TVSquad

(S05E01) "What's wrong with being smart and gorgeous at the same time?" - Nicole

Oh, it's so good to have The Mole back on the air.

I realized how much I loved the show the minute I heard the first notes of the theme song (at least I think it's the same as before) and the opening scenes. I haven't seen any full episodes since the last Anderson Cooper episode in season two (the celeb editions didn't interest me at all), but all of the good feelings I had about how entertaining the show was came flooding back.

But how did the rest of the episode hold up?

Aaron Brown is ready to return to television. After a two-year hiatus the 59-year-old journalist and ex-CNN anchor will be joining the PBS series Wide Angle as an anchor, producer and part-time field reporter.

Brown left CNN in November of 2005 after a network shake-up that gave his coveted 10:00 PM time slot to up-and-comer Anderson Cooper. He remained off of television due to contractual regulations and instead filled his time with teaching at Arizona State University as its first Walter Cronkite Professor of Journalism. According to an interview with the Associated Press, Brown said he decided to work at Wide Angle instead of another cable news channel in order to "work in an environment where people just think about making good TV and good journalism." He added that cable news networks could be pushed into focusing on sensational, tabloid-like stories.

Wide Angle will begin its seventh season on PBS starting on July 1st. Topics that will be covered this season will be the crisis in the Sudan and the changing role of the military in Japan. Brown hopes to do some field work in Venezuela or the Middle East for future Angle stories.

That's the advice the NBC newsman gave Katie Couric when she left The Today Show to take the anchor gig at The CBS Evening News in 2006.

He told her that going from a morning show like Today to a hard news anchor position was "a dive off the high board" and that it's "harder than it looks." Though I wonder if anyone gave that advice to Brokaw when he left Today to do The NBC Nightly News back in the 80s. Or maybe they didn't because he's a guy, right?

I'm not a big fan of reality shows, but I really did enjoy The Mole. It lasted two seasons on ABC (not counting the truly stupid Celebrity Mole that came later) and was hosted by Anderson Cooper. Cooper, as you know, is busy over on CNN with his own nightly show, Anderson Cooper 360, so ABC needed a new host for the revival that's coming up later in May. And now they've named him.

Jon Kelley will be the new host of The Mole, the man in charge of guiding contestants (and one spy) through an international game of searches, stunts, and elimination. Kelley used to be an anchor for the syndicated celebrity news show Extra and an anchor for Fox Sports Network.

I'd just like to say that there are a lot of TV sites on the web, but TV Squad is "The Best TV Site That Has Ever Existed Or Will Ever Exist On This Planet Or Any Other." And that's official, by the way.

Now that I've announced that, there seems to be a little battle going on with the cable news channels and even the regular networks when it comes to coverage of this year's Presidential election. CNN reminds us every three and a half minutes that they are "The Best Political Team On Television," almost as much as they remind us that "we're in The Situation Room"), and now CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric has jokingly named her team of Jeff Greenfield and Bob Schieffer "The Best Political Team In The Galaxy." They liked that, especially Greenfield, who used to be the political expert over on CNN.

First off, I'd just like to point out that Chris Matthews is the most annoying political analyst on television.

Now that that's out of the way, did anyone watch the New Hampshire primary coverage on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News? If Chandler Bing was covering the primary, he'd say "could the networks be more wrong?" (If Chandler Bing really existed and commented on political coverage).

I think this is the first time that I've ever been excited about a reality show. Well, as excited as I can get over a reality show anyway (though I always thought of it as more of a game show than reality).

The Mole, the ABC reality show hosted by Anderson Cooper several years back, is coming back to the network. The same company (under a different name) will produce the ten episode series, which they plan to run during the summer.

• TV Land has a Beverly Hillbillies marathon all night.
• HBO has an Entourage marathon all night.
• Sci-Fi has The Twilight Zone all night.
• Discovery has a Mythbusters marathon.
• At 8, PBS has a new Live From Lincoln Center, with Joshua Bell and the New York Philharmonic.
• AMC has a Planet of the Apes marathon all night, starting with the original at 8.
• At 10, ABC has Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve 2008 (whew!) with Clark and Ryan Seacrest. It's interrupted at 11 for local news then picks up again at 11:35.
• At 11, FOX has New Year's Eve Live, with Cat Deeley and Spike Feresten.
• CNN has Anderson Cooper in Times Square starting at 11.
• Motorcycle stunt rider Robbie Maddison is going to attempt to jump a football field in Las Vegas tonight. ESPN has live coverage starting at 11.
• Also at 11: MTV has New Year's Eve coverage too, with Tila Tequila.
• At 11:35, NBC has New Year's Eve with Carson Daly.

Check your local TV listings for more.

• Still no deal to have Letterman come back with everyone else in early January.
• What's it like to ride the subway with Anderson Cooper?
• Entertainment Weekly picks the Best and Worst TV of 2007.
• Michael Ausiello has a Festivus Christmas Wish List too.
• Former NBC newsman John Hockenberry is not happy with his former network.
• Who would win in a fight, Charlie's Angels or The Three Stooges?
• Did you know they once made animated versions of Lost in Space and That Girl?
• Remember Apple TV?

Here's what's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• WNBC (and others) named the ballplayers involved in the steroid scandal before the Mitchell Report was even released. But it was the wrong list. Whoops.
• A judge has thrown out that lawsuit against the creators of Heroes.
• But now Conan O'Brien is now getting sued.
• Goodbye Grey's, hello Lost.
• Anderson Cooper sits in for Regis and does a funny standup routine.
• Big shock: Marie Osmond is going to have her own talk show next year.
• Gary Coleman is trying to sell his Saturn.
• Remember that story about writers disrupting a taping of Last Call with Carson Daly? Here's the audio (supposedly - it keeps crashing my browser).

Um...I'm really not sure what to make of this video from CNN. It's not Dancing with the Stars exactly, but there is dancing and there are stars.

It shows the new Fab Four - Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs, and Larry King, with Cooper definitely the "Paul" of the group - dressed as Christmas elves (complete with funny hats, green suits, red and white stockings) and doing a bizarre dance to the tune of "Jingle Bells." OK, obviously, it's just their heads pasted on top of elf bodies. I wonder if they had to get the permission of the four anchors to do this or if it's just something CNN decided to do on their own. I can't imagine Dobbs being thrilled with it but I can see the other three laughing at it. Oh, I'd pay money to see Dobbs or Blitzer do their shows in those outfits.

You can "Elf yourself" at Office Max's elfyourself.com.

Gallery: Wolf Blitzer

• Rumor is, Jay Leno doesn't want to make way for Conan in 2009.
  
• CNN's Anderson Cooper guest starred today on Sesame Street.
  
• Prepare to be bombarded with public service announcements: analogue television is going extinct in 2009.