This is my half of several conversations this morning:

"I haven't seen it yet."

"I haven't seen it yet."

"I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET!"

Because of some obligations on Wednesday night, I had to let the DVR handle "Lost" and a bunch of other shows. This morning before I went to the office I was looking at some things for my DVD column. (Get the first season of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," in stores Tuesday.) So, when I got to my office, co-workers eager to talk "Lost" had to discuss among themselves.

This afternoon I finally caught up. And wondered why I had rushed even that much.

We know Michael's relationship with Walt is complicated, that Walt has issues about basically abandoning Walt. Wednesday's flashbacks just told us that in a more emphatic way, in between shots of guys hanging onto disintegrating rafts.

We already knew a lot about what was in the hatch. Telling us again from a different character's point of view feels like flawed storytelling — stretching out something that a better writer would have handled in a single hour.

And OK, we saw the Others. Either that or an outtake from "Night of the Living Dead." I'm not sure. But it was a long wait for a glimpse.

This comes back to one of the fundamental problems with U.S. television compared to the Brits. In England, if a show has enough ideas for six or seven episodes, then a season is six or seven, and the show goes away until a writer thinks up another six or seven.

Here a hit network show starts a season knowing it's going to need 22 episodes, possibly a couple of more than that. That's a lot to ask for (and at that, it's less than shows used to have to concoct). I think it was Dick Wolf who said that with 22 episodes, you can figure about a third are going to be good, a third OK and third below par. Those figures are probably even more optimistic with a serialized show, since you have to keep a story going but not too fast; think of all the narrative dead spots in "24."

"Lost" sets the bar so high when it's good — as it was in the season premiere a week ago — that I should be understanding when an episode disappoints. But I didn't expect disappointment in just the second episode of the season. It already has me thinking about waiting for the second-season DVD.

For about the hundredth time today I heard one of those "Commander in Chief" promos referring to star Geena Davis's Academy Award. And for about the hundredth time I wondered if that should make any difference in your decision to watch the show.

After all, does Davis being billed as an "Oscar winner" mean she is a better actor than Donald Sutherland, who co-stars in the show but is merely an "Emmy winner" in the ads? I don't think so. Nor does her performance in "The Accidental Tourist," which won her the Oscar for best supporting actress, mean that she's going to be convincing as president of the United States in "Commander in Chief."

After all, I'd rather watch her TV series "Buffalo Bill," made before she could be called an "Oscar winner," than "The Geena Davis Show," a sitcom she made post-Oscar. And I'm not excited by what I've seen of "Commander in Chief" so far.

All this then got me thinking about Oscar winners and TV series, specifically people who won the Oscar and then did TV. (A lot of future Oscar winners got their starts on the small screen.)

Some of the people who fall in that category: Walter Brennan (who, by the way, won three supporting-actor Oscars in five years), Burl Ives, Anthony Quinn, Jack Albertson, Louis Gossett Jr., Timothy Hutton, Dianne Wiest, Cloris Leachman, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Wyman, Yul Brynner, Ernest Borgnine, Shirley Booth, James Stewart, Bing Crosby, Sally Field and Mary Steenburgen.

You can probably name some of their series. I doubt you can name them all, since there are some short runs in there. And that should tell you something about the value of an Oscar in a TV career.

Right now, on my TV set, Tony Pena is rounding the bases off a wet Jacobs Field, his arms raised high, and the Indians have beaten the Red Sox in the first game of their American League Division series.

Yes, I'm looking at a tape. From 1995.

On Oct. 3, we'll mark the 10th anniversary of the Indians' return to the post-season, the end of the not-since-1954 era and the beginning of a string of playoff appearances. I taped those games — and the LCS, and the World Series — because I was covering the games at the time. I filed the tapes because I thought there might be a reason for comparison down the road. Also because I have a hard time throwing things away.

Now I'm thinking about a column about how TV presented the Indians — and postseason baseball — on TV 10 years ago. (And it's official: I'm going to write something about TV Indians '95 for Sunday's paper.)

It's sure a different team; this was the era of  Vizquel and Thome, Lofton and Belle, Baerga and Alomar. But baseball changes, players move. In '95, Manny Ramirez was an Indian. Roger Clemens was in a Red Sox uniform.

You didn't have to watch much TV from the era to see a different game. The Indians' first playoff game was on NBC, called by Bob Costas and Bob Uecker. That team was back for the second game. The third went over to ABC under the convoluted network-baseball deal of the time, with Steve Zabriskie and Tommy Hutton in the booth. Compared to today, the graphics were spartan and simple. (No info-bar at the top of the screen.) And the game felt quieter than it did with Fox's approach, all crash and thunder. I'm now really jazzed about looking more closely at the tapes.

I was thinking a lot about sprawl on Sunday night. "The West Wing" was dealing with it. So was "Desperate Housewives." Both were struggling.

This kind of sprawl is the kind affecting TV shows with large casts, especially established ones. You know that some viewers may be turned off by one character but drawn in by another — that they watch "DH" for Lynette but pick up their knitting when Susan is center stage, that they love Bartlet stories on "WW" but wander when Santos is dominating.

The problem then becomes satisfying all those viewers — as well as the actors who expect a certain amount of screen time.

On "DH," it was clear once again that the show is best serving Lynette, played by new Emmy winner Felicity Huffman. (And, to be fair, Huffman definitely knows how to run with the ball, so why not hand off to her?) The "multi-tasking" scene was the gem of the season premiere.

It's not so sure-handed with Bree (Marcia Cross), whose scene at Rex's funeral probably looked a lot better on paper than it did onscreen, or Susan (Teri Hatcher), who has gotten way too teary — and too thin — and especially Gabrielle (Eva Longoria), whose storyline has spun her way out of the orbit of Wisteria Lane.

Add in new neighbor Betty Applewhite (played by Alfre Woodard) and the characters at Lynette's new job, and you have a lot of people to get on the air, let alone give a decent story to. I'll admit once again that I'm lukewarm about "DH" generally. I was still disappointed by the season premiere, and saw signs of trouble down the road.

I'm far less neutral about "West Wing," having hung around even during seasons I didn't think were that good, and very enthusiastic about the presidential-campaign story that began last season. But the season premiere, while containing some good moments, also showed trouble with sprawl.

Even within the presidential campaign of Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), you have characters going in different directions — Josh (Bradley Whitford) running the show, Leo (John Spencer) learning how to campaign for vice president with help from Annabeth (Kristin Chenoweth), and Santos himself with a ton of obligations. Then you have the holdovers at the White House — Bartlet (Martin Sheen), Toby (Richard Schiff), CJ (Allison Janney) — with a whole story line of their own.

And that's not even getting into the other side of the presidential campaign, with Vinick (Alan Alda). And I'm a little weary just from writing all those names, let alone from thinking about all the different scenes they are in. It's a lot different from the days when a couple of characters could walk down a hallway and pass just about every other key figure.

When I wandered through the newsroom this morning, several people went out of their way to say how much they liked "No Direction Home," the Bob Dylan documentary that continues on PBS tonight. Yes, they are all about my age and so have a sense of Dylan at his most iconic. Still, it was a good thing to hear. I have been writing about the program for months, and very positively. Since I first saw it with colleagues whose reactions were mixed, I worried more than once that I was too happy about the show. But, judging from the reaction this morning, maybe not.

It sure gets a vote here. Yes, Rita did not prove to be Katrina II as some early reports feared. But even if the hurricane had hit harder, the preparation for it seemed to be significantly better than it was for Katrina.

And why would that be? It's not enough to say that Katrina's destructive march through the Gulf Coast was a factor. There had been other bad hurricanes before Katrina, and they did not prompt the authorities to prepare properly. No, it was all those pictures pouring onto our TV screens from New Orleans and other areas.

Those pictures fueled public outrage. The people telling us about the pictures — the reporters at the scene — let their own dismay and anger show through as well. The message was simple: A horrible thing had happened. The protectors of the people screwed up.

In the days since Katrina, there have been attempts on all sides to focus blame on TV commentators' foes, and to shift it away from commentators' friends. That's nothing new. But that doesn't change the pictures. And no level of government wanted similar pictures to be coming from Texas.

So two things were clear while people awaited the storm. The first was that TV cameras were ready to record every fallen building, every flooded street, every unhappy person who was unfortunate enough to be in Rita's way. The other was that the authorities wanted as much as possible to look like they had done their job.

I won't argue that TV is the only reason Rita prep went better than that for Katrina. But it was a big one, and one the networks haven't forgotten. You're going to see the shadow of Katrina in coverage of any natural disaster for at least the next few months, as TV organizations remember how riveted people were to the images of Katrina — and how much TV was admired for the reporting that came with the pictures.

In Saturday's Beacon Journal I had a story about "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" shooting part of Sunday's telecast — "The Rodriguez Family" — in Akron. (You can find the story here.) I singled out Yanke Bionics, which was the reason the show came to Akron, and mentioned a couple of local dance instructors who took part, because they had done something I (rightly) suspected would be part of a key moment in the show. But I did not feel the need to mention every company that participated.

So of course today a long e-mail arrived from the sales director from a local company I did not mention, with a laundry list of other companies that had been involved in "Home Edition," and with pictures of the Rodriguez family.

Now, I could rant here about the way some charitable acts are done with publicity in mind, and the doers of good deed feel less fulfilled if they don't get TV time or space in the newspaper. I could also point out that an able publicity-seeker would have contacted me before the show aired instead of after.

But I'm not going to rant because I'm still laughing. Here was this long e-mail, detailing all the good things done for the family — and it misspelled the family's name throughout.

As a big fan of both HBO's "Entourage" and public radio's "World Cafe" (See www.worldcafe.org ), I got a double dose of fun this morning while driving to work and listening to "Cafe" on WAPS (91.3-FM).

Adrian Grenier, who plays Vincent Chase on the HBO show, was a guest on a "Cafe" replay, offering up a list of five songs he especially likes. Grenier, who is also a musician, admitted to agonizing over the list. But he came up with an electic list.

Here it is: Funkadelic, "Can You Get To That"; Ween, "The Mollusk"; Johnny Cash and June Carter, "Jackson"; Nina Simone, "Suzanne," and Weezer, "Say It Ain’t So."

Can't say I agree with all his choices. Nina Simone was very good on some things, but "Suzanne" isn't one of them. On the other hand, "Jackson" always makes me smile (love the way June Carter roars in it). And the inclusion of a Funkadelic cut just demonstrates the ongoing appeal of the George Clinton-Parliament-Funkadelic body of music.

I'll be talking more about that sometime before Oct. 11, when "Independent Lens" airs the documentary "Parliament Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove." (Check your local listings. If it's not there, call your local PBS station. Play them "One Nation" or "Flashlight" or "Maggot Brain." Send them videos of "P.C.U." Remind them what happens when you free your mind.)

At the end of a new Fox press release was the most important line: "Head Cases," it said, "has had its last air date."

The Chris O'Donnell comedy-drama was of no great distinction and had gotten no traction with audiences in two telecasts. Indeed, my colleague Alan Sepinwall looked at the numbers after the first showing of "Head Cases" and anticipated the season's first cancellation. So no big surprise here. And the show at least had a chance to seek an audience. Fox has historically been notorious for announcing shows that never get on the air.

So what's going to replace it? Well, that's what the press release was about. And it involves the quickest fix networks can find: reality shows.

New "Nanny 911" episodes on Sept. 28 and Oct. 5 will get the network to the baseball playoffs. After baseball, in November, the time slot will go to "Trading Spouses."

I can easily imagine ABC executives sitting around a few days ago and envisioning A Ball To Settle It All. Now that's theoretically possible, since Kelly Monaco won the original "Dancing With the Stars" and John O'Hurley won this week's dance-off.

But I suspect they're now wondering if even a new season of "Dancing" — due in January '06 — is a good idea. A summer hit, "Dancing" proved less impressive in the ratings on Tuesday, when it was against fall programming. Some may blame that on disenchantment because of Monaco's controversial win this summer. (I still think she was better than O'Hurley, who even when he's dancing well looks a little comical, while Monaco knows where the drama is.)

Others may think, well, this was all right for the summer, but not on nights when there are fresh fall programs to pick from.  And some may have just decided that the novelty has worn off. Any or all of those reasons are bad for ABC.

I don't object to O'Hurley's winning. At the end of Tuesday's show, I thought he had a slight edge. But I don't know if viewers actually judged that night's performances. "Dancing" has always had a weird approach to scoring, and the dance-off was odd in having people vote while the show was still in progress. At least "American Idol" makes you wait until all the numbers have been sung.

In any case, let's just call this a draw — one for Monaco, one for O'Hurley. And not keep this going until we're stuck with the dance equivalent of "Rocky IV." Whether we endure another set of "celebrities" or a world without "Dancing," the show has had about as much impact as it ever will.

It gave us something amusing to talk about during the summer, and made ballroom dancing feel interesting again. Between this show and the movie "Shall We Dance," my wife and I have been talking about dancing lessons. I don't think another round of "Dancing" will make us talk more.