The producers of Lost have just issued the definitive Lost syllabus on ABC.com. Great, now we not only have to watch the shows, there's going to be homework, too?

It's a formidable lineup, ranging from classic literature (Dostoevsky and Steinbeck) to pulp (Tom Clancy and Philip K. Dick).

All of these books purportedly have some connection to the show. Jack Kerouac's On the Road is here because the nefarious Ben used wheelman Dean Moriarty's name as an alias in one episode. The Dickens masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities is included because it was also the title of the series' third-season opener. But some of the links are pretty tenuous. A surprising number of entries were merely seen on a bookshelf in a bunker or a bungalow on the island. Blink and you missed them.

It occurs to me you could make a pretty good booklist merely out of the titles we have seen Sawyer (Josh Holloway) reading over the years. It slays me that the island's cynical con man is its biggest bookworm. The dude always has his nose buried in some paperback.

Come to think of it, even his name is rather literary. Although Mark Twain didn't make the list. But Babar did. Go figure.

Dog days. You'd be well advised to catch up on your reading this summer because the network offerings continue to deteriorate. Consider dismal reality shows like NBC's The Baby Borrowers or CBS's Greatest American Dog.

Has it occurred to you that five years ago, this kind of stuff would not have been considered suitable as midafternoon filler on cable channels like Lifetime? Now it's prime-time fare on a broadcast outlet?

If we're going to be going downhill this fast, shouldn't we be wearing luge outfits and helmets?

Burn out. You think your job is tough? Try putting out a daily showbiz buzz show like Entertainment Tonight when all of Hollywood is off vacationing in some exotic, exclusive clime or other.

Remember the 30 Rock where Jack (Alec Baldwin) and Jerry Seinfeld (playing himself) try to one-up each other with the hot destination spots known only to the super rich? It's like that.

But you know things are slow when ET devotes an entire week (more if you include three days of breathless promotions) to a "Mamma Mia! Spectacular." It was exhaustive and exhausting coverage of the movie musical with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. Over five days, ET interviewed everyone on the set but the caterer, showing the same clips over and over.

Talk about overkill. Because I'm a closet ABBA fan, I might have actually bought a ticket for Mamma Mia! But thanks to ET, I feel like I've already seen it - five times!

Remix. AMC has announced plans to remake The Prisoner as a six-part mini-series to be telecast in 2009. This is good news indeed. The original '60s series, about a British secret agent transported to a surreal Big Brother compound, hasn't aged particularly well. But has there ever been anyone on television cooler than Patrick McGoohan as the unflappable title character?

The lip. Fox's game of the week last weekend featured the Yankees against the Mets. Watching, I was delighted to see that Jason Giambi is a fan of CBS's Swingtown.

The Yankee slugger is cultivating the exact same faux-'70s mustache that Grant Show sports on the frisky period show.

Boogie on, boys.