When nonsense makes sense, it's time to leave

PASADENA, Calif. — It’s time to leave this fantasy world, this celebrity bunker.

And not a moment too soon. After two weeks of screening shows and interviewing talent, I can feel my defenses weakening by the hour.

For instance, I actually took an ABC publicist at her word Saturday when she said that Sandra Oh wasn’t skipping the “Grey’s Anatomy” press conference. That was funny, because earlier that morning, as I stood in the Ritz-Carlton lobby, two eyewitnesses and I could have sworn we saw the show’s biggest star (sorry, Ellen Pompeo) walking right past us in her bathrobe.

(I should mention that during a press tour you’re likely to spot VIPs returning barefoot and robed from the Ritz’s spa, which is in another building, after getting their massages and facials. You’d be amazed how quickly one gets used to the sight.)

And it’s not just the publicists. I’ve been starting to take celebrities’ ridiculous canned responses at face value. At a session for ABC’s Easter remake of “The Ten Commandments,” somebody noticed that the biography of co-star Padma Lakshmi failed to mention that she is married to author Salman Rushdie.

When I asked why, the actress rose to the occasion. “I don’t see what relevance it has to my career,” she huffed, summoning such conviction that I actually forgot her major credit to date was the Mariah Carey epic “Glitter.”

And it’s not just the celebs. Steven Bochco, the producer of “NYPD Blue,” was hauled in to take over “Commander in Chief” after the show’s creator, Rod Lurie, fell way behind producing scripts. On a set visit to the show, Bochco stunned some of the journalists, and even cast members, by revealing that in an upcoming episode, the president’s son “gets a girl pregnant.”

Later some of my fellow critics thought the show must really be in trouble if Bochco is divulging crucial storylines. (He has been tight-lipped going back to the “Hill Street Blues” days.) I thought it was because he liked and respected the press.

Clearly it was time for me to start packing.

It’s time to go when you find hollow assurances comforting. I asked NBC Olympics czar Dick Ebersol on Sunday about the security situation in Turin, Italy, a country that has troops in Iraq and whose interior minister warned just last month of the grave threat of terrorist attacks.

Speaking by satellite from New York, Ebersol said the organizers of the Turin/Torino Games had done a “pretty damned good job” of coordinating security around this sprawling site, the largest ever for a Winter Olympics. Just to be sure, however, the news division will be over there in full force.

It’s time to go when conspiracy theories start to make more sense than the denials of same. The New York Times floated a doozy Saturday when it suggested that the real reason ABC had canceled a reality contest called “Welcome to the Neighborhood” 10 days before it was to air was because certain Christian groups would flip their wigs. (In the final episode, a formerly homophobic homeowner chooses a gay couple to be his new neighbors.)

This, in turn, would damage the marketing campaign by ABC’s owner Disney, which was wooing said groups to help promote its upcoming C.S. Lewis film, “Chronicles of Narnia.”

ABC entertainment chief Steve McPherson was irritated even having to deny this suggestion, which was made by the creators of the show. Later, when asked if there was any chance the series might air somewhere, McPherson replied, “It may be dead, because these guys are such idiots.” I thought it was a pretty smart move by the producers to revive interest in a long-forgotten project by talking to the Times. But what did I know?

By then, we were all getting a little grumpy. As a late-afternoon press session dragged out in an air-chilled ballroom — as one barely coherent question after another elicited useless responses — I actually began longing for the return of that BET publicist we had busted the week before for planting questions (helpfully typed on slips of paper) in the audience.

I found myself wishing that the creator of “Scrubs,” Bill Lawrence, would just take over. During a session for the new NBC sitcom “Teachers” (airing in April), Lawrence planted himself in the press section, grabbed a mic and started to crack us up with inane softballs like, “Are you guys going to do a lot of drama in the show?”

It’s time to go when you’re standing in a gaggle of critics and everyone starts naming the show he or she thinks might be the breakout of the midseason and you say, “The Unit,” a new CBS military drama (coming in March) from “Shield” creator Shawn Ryan and playwright David Mamet ... and everyone around you says, “I hated that show.”

Yes, that unmistakable yearning for things of substance, that irrepressible interest in life outside the hermetic Hollywood bubble, can mean only one thing. It is time to return to the comforts of a heated home, civilian food, real people and, of course, my 55-inch TV and DVR loaded up with favorite shows just begging to be watched.