what's working for me...

1. Diane Sawyer, evening news anchor. She deferred her dream to help shore up "GMA," but with Robin Roberts now helming that ship, Sawyer gets to try making "World News Tonight" No. 1 again.

2. "Sons of Anarchy" is back. This biker gang show left "The Sopranos" comparisons in its rear-view mirror last season. It returned Tuesday with a timely subplot involving economic hardship, Adam Arkin as the nicest white supremacist ever -- and one real well-done corpse.

3. 19 local Emmy nominations for Metro Sports. Eight of those were for the documentary "CityBall," more nominations than any TV station in the market.

... and what's not

1. Shows that foil your DVR. Judging from my email, people have had it with shows ending two minutes after the recorder has shut off. That's because the cut-rate listings service your cable company uses assumes everything ends when the big hand is on zero.

2. AMC is going HD -- October 1. That's almost the end of the season for "Mad Men," a series that was readily available in hi-def last season on Time Warner's HD on Demand channel.

3. Dominick Dunne, RIP. I loved his old Court TV show. Few writers made celebrities seem more real than he did.