Nice trolling. But as entertaining as your scenario is, it's wrong on literally all counts: (1) I'm a girl. And (2) nope, not a guidance counselor either. And, oh yeah, not a critic. (Although I was a magazine editor for over two years... and loathed it.)

One thing was true though: Yeah, I'm a total freakin' geek, proud of it, and yeah -- I do think TV can be a great medium. And as far as articles go, Salon can do a lot better in talking about it than the phoned-in crap they published here.

Was this a sop specifically to me? I didn't even bother to read the other ideas, such was my excitement.

post-dictionary? online dictionary? what the hell did i mean? where's my editor??

if 6 weeks from now we read that James Frey really likes romantic comedies, only he exaggerated to make the essay more intense. just kidding, his take was my favorite. And his on air performances were not that disasterous, he gave us fiction students more ammo to argue with the creative non-fiction students in our MFA program. but those peeps are still above the poetry kids. thanks James!

and salon: how about a spell checker feature? some of us are pre-dictionary typers.

The perfect time for an outraged reader to announce that Salon doesn't take TV seriously enough! Forget that Salon launched the week with a piece called "The golden age of TV," in praise all of those shows that Salon supposedly never covers.

Of course, the criticism for that piece was that Salon takes TV way too seriously.

"Come on, Salon, you're smarter than this."

Spoken like a true guidance counselor. Sitting at home, in your open robe, fabricating the perfect opening sentence to your imagined review of Dr. Who.

Take a shower, put on some aftershave and look to your lower left of this screen.

You'll find an ad for "single local ladies." Check em out!

Jesus, Salon, tell me you're kidding with this crap. Between this, and the terrible "I hate to watch" columns, all of which read like they were dashed off in minutes... I'm depressed at what this magazine has become. TV these days is an embarrassment of riches, and you guys keep acting like it's the end of days or something.

I thought last week's incredibly stupid "I don't watch 'The Closer but I'd still like to see it canceled" article was actually a sly joke, but how depressing to know that you guys, uh, apparently really (1) don't watch TV anymore, and (2) are really, really hard-up for TV/pop culture columnists. And the only advantage to that stupid 'Closer' article was that the writer didn't call us 'chickens.' (Small favors.)

You have smart people writing here, albeit once in a blue moon. So why don't you talk about television with the affection and respect of someone like Stephanie Zacharek (in her infrequent forays into TV reviewing) or former Salon columnist Joyce Millman, for instance? Why bash silly little easy targets like Nancy Grace and Larry King when you could be writing love-him/hate-him dueling columns on SpongeBob, Jack Bauer, or Dr. House -- or discussing the creepy prevalence of CSI and L&O clones, or the enigmatic empty glory that is "Lost"? Why not look at our guilty TV addictions, or actors we love in shows we hate, instead?

Because TV right now is pretty damn good, and with a wealth of smart, beautifully produced choices out there -- from gorgeous Sci Fi like the new "Battlestar Galactica" and "Dr. Who," to awesome dramas and serials of all kinds, from "Veronica Mars," "The Sopranos" and "Lost," to (yes) "24" and "The Closer" and easily a dozen more... There's even great comedy out there, from the slyly smart, sweetly philosophical "My Name is Earl," to the charm of Scrubs, to the more nihilistic "Office."

Not that you'd know it from reading Salon.

Instead, you run breathlessly timely interviews with, um, Nora Ephron, and run pop culture polls that ignore shows with buzz, and with limited choices to skew the results the way you want them.

Worst of all: Your "Editor's Choice" letters are almost freaking always the ones that (surprise) agree with your writer/columnist, even if 90% of the other responses are negative (so, for instance, we're left with 30 letters critical of a piece, but only one Editor's Choice letter to be so, etc.). It's childish and insulting to discerning readers. Salon used to be able to take a punch better than that.

Come on, Salon, you're smarter than this.

There was always a very ugly, angry, misanthropic undertone to Everybody Loves Raymond. Now I see why.

You certainly have to laugh at what you fear, and you can't have funny without some mean. But the mean here seems to last a lot longer than the funny. Maybe the funny isn't really all that funny, or the mean is too mean.

The funny (ironic funny, not haha funny) thing about Rosenthal is how his persona oscillates from Funny Uncle Phil to Bitter Genius Who Never Gets Enough Recognition or Credit for his Great Contributions. Remember that weird all-male post finale writer's tour? No? Odd.

He also reminds me of Michael Eisner's bizarre, stilted turns as "Uncle Michael" in a pressed plaid shirt on the Disney channel.

In this batch, the best ones are the zombie show and Yog-Sothoth doing boxing commentary.

John Darnielle, bless you for your tribute to New Zoo Revue. The costume/accessories designer for Henrietta Hippo was born for Project Runway. Henrietta was such a diva, I can't remember her supporting cast. Is it too much to hope that someone out there knows the entire theme song?

That single line is burned ino my brain!

Robin Hinitz

why isn't "My Name is Earl" in the Best Comdey category?

....is another man's nightmare.

Just how are these shows so different from the crap we have on now?

Except for the zombie show, which could be retitled "Life Among the Network Execs."

Look--you want good TV, try dropping the old paradigms. Sell shows the way that Apple sell songs--there's a big niche for iShows. Get rid of the ridiculous notion of "seasons"--which sort of made sense when all the British aristocracy retired to their country estates to escape the heat and humidity in London in the late 1600s, but makes no sense whatsoever now. Stop trying to make shows in the absurdly tight time slots they're made in now--give people space to write, design, build, and rehearse. Bring back shows that should never have gone away, and realize that you no longer need networks (I'd pay $1 a show for "Brotherhood," and there's probably two or three million other people who would, too).

"We need new forms, and if new forms can't be had, then it's better to have nothing at all."

What we don't need is more "reality" shows, that's for damn sure.