Television

Film and television production soared in Los Angeles in recent weeks as studios rushed to finish projects before a labor agreement with actors expires Monday night. Permits issued for television dramas more than tripled to 119 in the five weeks ended Tuesday, according to FilmL.A. Inc., the nonprofit company that regulates filming in Los Angeles County.

Colin Powell may have provided the swing-vote endorsement, but if Sen. Barack Obama should find himself delivering a victory speech on Nov. 4, he might want to include a shout-out to Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin, two of the men most commonly considered the founding fathers of television. Not since the Kennedy-Nixon race has television played such a significant role in a presidential election.

In the beginning, the TV picture was small and fuzzy and black-and-white. Looking good was not the medium's main concern -- to be seen at all was the point. The production values of "The Honeymooners," one of the funniest shows television has ever produced, were approximately that of a vaudeville sketch. If Jackie Gleason had ever tripped, the whole Kramden apartment would have come down around him.

"Sometimes people don't understand it," said Ruby Gettinger by telephone from Savannah, Ga., where she lives. "I'm a very happy person. They ask me, 'Ruby, if you had to do it all over again, would you be big or small?' I always say I'd rather be big. Because I feel like I'm a better person because of it because I don't judge people. And I'm not mean. I like the person I am.

Already the signs are there, in the most unexpected and disparate places. "60 Minutes," which for recent years has seemed something of an anachronism, is suddenly a ratings juggernaut. On Fox's "24," Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) finds himself in a less cowboy-worshiping-and-torture-tolerant nation.

It was a strange, stuttering year for television. It's no knock against collective bargaining to point out the writers strike made a constitutionally skittish medium even more erratic than usual. On the broadcast networks, shows came and went and came and went confusingly through the winter, spring and summer; fall, when it arrived, was underwhelming. (Premium and basic cable were somewhat inured to those shocks, but it was a slow year there, too.

Dear Santa: Am I too late? I was hoping that now that you've got the presents put under the trees, you might have time for my list. I'm putting a few TV wishes out there in the hope that you'll notice and make them come true. * There have been some good shows, but I think you'd agree that, overall, 2008 came up short. Now what? TV is more important than usual, since no one can afford to leave the house, and people getting laid off have a lot of extra time on their hands.

John Doman THIS BAD GUY'S REALLY MR. NICE GUY John Doman has found good fortune playing bad buys. With his understated menace, piercing eyes and a smiley sneer, he won raves for his portrayal of the manipulative deputy Chicago Police Commissioner William Rawls on HBO's "The Wire." And he says he still inspires shudders from parents who remember him as the creepy child molester in Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River." Doman now is adding another villain to his resume as high-powered energy honcho Walter Kendrick, whose unscrupulous traits put him on a collision course with ambitious attorney Patty Hewes (Glenn Close)

Herb Scannell, who helped build Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon into a children's television juggernaut, is wading into online entertainment. Scannell will unveil today Next New Networks, a company that plans to put more than 30 of what it calls "micro-television networks" on the Internet. The networks will have their own websites and feature entertainment segments lasting three to 12 minutes each. Much of the content will be supplied by Internet communities.

Verizon Communications Inc. plans to start television channels that will show news and sports in Washington and selected additional markets. Michelle Webb, a former news producer for Walt Disney Co.'s ABC TV network, will head the project, Verizon said. Verizon, based in New York, said the Washington channel would start operating in the first quarter. Verizon plans to spend $22.