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I am off the air until next week. I may check in with some news, but more likely I will be enjoying nonstop time off with friends and relatives in the fabulously mild climes of the Pacific Northwest. If you've exhausted my trove of TCA tour filings, check out what my colleagues wrote.

Roger Ailes And Me (Or, Please Don't Feed the Hyenas)

So, Parents TV Council chief/Satan lookalike Brent Bozell thinks the Television Critics Association owes Roger Ailes an apology for supposedly fleeing his session at TCA Press Tour last week en masse.

You would think that if anyone knew when an apology needed to be issued, it would be Bozell, the man who, four years ago this month, had to shell out $3.5 million and issue a public mea culpa to World Wrestling impresario Vince McMahon, of all people, for accusing McMahon of encouraging children to kill.

But it turns out, to no one's surprise reading this, that Bozell and the rest of the blogosphere couldn't have been more wrong about what went down in Pasadena.

"Nip/Tuck's" Carver: Fun while it lasted, but ...

If you are a regular viewer of the FX series “Nip/Tuck,” and you found last season’s gory story arc involving a knife-wielding weirdo known as “the Carver” a tad ... unsettling, well, you weren’t alone.

“It sort of hung over us all season,” co-star Dylan Walsh said. “It was just sort of gloom and doom. My joke was that we were the only plastic surgeons who should wear badges and carry guns, because it felt like a different show for a while.”

From the nets to the net

The new NBC comedy “30 Rock” depicts life behind the scenes at a comedy sketch program called “The Girlie Show.”

Viewers won’t actually see many “Girlie Show” sketches. But that doesn’t mean they won’t exist. They’ll be written, produced and available for viewing on the network’s NBC.com Web site.

This was news to Tina Fey, the creator, producer and star of “30 Rock,” who was in Radio City Music Hall in May as her network’s chief executive made the announcement. "I was standing in the back of the upfronts when Jeff Zucker was like, 'You'll never see the sketches on the show, but you will see them online."  I was like, "Oh.  We've got to write them and just shoot them for online?'"

Fox affil lays on

I guess FOX TV Stations chief Dennis Swanson's famed playbook -- the one blamed for the recent layoffs at its KC affiliate -- didn't account for the fact that this is a Chiefs town. Either that or his boss, Roger Ailes, was rewarding yours truly for showing up at his session at press tour last week. Yeah, that's it.

TV's press tour de force

The air conditioning broke in the middle of a heat wave. The Internet went down on the last day of tour. And yet, it seemed nothing could stop the relentlessly upbeat vibe as the nation's TV critics wrapped up their 18-day network previews.

And why was that? Because we know we've got plenty to write about between now and Christmas.

Good bye and good luck

I'm outta here. Will post more later.  In the meantime, you have plenty of catching up to do.  Here's my full output from Pasadena.  Or, just keep scrolling down.

"Prison Break" reboots

Left to right: "Prison Break" EPs Paul Scheuring and Matt Olmstead with cast members Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller at the press session in Pasadena.

A year ago at this time, many of the nation’s TV critics were thinking along these lines: OK, the "Prison Break" succeeds. Then what?

That’s the challenge the producers of Fox’s hit serial will face when it begins its second season Aug. 21, less than a month from today.

Overheard at Pasadena...

Striking "Top Model" writer, Rush Limbaugh's "24" heartthrob, the man from "Earl."

NBC math: "30" + "60" does not equal 2 times SNL

Right: Bradley Whitford jumps in while Matthew Perry (front) and Aaron Sorkin react at the "Studio 60" press session in California.

Before we go any further, let’s clear up something. Yes, it is true that NBC is putting on two shows this fall that are set behind the scenes at a popular and fictional comedy sketch show. Yes, it is true that the shows-within-the-shows bear more than a passing resemblance to “Saturday Night Live,” which also happens to air on NBC.

But “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” from “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin couldn’t be more unlike Tina Fey’s new workplace comedy, “30 Rock,” unless, of course, they didn’t share the identical premise.

See? That clears things right up.

TV Barn's TV Picks for July 26

What were the initials of the character played by Jimmie Walker on "Good Times"?

A) D.J.
B) J.E.
C) J.J.
D) J.R.
E) M.J.

Carell's over-the-top critic

So as you may have read already, Steve Carell won an award Sunday night at the Television Critics Association Awards, and he gave a hilarious acceptance speech in which he recited a long passage of a review of his performance on the Tim Curry sitcom "Over the Top," which aired on ABC, as Carell put it, "from October 1997 to ... October 1997."

There's a point in the review where you assume it has to be fake:

I have stood in a freezer full of dead people at the morgue. I have seen a man’s scalp pulled back over his nose. I’ve even seen 35 minutes of Ellen DeGeneres’s “Mr. Wrong.” But I can now honestly say that until Steve Carell’s turn in the premiere of Over the Top, I have never known true horror.

Over the top, indeed. And then I went back to my room, googled the show, and discovered not only was the review real, it had appeared in none other than the electronic pages of TeeVee.org, one of the oldest TV-review sites on the web and a longtime partner-in-crime of TV Barn.

I giddily emailed my pal Jason Snell, editor of TeeVee, and he wrote back:

The author of that review is, amusingly enough, now a U.S. Attorney in San Diego. And indeed, he has seen those horrors.

Jason also passed along a copy of an email he got after the review appeared:

I would like to congratulate you on your Review of Over the Top. That is some good writing.

Stephen Colbert
The Daily Show

Which naturally raises the question: Was that the real Colbert writing, or the fake one?

TV Barn's TV Picks for July 25

Which reality show featured contestants named Darwin, Afi, Elavia and Jim ("not the one from the Doors") Morrison?

A) "The Amazing Race"
B) "The Apprentice"
C) "The Mole"
D) "Project Runway"
E) "Survivor"

Any day now ...

The CW will finally own www.thecw.com. You'd have thought someone would have ironed that mess out BEFORE the big announcement in January

No such problem for MyNetworkTV.com.

(inhale)

Yes, I'm still here in Pasadena.  No, I'm not posting because, gol darn it, I'm filing stories for the paper. You know -- my day job.

Expect a flurry of stuff later today when I'm done, including: audio of the hilarious Steve Carell acceptance speech at the TCA Awards; highlights from yesterday's sessions with Fox News chief Roger Ailes and Fox Entertainment prez Peter Liguori; whatever newspaper stories I forgot to post here; and more.

I know it's late. It's cable. They'll air again. And again.

Today on my KMOX show, I talked with TV critic Aaron Barnhart about 2 new series which debut tonight: "Life On Mars" (BBC America) and "Tabloid Wars" (Bravo).

Since he has worked in the business for several years, I asked Aaron if the latter show did a good job of representing what the world of newspaper reporters is really like (there's never been a TV show that got the radio business right, although "WKRP" did some aspects correctly, Loni Anderson notwithstanding).

Link: Paul Harris Online: Aaron Barnhart, TV Barn Radio.

Craig Ferguson's new set

The guy who gave Jay Leno his spiffy comedy-club look designed this one, unveiling tonight.

Live from Everwood Memorial Park

On Friday, a carload of journalists including yours truly traveled to a Burbank elementary schoolyard on a blazing hot day to witness a fan event on behalf of the show "Everwood."

I won't kid you -- it wasn't well attended.  We (meaning one of my driving companions) spotted a CW publicist doing a drive-by to check out the event, held not far from WB studios. If that publicist took any pleasure from the small turnout, though, the reality is that "Everwood's" fandom was always in middle America. It was hugely popular among my readers. They are sorry to see it go, and will be mighty unhappy if Warner Home Video persists in not releasing seasons 2 through 4 on DVD.

At the very least Time Warner could put Everwood up, right now, on its streaming service IN2TV. Every episode. Now.  What's the downside?

Here's my photo album.  Here's an interview with an organizer of the event (mp3, about 3 minutes).

The poop behind the scoop

Hilarious: Today's New York Post TV listings show "Tabloid Wars," the new Bravo docuseries filmed at the rival Daily News, as "Paid Programming."

Actually, I highly recommend "Tabloid Wars," which starts tonight, even though it did not have the Post's participation and I think that would've made the show essential rather than just recommended viewing. One of the reporters the show's cameras follow around is Kerry Burke, shown here, who had a pretty interesting life before getting into journalism. He's a thoughtful guy with a killer New England accent. I spoke with him recently during the Bravo presentations to TV critics. The MP3 is about 9:30 long and worth listening to the end. Download

"Free copy of Fox News!"

The blogosphere is going wild over Keith Olbermann's idea of breakfast-hour entertainment. Chip Franklin quizzed me about it this morning on WBAL. I was about 10 feet away from Keith at a Saturday morning breakfast press session when he put on the Bill O'Reilly mask and made a Nazi salute. I don't agree with a colleague's assessment that it was "hilarious." It seemed beneath him. But then, the whole puppet-theater idea seems beneath him. It's my least favorite part of the "Countdown."

Here's a link from Olbermann Watch with the picture.

Robert Cox, who runs OW, is a decent guy who enjoys playing with dynamite. I belong to the media bloggers' group he heads up. Cox recently sent out a bulletin noting the 100th occasion on which "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" named O'Reilly its worst person in the world. (Something you'd think Olbermann would have thought of first, what with the book coming out and all.) Anyway, I used that email as the basis for a question about bloggers.