to come back for my coverage of Day 3.

1. "The one note we did get (for 'Children's Hospital'), it was from Warner Brothers...I hesitate to even tell you this, but when we turned in our first script for the web series, Warner Brothers called us up and said, 'Um, do you think you could cut the shot where we actually see the Twin Towers burning?' And we were like, 'Yeah, do you know what? That’s a great note.'” - Rob Corddry, “Children’s Hospital” (Adult Swim)

2. "I actually improvise all my own parts. I don’t know why they hire writers. I enjoy ad-libbing greatly, because I...basically, I can’t remember what the hell I’m doing. What’s the show called?" - Malcolm McDowell, "Franklin & Bash" (TNT)

3. “My wife is saying, every time she sees me doing a kissing scene, she says, ‘This is
bullshit. We have enough money.’” – Ray Romano, “Men of a Certain Age” (TNT)

3.5. “My wife says, ‘Keep kissing.’” – Scott Bakula, “Men of a Certain Age” (TNT)

4. “I have been talking to teens continuously for 30 years and so, but for the grace of God, I understand what they’re saying. I understand their culture. I’m part of their cultural landscape. I’m going to welcome them over to HLN. I would be delighted if they followed me over there. I’m going to hope they do, but no, I don’t have trouble (talking to them). If I had not been speaking to them continuously and I was still listening to Deep Purple and The Doobie Brothers like I would had it not been for the fact that I know personally Slightly Stoopid and bands like that now because I have been in their culture for so long, I would have no idea what the hell they were talking about. But I do understand it quite vividly now.” – Dr. Drew Pinsky, “The Dr. Drew Show” (HLN)

5. “I don’t really care if (Madonna) knows who I am. I’ve got a vague idea that she knows who I am. She’s kind of been an irritant in my life for 20 years, so I had to ban her from the show. It’s probably quite childish, but it made me feel better. A bended-knee apology on CNN might swing it. Other than that, it’s a lifetime ban. Lady Gaga is half her age, twice as good looking, twice as talented, and twice as hot. I mean, why would I bother with Madonna, seriously?” – Piers Morgan, “Piers Morgan Tonight” (CNN)

6. "We decided because each episode (of 'Swingers') is about a different couple, so there really wasn’t sort of a through-line. I suppose we could have flown them in, but they’re probably busy having sex with people. So we really couldn’t get them on a plane. Ann and I, we were like Dian Fossey living amongst the swingers." - Wendy Miller, "Swingers" (Playboy TV)

7. "My opinion don’t mean nothing. I’m here to talk about pigeons and stuff. Anything other than that, I’m a schmuck." - Mike Tyson, "Taking on Tyson" (Animal Planet)

8. "I think when people watch ('An Idiot Abroad'), they will realize that I am not a diff. They’ll see themselves in me, I think. Most normal people who, you know, travelers who go to foreign places, it is a shock to the system. And I think they will see themselves in me. But it does get on my nerves with – you know, they’re always annoying me. And I know always sort of people say, oh, it must be great being mates with Ricky (Gervais), but it isn’t. I will tell you what it is like. It’s like when you get a dog, and it seems like a good idea at the time. You go, it will be great to have a dog around the house, and then you realize it’s a pain in the ass, and it’s shitting everywhere, but everyone is going, 'Oh, what a cute dog.' The people who come around love that dog, but they don’t know what it’s like, the ins and outs of having that dog. And that’s what it’s like having him as a mate." - Karl Pilkington, "An Idiot Abroad" (Science Channel)

9. "If Oprah would have asked me to ride a unicycle naked and backwards at night, I would have asked her, 'Where do I sign up?' It’s Oprah." - Mark Burnett, Your OWN Show (OWN)

10. "With a lot of ('Children's Hospital'), it’s so ridiculous that it would be silly to be offended by it. I feel like, if you are offended by that, you are not watching TV properly, like, you don’t understand how to sit there and watch television, I think." - Rob Huebel, "Children's Hospital" (Adult Swim)

Sometimes, you just find yourself in the right place in the right time. Tonight, that place for me was standing next to Jonathan Storm, TV critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, who was invited over to talk with best-selling author James Ellroy (“L.A. Confidential,” “The Black Dahlia,” “The Big Nowhere”) about his new series for Investigation Discovery. When the publicist for "James Ellroy’s L.A.: City of Demons" - premiering on Jan. 19, FYI - realized that I, too, was a fan of Mr. Ellroy's work, she immediately hustled me over to join the conversation, where I was privy to the author offering his thoughts on the murder of the well-respected Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen.

"What I think happened," said Ellroy, "is that you have a guy, an ex-convict, living in a shitty hotel. He's a dope fiend. He tells everybody on God's green earth, 'I'm a hit man. I whacked this guy, I whacked this guy.' And everybody thinks, 'Go whack yourself. Fuck you.' And then he says, 'I whacked Ronni Chasen.' So someone stiffed a call to 'America's Most Wanted,' and they just said, 'Fuck it.' Beverly Hills P.D., the world's worst homicide bureau - they don't have any murders! - they actually decided to execute a warrant off that, which is probably illegal. (But) the guy really did do it. People who knew Ronnie Chasen...she was an abrasive older woman. He pulled up next to her on this bicycle, they shared a look, she flipped him off, he capped her and then ran."

Why, asked Storm, would he ride his bicycle out there in the middle of nowhere on Sunset?

"Because he's a psycho," responded Ellroy. "And because, almost always, the solution for a crime is that banal and that stupid. I talked to an LAPD guy who handled the suicide when the killer killed himself, and he said, 'Beverly Hills PD's got their dick in the wringer on this one.' And then the ballistics matched. They found the gun. So Beverly Hills PD got lucky."

But couldn't somebody have seen that guy and planted the gun with him afterward?

"No," said Ellroy, with a smirk. "That's a crime novel."

The death march with cocktails begins anew!

The Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour kicked off on January 5th with the MTV family of networks offering up panels from TV Land ("Retired at 35" and "Hot in Cleveland"), CMT ("Working Class"), Spike ("Coal"), and Comedy Central ("Onion SportsDome" and "Tosh.0"). From there, it was on to a working lunch, where we learned of the TV Guide Channel's new reality series, "The Nail Files," while indulging in a grilled chicken salad and, to ruin any possible health benefits, followed it with a cupcake. With our bellies full, we moved on to the National Geographic sessions: "Beast Hunter," "Explorer," "Alien Invasion" and "Area 51 Declassified," and "WILD on Snakes." Next, we got a look at two new TV One shows, "Love That Girl!" and "Way Black When," took a gander of Peter Lik's new series for The Weather Channel, and the whole thing wrapped up with ESPN's presentations for "Year of the Quarterback" and the BCS title game.

No, wait, I forgot: after all of the panels had concluded, the Comcast networks threw us a cocktail party which was attended by folks from E!, G4, and Style series. By then, though, I was running on fumes, so all I really did was enjoy the food (petite filets, buttermilk mashed potatoes, turkey sliders, and deep-fried mac & cheese balls...mmmmmmm), throw back a few bourbons, listen to Chris Gore rant about how awful "Tron: Legacy" was, and talk to Bruce Jenner for 15 minutes about his acting work, including "Can't Stop the Music." Indeed, the only time "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" came up was when one of his daughters called to tell him that they'd won Favorite TV Guilty Pleasure at the People's Choice Awards. (He applauded me for "going retro" with my questions.)

Also, somewhere in between all of those panels, I had a chance to ask Betty White a couple of questions, share an interview with Jane Leeves, and do one-on-ones with Wendie Malick, Henry Rollins, Phil Morris, and the anchors and executive producer of "Onion SportsDome." Arguably my most impressive accomplishment, however, was talking to Jerry Rice, asking a question provided to me by David Medsker (and tightened up slightly by Anthony Stalter), and having him seemingly believe that I know something about sports when I absolutely do not.

I'll be revisiting some of the individual panels on a case-by-case basis as time allows, but in the meantime, here are the top 10 quotes from Day 1 of the tour. Hope you enjoy them, and see you after Day 2!

1. "What is this Betty White business? This is silly. Really, it is very silly. You've had such an overdose of me lately. Trust me. I think I'm going to go away for a while. It's hard for me to say no to a job because you spend your career thinking if you say no, they'll never ask you again, and if you don't take the job, you know, that may be the end of it, but my mother taught me to say no when I was a girl, but that wasn't about show business. So the result is I'm trying to cut down. I really am." - Betty White, "Hot in Cleveland" (TV Land)

2. "Betty White is in the building. Did you hear that? I hope I get to touch her. I just had cataracts, and I'm still adjusting, but what I see is looking pretty good." - Ed Asner, "Working Class" (CMT)

3. "That mine (in Westchester, West Virginia) is a very complicated mine. It's not as easy as it looks on TV. It's 40,000 tons of steel, and it can run over you, and it can be on you in a heartbeat. Because I've been mashed by one before. And you really got to know what you're doin' working a coal mine. I mean, seriously, you really gotta know what you're doing to be a coal miner. That's the biggest thing. People think we're ignorant. 'They've got to work the coal mines because they can't do nothing else.' Well, me, I can do about anything. I can weld. I can...you know, I can do anything. But we're not ignorant. We choose that life because we like to live in an area, and we want to make good money for our family, and that's the reason we're there." - Robert Jerry "Wildman" Edwards, "Coal" (Spike TV)

4. "I don't know why I get away with some things. But I'm not a misogynistic, racist person. Yet I do find those jokes funny, so I say them. And I try to say everything kind of in a good spirit. I'm not up there preaching, by any means. They're not my beliefs. So...I don't know. I've done standup solidly for 15 years, and I've always kind of said whatever I wanted on stage. And the audiences have been pretty receptive. My goal certainly has never been to offend people, but I just...I'm not going to hold back because I think, 'Oh, that might upset somebody.' There was...the transgender group was upset with us for a joke we did for a while, but then I gained them back by...I don't know what I did. I did something that made them love me, because I love transgender people in general. I think that's a good organization. Are they here? Which table are they at?" - Daniel Tosh, "Tosh 2.0" (Comedy Central)

5. "The whole thing about (the man in New Jersey who was eaten by his pet Nile monitor lizards), if you know kind of the 'behind the scenes' on that, it’s actually still thought that he had a heart attack. And those animals were left without food, and they will feed on carrion, and then they depredated him as a food source as a last resort. So my thoughts on that are you should probably keep those animals locked up. But dead is dead, so if he died from a heart attack and then he was consumed, I think Disney would say that’s the circle of life." - Shawn Heflick, "Python Hunters" (Nat Geo WILD)

6. "Hollywood’s getting it wrong. There’s a lot of waste, not that I want to undercut anybody’s check, but there is a lot of fat that could be trimmed that brings these projects to market a little bit more economically, a little bit better creatively because you don’t have so many hands in the pie telling you what your vision can’t be. And I think that’s why the cable outlets are jumping on board. People want this. The audience aren’t the ones that didn’t want sitcoms. I think it was just the networks, and their paradigm was no longer appropriate for the dynamic, but audiences, especially African-American audiences, they want the whole ride. They want to laugh, cry, scream, shout, love. And shows like our show give them an opportunity to see themselves and feel that way. - Phil Morris, "Love That Girl!" (TV One)

7. "That is a total guy question (to ask if celebrities actually notice each other’s fingernails and toenails). Not to like point you out in the room, but it’s the guy in the middle right there, waving around his unmanicured hand. But it’s true. People are saying, 'Oh, what is this? Is this going to be like a show where you just watch people’s nails dry?' I’m, like, 'It’s not like that.' Nails are an accessory. It’s a six-and-a-half-billion-dollar-a-year industry, and it’s looked at like the black eye. And this is L.A., and I’m, like, 'Why can’t it be fabulous? Why can’t it be like the hair salons, the boutiques, the restaurants? Why is the nail salon like the little dump in the corner where you just run in and you pay your 20 bucks and get yelled at, and then you’re kicked out?' I think I can change that, and it’s definitely been working, and now we do have men. I mean, men aren’t afraid to come in. Granted, we do have free Jack Daniels. So if you’re going to have a free glass of whiskey, you’ll come in and get your feet rubbed for 20 bucks." - Katie Cazorla, "The Nail Files" (TV Guide Channel)

8. "Speaking specifically first and foremost to the TV One audience, parts of ('Way Black When') were, like, really cool. Sometimes you did have guests that that everyone don’t know who they are, (but) black folks know. On our 'New Jack City' program, we had...and his name escapes me for the moment, I apologize...we had the dude that shot Nino Brown at the end (Bill Cobb). Every black person knows who that is. 'You’re that dude that shot Nino Brown!' Come to find out, this dude’s been in, like, 100 movies. You’ve seen him in a gang of things. So we get to celebrate. It wasn’t like it was huge part of the film, but very, very memorable and something that I know the TV One audience will really gravitate towards. 'That’s that dude that shot Nino!'" - Chris "Kid" Reid, "Way Black When" (TV One)

9. "I was in diapers collecting jars filled with bees and getting stung over and over because I wanted to see what they felt like. I raised venomous snakes in my basement and lied to my mom about what they were. Yeah, it’s every mom’s dream, right? She expertly handles calls from the hospital." - Pat Spain, "Beast Hunter" (National Geographic)

10. "Do you guys ask questions for a profession? You’re pretty good. You don’t look like much as a group, but...good questions." - Steve Young, "Year of the Quarterback" (ESPN)