Television Critics

This MONTH has been a big one for critical consensus. On July 17, the nominations for the Emmys were announced, with multiple nominations lavished upon "30 Rock," "Mad Men" and "John Adams." Two days later, the Television Critics Assn.announced the winners of its 24th annual awards, which are voted on by more than 200 critics and journalists. The top dogs? "30 Rock," "Mad Men" and "John Adams" Well, glad that's all cleared up. But the results left some important questions unanswered.

"Friday Night Lights" launched its second season this month with a shocker: Smart, funny, geeky teenager Landry Clarke killed a man threatening to attack Tyra Collette, Landry's crush. Then, rather than face up to the crime, the pair dumped the body. There was just one problem. The show's relatively small, extremely intense fan base didn't buy it. "I hated, hated, hated the murder scene," wrote a poster named Tom on the website of Alan Sepinwall, the critic for the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger.

One of the most memorable moments of the TV press tour, the twice-a-year junket that starts today in Pasadena, was provided by Gail Shister, the scrappy columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In early 2004, Shister took the microphone and in front of 200 or so colleagues asked network honcho Leslie Moonves whether he'd recuse himself from decision-making for "The Early Show," given that he was then dating co-host Julie Chen.

One of the odder couplings of the press tour came Thursday when Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash and New York Knicks fan Spike Lee shared a stage to promote their upcoming projects for ESPN Films. Lee directed a documentary, "Game Day With Kobe," that is slated to air in the fall. The director, who struck up a friendship with Lakers star Kobe Bryant while shooting a commercial in Rome, used 30 cameras for his portrait, which centers on a playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs. Meanwhile, Nash, a longtime film enthusiast, is making his directorial debut for an ESPN documentary about Terry Fox, a young athlete who died of cancer in 1981.

Peter Liguori, the television executive formerly known as Mr. FX, faced television critics for the first time as Fox's president of entertainment on Thursday, and the topics could have ranged from the relative lack of reality programming on the fall schedule to the pressures of heading the No. 1 network among younger viewers, to whether he could transfer his sophisticated programming sensibility from cable to broadcast. But, alas, that would be really boring.

The new president of ABC prime-time entertainment and the television press corps will always have Paris. Steve McPherson, the former head of Disney's Touchstone Television Studios who was named president of ABC Entertainment in April, will conduct his first confab with journalists gathered in Century City for the annual Television Critics Assn. press tour via satellite from Paris -- where he will be spending his honeymoon next month.

Fox's hit unscripted series "American Idol" was named program of the year Saturday night by the Television Critics Assn., while NBC's "Boomtown" and Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" were picked as drama and comedy of the year. Although a critical favorite, the NBC drama has not scored with a large viewing audience and almost was not renewed for a second season. Besides grabbing the award in comedy, Stewart was honored for individual achievement in comedy.

Did you ever wonder what critics do, when they're not, well, criticizing? They're a lot more than the sum of their reviews. Almost like regular people. Really. The art critic likes junk TV. The movie critic swoons over opera. The theater critic listens to 'girl' singers. Go figure. With that in mind we thought we'd indulge a summer fantasy and let our critics show a side of themselves you might not imagined.

The TV networks appear to have stumbled across a means by which aging sitcoms can at least temporarily expand their audience--with the operative phrase being "Let's get serious." While prime-time comedies have a lengthy history of delving into social issues, a fairly recent trend has seen shows like "Home Improvement," "Mad About You," "Roseanne" and "Grace Under Fire" explore darker matters or personal tragedies ranging from family illness to marital strife.

Cynicism has us in a bear hug. The old lines separating news and commentary no longer apply. There's nothing especially new in seeing lippy local news readers unburden themselves of their sage observances on live television; in recent years, however, the aegis of analysis has been widened to also accommodate TV reporters who freely offer their unlabeled opinions, whether in tags at the end of stories or in leads. Their views form a cloud of disbelief, a cloud that's thickest over Washington.