From the moment I heard of this, and confirmed when I saw the TV ads for this, I knew this would be exactly as Ms. Zacharek described. It would be an attempt by megacorporate Hollywood to reproduce the kind of schlock films that Irwin Allen and Roger Corman made in the past. And it would fail.

Joe Dante's movie "Matinee" showed the true spirit of schlock filmmaking, as well as the environment in which it flourished. John Goodman's character, based on real-life director William Castle, was a liar and a con man, but a man in love with showing his audiences a good time. In fact, in a beautiful little narration, Goodman provides the best explanation of why people really want to go to horror movies - reasons ignored and spit upon by today's gorehounds and cinematic sadists.

In one of the best plot elements, "Matinee" takes place in one of the most genuinely fearful moments of the 1960's, the Cuban Missile Crisis. And the teen who's the film's central character, a lover of fake horror, is experiencing real horror; his dad is serving on the Cuban blockade, and he has a nightmare of a nuclear holocaust that is NOT cheesy or funny.

In this time of real war, real terrorism and real lunatic politics, we could use some escape. But the filmmakers of "Snakes" didn't provide it.

The people behind "Snakes" had no desire to show the audience a good time while taking their money; getting the gelt was their only motivation. The audiences who will pile into the theatres this weekend are wishing and hoping for someone to entertain them on a basic level, an idea foreign to today's megacorporate suits. The crowds want William Castle, but they got Enron.

In one of her rare attempts, Ms. Havrilesky decided to be serious and not treat us like retarded children she has been forced to entertain. She decided to speak like an adult. Wonderful, except she showed she really knows little about television.

Outside of HBO (which other letter writers have rightfully pointed out is an elite channel for the rich) the art of television is dying. The reasons are largely political and financial. Local stations, which used to serve the public with original programs, can't any more. The stations are owned by megacorporations that just want profit. A locally-created show like "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" wouldn't have a chance to go national in 2006. It's the Wal-Martization of culture.

On the network level (since syndication of original programs is pretty much dead) cost-cutting and demands for quick, significant ratings success has strangled shows in production and prevented promising shows from growing and finding their own audiences. The production values of "Leave it to Beaver" are better than any current sitcom; when was the last time you saw a sitcom with any backlot or location shooting?

Where dozens of companies once produced and developed TV shows, there are only about five today - maybe less. Fewer voices, less diversity. Good ideas go through committees and committees and committees, losing any individual vision or humanity they had in the first place.

Technology is also reducing diversity. Since they're just rebroadcasting the network's shows, and their only "original" content is depressing and sensationalistic local news, local stations aren't necessary. The national networks could go straight to satellite and cable, bid their local broadcast affiliates goodbye, and show the same crap nationally. The local stations would have nothing to show and would die out. Only the rich with cable and satellite would have TV, and all of it created in the big urban centers - the people in Real America (meaning NOT New York and Los Angeles) would have no voice.

Why do I get the feeling that the whole point of this series of articles is to find someone, ANYONE else, who could take over the TV Columnist post at Salon?

If Havrilesky HAD been asked to nominate what she hated in TV, I think she would have written something like this:

I hate you TV viewers!

You make me watch TV shows that I don't care about, and force me to think up clever witticisms whose beauty bypasses you drooling idiots. And it takes away the time I spend in that little open-air restaurant where I sip cappucino and fill the waiter's ear with my complaints that nobody appreciates my razor-sharp, Rex Reed-like wit. I'll laugh as I watch you all burn in Hell, as I look down from my post at the right hand of God.