We've got (at least) 6 season finales tonight. Speaking of finales of sorts, CNET was bought by CBS for $1.8 billion. In a day where the old school dinosaurs have been shedding their digital assets, it's pretty remarkable that CNET's management pulled off a sale, especially for that amount, for a property that has regressed to not much more than a newsfeed, and product review site. Also, if you remember, CNET actually had original TV......

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......

So while TV is still recovering from the writers' strike another strike looms on the horizon. According to Variety, the Screen Actors' Guild signed a pact with producers of indie films that will ensure that an indie film in production will be completed in the event that SAG goes on strike. This sounds like a good thing but it's being interpreted as a move to put pressure on major producers to get inline with SAG......

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......

We have a bit of TV on tonight but it's not much unless you like cooking, which I do. I'm waiting for Thursday and the return of some programming to NBC. 7:00pm Major Dundee TCM - (1965) A classic with Charlton Heston in a memorial marathon of his films today/tonight on TCM. 8:00pm Nova:Cracking the Maya Code PBS/KCET - Goddammit, I feel like this is an excuse for yet another National Treasure sequel. 9:00pm Dancing......

Did anyone watch "Top Gear" last night on BBCA? They had a fantastic contest of who could cross London the fastest: a bicycle, a several hundred horsepower boat, public transportation, or a Mercedes SUV. The bike won! Followed closely by the boat and then public transportation with the SUV dead last by more than a quarter hour after public transport. Since LA doesn't have many viable waterways it looks like it's time to sideline cars......

Is Fox TV above the law? The Washington Post reports that Fox is challenging a $91,000 fine levied against them by the FCC for a broadcast of "Married by America" back in 2003 that featured reality show cast members licking whipped cream off of strippers' "digitally obscured" body parts. Since the FCC is controlled by an administration that is full of Fox fans will the network get away with it? It should be noted that......

It's Thursday, is there an option to watching Lost? Especially since it's going on a bit of a hiatus? So this week we find out more about Michael who has returned to the island, or at least to a boat near the island. Business Week continues to bash Apple TV because it has "too little content" and doesn't live up to the benchmark set by iTunes. I don't recall iTunes becoming an overnight success -......

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......

A new development, according to the Wall Street Journal, in the land of Big (advertising) Brother is that Nielsen is teaming up with Charter Communications to get set top box data from 320,000 set top boxes in what city?? Los Angeles! Now while no advertiser would make ad placement decisions based exclusively on the somewhat limited data that would come from set top boxes but this infusion of a large pool of subjects is a......

Chikeze Eze, who previously auditioned for American Idol with no success and barely got into this year's contest has turned the judges' opinions of him from just "interesting" to a star after last night's stunning performance at The Beatles themed Final 12 show. The Inglewood native and current El Camino College student performed "She's A Woman" last night with raving reviews from the all three judges. "I'm really surprised I actually agree with these two,"......

Everyone is in a tizzy about The Wire coming to a close yesterday - it's one of the few shows that decided to go out while it was on top so kudos to them. The TV Junkie is barely keeping his head above water with the deluge of new shows coming out in the next week, tonight it's Julianna Margulies' return to the little screen with Canterbury's Law (that's a mouthful, say: Julianna Margulies in......

Why is this man so happy? | Photo via AP New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who rode into office on the high horse of morality after years of spearing Wall Street robber barrons as the attorney general, has been linked to a prostitiution ring that has operated in Los Angeles. According to the New York Times, Spitzer, who is married and has three kids, was nabbed after a federal wiretap showed he tried to......

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......

So here we are on Thursday again and 9:00 p.m. ABC is the only logical choice -- Lost. With some exceptions for viewing options during late-night, like celebrity rehab with Dr. Drew and the Late-Late Show with Craig Ferguson (all other late-night options are reruns), we're left with only one choice. The fact that Lost is the only show during prime time worth watching on Thhursday nights while there are literally hundreds of other channels......

Update 7:00 p.m.: Sepulveda is still shut down and now crews expect to open it around 9 p.m. tonight. Update 5:11 p.m.: "Crews Hope to Clean up Sepulveda Landslide by 5:30pm Rush Hour" says Fox 11 News. Update 4:04 p.m.: Power has been restored to all effected except 700 residential customers in Brentwood and Bel Air. Update 11:14 a.m.: This morning's landslide even caused power to go out at the Getty Center. Luckily, power in......

[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......

In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 22, which denied the freedom to marry for gay, lesbian and transgender couples. Today, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments challenging that law. Maybe you remember back when Gavin Newsom, former Mayor of San Francisco, provided marriage licenses to same-sex couples and then those licenses were revoked. His actions were a challenge -- albeit one that didn't pan out -- to the law. Now, if the Court votes......

Talk shows this week are all Natalie Portman all the time if you hadn't noticed - the charming pixie is making the rounds for her new flick The Other Boleyn Girl, a period piece that looks like a yawn to me. In terms of tonight's viewing options check out the 10 o'clock slot - way too many choices and all of them are reality TV, what a shame. 7:15pm Doctor Zhivago TCM - If you......

The Whitman brothers shop for dangerous pets in an Indian village | Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight I'll lead this review by saying,"If only the DVD of The Darjeeling Limited were as rich and strange as the film, The Darjeeling Limited." The film is one of Wes Anderson's best tales of whimsy and familial dysfunction. Three brothers who've long since grown apart decide to travel across India on a sort of spiritual odyssey that......

Has anyone seen the cobra I just bought? | Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Wes Anderson doesn't have many casual fans. You either love the strange worlds of whimsy he creates or you find it all a bit precious and twee. Count me in the former camp and count The Darjeeling Limited as a return to form for Anderson after the ambitious but foggy The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Next generation 3-D isn't......

Am not so sure how I feel about last night's Frontline (PBS/KCET) which was an analysis of the Haditha "incident" where 24 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, were not massacred - they were just killed in their pajamas. I guess it's a matter of semantics, when is shooting 2 year olds at point blank not a massacre? I don't think the Marines or PBS itself did a good job of proving that this incident......

OK so the PBS examination of the Haditha massacre is going to be pretty heavy duty tonight, there's a couple options for lighter fare, and of course the season finale of Nip/Tuck will be the pornographic prime time finish. 8:00pm American Idol FOX - The 12 remaining male contestants perform. 8:00pm Tour of California: Stage 2 From Santa Rosa to Sacramento VERSUS - Fabian Cancellara is in the lead by 2 seconds, American Levi Leipheimer......

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox While not the record-breaker that Cloverfield and Hannah Montana proved to be, Jumper debuted to a winning $31.7M over the long President's Day weekend. The Spiderwick Chronicles finished second with $24.4M followed by fellow newcomer Step Up 2 the Streets with $21.5M. The rancid Fool's Gold surprised by holding onto fourth with $15M ($43.9M). Clearly, Valentine's couples preferred it to the weekend's other new romantic comedy, Definitely, Maybe......

Now that the writers' strike is over and it's full-steam ahead with the Oscars, you can bet that just about every TV channel is going to dogpile on the gala event. Yeah, the Grammys went ahead without interference but the Grammys are nothing compared to the Oscars. E! and CNN already have several shows lined up (look for Oscar host, Jon Stewart, on Larry King this Wednesday night) ready to tackle the exciting topics of:......

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox The term B-movie has to many persons the connotation of a movie of substandard quality. Traditionally, it meant a low-budget movie with lesser stars meant primarily to entertain. Now an appropriate definition would probably be a genre film that has little to no serious artistic intent: entertainment, not enlightenment.* Doug Liman's Jumper is a B-movie.** I certainly wasn't enlightened by the time it was over. What would you......

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox There's a certain kooky irresistibility to Doug Liman. By many accounts, he's virtually impossible to work with and yet the movies he turns out are often very good (Swingers, The Bourne Identity), and one is even great (Go). That said, I'm hesitant to sign on for Jumper. I'm what some would call the opposite of a fan of Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson looks like she has encephalitis.......

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that '24' co-creator Joel Surnow is bailing from the show and the Fox network. Surnow is the "right-wing nutjob" who is a personal friend of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and President Bush - he's the one that had the brilliant idea to come up with a right wing "answer" to 'The Daily Show' for Fox, but the failure to produce one is evidence he never understood the question. 8:00pm Survivor:......

Samantha Sidley and Alex Silverman at their Silver Lake rehearsal space | Photo via their MySpace page Alex & Sam may be a duo in title, but their fairly large band, sometimes up to twelve-members on stage, is quite a force of music that just puts a smile on your face. You can't really corner them into a jazz-blues rock or straight rock category. All we can say is that on stage, they've got......

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.......