TVSquad

NBC just sent me a series of photos showing the interviews that will be conducted during the network's "A Woman's Nation" series. As part of the series, NBC, CNBC and MSNBC personalities will interview each other about "the state of women in American life," as the accompanying press release has stated.

In most of the pics, the pairs -- Andrea Mitchell/Rachel Maddow, Kathie Lee Gifford/Jenna Bush Hager, Mika Brzezinski/Hoda Kotb, Natalie Morales/Suze Orman -- sit on the comfy chairs, legs crossed. As you can see from the pic above, Ann Curry, who's paired up with Meredith Vieira, wants to be different: shoes off, feet tucked under her rear end. She's really into this conversation, know what I mean? She's listening. She's comfortable.

It's so Ann Curry, isn't it?

Something about Today's Ann Curry has always struck me as odd. Don't get me wrong; she seems like a nice woman and a hell of a journalist. But something about the way she answers questions, how she gets chummy and touchy-feely with people she's just met, and how she always chooses to go on needlessly life-threatening assignments makes me think that she's not quite all there.

Her November climb up Mount Kilimanjaro furthered this notion. Yes, it was nice to see how the glaciers on the African mountain were affected by climate change, but couldn't we have seen it using an airplane and a high-powered spy camera? Did Ann and her crew really need to climb the toughest route up the mountain during the most treacherous time of the year to get the story?

Well, it was absolutely necessary, as she tells TV Week in an entertainingly wacky interview about the assignment.

They're dyin' to call this for Obama, aren't they? (In fact, they just did at 11 PM ET) In our last update, NBC called Pennsylvania for Obama before barely any votes were counted, then they were on top of Ohio like lions on a limping elk. According to their board, the big O has over 200 electoral votes already, whereas the New York Times website says Obama only has 159. Do the networks have better exit poll data than the Times or are they just too eager to wrte the conclusion to The Obama Story? It's anyone's guess. At least they're not falling all over themselves to call it based on Ohio, like other sites are doing.

More observations:

• From the girlfriend: "Ann Curry looks foxy! Well, she does!" I agree. Curry's rockin' the boots on the virtual set tonight.
• They showed the green room again at 9:30. BriWi's doing it for "full disclosure," but when the graphics turn off, Curry ends up looking so lonely in there.
• Speaking of which, Curry told Brian Williams that "she felt like she was in a video game," then her Sincerity Chip kicked in and she added "Whatever it takes to get the information out to people, Brian." Sure, because phony columns, fake birds, and spinning graphics are the only way to do that.

Thankfully, NBC has decided once again to do different election coverage than their kissing cousins at MSNBC. So instead of David Gregory trying to moderate slap fights between Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, and Chris Matthews, we get the relatively dignified analysis of Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell and Ann Curry. Whew. Looks like I selected the right network.

Some observations from the first couple of hours of coverage:

• Chuck Todd really has to shave his goatee. Yes, it was nice for awhile. But he might be the host of Meet the Press after this election is over; how can any one take him seriously with that "look, Ma, I can grow a beard!" look?
• Ann Curry is doing exit polling in a green room. Not a green screen, mind you, but an entire green room. It's freaky. Williams wanted to assure us that Curry was safe from those flying graphics. Nice of him.
• Does Williams have to remind us of his blue-collar, fire-fightin', hard-drinkin' past at every turn? "It's probably not a good thing that I know where Finnegans' Wake (a bar in Philly that's Obama's HQ there) is" he says to Mike Taibbi. Thanks for the insight into your past, Bri.

Is Kathie Lee Gifford coming back to daytime? Does Regis know; does he care? Well, whatever the case with Reeg, there is talk that La Kathie Lee may be ready for a new talk show gig. In the Hollywood Reporter, Today executive producer Jim Bell said Kathie Lee Gifford is on the short list as a co-host for the fourth hour of the show. "I think she's a great talent," he said of KLG, while adding that other names are in the hopper as well.

When we're in grade school, or even high school, and we walk into class and we see that our regular teacher isn't there, we're happy. We like to see a substitute, so we can either toy with them or be more casual with them, or maybe they'll just tell us to put our heads on our desks because they don't want to do any work either. But it's different with television. We don't want to see substitutes. But TV hosts are busy people and often have to do something else and can't be on their own show. Here are the five TV personalities that bum me out whenever I see they're filling in for the regular person:

1. Ann Curry (The Today Show). Why does she get on my nerves so much? She seems nice enough (as if we can tell exactly from a TV box several hundred miles away), but there's something abou ther personality. Is it the stumbling over her words? Is it the fact that when she fills in for Meredith Vieira (and before that, Katie Couric) it seems like she really tries to take over, trying to be the serious one to get things back on track when Matt and Al are having fun? She just always seems to be auditioning for some better gig, which isn't a bad thing I guess, but it's just so obvious and grating. I don't even like the way she stands.

It seems that every day there's some sort of controversy or rumor coming out of NBC's Today Show. Katie is a terror, Matt is having marital problems, producers being let go, new producers coming on board, Katie battling with Diane Sawyer for interviews, etc. Now comes word that Ann Curry's neighbor in NYC has filed suit against the Today Show co-host because they have lived next to her for 16 months and in that time they have suffered in "a dangerous and toxic home environment caused by the construction at the home of Curry and her husband."

But that's not all! I didn't realize this, but Maria Menounos was let go from Entertainment Tonight and will now appear on The Today Show (she appears on Access Hollywood too). According to the NY Post article below, no one is getting along with Alexis Glick, so Menounos is being hired.