Retouching me, retouching you

As soon as I heard that Katie Couric's image had been retouched in the CBS promotional magazine Watch!, I pulled out my copy ... but had trouble telling where the nips and tucks had taken place.

Howard Mortman gives us a side-by-side that makes it unmistakably clear what CBS's promo butchers were up to.  Plus a funny reaction quote from Bob Schieffer.

Link: Extreme Mortman.

NEW: "Justice" tonight on Fox

On most TV shows the job is to solve the crime. On “Justice,” premiering at 9 ET tonight on Fox, the job is to spring the person accused of the crime.

This simple but fundamental shift across the courtroom aisle makes for a very different kind of drama, though in “Justice’s” case, it will be a tough sell to the Nielsen jury.

The defense attorney is often portrayed as some kind of hopelessly compromised legal prostitute, or else as an overworked, none-too-bright court-appointed stooge. On “Justice,” however, he is the high-powered, super-competent Ron Trott (Victor Garber, pictured, who played Jennifer Garner’s titanium-tough dad on “Alias”), a black belt at spinning the media and an expert strategist who doesn’t let subtleties like guilt get in the way of a favorable verdict for his clients.

The idea of setting the falsely accused free is innately interesting. Tonight’s slickly produced premiere, in which Trott defends a rich husband of a dead woman, makes defense work look as sexy as anything on the high-tech “CSI.”

But “Justice” makes clear that Trott’s agenda is about winning, not justice. One of the show’s producers recently invoked the name of Atticus Finch. Excuse me, but Atticus didn’t work for a high-powered law firm, his clients didn’t have deep pockets and, oh yeah, he lost his big case.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Aug. 30

Who hosted NBC's "Hit Me Baby, One More Time"?

A) Eamonn Holmes
B) Vernon Kay
C) Graham Norton
D) William Roache
E) Ruby Wax

TV Barn's TV Picks for Aug. 29

Finish this TV catch phrase: "I'm Oscar __!"

A) and I hate you
B) dot com
C) and I'm feeling peckish
D) and you're not
E) de la Renta, thank you for coming to the party

He who laughs last....

Link: Dateline Hollywood - NBC SORRY THAT CONAN WAS FUNNY AT EMMYS.

I think the Onion style has been done to death (by the Onion, for starters) ... and for that reason I almost didn't click on this.  By the sixth or seventh graf, when they're really piling it on, I laughed.  Loudly.

Which is good, because I am beavering away on my fall preview section and have no time to post anything. 

KMOX: Topic du jour

Link: Paul Harris Online: Aaron Barnhart on the Emmys Controversy.

Aaron also explained why the audience booed Simon Cowell, why Conan won't win any Emmys, and why the Emmy for best reality competition went to the wrong show.

KNX: Emmys wrap

You give us four minutes, we'll give you a partial rundown of the winners.  I need to learn to talk faster on news radio.

Download 0828_seg_emmys.mp3 (4:30)

WBAL: The Emmys-plane crash flap, "The Wire"

Chip Franklin and I this morning on WBAL Radio.

Download WBAL_20060828.mp3 (about 14 minutes)

And here's the other shoe dropping:

NBC Apologizes For Emmy Opening.

TV Barn's TV picks for Aug. 28

After her days as Flo on "Alice" (and its spin-off), Polly Holliday adopted a robot child named ...?

A) Karol
B) Keith
C) Kilroy
D) Konrad
E) Data

'24' and 'The Office' clock in with Emmy wins

Two fitting winners emerged from Sunday’s 58th prime-time Emmy Awards: Serial thriller “24” took home top honors on the eve of a new season littered with “24” knockoffs, while “The Office,” which has helped revive the long-dormant TV sitcom, won for best comedy.

Kiefer Sutherland, as “24’s” sleepless spy Jack Bauer, and Mariska Hargitay of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” broke through with acting awards for drama.

On the comedy side, Tony Shalhoub, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and “The Daily Show” were all repeat winners. Two high-concept HBO projects walked offstage with hardware — “Elizabeth I” with four Emmys, the most of any program, and “The Girl in the Café” with three. But the cast and crew of supposedly red-hot ABC soap opera “Grey’s Anatomy” remained in their seats all night.

What you missed

KSHB-TV 41 pre-empted the first five minutes of Sunday’s Emmy broadcast for weather coverage in Kansas City. Here’s what the rest of the country saw.

It's a small town, but we like it

The phone rings.  I usually don't pick up outside calls on weekends, but I know it must be one of my readers ready to vent about the local TV stations. They've gone wall to wall this afternoon with their coverage of severe weather in the Kansas City area. And even though three of them are duopolies, they're blowing out the coverage on their main channels, ostensibly in the name of public service, more likely because they're playing a game of Weathercaster Chicken with each other.

That meant the Emmys were joined "already in progress" ... but only missing a few opening minutes, enough to deprive Kansas Citians of the pretaped brilliance of Conan O'Brien (which has probably been uploaded to YouTube by now). Compared to what happened on the CBS affiliate, that's nothing.  KCTV-5 had its version of the "Heidi Bowl," as it cut away from network coverage of golf, with Tiger Woods leading by a stroke going into the final hole ... only to blow it and play four playoff holes while KCTV viewers watched endless Doppler radar maps.

"I like Kansas City, I do," says my caller, Betty Dawson. "But really, something like this is so rinky-dink."

Emmys: Who should win, who can't miss

The prime-time Emmys are coming Sunday, and to help me sort out the nominees, I called on Jay Bobbin, the hard-working entertainment writer for Zap2It.com and Tribune Media, who has forgotten more about this past television season than I’ll remember.

Let’s start with the actress categories, where we find a traffic jam of talent despite the academy’s failure to nominate critics’ darlings Lauren Graham for “Gilmore Girls” or Kristen Bell for “Veronica Mars.”

Audio: Jay Bobbin on Emmys

I talked with the Zap2It entertainment writer about the Emmys. Also see my preview in print.

Download JayBobbin.mp3

TV Barn's TV Picks for aug. 26-27

Gilbert Gottfried, Howie Mandel, Michael J. Pollard and Frank Welker are among the men who've portrayed/voiced what fictional character?

A) Dr. Watson
B) Hamlet
C) Iago
D) Lex Luthor
E) Mister Mxyzptlk

If TV Barn readers voted on the Emmys....

....uh, nobody would win.

Scroll down to the "Nightline, up from the ashes" posting and scroll through some of the dozens of great responses we've been getting about Dave, Jay and "Nightline."  A tip o' the fedora to Drudge for the link.

See you back here Sunday night.

KCUR: Walt Bodine Show, 8/24/06

Here's a 25-minute cutdown of my hour with Walt (full version's at KCUR.org), in which I take your questions about: Deadwood, media convergence, Thief, The Shield, Rome, The Book of Daniel, the Dish Network-TiVo mess, naughty late-night cable shows, Chuck Lorre's vanity cards, and the traffic jam at 8 o'clock Tuesday nights.

By the way, I'll be running down the Emmy winners and losers on Monday with Chip Franklin at 11 a.m. ET on WBAL.com, 11:45 a.m. ET on KNX.com and 5 p.m. ET on KMOX.com.  I understand those web sites also own radio stations ....

TV Barn's TV Picks for August 25

Showtime's "Weeds" takes place in what suburban paradise?

A) Agrestic
B) Flatera
C) Narcisana
D) Portia Du Rose
E) Serenade

Nightline, up from the ashes

"ABC News Nightline," the show many crix gave up for dead after Ted Koppel's departure, has beaten "Late Show With David Letterman" three weeks in a row -- most impressively this past week, when Dave was not in reruns.

Not only that, it beat Letterman by a hair in the demo as well.  Also on the jump, I've attached season-to-date averages for all the late nights and selected cable, courtesy of NBC.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Aug. 24

Which radio personality was among the first VJs on VH-1?

A) Al Franken
B) Leeza Gibbons
C) Whoopi Goldberg
D) Don Imus
E) Howard Stern