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Good one. Not great, but good.

I like how HBO didn't tack a "scenes from the next episode" on the end. Yeah, they did it so that you wouldn't be able to change the channel fast enough to avoid "Big Love," but it also leaves that doubt in your mind about what'll happen next.

If you didn't see it, I won't spoil it (I'm writing just after the first, East Coast airing but well before the West Coast feed). Ended with a bang, and blood, and question marks. Minor character dispatched, another also dispatched- strange how that one was the main plot of the episode, introduced and wrapped up all in the same hour. But it's back, it's good, it's still better than anything else on TV.

Except maybe "Family Guy," but I'll watch that later.

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Romanesko's site is where mainstream American journalists go to discuss the issues. You can get a good feel for where the reporters stand by perusing the letters column. Here's a letter about McClatchy's spinoff of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and eight other papers in the Knight-Ridder deal:

Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 3/13/2006 3:01:40 PM
Title: Paging George Soros!
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

From DAVID WALLIS: George Soros should rescue the dozen papers that McClatchy plans to jettison, thereby starting a truly progressive media company. That's what America needs.

Yes, America needs a progressive media company, because it doesn't have this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this, or this, or...

You get the point.

They don't.

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The newsletter I send out to All Access subscribers every Tuesday went out again today, and this time I got a ton of response. So here's the relevant portion, and remember that we're talking tongue-in-cheek here (there ARE exceptions, and to all the Syracuse fans who flooded my e-mail inbox, yes, townies can get special dispensation, especially if there are no local pro teams and not much else to do in town):

March Madness is upon us and time to review the rules. Not the rules of basketball; no, we're talking about my own Official College Basketball Rules of Picking "Your Team." I have to establish these rules because it's always just about this time of year that people who not only never attended Duke but have never, ever even BEEN to Durham, NC suddenly become pennant-waving, face-painting, Dick Vitale-imitating, Coach K-revering Cameron Crazies, and this HAS to stop.

Rooting for a college where you have no connection is one of the more heinous things you can do in sports. It's not something isolated to college- we have generations of non-Texas-resident Dallas Cowboys fans as testament to that fact- but it's more of an issue in college sports. So, without further ado, here are the rules:

1. You can only root for a school you attended, or

2. You can root for a team an immediate family member (spouse, child, parent, grandchild- no uncles or cousins) attended, or

3. You can root for a team on which you placed a substantial ($100. or more) bet, or on whom your entire office-pool bracket depends, or

4. Er, that's it.

That's not to say that you can't take a rooting interest from the negative angle- it is perfectly OK to root for "whoever's playing Duke," for example, or "anybody but Syracuse." But if you didn't go to a school, please, sit there quietly and enjoy the game.

I, on the other hand, do have a rooting interest based on rule number 1, and this year, my team- Villanova, where I loitered in the back of law school classes until they tired of me, shoved a diploma in my hand, and booted me onto Lancaster Avenue, never to darken its halls again- is a number one seed, which is a spot to which I am unaccustomed. Villanova is usually an underdog, at best a middle-of-the-pack seed, and nobody sees them coming until it's too late. In fact, they were an eight-seed the year that they managed to win the whole thing. 1985 was a good year. This year? I dunno- I always approach the tournament assuming that disaster will strike at any moment. Usually does.

But at least I don't root for Duke.

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So, what have we learned from the FCC's Indecency-O-Rama today?

Simple: if you're Oprah Winfrey, you can say exactly what got a talk radio show fined for indecency and you won't get fined because, by gum, you're Oprah, and when you do stuff for ratings, it's not pandering, because, well, you're Oprah.

And what's OK at 10:01 pm is not OK at 9:59 pm, and what's OK in the 10 pm hour in the East is not OK when broadcast simultaneously in the Central zone, because they're an hour earlier.

And that the FCC commissioners- every single one of them- is a craven, pandering politician.

But we knew that.

I wonder why nobody asks what I've asked here before- what's supposed to happen to a child if he or she happens to witness Janet Jackson's breast, or a pixellated naked breast (that, on "The Surreal Life 2," was also found indecent), or hears someone say the "S-word" or the "BS-word"? If the answer is that the kid isn't harmed- and, since all of us can say that we heard those words and saw nekkid bodies before we turned 18, I think we can agree that we weren't harmed- then there's absolutely no rational basis for this regulation other than "we're doing it because we can." And "we're doing it because L. Brent Bozell had his people send us nasty letters and we want them to leave us alone." And "we would like for TV and radio to become nothing but religious shows." Debi Tate actually wanted a benign "Simpsons" episode to be found indecent (although, inexplicably, the "Family Guy" episode with a parade of penis euphemisms was okayed).

Until the radio and TV industry stands up for itself- until it takes this to court and fights it, and until it does whatever it can to get the Ted Stevenses and Sam Brownbacks out of Washington- this will continue. And the NAB, the lobbying arm of the industry, would rather campaign to have the same nebulous, undefined, ridiculous rules applied to cable and satellite, too, so nobody would be able to give the public what it wants.

The good thing is that the Internet and podcasting and other forms of content delivery mean that thie regulation of broadcast indecency will eventually be irrelevant- you'll be able to get whatever you want when you want it without censorship. Until they try to censor the Net. And they will.

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Thanks to Defamer for bringing this to our attention: an AP report about a couple of former "Seinfeld" writers who won a prize at the SXSW festival with their first movie, "Live Free Or Die":

Kavet and Robin, both 37, met while studying at Harvard and writing for the Lampoon.

Okay, there's your warning sign.

They thought New Hampshire would provide a great source of comedy, especially compared to Vermont and Maine, which Robin described as more “effete.” They took their title from the state’s motto, inspired by the Revolutionary War, and shot the movie there over 21 days.

“It’s just a totally different kind of place for us than anyplace else in the country,” Kavet told The Associated Press after the film’s premiere. “You know, it is New England and it has that look and the people have kind of a toughness but it’s got its own attitude, which fits perfectly with Rugged. You’ve got this guy who’s trying so hard to be tough and the state is, like, ...”

And here's where you get the Hollywood/Harvard attitude kicking in:

“The state’s trying really hard,” Robin chimes in. “It’s got kind of a dumb, in-your-face attitude which is evident by the state motto. You know, ’Live Free or Die,’ everything’s so extreme.

“It’s also just this weird mix of beauty and horrible taste,” he added, having lived briefly in Sandwich, N.H. “Everything manmade has, like, a slice of cheese melted on it and an orange wedge next to it.”

Unlike Los Angeles, where everything is quite tasteful.

But Robin and Kavet were quick to add that the locals in the western New Hampshire town of Claremont (population 13,000) were extremely helpful in getting the film made — after their location manager did a little shmoozing, that is.

“All of a sudden it went from being a place that was really skeptical about filming to a place that, like, would do anything,” Kavet said. “They really did go completely out of their way.”

Why, they're just rubes! All you have to do is grease a few palms and they'll be eating out of your hands!

I've long noted that condescension comes easily to those in the entertainment industry (Harvard, of course, goes without saying). Comedy, especially, is full of condescension towards the flyover, or anyplace other than New York, L.A., or the Hamptons. The really good ones balance that by, essentially, LIKING the characters. "King of the Hill" is a great show because while it lampoons the Texas stereotypes- the stolid, dull, out-of-the-loop Hank, the paranoid conspiracist Dale, the incomprehensible Boomhaure- Mike Judge seems to actually LIKE them, because he knows them (okay, he lives in Austin, which isn't exactly "Arlen," but still). "Fargo" only works because Marge is not just a hero but likeable and down to earth, so the broad "you betcha" Minnesota Nice caricature becomes more three-dimensional. The redneck stereotypes are rampant in "My Name Is Earl," but EVERYONE in the show's a caricature and the hero's a likeable, if dimwitted, guy. But it's easier to treat them as "dumb" and "so extreme" and having "horrible taste," because that's what Harvard/Hollywood guys really think about those places. You know that when the one guy "briefly lived in Sandwich, N.H.," he couldn't wait to get back to someplace where they said "Tall" instead of "Small" and "Venti" instead of "Regular."

Ah, whatever. Maybe it'll be a good movie. But when the guys making it trash the locals after taking advantage of them, it's hard to hold out much hope.

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Message to CBS from your HDTV viewers:

1. Is it too much to ask to stop putting the scores of other NCAA tournament games across the top of the screen so obtrusively that it sometimes blocks some of the action? Especially when all the games in question are over? Can't you just put one in the corner and rotate the scores like you've done in the past?

2. When a game's going into double overtime, is it necessary to switch the digital feed to another game that's starting at that moment instead of sticking with the game to its conclusion? Who made the decision to switch KCBS-DT/Los Angeles from the (4:3 standard def with blue bars) second overtime of Boston College-Pacific to the beginning of the (1080i 16:9) Winthrop-Tennessee game? Who in Los Angeles needed to see the tipoff of THAT one?

Thanks. I'm sure you'll react immediately.

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Man, was THAT uninspiring or what?

When it was clear that Villanova was going to get a one seed this year, I had the sinking feeling that they might do what they have done at times in the past- come out flat and either lose or come closer than you'd like to losing to a lower seed. And sure enough, the Wildcats came out firing blanks against Monmouth, the only saving grace being that a) Allan "Popeye" Ray got warm, and b) Monmouth couldn't score to save their lives, either.

You'd assume that Nova would come out after halftime and take care of business, but they continued to be flat, again saved by Monmouth just not being good enough to take advantage. Nova won, but a one seed should beat the play-in team by more than 13 (and it was closer than that).

Villanova was unprepared. They looked confused and frustrated. It's common for a good team to look lousy against a team they expect to clobber, but that shouldn't happen in the NCAAs; that's a coaching problem as well as an overconfidence problem.

Arizona won't miss so many shots. Maybe this will kill off the overconfidence problem.

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As it turns out, the world CAN do without my messages of genius for at least one day.

You'll live.

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