Ellen Gray: 'Colbert' on 'distractions,' and more

SO MUCH television, so little time:

_ "The Colbert Report" was in town last week - maybe you heard? - and at the suggestion of Barack Obama, Stephen Colbert put "manufactured political distractions" on notice.

That'll keep Charles Gibson up at night.

_ I don't have a notice board, much less a fake news show, but I'm not without my grievances.

And if we're talking manufactured distractions this election season, I'd like to add the Katie Couric Will-She-Stay-Or-Will-She-Go Character Assassination and Bonfire, for which invitations started going out a couple of weeks ago, when someone at the Wall Street Journal decided too much time had passed without a story about Couric's any-month-now departure.

What's weird about the Couric saga is the way it's been shaped to mirror the Hillary Clinton story, the journey from unstoppable success to what's-she-still-doing-here having been accomplished with blinding speed.

What's also weird is that Clinton is running for the most important job this country has, while Couric is someone who's doing a perfectly good job these days of reading the news on television (although to fewer people than CBS would like).

I actually watch this show four or five days a week - or at least I catch the podcasts the next morning - and I swear it's been months since she's poisoned a cow or sacrificed a virgin and even longer since she's shown a picture of Tom Cruise's kid.

Yet the witch hunt continues.

Maybe a flag pin would help.

_ My DVR's been on a diet for months now, between the effects of the writers strike and my realization that I was never going to watch all those "Prison Break" episodes I'd recorded.

But as the fractured season continues to heal itself - "Lost" returns Thursday, "House" is back next week! - I'm suddenly seeing conflicts where before there were none, thanks to some schedule shifts.

So if you don't want one of those morning-after surprises, where the machine, not you, decides which shows get recorded, you might want to check the viewing guide of your choice and plan accordingly.

Or you could watch in real time. But that's so 2007.

_ I know I made fun of ABC's "Eli Stone" when it premiered a few months ago, referring to it as "Eli McStone" for its many similarities to a certain David E. Kelley show involving another hallucinating lawyer.

But I've had if not a change of mind, a softening of heart.

Oh, "Eli," which was co-created by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, is still as silly as the silliest lawyer show Kelley ever came up with - and with the demise of "Ally McBeal," that honor goes to ABC's "Boston Legal" - and I still think there's been way, way too much George Michael this season.

And the whole lawyer-as-prophet thing remains murky.

But as the show approached last week's season finale, I found I'd actually begun to care more about Eli (Jonny Lee Miller) than I'd ever expected to. (Plus, who doesn't enjoy seeing the Golden Gate Bridge destroyed just to prove a point?)

I also caught a glimpse of something that Berlanti played with in his WB series "Jack & Bobby," and to some extent in "Everwood" and even ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" and "Dirty Sexy Money" - a romantic view of destiny and an appreciation of how the past and present influence the future.

None of those shows has yet completely fulfilled what seems to be Berlanti's larger-than-TV vision, but I wouldn't mind seeing what he'd do with another season of "Eli." *

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