I don't know if tonight's "West Wing" is meant to demonstrate the failure of politics, or just the failure of a television drama. Either way, it was disappointing.

I did get a rush of excitement just before it began, thinking this could be exciting TV. But it started so awkwardly, with a contrived throwing-out of debate rules which regular viewers should have presumed was part of the Vinick-Santos handshake in last week's episode. (If they spent the necessary time to hammer out those complicated rules, there wouldn't have been any time left for debate prep.) For a moment there, I thought I would rather vote for Ellen DeGeneres.

And not long into the debate itself, I was hoping someone at FactCheck.org has enough of a sense of humor to issue a factual analysis of these fictional candidates' policy stands. Because as they wallowed in talk about CAFTA, it felt like one of something left over from an Al Gore position paper — the sort of talk where you spent so much time proving you were the smarter guy, that you also came off as the most boring (or annoying guy).

Of course, that's where I thought the show was saying that politicians just can't help themselves, that they can be just as unenlightening in a no-holds-barred situation as they are in the formally structured "debates" that real-life politicians negotiate.

The complexities of the two candidates all but disappeared, with Vinick in particular reduced to Republican talking points when along the episodic trail he had seemed much more complicated. (The debate left Alan Alda sounding a lot like the presidential contender played by James Brolin earlier in the "West Wing's" run.) And I felt the same frustration I have felt at real debates when it seems that the guys aren't getting to the important stuff — that a big issue like the economy isn't really being addressed (I guess things are better in Westwingworld), and that some things have just been dropped. A week ago, both sides were on a collision course over abortion and attack ads; what happened to that topic?

There was also the frustration with the moderator, real-life newsman Forrest Sawyer, who seemed to let these guys off the hook — as real-life debate moderators have sometimes done. I would have cheered if only he had listened to Santos's bullet-regulating proposal and said, "Gee, it sounds as if you're making policy based on a Chris Rock monologue."

But I ended up feeling that this show was "The West Wing's" failure, not politics. Let politics take the rap for its own failings. Here we had a show that was once famous for taking big, complicated issues and turning them into human drama; in its big, November-sweeps dramatic gesture, it threw out humanity in favor of big, complicated noise.

Moreover, because it was live, it reminded us that in some ways politicians are better actors than people who get paid to act without holding elective office. No two presidential contenders, face to face on live TV, would hesitate and stumble as often as these guys did. Top pols are trained almost from birth that you always charge ahead. We see that all the time in the chatter on cable news; forget what point is being made, forget the challenge from the interviewer (if said challenge does occur), just keep charging. When I watched "West Wing," I didn't see much of that kind of charge, and so wasn't very charged up.

Semi-busy day ahead. Several church commitments, grocery shopping, that sort of thing. I hope to file some TV notes later in the day, after I have had a chance to WATCH some television. Yesterday was pretty much overtaken by chores, shopping and a seeing my younger son in his high school's production of "Dead Man Walking."  Yes, you read that right.

Even my checking on the Buckeyes involved listening on the car radio. The only TV I remember was a few minutes of that "Saturday Night Live" commercials collection, and that was right before bed.

One thing has been rattling around in my head since Friday, though. How many times are we going to have to hear "the Q" before it sounds natural?

For those of you in other parts of the country (and pro basketball non-fans), "the Q" is the new, officially approved nickname for the arena where the Cleveland Cavaliers play. It used to be known as the Gund, which didn't exactly sing either, but at least it was a name I was used to. "The Q" — derived from Quicken Loans Arena, the venue's new name — just sounds odd, as if the team was now under the command of John de Lancie.

It was clear during Friday's telecast that the new name is going to be shoved into our ears until we're used to it; the announcers seemed to be dropping it at every opportunity. I hope the fans come up with a nickname of their own — "The Loaner," "The 'Ick," "The Gund And We Don't Care What Anyone Else Says." After all, I still think of the team as the Cavs no matter how hard they try to make me say 'Cavaliers,' and snicker whenever their uniform colors are referred to as 'wine and gold.' (What, 'purple' is declasse? Gallo may become a corporate sponsor?)

But eventually the media repetition will probably make "The Q" sound comfortable — just in time for a new owner, and another name change.

My colleague Alan Sepinwall and I were arguing about the current state of reality shows — he is a little more forgiving at the moment than I am — and of course, that led to the thought any dissatisfied TV viewer has.

You know: "I can do better than this!"

For instance, "Landscape!" a combination of a couple of recent threads on "Survivor" and "The Apprentice."

Hosted by Susie Coelho ("Surprise Gardener"), the show would seek the next great landscaper. Of course, Gary Hogeboom would compete — only this time he would tell everyone that he IS a former NFL player, so who would expect landscaping experience.

The challenges would involve exotic locations and rampant self-promotion. You would hear Coelho say, "For this event, we are going to one of the finest hotels I have ever seen, the Ritz-Carlton Huntington in Pasadena! I adore its fine floral displays and meticulously maintained grounds. Today, our two teams — 'There Must Be a Pony' and 'Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom' — will each try to come up with a better design for the horseshoe garden. But the design must be game-related!"

Pony struggles when it realizes that its planned croquet-mallet scheme is too complicated to compete on deadline. Hundred Flowers goes simpler — trying to turn the horsehoe into a circle, which it claims is a Hula Hoop — but has a falling-out over the proper color sequence for the mums. Pony ekes out a win, sending Hundred Flowers to the Greenhouse for an elimination ceremony. There someone will hear Coelho say, "You're mulch!"

Next week: A visit to Aaron Spelling's estate, where the teams have to mow the names of all his series into the lawn. And here's the twist: It has to be in flowing script!

If that doesn't work for you, how about this: "Virgin!"

I know, Fox probably already thought of that title. But let's go ahead.

Adam from "The Apprentice" would host this competition in which seven men and seven women must figure out who among them is, well, you know. In the opening telecast, each is asked about his or her experience, and answers with the new catchphrase, "I'm really not comfortable talking about it."

Various competitions are used to get information: The drunken party, the "What would you do on 'Temptation Island' quiz," anything but actually getting a contestant in bed. Of course, in these close quarters, with all this talk about intimate behavior, some contestants may fall into each other's arms. (Memo to Fox: Cast former "Real World" stars in the first series.) Imagine the shock, then, when one contestant declares that another is a virgin only to discover he's not — as of the night before!

Other things could happen, too. But I'm really not comfortable talking about them.

I spent two hours of reality TV dealing with some reality of my own: folding letters and putting labels on envelopes for a church project. That meant I heard about as much TV as I actually watched, and it was fine.

"Survivor" still isn't grabbing me, and tonight's ouster of Brandon added more strands to my Rope Bridge of Disappointment. (All right, so that's more of an "Amazing Race" image. Sometimes everything blurs.) It's not that I thought Brandon was the next great champ, but he was less annoying than some of the folks who are still around. And what is the deal with these challenges? An immunity idol hunt? Balance the Pot?

I haven't paid much attention to "The Apprentice" but came back for a week because of the much talked about four-firing a week ago. I guess I missed all the excitement for the season. Markus, fired this week, did provide some sparks after his dismissal by showing one more time what a jerk he could be — but it wasn't really revelatory, just self-destructive. And there was slight amusement in seeing project leader Adam refuse to discuss whether he had any sexual experience — after overseeing a class that was supposed to be about sex in the workplace.

OK, and there was Trump's analogy of sex and a dinner menu. But I suspect "The Apprentice" will be much more fun for people to talk about tomorrow, than it was to watch tonight.

And I'm glad I didn't let those two hours go entirely to waste.

A couple of books landed on my desk recently: "Tony & Me: A Study of Friendship," Jack Klugman's memoir of life with his friend Tony Randall, and EdMcMahon's "Here's Johnny! My Memories of Johnny Carson, 'The Tonight Show' and 46 Years of Friendship."

With two "buddy books" the same pile, there's a logical link there for a book review. But I don't have a regular block of time set aside for reading, so I'm going to post some notes here about "Tony & Me," which I have finished, and then talk about "Here's Johnny!" once I'm done with it.

One reason I was able to finish "Tony & Me" quickly is that it's a brief book: 141 pages, with lots of white space on the page, a chapter that's an interview with Randall's widow and another chapter where Klugman is interviewed by co-author Burton Rocks. Getting interviewed for your own memoir — there's a good trick.

The bonus DVD, out-takes from Randall and Klugman on "The Odd Couple," is also brief — under 9 minutes by my tally — although it's funny. And how often do you get to hear someone with Randall's precise diction swear repeatedly? (There's also a good DVD introduction by Klugman.)

I think Klugman has more book in him, a full-length autobiography. This is a guy, after all, with a long and wonderful career in TV and movies. And "Tony & Me" often alludes to Klugman's life in a way that begs for elaboration — if only this book were Klugman's alone.

Instead, he's trying to explain not only his working relationship with Randall but their genuine friendship, so we get biographical sketches of both men, memories of their working together, Randall's crucial role in Klugman's post-cancer comeback and, doggonit, a lot of love.

And even though I wanted more book, the love got to me. "The real gift that Tony's friendship gave me was the capacity to truly trust another human being completely," Klugman says. "I'd spent my entire life — my entire life — making sure that I never, ever owed anybody anything. … Our friendship made me a better human being."

And, of course, it gave us all some great laughs. Those "Odd Couple" episodes are gems. And this book is a small one, too.

"Tony & Me" is available from Good Hill Press. It costs $24.95. You can find out more at www.TonyandMe.com.

I do actually talk to other people every now and then, and the last couple of days have found me on the phone.

On Wednesday, there was a short chat with Patricia Heaton about her new TV movie, "The Engagement Ring." Because of her success on "Everybody Loves Raymond," Heaton is much sought after, and the interview — although one-on-one — came with one of those publicist advisories to keep it to 15 minutes. Fortunately, Patty talks fast, and so can I, and we covered a fair amount of ground in a relatively short time. The movie was better than I expected. And I'm comfortable talking to her; she's a Northeast Ohio kid, and I have interviewed her in person, been to the "Raymond" set, talked to her on the phone a few times. She always manages to sound down-to-earth, for instance noting that a lot of her time these days is spent monitoring the homework of her four children. I should have a story in the Beacon Journal before the movie premieres on Nov. 28.

Early this afternoon, I chatted with Kathy Kinney — Mimi on "The Drew Carey Show" — about improv and the Drew Carey All-Stars touring improv troupe, which is coming to Cleveland in December. I had also talked to Kinney before, at one of those press meet-and-greets that look like parties but are really designed for work. As I may have mentioned before, actors who show up at these things and then are difficult to talk to (it happens) are not viewed kindly by us ink-stained sorts.

My recollection of talking to Kinney before was that she was a little distant. No such problem today. In fact, I felt early on as if she was describing some snowballing improv routine — it was Kinney's birthday, and her house was being cleaned, and her two cats were making a fuss around the cleaning, and her computer had begun making a funny noise, so she had asked her boyfriend to come look at it. … It was pretty amusing. And we talked a lot about improv. So that's another story.

Then came a conference call with Teri Garr, another former Buckeye, Lakewood division. Yes, I talked to her before, too. How long ago? It was a phoner about this new movie she had done, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." (I've been at press conferences for her TV shows since then, but "Close Encounters" was our last direct chat.)

This event was tied to her new book, "Speedbumps," which covers her career and her living with MS. (75 percent life, 25 percent life with MS, she said.) It's not a bad book, funny and unexpected, very much in the voice you know from Garr's semi-wacky talk-show appearances. It was a conference call, which usually means that you're one of many, many people trying to get a question asked. But for some reason, there were few people asking questions (I've heard there were more just listening in). So I got time to ask a couple of questions, got back in the question line, and found myself back talking to Garr, got done again, went back in line and — boom! — was talking to her AGAIN.

I don't think that was entirely comfortable for her, getting the same questioners over and over, but it was great for me. Almost a one-on-one. The story is scheduled for Monday's paper. Check out the book.

You can cease to exist on television in a second. An actress once bagged a scheduled interview with me because, on the day of the interview, her show was put on hiatus. I actually interviewed a producer on the day his show was pulled off the schedule. "There have been better days," he said. Then there was a guy who went on a multi-city tour, complete with TV appearances, to promote his new show, only to see it canceled while he was on the tour.

Which brings me to Aaron Brown, the suddenly former CNN star. Last night, my onscreen cable guide still listed "NewsNight With Aaron Brown." But the show was noticeably without him, or his name. (I have a posting below about the changes at CNN.) Come Monday, the time slot will belong to Anderson Cooper.

Is this a bad thing? To me, it's just a different thing. Can't say I've ever fallen under Cooper's spell; I still haven't shaken the idea that he used to host "The Mole." But neither was I in Brown's cult. He always seemed stuffy and dull, with the white-glove quality that I associate with the worst of National Public Radio. He also had a smarter-than-you air, at least in my view; that might have worked in the era of Olympian anchors, but not these days. If nothing else, Cooper wants to be your friend.

About 50 years ago, a TV critic imagined a world without the small TV screens of his day; instead, he envisioned a future of TV screens that could be adjusted from a few feet across to the size of an entire wall.

Well, we've seen the big home screen become increasingly common through the so-called home theater systems. But the little TV screens have not gone away. In fact, they seem to be having a rebirth.

Today I watched a little bit of "Threshold" on CBS's Web site, one of the many recent examples of broadcasters making video feeds available of their shows. The picture was great. It was also about 5 inches long and 3 1/2 inches high.

There's been a lot of talk, too, about video feeds to iPods and other devices — which sound like the video equivalent of that wrist TV that Dick Tracy used to wear. (Yes, I am old enough to remember when it was a wrist radio. Let's move on.)

I suppose the convenience will attract some. And "Threshold" was perfectly watchable in its small size; of course, I was sitting less than two feet from the screen, and I did remind myself once that I'm getting my eyes checked next week.

But if TV has to factor in the small screen again, how will that affect the way TV is made? It has before. The small screens of TV's infancy encouraged producers to use a lot of closeups — of faces especially, but also of objects. When you look even at TV dramas from the 1970s on DVD, you'll see that they often look cheaply made — the furnishing of sets almost sketched in, as if the producers assumed audiences would not care about the details, if they could see them at all.

The increase in the size of TV sets and the quality of pictures has encouraged a more cinematic approach, the use of the widescreen format, an embrace of a visual detail that used to be unthinkable. Now we can see everything, and we're comparing the TV show to a big-budget movie or a premium-cable production on a neighboring channel, so we know things should look good.

But how much will that matter on the tiny screens? And how long will it be before we're back seeing extreme closeups so that the guy watching on his computer or iPod will be able to see what's going on?

A week or two ago, per a reader's question, a CNN rep told me that Anderson Cooper's appearances with Aaron Brown were an experiment. One, apparently, that blew up in Brown's face. Here's an announcement from CNN today:

Anderson Cooper will take the helm of a live news program from 10 p.m. to midnight (ET) on CNN beginning next week. Cooper, who has reported from the scene of such major news events as Hurricane Katrina, the famine in Niger, the Terry Schiavo case, the war in Iraq, the tsunami in South Asia and the 2004 elections, will be topping off CNN’s prime-time schedule with two hours dedicated to exploring in-depth the most important and relevant news of the day.   Anderson Cooper 360º, which debuted on Sept. 8, 2003, will air from its new timeslot beginning Monday, Nov. 7.

The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer will now air from 7 to 8 p.m., in addition to a two-hour afternoon block from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The Situation Room has proven to be a breakout show with its expert contributors and correspondents and its innovative style of producing live news coverage.  With the addition of the 7 p.m hour replacing Anderson Cooper 360º at 7 p.m., The Situation Room will now receive greater prominence in the CNN lineup.  In addition, Live From, anchored by Kyra Phillips, will extend one hour and will now air from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

(End CNN material)

When asked about Brown's status, CNN made available this memo to staff from honcho Jon Klein:

We have made some programming decisions which will impact our prime time schedule as well as our colleague Aaron Brown. Aaron will be leaving CNN and is very much looking forward to some well-deserved time off with his family.

Aaron has made enormous contributions to CNN since his groundbreaking anchoring of Sept. 11^th through the war in Iraq to the Tsunami to the recent hurricanes. Outside of the big stories, on a nightly basis, Aaron has provided our audiences with insight into the events of the United Statesand the world with eloquence and the highest journalist integrity.

Besides his stellar work as an anchor, Aaron stands as an absolutely brilliant writer, evident by the thoughtful perspective he injects into every story he touches. 

Personally, I will miss Aaron and his wicked sense of humor.  We cannot thank Aaron enough for the skills and professionalism he brought to CNN. Given his respect throughout the industry, there is no question that he will be missed.

2006 UPDATE: Yes, "Over There" is still canceled. And thank you to all the readers who have posted comments about the show. You may also want to look at the January posts on this blog, which include one about where "Over There" could have gone if it had been picked up for a second season, and who might have killed Lt. Underpants.

In announcing the end of "Over There," its acclaimed Iraq war drama, FX went to some lengths to explain its decision. Here's how it went:

FX will not renew Over There for a second season based on the series' ratings performance over its 13-epsiode run. (Please see ratings information below).

Statement from John Landgraf, President and General Manager of FX Networks
"I'm deeply proud of Over There, which was beautifully produced, acted, written and directed. The series was arguably the most critically acclaimed new television show of the year, a fact which made the decision not to renew it all the more difficult. That decision was motivated entirely by Over There's ratings performance and our belief that the numbers were reflective of what the show is about, rather than its quality or entertainment value. While are passionately committed to fostering great television, we are an advertiser supported network and the size of our audience is vital to our bottom line.

"It was a deeply gratifying experience for everyone at FX to work with Steven Bochco, Chris Gerolmo and their immensely talented and dedicated team of collaborators, whose artistry was reflected in each episode."

RATINGS INFORMATION

• For its 13-week run (Wednesdays, 10 PM ET/PT), Over There averaged 2.1 million total viewers and 1.3 million Adults 18-49.
• Over There enjoyed a very strong premiere with 4.1 million total viewers and 2.4 million Adults 18-49.
• Over There leveled off to an average of 2.1 million viewers and 1.3 million Adults 18-49 for episodes 2-9.
• Over There then began a steady decline, eventually bottoming out at 1.35 million viewers and 882,000 for the season finale.
• Over its final four episodes, Over There averaged 1.6 million total viewers and 990,000 Adults 18-49.
• In comparison to FX's other drama series (most recent/current season):

       Nip/Tuck is averaging 4.1 million total viewers and 2.9 million Adults 18-49 (#1 in basic cable on A18-49)
       The Shield averaged 3.2 million total viewers and 2.0 million Adults 18-49
       Rescue Me averaged 2.8 million total viewers and 1.8 million Adults 18-49

(End FX material)

That's a very long way of saying it wasn't politics that killed the show, it was a lack of audience enthusiasm. And I feel a little guilty about not paying closer attention; I don't have a Nielsen box, but if I had watched more, I might have written more about "Over There," and maybe someone with a Nielsen box would have tuned in.

And I very much liked "Over There" in the early going; the first episode had problems but by the third, you could see a show that was worth the time and effort. Still, somewhere along the way, I stopped watching.I would DVR it, and set aside the review discs that came in. My wife was watching every episode, and loving them, and insisting to me that "you really should be watching this." But somehow there was always something else to fill my time.

In that way, "Over There" was my "Carnivale," another high-quality show that many people just decided not to watch. When the days and nights are full of obligations, including TV shows, sometimes a really good one gets lost.

But my wife is going to be really ticked.