Emmy winner Megan Mullally delighted folks on "Will & Grace." Her talk show proved less enthralling, and is ending production according to the story here.

I can't say much about the show, although the publicist for it dutifully bombarded me with information. It was confined to a wee-hours time slot in Northeast Ohio, and didn't seem worth the DVR space unless the slot was going to improve. Even though I thought she was one of the best reasons to watch "W&G," I never felt more than mild curiosity about her yakker. And now even that curiosity seems excessive.

During its first season, "The O.C." was a more than credible drama. Later, not so much. So we come to the end of the trail, according to today's announcement from Fox:

The sun will set for the last time on THE O.C. when the series ends its four-season run Thursday, Feb. 22 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. The countdown has begun, with all-original episodes airing from Thursday, Jan. 4 through the last episode on Feb. 22  ….

"THE O.C. Season Four finale will also be the series finale. This feels like the best time to bring the show to its close,” said Josh Schwartz, creator and executive producer of THE O.C. “Thanks to the hard work of our cast, crew and writers, we have enjoyed our best season yet, and what better time to go out than creatively on top.  It has been an amazing experience and a great run.  For a certain audience, at a certain time, THE O.C. has meant something. For that we are grateful."

As I said, it could have turned out differently. The second season was a mess, Mischa Barton's shortcomings as an actress became more evident (and probably drove away viewers who did not return when she left) and so on and so on.  The collapse, like that of "Joan of Arcadia" in its second season, suggests yet again that the extended U.S. broadcast season is murder for some shows — that the British model of as-few-episodes-as-we-are-happy-with would better serve many U.S. series as well.

From the morning e-mail (and that "tap" pun at the beginning is pretty bad …):            

            Television star Mario Lopez (“Dancing With The Stars,” “Nip/Tuck”) has been tapped to host the 2007 MISS AMERICA PAGEANT, airing live from The Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on Monday, January 29 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT* on CMT.  Don Mischer Productions will produce the 2007 MISS AMERICA PAGEANT. 

            Sarah Brock, CMT executive producer and vice president, production, music and events, notes: “Mario Lopez is a fantastic choice to host the 2007 MISS AMERICA PAGEANT.  With his soaring popularity, his former hosting experience and his undeniable charm, he will certainly excel as this year’s host.”

            Sam Haskell III, chairman of the board for the Miss America Organization, adds: "We are pleased that immediately following his successful star turn on “Dancing With the Stars,” Mario Lopez has agreed to host the Pageant.  Our executive producers Sarah Brock and Don Mischer did an outstanding job securing Mario, and we are honored to welcome him into the Miss America family." …

Lopez recently danced his way into America’s heart on the hit ABC program “Dancing With the Stars” and has since signed a talent deal with the CW network and, under this deal, Lopez will continue to be a recurring host of “Weekend Extra.”  And to keep up with his acting, Lopez has a recurring role in the popular series “Nip/Tuck.”  Born in San Diego, Lopez began his career as the younger brother on the 1984 television series “A.K.A. Pablo.” Throughout the years, he has become well known to television audiences through his roles on NBC's “Saved by the Bell” as AC Slater and USA Network's “Pacific Blue.” Lopez brought the bachelor’s view to NBC’s ”The Other Half” and helped bridge the gap between sports and entertainment on “ESPN Hollywood.”

Judges for the 2007 MISS AMERICA PAGEANT include:  Debbie Allen (actress, director, producer, choreographer, singer, dancer and multiple Emmy Award-winner), Nigel Barker (“America's Next Top Model”), Delta Burke (“Designing Women” and recently “Boston Legal”), Michael Feinstein (singer, composer, producer), Chris Matthews (MSNBC's “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and “The Chris Matthews Show”) and Susan Powell (Miss America 1981, Discovery Channel's “Home Matters”).

As I mentioned, I am reading "Hello Americans," the second volume of Simon Callow's biography of Orson Welles. And last night I came across some words that may be of interest to Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, the Dixie Chicks and other entertainers who take public stands on politics.

It was 1944. Welles was active in politics, and Time magazine "mocked one of his speeches," Callow wrote. Welles sent a telegram in reply:

We filmmakers realize our community is a gorgeous subject for satire. We grant, or anyway most of us do, that we are the world's funniest people. You can write more jokes about us than you can about plumbers, undertakers or Fuller brush salesmen. Hollywood is guilty of deliberate withdrawal from the world. … But let Time magazine view with alarm or point with pride but not laugh off Hollywood's growing recognition that every movie expresses or at least affects political opinion. Moviegoers live all over the world, come from all classes, and add up to the biggest section of human beings ever addressed by any means of communication. [This was, of course, before the rise of television.] The politics of filmmakers therefore is just exactly what isn't funny about Hollywood. Time mentions room temperature burgundy and chopped chicken liver as though those luxuries invalidate political opinion. Time, whose editors eat chopped chicken liver and whose publishers drink room temperature burgundy, knows better.

While Welles was speaking of his movie work, the same could be said of all artists and entertainers. (Welles, for that matter, had just finished a radio show that he had hoped to use for political commentary as well as amusement.) If they choose to keep their politics to themselves, that's fine. But they are still entitled to opinions, in their work and in their lives; an entertainment career doesn't exclude you from the national debate, however much your fans may want out of that debate. And entertainers' opinions should be judged based on their validity, not the career of the person expressing them.

I know I'm stating the obvious here. At least, it should be obvious. But the how dare they? tone that often greets performers' politicking suggests that obviousness can get shoved aside.   

From tonight's e-mail:

The six-time Emmy-nominated McHales Navy launches on DVD for the very first time as Shout! Factory releases the classic sitcom from television’s golden age as a five-disc, restored and re-mastered collector’s set on March 20, 2007.  To create a sea-worthy box set of the beloved series, DVD producers reunited the unsinkable crew of the P.T. 73, including Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine (Marty, The Dirty Dozen) and four-time Emmy-winner Tim Conway (“The Carol Burnett Show”), along with fellow crew members Carl Ballantine, Edson Stroll and Bob Hastings, for a first-ever cast reunion in December 2006 with footage from the event included as an exclusive DVD featurette.

Originally aired in 1962 on the ABC network and part of the Universal Television catalog, the outstanding first season of McHale’s Navy boasted writing from the likes of Joseph Heller (Catch 22) and garnered three Emmy nominations, including “Best Comedy” and acting nods for the leads, Borgnine and Conway.  Now the original 36 episodes of this award-nominated maiden voyage can be relived on DVD for the suggested list price of $44.98.

I liked "McHale's Navy" back when it was originally on; erratic memory suggests I also caught a lot of daytime reruns later on. Loved Conway — and this was long before I had any connection to NE Ohio. Also enjoyed the late, great Joe Flynn, who really knew how to do a slow burn (and a fast one) — and was another Buckeye born, by the way.

Still, having been in the presence of Mr. Conway at press conferences (where he would often steal the show), and having interviewed him (where great stories would abound), and having seen the havoc he could cause on "The Carol Burnett Show," I am very much interested in what transpired at that cast reunion.

Vacation plus a Monday holiday added up to a return that included the following: a short cover column for Channels (the Beacon Journal's TV supplement), a new Pop Quiz (daily question and answer) for Wednesday, a mailbag column for Thursday's editions, a HeldenFiles for Wednesday's and a longish column tied to the Ohio State-Florida game, also for Thursday. I also managed to read some mail, make some phone calls and chat with co-workers, though at the end of the day I mostly remembered writing.

And, at the end of the day, I have to acknowledge that I missed the work.

Couple of good things: A brief phone chat with the legendary Norman Corwin, who cheerfully helped answer a reader's question about a show Corwin did back in the '70s. Corwin is 96, so his life and career have gone through pretty much all the watershed moments in broadcasting. When I interviewed him once before, he began one anecdote by recalling being in a jeep in Europe with Ed Murrow. And Bill Paley. (At least, to Corwin they were Ed and Bill.) You can understand why I'm impressed just by the idea of talking to him.

Then, an e-mail came today from John Dickerson, who wrote the book about Nancy Dickerson I mentioned in a post earlier today. I had written him over the holidays about the book, and had pointed out a couple of small errors; his note in reply was quite gracious. You can read more about the book here and more about Dickerson — including a blog about the book — here.

We boxed up the Christmas decorations yesterday, and today I return to the office with a mental list of things to do. So vacation's over.

I tried to make it a real one this year, focusing on family time and avoiding work as much as possible. To a certain extent I succeeded. I did basically nothing work-related except a couple of "Pop Quiz" questions early in the break, and opening a bunch of mail that accumulated at the office.

Not that the pause was easy. I thought about work every day. Can't help it. Entertainment, media, popular culture — whatever you want to call it, it's more than just my job. It's what I wallow in, talk about, read about.

I did a lot of reading over the holiday — one of the nice things about the break was having the time for a lot of reading — and it concentrated on popular culture and politics. I was determined that, by Christmas, I would finish "At Canaan's Edge," the third and final volume of Taylor Branch's biography of Martin Luther King Jr. (and of America in his time); as much as I admire Branch's work, it had been a gift a year ago, and I didn't want to end up fighting for attention in a fresh holiday pile. But I made my deadline, thanks in part to the long airport waits that accompany travel this time of year.

Other reading: Donald Bogle's "Bright Boulevards, Broken Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood," Alicia C. Shepard's "Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate," John Dickerson's "On Her Trail: My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star." Right now I am about halfway through "Hello Americans," the second volume of Simon Callow's biography of Orson Welles.

They — and other books that await  — will end up in the stew where my work comes from. (For one thing, I've been thinking about the bowdlerized version of "The Sopranos" coming to A&E in the context of the mangling of some of Welles's work — the whole issue of what matters in making entertainment, let alone art.)

So will, I suspect, the music I've been listening to: Ray Charles's Atlantic work, Sinatra in Vegas, Springsteen's Seeger sessions, Pretenders over the years. And some movies I caught up on: "X3," "The Last Kiss," "The DaVinci Code," "Syriana," "Happy Endings." All right, so I didn't entirely catch up on "Happy Endings"; was not involved enough to watch until the end. Some TV crept in there, too — poker, a big gulp of football, even a mini-marathon of "Next" yesterday morning.

It's all meat and potatoes and carrots and tomatoes. We'll be dining together.