What's working ... September 15

1. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Like everything in this campaign, Fey's spot-on impersonation of the Alaskan governor on "SNL" is a bit of a Rorschach test -- hilariously cathartic if you hate the GOP, outrageously unfair if you support Palin and that guy, name escapes me, that she's running with. As an independent, I laughed hard ... and thought of Marge Gunderson.

2. "Foreclosed: The Growing Mortgage Crisis in KC" (7 p.m. Wednesday Thursday, KCPT). With the subprime mess taking down Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch over the weekend, the timing couldn't be better for this program. Afterwards, if you need help, KCPT will have experts ready to take your calls.

3. "Tabatha's Salon Takeover" (9 p.m. CT Thursday, Bravo). I've avoided this show until now because it sounded like a lame Gordon Ramsay knockoff. But sending hair diva Tabatha Coffey into dysfunctional styling shops to shape things up turns out to be shear genius.

...AND WHAT'S NOT

1. Creative Arts Emmys. I don't understand why the freewheeling awards ceremony, where most of the Emmys are actually handed out one week prior to Sunday's big event, isn't televised live. (E! will air a heavily edited version 7 p.m. Saturday.) Is it the language? Then have HBO and Showtime trade off the broadcast rights.

2. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (9 p.m. CT Thursday, FX). Turns out it's not always funny, as evidenced by the fourth-season premiere, which half-heartedly tries to make hay of cannibalism and something that a family paper can only obliquely refer to as a male humiliation rite.

3. Midseason finales. When you see this bogus term being used (as with Thursday's airing of "Burn Notice"), rest assured you are watching a non-event: a cable show taking a few months off to make its short season (usually 13 episodes) last longer.