Television's escapist programming naturally continues to endorse living beyond one's means as the time-tested American Way and rarely depicts families or individuals wracked by the pressures and miseries that come with excess.

Crime dramas will never go away as long as people turn to television for, among other things, reassurance and comfort.

By a twist of fate rather than anything approaching journalistic enterprise, I did the last major interview with Johnny Carson.

Gimmicks come and go; the cop show seems one genre that will never leave - not as long as people like to sit at home in the suburbs and see what awful things go on in the cities.

Jimmy Kimmel still comes across like a guy who crashed a party and got caught at it, yet adamantly refuses to leave.

Perhaps Western civilization is in a post-decline phase, or maybe the decline is just taking a really long time, like the Roman Empire's did. The Romans had gladiators and Christian-hungry lions and that sort of thing. We have MTV.

Like sugar and, oh - let's say the most tabloidy and gossipy reality television programs - credit is, for millions, genuinely addictive.