Tonight a double-travesty is occurring: the broadcast of both "Wipeout" and "I Survived A Japanese Game Show". Both of these shows take a good idea (for immature jerks like myself), Spike TV's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" aka "MXE", and turn it into garbage. "MXE" is an overdubbed (by members of LA's comedy troupe the Groundlings) and hilarious replaying of episodes of Japanese gameshow, "Takeshi's Castle" while "Wipeout" and "I Survived A Japanese Gameshow" are......

Late last week The Hollywood Reporter noted that Jon Voight has signed on to be Jack Bauer's nemesis in the upcoming season of "24" (shooting now in South Africa). Do you think it's enough or is "24" so stale now that no addition of talent can save it? 8:00pm The Middleman ABC Family - Series Premiere. "A young woman is recruited by a secret agency to fight evil." Lord help us. 9:00pm Dirty Jobs: Brown......

In contrast to the wildly cute meerkates to the right (yes, they're back), some seriously big numbers have been issued by the prestigious Milken Institute has put out an impressive study of the impact of the writer's strike. In summary: - 37,700 jobs lost - $2.1 billion in lost output through the end of 2008 The cascading effects of the strike are what reportedly tipped the state into a recession in early 2008, but......

The big story of the night is the season finale of "Lost". The problem for "Lost"-haters, and they do exist, is that there are very few other options this evening. Programming on ABC is dominated by 3 hours of "Lost" and the other majors are throwing just program repeats or reality contests at it. The NY Times reports that TiVo shamed market analysts by turning a nice profit last quarter instead of a forecast......

Advertising Age is reporting on the possible end of the nightly network newscast as another 1.2 million viewers in the US stopped tuning in last year. The article points out that the reason why people aren't tuning in at 6pm is because.... they are still at work. Hey networks, instead of constantly going off on red herrings like Terri Schiavo and WMD in Iraq, how about creating a frenzy over the fact that Americans work......

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Viacom, MGM, and Lion's Gate are teaming up to place (yet) another premium channel in your cable lineup - supposedly there are movies and programming that HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, etc. are not covering. Is the logo going to be a lion with a Viacom dog collar? 7:00pm High Plains Drifter TCM - (1973) This is Clint Eastwood at his cowboy best in a non-spaghetti Western. It might......

If you saw my SNL post yesterday, you know I'm all high on live TV (always have been), and lookie, lo-and-behold, we're going to start getting live ads on TV: the Hollywood Reporter says that Jimmy Kimmel (featured below tonight) will start running at least one live ad per episode starting in May. Garmin ran a live ad on Leno a year ago and the "effectiveness and awareness" levels exceeded standard (dead?) ads enough for......

Am recovering from my NYC trip to see the SNL taping. Monday looks a little slow but I'm sure there's a crapload of Masters' Tournament highlights to watch. I'm sorry if the selection looks a little CBS-heavy but that's what's on. What're you watching on Monday nights? Lemme know. 8-10:00pm The Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother/Two and a Half Men/Rules of Engagement CBS - All new. CBS has a comedy stranglehold on Monday......

The 10:00pm slot is hot again tonight but I'm going to have to go with Lewis Black again, that's a great show, maybe Comedy Central has finally figured out what to do with him. In other items, the Nielsen Company, whom I've occasionally reported on/castigated in this column, is inviting LAist to submit some TV Trivia questions for an "Ultimate Pop Culture Trivia Challenge" contest and I'd to invite YOU, our readers, to submit some......

So can fans really make a difference? Word has it that enough fans got through to NBC for them to keep the high school football-romance-drama "Friday Night Lights" on the air through a partnership with DirecTV. This gives one hope that a group of people can make a difference but then disappointment that truly great shows like "Arrested Development" couldn't make the cut. Speaking of which, Will Arnett is on Jimmy Kimmel tonight - Arnett......

[The Junkie's been sick for a few days but we're back] LAist has some great coverage of the Project Runway finale tonight on BRAVO @ 10:00pm so I'm not even going to touch that. If you can't stand the fashion tension, you can always switch over to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Meeting broadcast on KLCS and your tension will be released utterly. If you follow the link you can see, there's plenty......

Idol-heads and Runway-heads have a lot to celebrate tonight and I'll be damned, look at how busy the schedule is in the 10:00-11:00pm time frame. Since I don't think any of the options are fantastic is it better to have a little or a lot of mediocrity to choose from? In other news, yeah the writer's strike is over, and SNL is finally heading back into production with it's first show scheduled for Feb.......

I was kind of unhappy at how PBS dropped off Super Tuesday coverage fairly early in the evening. Political sickos pretty much had to rely on CNN which was all tech-ed out: did you see that crazy stage Wolf Blitzer was on? How about the map with _way_ too much information? They didn't even know where to look on that thing and neither did I. Was I looking at specific precincts reporting, or was......

OK so now Oprah wants her own network and she's going to get it. Remember that she is one of the four founders of the Oxygen Network, you know, that paragon of programming that now includes: The Bad Girls Club, Snapped, and the Oxygen Original movie Husband for Hire. Now she's distancing herself from that loathsome swamp of bad TV because of her new altruistic endeavor, the modestly named OWN (The Oprah Winfrey Network) which......

We comb through tons of event listings so you don't have to. LA events have come back from its winter doldrums tonight. Big time. Here's what's happening around town tonight -- there's lots of learning mixed in between all the great entertainment stuff. CLASSICAL The LA Phil's Concrete Frequency series -- combining music, film and symposia -- begins tonight. It's a Casual Friday, which means shorter programs with no intermission. On tap tonight is......

Sorry I missed y'all yesterday but we're back. With just a few days before Xmas you may still have a hankering for your own personal favorite holiday shows and movies. LocateTV which is still in its Beta might be able to help you - just go to the site and type in your flick or program and it will hunt it down for you whether it be on TV, DVD, or online. Next week......

If there are 30 minutes of television for you to watch tonight, then those 30 minutes should be 30 Rock. Tina Fey's American Express commercial has left me wanting more and finally I'm getting some. And hey lookie, they actually got Seinfeld back in a sitcom, for at least an episode. 8:30pm 30 Rock NBC - Season Premiere. TV Junkie Pick of the Night. 9:00pm Supernatural CW - Season Premiere. 9:00pm The Office NBC -......

Last week, we wondered if Reggie was truly ready for his big L.A. Zoo debut. It now seems that Reggie is saying, quite firmly, that he he'd like more time to ready himself for his public. Or that he'd like a break from putting on a happy face for the kiddies. Or maybe he's just having a laugh. According to the LA Times, he "disappeared" from his water enclosure overnight at the zoo: Zoo......

Shark attacks are rare, but you wouldn’t know it watching the 20th anniversary of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. From catching a few of the shows so far this week, it seems like swimmers and scuba divers serve as chum more often than not for great whites and company. (Sheesh. And we needed another reason to stay out of Santa Monica beaches?) On Sunday, the two-hour “Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack......

Carole Meyers, the first female rabbi to lead a congregation in L.A., died at age 50 of bone cancer this past Thursday. A month-old wildfire in Santa Barbara County continued to grow and burned through another 1,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders for a dozen homes. An LAPD officer was killed earlier today after crashing his motorcycle on the 101 freeway. The Belmont Shore team won the 2007 ViewSonic Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival yesterday.......

Last year, when the Amgen Tour of California cycling race finished in Redondo Beach, Floyd Landis was the golden boy in the golden jersey, the winner of the seven-stage race down the California coast. A couple months later he went on to win the Tour d’ France. Sort of. He crossed the finish line first but may have had a little help from a needle in doing so. Landis says that is not the......

Or at least he's trying to kill the story of Jesus' resurrection. An upcoming 90-minute documentary directed by Jewish Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Titanic director James Cameron makes the startling assertion that Jesus was never resurrected -- a cornerstone of Christian faith -- and that his burial cave was discovered in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot some 27 years ago. One more thing, Jesus fathered a son with Mary Magdelene. Cameron......

Lots of cross-town and intrastate rivalry in sports this weekend but precious little else. If you like dogs, check out the dog show on Discovery Saturday and Sunday Tonight - Friday "White Christmas" (TCM, 5:00 p.m.) Miracle Legion had it right about the wish to be Danny Kaye, a whole night of his flicks on TCM including "Wonder Man" and "Up In Arms" "Ice Wars 2006: USA vs The World" (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) US......

Tuesday Night "NBA Basketball" (PRIME 42, 6:00 p.m.) Clippers @ Jazz "Nova" (PBS, 8:00 p.m.) A genetic impairment causes an entire Turkish family to walk on all fours. PBS is attempting to become the Discovery Channel, or TLC or something sensational. What next, "When Anthropologists Attack"? "Dancing With the Stars" (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) This is the finals, finally - does anyone think that they'll let Emmitt Smith walk away with this thing? I'd like......

In the minutes just before dawn this morning the Discovery Space Shuttle landed safely in our backyard; by "our" we mean Los Angeles, and by "backyard" we mean Edwards Air Force Base. Poor weather in Florida caused the landing locale to get shifted, as it often is, to California. Apparently the NASA commander on the ground asked shuttle commander Col. Eileen Collins how she would like a nice breezy California landing; we're guessing that......

Discovery woke us up this morning with a crack and a boom at about the buttcrack of dawn with the 5:12 AM shuttle landing. Bad weather in Florida brought Discovery to California and Edwards Air Force Base. The Shuttle landed without a problem after some in-space repairs. Spokespeople for NASA said that the safe landing honors the crew of space shuttle Columbia who died when the shuttle broke apart 16 minutes before landing two......

That's what the Discovery Channel is trying to figure out and they are coming to town this weekend to get your opinion. The Greatest American is a 7 hour series that will air on the channel this summer where we will all get the chance to vote for who is #1 based on a list of 100 candidates as compiled by suggestions from AOL members. Hmmm, that should be an interesting list. The Greatest......

Did Emily and Tyler of Canoga Park know what they were getting into when they answered that Craigslist posting? The Discovery Channel's Monster House crew showed up and turned their innocent suburban home into "Tropical House", featuring a fire-breathing tiki god in the living room, a cavelike bedroom and bamboo galore. If you dream of Gilligan, this tropical-kitsch hideaway could be yours: it's currently listed at $515,000 on ebay. With three bedrooms and a......

LAist had the chance to try out a SIRIUS satellite radio unit during their morning commute this morning, and this thing might actually live up to the hype. Not only does it offer 7,549 music channels (a slight exaggeration), but it also offers news, sports, entertainment, weather, traffic, and makes lattes. This morning during our commute we listened to The Breeders, The Clash, Sammy Hagar (whoops), Marty Robbins (ah, the City of El Paso),......

Steven Johnson, author of Mind Wide Open and other books as well as a contributing editor for Wired and Discovery magazines, will give a speech called "Everything Bad is Good for You: Why Today's Pop Culture is Making Our Kids Smarter " as part of Caltech's "Voices of Vision" series on Thursday, November 4, 2004 at 8:00 PM Beckman Auditorium, Caltech 332 South Michigan Avenue, south of Del Mar Boulevard, Pasadena Pasadena FREE; no......