Dave on Demand | The plot against Britney

Boy, Britney Spears really got taken in that divorce. Apparently her ex, Kevin Federline, even got custody of the dance moves.

But can a vibrant performer suddenly forget both how to move and how to lip-sync? Obviously, something more was involved in Britney's meltdown at the MTV Video Music Awards. I smell conspiracy.

Would MTV really torpedo the fragile sex kitten just to boost ratings for its annual awards show? You bet it would.

Was it coincidence that Britney's choreographer and her hairdresser both quit right before the show, leaving her with two messes to deal with? Or that MTV at the last minute nixed the routine Spears had arranged with magician Criss Angel, leaving her to stumble around aimlessly on stage?

I'd take it a step further, suggesting MTV even messed with her wardrobe, forcing Spears to stuff herself into a far smaller woman's underoos.

If the channel was trying to pump up its numbers, it worked: 9 million viewers tuned in to see Britney reenact the crash of the Hindenburg. (About a third of those jumped ship afterward.) But to give MTV its due, it was great television, almost Shakespearean.

You had Kanye West as the wronged Othello, complaining as he always does that he got dissed. There was P Diddy as Iago, seen by numerous witnesses in Las Vegas plying Spears with frozen margaritas hours before her performance. And there was sad Britney as Ophelia, the victim of other people's agendas.

What, you don't think MTV could cover the classics? I would remind you that in 2001 it did a hip-hop version of Bizet's Carmen with a 20-year-old Beyoncé. Like Britney's "comeback" this week, that was a disaster, too.

Who's your daddy? Over the last decade, literally dozens of hosts have crashed on the talk-show reef, but Maury Povich sails on. This week, Maury launches its 10th season, with its signature gambit - the on-air paternity test - still going strong. You can buy a ringtone for your phone with Maury announcing, "You are not the father" and toddler clothes emblazoned "I found my daddy on Maury."

Povich plans to celebrate the milestone this year by going after those elusive Moby Janes, "those five or 10 women," he says, "who have brought at least eight men on the show to find out who the fathers [of their children] are. I want more than anything else to find out this year who those fathers are."

Umm, Maury, have you checked Kevin Federline? He only has to look at a woman across the room to make her pregnant.

Wrong number. Switching time periods can be tricky for any show, but particularly for the morning chat forum on NBC10 hosted by Lori Wilson and Bill Henley. It just got bumped back an hour.

Have you seen the new promos? "The 10! Show, now at 11." Doesn't that sort of defeat the whole point?

Follow the money. Love the new Geico campaign that uses classic TV characters like Jed Clampett and Fred Flintstone in mock investigative exposés. In Fred's case, the script wonders how a construction worker could afford those gaudy rocks around Wilma's neck.

A fellow "employee" at the Slate Rock and Gravel Quarry testifies, "Mr. Slate paid well, but he didn't pay that well." Yabba-dabba-delicious.

Come here often? Still trying to figure out Michael Douglas' interview with Matt Lauer on Today this week. At the end of a mature discussion about his new film, King of California, and the parental duty of getting his kids ready for school, the 62-year-old actor apparently had a flashback to his disco days.

When Lauer thanked him for coming on the show, Douglas signed off, "Swing well, Matt." Yeah, baby!