OVERRATED
The baseball playoffs can't arrive too soon, because pro football on TV is the reason why God invented TiVo -- there's about 10 minutes of action spread over three-plus hours. Between the action, grown men gush over a 40-year-old interception artist or ineptly "explain" why catching the ball has to be a drawn-out "process." In George Will's immortal words, it "combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings." If there were no fantasy leagues, office pools or gambling, how many people would be watching?
UNDERRATED
The conventional wisdom seems to be that HBO has lost its mojo. Balderdash. "Boardwalk Empire" is off to a stupendous start. "Treme" ranks with the network's best dramas ever. Bill Maher's and Bryant Gumbel's shows are at the top of their game. And the way-too-inconspicuous "Bored to Death" is back for a second season. Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis raise drollery to a high art, and Ted Danson has found the role of a lifetime as a pot-loving publisher. My enthusiasm has not been curbed.
BILL WARD
