The best TV critic, ever

My buddy Dave Waldon, RIP

Christmas shopping for guilty consciences
"If I had two wishes I could make this holiday season, the first would be for all the children of the world to join hands and sing in the spirit of harmony and peace," Steve Martin once said on Saturday Night Live. "And the second would be for 30 million dollars a month to be given to me, tax-free, in a Swiss bank account." It's the central contradiction of the holidays: saving the world vs. looting the malls. The second half of the equation is powerful even to the most humanitarian-minded of us, which is why you're reading a holiday gift guide right now instead of a book by Gandhi or St. Thomas Aquinas.

Screen Gems: TV the week of November 29
12 Men of Christmas (9 p.m. Saturday, Lifetime) -- On the day of her office Christmas party, Kristin Chenoweth loses her job, gets dumped by her fiance and flees to the badlands of Montana. But, honest, this is a comedy. Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible (10 p.m. Tuesday, Science Channel) -- According to this documentary series hosted by Nobel Prize physicist Michio Kaku, one of these days you really might be able to

PBS remembers the day the Doors ruined America
I know, I know. You're feeling so triumphant after crashing the mall at 5 a.m. and getting a $2.98 computer and a free soft pretzel. But face it, by Saturday night you'll be broke, exhausted and quasi-suicidal after 36 hours of continuous shopping. Happily, if you live in South Florida, there's a way to erase it. A legal way, I mean. (For the other ways, you're reading the wrong blog.) I'm referring to an opportunity to wallow in somebody else's misery -- specifically, Ed Sullivan's.

Quit reading this and turn on the TV, idiot
Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on our blessings, by which I mean the bizarre collection of programming marathons cable TV is offering up today. TV Land's collection of Roseanne Thanksgiving episodes airing between 9 p.m. and midnight is understandable, and its three-hour burst of Little House On The Prairie between 6 and 9 p.m. at least arguable. But a Brady Bunch marathon from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.? Then again, that seems pretty mellow compared to 11 and a h

Adam Lambert is surprised. The networks are surprised. I'm not surprised.
Watch CBS News Videos Online It might seem a bit early to start handicapping next year's Emmys, but the Smirking Little Liar Most In Need Of A Hard Slapping category has already been wrapped up. Adam Lambert's performance Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show belongs right up there with "I did have sex with that woman" and "I am not a crook" in terms of grotesque televised untruthfulness. Defending his performance on ABC's weekend telecast of the American Music Awards-- among other things, he simulated fellatio with a male dancer -- Lambert swore that he was shocked, shocked