(Aspiring actors trek to audition for the upcoming show "Two and a Half Hoboes.")

Responding to the abysmal news from the global markets, the networks have announced new programming to reflect our current economic calamity:

ABC: "Who Wants to Be a Hundred-aire?" Contestants answer questions in order to win the grand prize of $100. The only difference: No lifelines.

Fox: "Are You Smarter than a Financial Executive?" Sample question: "A prospective homebuyer wants you to lend him money with no viable assets to borrow against. What do you do?"

CBS: "The Desperate Race." Contestants traverse Dust-Bowl America by jumping train rails to wretched destinations in search of such exotic prizes such as tepid canned soup and melon rinds.

(The first contestants in this leg of the race are treated to crusts of stale bread!)

The CW: "Underprivileged." An over-educated young woman gets a job tutoring spoiled brats in one of Palm Beach's nicest refrigerator boxes.

NBC: "The Biggest Loser." Instead of weight - heck, anyone can lose weight when they can't afford food - participants in this show strive to lose the most money on the stock market. In case of a tie - and there'll invariably be a tie - the winner/loser/whatever-you-want-to-call-it will be decided in a Thunderdome-style cage fight.

MTV: "My Not-Entirely-Miserable 16." Extravagantly pampered teenage girls celebrate their sweet-16 birthdays with their surviving friends, feasting on food scraps scavenged from abandoned factories and listening to 8-track tapes in a rusted-out '72 Chevy Vega.

(She may be enduring hard times, but this young beauty is enjoying a 16th birthday she'll always remember.)

VH1: "Worst Week Ever." Emaciated comedians make jokes about the pop-culture events of the past week, all involving starving children and breadline riots.

National Geographic Channel: "The Dog Caterer." Cesar Millan can no longer afford to rehabilitate poorly behaved dogs, so he comes up with vaguely acceptable recipes so the pooches' owners can feast on something besides paint chips.

G4: "Tech Toys." Examining the latest in technology, such as sticks that can both hold your bindle and ward off foragers trying to steal your moldy carrots and iPhones that no longer work but can be used as pillows.

Sci Fi Channel: "Are There Any Cylon Overlords Out There Who Want to Enslave Us for Three Squares and a Cot?" The producers of "Battlestar Galactica" decide the scenario proposed by their show wasn't so bad, after all.

Also, CNBC and TV Land will merge to create a nostalgic channel offering reruns of old financial shows in which experts discuss bull markets. All the home makeover shows will be cancelled because no one has any houses to remodel. And Comedy Central will rename itself Sorrow Central because no one can laugh anymore.

Here's life in RatingsWorld: Ratings for the debuts of ABC's "Life on Mars" and CBS's "Eleventh Hour" were separated by a slender 100,000 viewers, and yet MediaWeek's ratings guru Marc Berman declares that one got "solid sampling" while decreeing the other a "loser."

As you might imagine, it's complicated.

For context, you have to examine each show's lead-in. CBS had the ninth-season premiere of "CSI," which not only remains a juggernaut but actually built significantly on its viewership last season. Nearly 23 million tuned in, up 3 million from last year. By contrast, ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" took a bit of a plunge, with 14.5 million viewers, down 4.5 million from last season.

So: "Life on Mars" lured 11.6 million viewers, while "Eleventh Hour" garnered 11.59 million. The problem for "Eleventh Hour" is that it lost a whopping 50% of its lead-in audience, which is dismaying, to say the least. "Life on Mars," on the other hand, retained 80% of its lead-in audience, which is respectable, though its retention of only 69% in that 18-49 demographic could be considered worrying. In fact, to muck things up further, over on NBC, "ER" only had 9.3 million viewers, but it actually won the hour in Viewers 18-49 ("Life on Mars" was not close behind and "Eleventh Hour" trailed the pack).

(Ratings are measured using this supercomputer concealed deep in the mountains of Wyoming.)

Hence, Berman's knocking "Eleventh Hour" as a "loser." It's the rare Jerry Bruckheimer production that gets saddled with that moniker, but unless its ratings tumble in subsequent weeks, CBS can probably live with its numbers.

Elsewhere in the evening: "Kath & Kim" had 7.46 million viewers, more than its lead-in "My Name is Earl," so, again, barring viewer attrition in subsequent weeks, NBC will declare itself pleased. And Thursday's "SNL" special actually did best for NBC on the night, with 10.6 million viewers.

Of course, in the upcoming tide of hoboes, only AIG executives will have TVs, so ratings will become moot.

A plot point in Monday's season-two premiere of "Samantha Who?" has it that Samantha (Christina Applegate) was a great dancer before her coma, but now, she's hopelessly gawky on the dance floor. It's a neat metaphor for the changes in season two - what was once a lean comedy is now awkward; it's lost its moves.

Last season, "Samantha Who?" became the first broadcast-network sitcom in years to manage some untrammeled traction. Much of this was due to its "Dancing with the Stars" lead-in; some of it was due to a darkly wry premise and inspired performances (particularly Emmy nominee Applegate in the title role and Emmy winner Jean Smart as her cynical mother, Regina).

And so, as season two opens on Monday, we're treated to - well, a softening both of the premise and the characters. And, therefore, the comedy.

The episode opens with Sam moving out of her parents' place and back into the apartment she once shared with her ex, Todd (Barry Watson), who's moving out. Apropos of nothing, Regina instructs her husband, within Samantha's hearing, "Make sure she uses condoms." Inserting the word condom into any sentence equals: instant joke.

Pander much?

So Sam's back in her apartment and doing a celebratory dance in which she disrobes (one which few sentient adults would actually engage in); enter Todd, who ostensibly comically catches her in her state of undress.

Pander much?

Two cheap gags, back-to-back, with barely stitches of logic to knit them together. And we're just getting started.

The show's promiscuity has been tamed, reduced to wan punchlines as opposed to the more assertive, devil-may-care sexual attitudes of last season. So, too, have the characters been domesticated - tonight's episode concerns Sam's efforts to resolve her heretofore comically dysfunctional relationship with her mother via a country-club dance competition.

Hence, the show's bad behavior has been outsourced to guest stars, in this case Cybill Shepherd, who plays Regina's neighborhood nemesis. They're even tamping down Sam's friend, unrepentant slut Andrea (Jennifer Esposito), for Chrissake. All this, in an effort to appeal more to fans of the show's white-bread lead-in, "Dancing with the Stars."

It may work: When I reviewed "Samantha Who?" last season, I noted it was likely too arch for its lead-in audience. But it could alienate those who liked the show based on its merits in the first place.

Pander much?

- "Samantha Who?", 9:30 p.m. Monday, ABC Channel 7.

Spoiler alert: Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) loses the ponytail!

Here's AMC's requisite episode recap, which, actually, is as forthcoming as they've been all season:

"On a business trip to Los Angeles, Don becomes acquainted with some exciting new friends. Peggy looks for romance at work. Duck starts thinking about the future of Sterling Cooper."

Despite a curious detour, things happen and often in this episode, since we're coming down to the wire as far as season two goes. Don (Jon Hamm), out in the land of swimming pools/movie stars, restrains from being tempted - for, oh, a minute or two - and then finds himself surrounded by Euro jet trash. (Check that: "Exciting" Euro jet trash.)

Pete's (Vincent Kartheiser) left to fend for himself in L.A. (does sneaky Pete or ambitious Pete take charge, and does he get to choose?), while Roger (John Slattery) makes what is quite likely a monumentally bad decision (how did a guy who lets Little Roger do all his thinking become so successful?), and Peggy's invitation to see Bob Dylan in the Village proves a double-edged sword (particularly for her coif).

Meanwhile, Duck (Mark Moses) negotiates a huge deal - but will Sterling Cooper be the beneficiary?

Another first: Don invites his shadowy past into his present. And even I'm not sure what that will mean.

Again: Another episode where there's something in the water, where characters seem to be floating along, incapable of grasping something real due to all the ephemera surrounding and enticing them. Another episode of almost dreamlike states - reality's going to come crashing down soon. (After all, we only have two episodes left this season - and how will we get by until season three?)

Bonus lines of dialogue, presented context-free:

"Due to the decrease in infrastructure and population - total annihilation."

"I don't know why I pick the wrong boys."

"I just saw Tony Curtis in the men's room."

"I knew queers existed. I just don't want to work with them."

"You're beautiful and you don't talk too much." (Curiously enough, this line is not uttered by Roger.)

"Does Right Guard make you feel more secure at work?"

- "Mad Men:" 10 and 11 p.m. Sunday, AMC.

Wednesday's ratings continue to translate into bad horrific news for the networks.

ABC's lineup of "Pushing Daisies," "Private Practice" and "Dirty Sexy Money" continued their freefall (well, "Pushing Daisies" held vaguely steady from last week, but last week's ratings were disastrous). The other two shows lost about 20% of their audience from last week.

NBC's "Knight Rider" lost close to a million viewers from last week; if this trend continues, it'll have negative viewers by December. "Lipstick Jungle" had fewer than 5 million.

Fox had a good news/bad news night: "Bones" winning the 8 p.m. hour by a comfortable margin, but tanking at 9 p.m. with two episodes of "'Til Death."

Only CBS can be sanguine about the evening's results: Its 8 p.m. sitcoms were actually up a smidgen from last week, and "Criminal Minds" and "CSI: NY" remain strong.

I've spent the day assessing my own assessments of today's reviews, and have generally been critical of my criticism. But in this final installment, I'll give myself a bit of a pat on the back for my review of CBS's "Eleventh Hour."

CBS's "Eleventh Hour" and Fox's "Fringe" offer a textbook case in similar subject matter handled in each network's house style.

"Fringe" trucks in manic, often gross-out yarns and paranoia. "Eleventh Hour" is measured, vaguely moody, just this side of condescending in its exposition and delights in manipulative stories involving dead children.

Oh, and both shows feature a sexy blonde FBI agent, because, you know, there are so many of those.

"Eleventh Hour" is based upon a British miniseries that starred Patrick Stewart as a brilliant doctor and Ashley Jensen ("Extras," "Ugly Betty") as his government-issued protection. It was notable more for its stylized direction (perhaps over-stylized direction) than scripting but boasted a curious chemistry between the leads.

Here, British actor Patrick Sewell is the latest overseas performer to show off his American accent as Dr. Jacob Hood, a "special science advisor to the FBI" and "high-priority asset" who investigates "crimes and crises of a scientific nature" and is protected by agent Rachel Young (Marley Shelton of, uh, "Grindhouse").

Sewell's work is adept; Shelton's is serviceable. Their chemistry's a bit on the chilly side.

Tonight's episode cribs from the British show's first installment, but capably compresses a 90-minute plot into an hour. It involves the discovery of a cache of aborted cloned fetuses and an international villain whose cloning experiments have resulted in tragedy in three countries.

Next week's offering is drearily four-square: Eleven-year-old boys in a small town are dying of heart attacks. "Eleven-year-old kids don't just drop dead from heart attacks," we're informed, helpfully. It's the show that dares to rip the lid off the contemporary plague of toad-licking.

As it's produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who at this point is responsible for nearly one-third of CBS's primetime lineup, "Eleventh Hour" is meat-and-potatoes programming, as watchable as it is dismissible. It'd help if the show's guest stars weren't either so wooden or histrionic - their big dramatic scenes invariably coaxed an inadvertent chuckle out of me.

*

In less than 10 inches, I discuss two episodes of a semi-humdrum show, cogently compare it to its British counterpart and a very similar American show and get off a couple of decent jokes in the bargain. The writing's economical but not austere. If that's not elevating the low art of pithy criticism to high art, I don't know what is.

Today, I've been turning the scalpel (or the hatchet, take your pick) on myself, reviewing my own reviews that appeared in today's paper. This installment: NBC's "Kath & Kim."

Clueless idiocy can be the stuff of inspired comedy - it's been done from the kids' show "Spongebob Squarepants" to the not-for-kids show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

The trick is to make characters who are something less than human somehow likable, somehow relatable, or at least convey to viewers that there's a reason you're devoting such energy to telling these clowns' stories. NBC's new sitcom "Kath & Kim," based on a hit Australian sitcom, doesn't manage this. So unless you subscribe to particularly rarefied tastes, you'll likely wonder how this got on the air in the first place.

It's not the fault of the stars. Molly Shannon gives her all as Kath, who has survived years of catering to her utterly spoiled daughter Kim (Selma Blair) and has found happiness with the cloddish owner of a mall fast-food restaurant named Phil Knight (John Michael Higgins). (The real Phil Knight, of course, is considerably less negligible, as he co-founded Nike.)

Kim, on the other hand, is a handful and then some. She returns home pouting, because her husband suggested she pop a couple of frozen dinners in the microwave. "I didn't sign up for cooking dinner or being interested in how someone's day was - I'm a trophy wife," she fumes.

It'd take a particularly deft performer to make a character that monumentally self-absorbed remotely appealing, and Blair's not up to the task.

Complicating the situation is the fact that both Kath and Kim have epochally tacky taste in, well, everything. One would have to be really tone-deaf to the outside world to think that their fashion choices are remotely viable. But they make for a cheap laugh or two, I suppose.

If viewers wouldn't want to spend time with people like this in their real lives, why would they want to watch them on TV? The condescension here is palpable - maybe only Tina Fey's interpretation of Sarah Palin could relate to this stuff.

Even the camera work is off - there's occasional jittery, hand-held business that makes the show look like a documentary, even though it clearly isn't. Despite some genuinely clever one-liners, viewers will likely be too turned off to appreciate them.

*

In these reviews of my reviews, I haven't discussed whether or not I've been empirically correct in my assessments, but historically, I've tended to be in the wheelhouse of critical thought. Today, based on the handful of reviews I've read, the only thing I could be called to the carpet on is that people have only kind of liked "Life on Mars" a little more than I did even if they doubted its longterm viability. But as much as I didn't like "Kath & Kim," calling it nigh unwatchable, it seems everyone else hated it a lot more.

Truth be told, there's not much you can do with a disaster - you can either eviscerate it slowly and painfully, or just dismiss it outright. I tried to give it some benefit of the doubt, but apparently that wasn't necessary. So this review doesn't read as entertainingly as ones where the critics dig right in and tear out its guts.

I wasn't a fan of the Australian version, either, finding it similarly loud and over-the-top, though I attributed it to some cultural disconnect. But maybe I was just right. Maybe it circles the drain, no matter what side of the Equator it's on.

- "Kath & Kim:" 8:30 tonight; NBC Channel 4.

Today, we're eschewing dumping on everything else in the Television landscape and devoting our energies to dumping on my reviews which appeared in today's paper. This entry: ABC's "Life on Mars:"

*

Early in tonight's premiere of "Life on Mars," Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara), a contemporary Manhattan police detective racing to the apartment of a suspect who has abducted his partner and girlfriend, is hit by a car - and comes to, finding himself in 1973. He gazes upward, and beholds the Twin Towers still standing, gleaming in the sunlight.

So now the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 are fodder for time-travel yarns. How far we've come.

"Life on Mars" was an ingenious, self-contained British series that solved all its mysteries in 16 episodes (a spinoff sporting the title of another David Bowie song, "Ashes to Ashes," followed). In America, of course, 16 episodes isn't even an entire season. So obviously, there'll be some busking when it comes to explaining why Sam has become an unwilling time traveler.

In the meantime, he must make sense of the culture shock of '70s mores. Police brutality is a casual pastime. Cell phones don't yet exist, he's a little slow on the uptake to realize. And police forensics are primitive if they exist at all.

His new colleagues are decidedly old-school. His boss, Lt. Gene Hunt (Harvey Keitel), keeps a flask close by and punches first, asking questions later, if at all. Detective Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli) is a crass, lame jokester ("He's crazier than a fruitbat at a cranberry convention," he says of Tyler) with a mustache most would associate with the Village People. Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol), of the Bureau of Police Women, knows better than to let on that she's smarter than the louts she works with.

Tyler's first case in the mean streets of 1973 has eerie parallels to the one he was working in 2008, which is fortunate, because his colleagues think him erratic due to his outbursts about, well, being from the year 2008. That he's able to knit together evidence to catch the perpetrator redeems him, at least temporarily.

The British version, despite Sam's urgency to return to the present and rescue his partner, had an irresistibly larky energy - it parodied tough-guy cop shows like "Starsky & Hutch." This American version has gone through a torturous birthing process (the first incarnation, by "Boston Legal's" David E. Kelley, was scrapped and largely recast), which might account for its relative paucity of fun (though it is fairly faithful in its visual sensibility, a mélange of grungy yellows and browns).

(Oddly enough, it's easier to find photos from this scrapped David E. Kelley version online than it is to find some for the new show.)

Tonight's episode prominently features a lot of pop music from the era. The British version may have done so, as well (certainly, it used the Bowie song), but it had such an inventive drive that that wasn't the only aspect of the show you recalled after watching it.

You were hooked after one episode of the British series. After tonight's not-bad/not-great episode, it's hard to say whether viewers will have been intrigued enough to return.

*

I once counseled a friend who was up for a job that I had left not to take it - he was working for a weekly newspaper, and was particularly gifted at the nearly lost art of long, thoughtful reviews that allowed him to comment on peripherally related pop-culture and social phenomena; the job he was up for would squelch that talent. In the end, he stayed at his old job and emerged as a Pultizer finalist for stuff he wrote after declining the job offer.

"Life on Mars" is a show that, in the hands of a good essayist, merits one of those kitchen-sink-type of reviews. There's so much to discuss - the great British series upon which it is based and whether its concept is sustainable beyond a handful of episodes; where the Americanization has the best chance of approximating the British version (aping the '70s cop-show cliché); the era the show portrays and ABC's incarnation's debt to "Mad Men" in romanticizing and damning our recent past ("Mad Men" luxuriates in its fashion and production design, while this show uses them as visual punchlines); an expanded discussion on exploiting 9/11 for commercial purposes and, of course, whether the show itself is any good.

That last point, unfortunately, provides the least fodder for discussion, because only one episode was made available for review, due, perhaps, to the incessant retooling. So maybe a think piece on the show would only result in so much mental masturbation since there's precious little insight to offer viewers as to what ABC has allowed critics to see. Still, this show would've provided a fount of opinion. This review is just meat and potatoes, only the meat's fairly gristly and the potatoes have no seasoning.

- "Life on Mars:" 10 tonight; ABC Channel 7.

I spend a lot of time dumping on just about everything but myself. Today, I'll change that and review my reviews that appeared in today's paper. First up: FX's "Testees:"

"Testees" may be the most sadistic situation comedy in history. This series, about human lab rats who allow themselves to be subjected to pharmaceutical experiments and trials, is ruthlessly cynical and yet (after one episode) fairly unfocused.

What could be an inspired idea just seems to be a forum for flatulence and lactation and enlarged male-member gags and worse. Decent comedy can come from such low-rent inspiration, but tonight's episode doesn't quite convince a viewer that the show will aspire to much beyond its penis and rectal discomfort gags.

Peter (Steve Markle) and Ron (Jeff Kassel) are slackers who make ends meet by acquiescing to horrific experiments at global nemesis Testico (the show is rife with such puns). Testico's stock-in-trade is dangerous protocols that will deform its test subjects: Tonight, Peter discovers he's pregnant.

The show's humor can be agreeably deadpan, but "Testees" isn't a satire about corporate avarice and incompetence; it's just about humiliating its characters as much as possible. Its creator and co-star, Kenny Hotz, worked for a season on "South Park." Clearly, he learned all about the show's bad-taste and nothing about its clever social insight.

*

Truth be told, this isn't much of a review. But space in newspapers is at a premium these days, so you try your best.

Still, I'm not fond of this effort, though it hits the major notes. I'm a fan of transgressive humor that I imagine people being offended by for all the wrong reasons, and in this piece, I think I just come off as something of a prude because I don't think I fully explain the show's inability to differentiate between provocative humor and gratuitous gross-out gags.

It could've been worse: A copy editor asked me to hone a sentence that was, admittedly, all over the place, and I'm grateful she gave me that chance, because the story's now a smidgen more coherent.

Also, it's a fool's errand to assess a show's viability on the basis of one episode, which is all that was provided. But it seems that "Testees" is a show that, in six-to-eight-minute sketches on "SNL" or "MADtv," might be funny, but, dragged out to sitcom-length, not so much. And it'll be following "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which should school this show on how to do tasteless humor right.

So why didn't I just say that?

If it's Thursday (which it's not, but tomorrow is), it must be time for another one of those excruciating seminars on "The Office," and tomorrow's is thrown by Holly (Amy Ryan), discussing "business ethics:" You know, corporate's penny-pinching diatribe against making personal calls while on the clock and swiping office supplies.

Have any one of these gone well on this show? So you can imagine how this one goes. It even threatens to throw a monkey wrench into the burgeoning non-romance between Holly and Michael (Steve Carell).

Also, Jim (John Krasinski) announces his and Pam's (Jenna Fischer) engagement to the office to a response that underscores why Jim was reticent to share the information in the first place.

The best scene comes when Jim butchers the storyline of "Battlestar Galactica" (corporate synergy! - it airs on NBC cousin Sci Fi Channel) - "It's a shot-by-shot remake of the original," he tells Andy (Ed Helms) - in order to drive Dwight (Rainn Wilson) nuts. Dwight suffers in exquisite silence.

- "The Office:" 9 p.m. Thursday, NBC Channel 4.

Also, The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills is hosting an evening with "Office" show-runner Greg Daniels and his writing team next Tuesday at 7 p.m. Tickets $25 ($15 for members) and available at the link above.

Such is the level of discourse in this country that the one phrase that everyone seems to be talking about last night was the one in which every pundit was assured of knowing the meaning of both of the words: When John McCain referred to Barack Obama as "that one."

It flashed me back to when I was a kid and my grandparents referred variously to my siblings and me as "that one." It was a playful thing, and McCain was obviously trying to be playful, if pointedly so. But I just chalked it up to old-timey verbal construction and found it fairly harmless.

The punditocracy, however, did not know my grandparents, and so all manner of malevolence was inferred, from sneering dismissiveness to racism. The Washington Post's Tom Shales said it was "nasty" and "contributed to McCain's image as a kind of mean old Scrooge, not so much a battle-scarred warrior as an embittered one."

Nonetheless, someone's already selling T-shirts urging you to vote for That One. They've wrestled the phrase away from McCain and made it a positive for Obama.

On the other hand, Politico.com reports that a "Republican official" suggests it will be come a meme for the GOP: "Look for Republicans to note in coming days that 'That One' also voted for higher taxes at least 94 times; 'That One' has associations with unrepentant terrorists, etc..."

That would be a mistake, as the moment was deemed to be a bit of a gaffe on McCain's behalf and what's the point in revisiting that again and again?

But that all the focus is on two words seems perfect for a debate in which Tom Brokaw asked the candidates for nuanced responses to complicated issues and then repeatedly scolded them for taking more than a minute to explain their positions. Two words is apparently all the media can absorb at a time.

"The Sarah Silverman Program," which we've pretty much liked in the past, returns for a new season with an episode in which Sarah (guess who) and Brian (Brian Posehn) smoke a bunch of pot. You, too, will have to smoke a bunch of pot to find much of this episode funny. Be warned - or prepared. Garry Marshall, of all people, guest-stars.

Things improve considerably in tomorrow's second episode, which debuts in the show's regular time slot. It makes comic hash of Mongolians raping and pillaging Russian Jews in the 1200's, which is pretty much a universe apart from tonight's bumper crop of stoner jokes.

Sarah sues the Mongolian Board of Tourism on the behalf of her sister Laura (Laura Silverman), whose features kinda sorta betray a blending of Jewish and Asian heritage. The Mongols' attorney suggests that the Russian village had it coming to them, because its women's traditional clothing revealed a bit of ankle.

Thankfully, both parties are able to reach a rapprochement at the Mongolian Embassy suite at the Valley Village Radisson.

Sarah remains as blissfully, biliously clueless as ever. Her production team just needs to allow their scripts to be processed by sober people to make certain that they're actually funny in the chemically-unaltered world.

- "The Sarah Silverman Program:" 10:30 p.m. tonight and Thursday, Comedy Central.

In: "My Boys," renewed by TBS for a third season.

In: "Sons of Anarchy renewed by FX for a second season.

Out: "The Riches," cancelled by FX after a strike-truncated second season.

Try Again: "Absolutely Fabulous," which will receive yet another attempt at Americanization by Fox after several failed efforts/rip-offs.

Miley Cyrus celebrated her Sweet 16th last night at Disneyland (though she won't turn 16 until November), probably a last-ditch effort by Disney to keep her on her show. She's been accused of growing up too fast quite a bit over the past year, but then, consider the sort of product associated with her that has actually been sanctioned by wholesome Disney.

A show that garnered 16 million viewers at its peak less than two years ago got 8 million and change last night. "Heroes" may be beyond rescuing, but here are a few ideas for turning the show around. They may have implemented some of these; I wouldn't know, since like everyone else I've tuned out, too.

Quit being so damn stupid. The season premiere this year was a disaster. The scene in which Hiro (Masi Oka) watched a video from his late father which had but one piece of advice - don't open the safe in my office - and then he did so anyway, only to find another video in which his late father scolds him, "I asked you not to open this safe," was like a moldering Abbot and Costello routine or something. And, of course, it unleashed a potential earth-destroying chain of events. That's our Hiro - as blithely unconcerned about our planet as our President.

(Heckuva job, Hiro-y!)

The writers really need to hunker down and avoid such silly contrivances as this. If someone in the writers room rolls their eyes at a suggestion, then don't use it.

Why can't these people be a little more pro-active? For "Heroes," they don't seem to do a whole lot that's very heroic. Everyone's on the run or moping about or playing defense except Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy), the show's dullest, earnest-as-a-Hardy-Boy character, who, in another dumb move, now has powers. (If anyone can have super-powers, what's the point?)

These guys need to press the attack on, well, whoever (would it kill them to centralize the villainy?). And they can opt to do that when the show takes the next piece of advice.

Kill off a whole bunch of characters. During the first season, creator Tim Kring said he was going to kill off main characters at a wicked clip, but admitted that he had grown fond of them and his cast. As a result, no one who's killed stays away from the show for very long. For God's sake, they've appeared to kill off Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) twice and he's still around. The cast has gotten so unwieldy that a lot of the actors only get one throwaway scene in episodes, which, aside from unnecessarily mucking up the too-sprawling narrative, isn't particularly cost-effective.

(Start with this bunch.)

Eliminating a few of them with extreme prejudice (and not just bit players) will A) give the others a reason to quit whining and start taking the fight to their enemies, B) streamline the narrative back to where it might make sense to the casual viewers, C) reinvigorate a show that at this point just seems to be trying to keep all its balls in the air rather than land on a propulsive story, D) call attention back to the series, E) help NBC in its eternal cost-cutting measures, F) maybe loll viewers out of the slack-jawed somnolence with which they're watching these days and G) possibly put an end to that pretentious drivel that passes for narration at the beginning and end of episodes.

Lighten up, already. "Heroes" was initially a hit because audiences responded to Hiro's pure joy at discovering his powers. Now, he's as sad-sack as the rest of this sorry crew, and that's obviously proven to be a drag on the show. Once the characters man up and start using their powers in a forceful fashion, perhaps they can revel in their abilities rather than remain stranded on the angst-y "why me" default.

Like I said, it may be too late for the show. But these tactics might get one person to start watching it again, and given how much it's dropped in the ratings, one viewer could be pretty important.

Look, I read a press release today:

"DIY is searching for America's Coolest Tool." (Emphasis theirs.)

I thought that had been decided - it's Spencer Pratt. But, reading further:

"The network is looking for the inventor of a gadget or doodad that will help DIYers get the project done faster, better and cooler. Beginning the week of November 10, inventors can upload videos and pictures of their undiscovered creation that could be the coolest tool.

"The winner will receive $10,000 to help them introduce their invention to the world plus, be featured on a future one-hour episode of 'Cool Tools.'"

I stand corrected. Aspiring inventors should get to work.

This time last month, Tina Fey had a little TV show that ratings analysts have predicted would never be a breakout hit. Since then, she's added three more Emmys to her mantle, will soon become a published author and become exponentially more beloved, thanks to her keen ability to mock Vice Presidential nominee and End Times enthusiast Sarah Palin.

About 10 million folks tuned in to see Fey's latest evisceration of Palin - that's more than 95% of NBC's prime time programming gets, and up 42% from a year ago. Palin's certainly paying attention: At a rally today, she explained that doggone interview with Katie Couric was her way of "just trying to keep Tina Fey in business," and it looks like she'll appear on "SNL's" Thursday-night installment this week, perhaps playing Tina Fey.

Meanwhile, Fey's cleaning up in the publishing world, too - she'll earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million to write a book of "humorous essays." (Alas, by the time the book comes out, we'll either have forgotten Palin or her Presidency will have reduced the nation to rubble.) And here we were, worried that Fey was over-extending herself by honing that Palin impersonation while also writing, producing and starring in "30 Rock."

(By the way, here's a handy online library of the clips Fey no doubt refers to when playing Palin.)

The CW is going to regret not holding onto wrestling. (The CW is going to regret almost everything, but that's another story.) Its tradeoff - the new Sunday night lineup provided to them by Media Rights Capital (because, you know, programming a TV network shouldn't be left to network programmers) - was pretty much a tank job.

"In Harm's Way" opened the evening with a mere 676,000 viewers, which is even fewer people than watched the network's disastrous programming at the same time last year. To put this in perspective - this is as if everyone in Sarah Palin's home state watched The CW, but no one else in the rest of the country. Cable networks get more viewers, and The CW is purportedly a broadcast network.

(Members of the cast of "Valentine" perform the ritualistic Dance to Ward Off Viewers.)

Not faring much better was "Valentine" and "Easy Money," which both managed about 1.1 million viewers, again down from last year's abysmal ratings. And it's doubtful that anyone who saw those shows will be clamoring for return visits.

But the bad news wasn't The CW's alone - "Desperate Housewives" lost three million viewers from its season premiere the previous week, with 15.5 million tuning in last night. Guess people weren't all that thrilled with the jump ahead in time storyline.

It's probably only a matter of seasons before the broadcast networks give up on programming Friday evenings with original scripted content and go to repeats, newsmagazines and crummy reality shows (oh wait - ABC and Fox already do that). MediaWeek's ratings guy Marc Berman declared the night a disaster. Only CBS's "Ghost Whisperer" and "Numb3rs" managed an audience that couldn't be described as embarrassing, but its new series "The Ex List" will soon enough be known as "The Ex Show" based on its premiere.

(You didn't need a psychic to have foreseen this show wouldn't do all that well.)

"The Ex List" managed 6.85 million viewers, losing a quarter of its lead-in audience; "Moonlight," last year's timeslot occupant (which CBS cancelled), had 8 million viewers. NBC attempted Friday-night lonely-hearts programming a few years back with "Miss Match" and ABC tried with "Men in Trees;" apparently, more women go out on dates than they estimated.

"Life" died in its timeslot debut, with 5.44 million viewers. "Las Vegas" did better on Fridays, with 7.5 million viewers last year. That's what network executives get for trying to strategize and tinker with their schedules: Fewer viewers than ever. (Of course, if they stand pat, no good comes of that, either; just ask ABC about Wednesday nights.)

Today, NBC.com offers a new webisode of "Chuck," its engaging action-comedy that so far in its second season hasn't been able to lure in many viewers. (It'll go live at noon today California time.)

Though NBC sent this webisode in a DVD in handsome, presumably vaguely costly traditional DVD packaging, all that was on the disk was a scant one minute and 45 seconds of content; "SNL" sketches last longer. And they want people to click onto NBC.com and navigate through all the sundry obfuscations and perhaps even sit through an ad or two to watch this, uh, gem, which concerns John Casey (Adam Baldwin) offering Buy More security tips (which involve an apple and a shoplifter's noggin).

So: It's mildly amusing, but nothing any sentient being (even a diehard "Chuck" fan) would go out of his (or her) way to access. Particularly given that you can find a funnier clip with less effort at any number of other sites.

But: The question is, why did ABC's and NBC's strategy of bringing back bubble first-season shows (NBC's "Chuck" and "Life," which tanked Friday with a mere 5.4 million viewers, and ABC's "Pushing Daisies," "Private Practice" and "Dirty Sexy Money") fail so decisively?

Well, of course, the writers strike hurt them, if not killed them. I like a lot of those shows, but could've predicted their ratings failures. Viewers detect the taint of failure and don't want to adhere themselves to shows that probably won't be around for long, no matter how good they might actually be. And right now, that taint covers whole swatches of broadcast TV's lineup.

So: "Chuck," whimsical, amusing, "Chuck:" America would rather see has-beens try to fox-trot than a wryly sexy nerd comedy. Is that a comment on "Chuck" or American viewers in general? Whatever the answer is, it's probably not encouraging for any of us.