I think the occasional appearance of the UFO is a very oblique pop-cultural reference that anyone who was alive and sentient in the late 1970s will get right away.

I love commercials. I love to hate commercials, too. I talk back to them.

In fact, when it comes to TV, I'm not even sure what my real, true preferences are.

My first few years as TV critic, I would go to parties and people (usually older Posties or ex-Posties who seemed to pride themselves on not watching very much television) would take me by the arm and insist that I watch this show they'd recently starting watching on DVD, about drug dealers in Baltimore.

Just as it's unfair to review a taco stand for not being a four-star restaurant, I also have to be mindful that not every drama on TV is trying to be "The Wire."

I'm not much a TV reporter, as in someone who covers the daily machinations of the television industry, though I certainly follow it and weave it into my reviews and essays about the medium.

It seems to me conspiracy is at the heart of dozens of TV dramas currently on. Maybe that itself is some kind of conspiracy.