Dave on Demand: Jimmy Fallon, 'Tonight Show'? There's no heir there

In TV's constantly shifting landscape, there was one thing you could always count on: NBC owned the antipodes.

For decades, the America day started with Today and ended with Tonight. NBC was the house that Dave Garroway and Jack Paar built.

This programming Chinese finger trap benefited NBC's entire schedule. Who knows how many millions of people sat through vapid shows like Chico and the Man and Caroline in the City simply because they were too lazy to change the channel?

Lately NBC seems determined to squander its immeasurable advantage.

First, it drove Today into a ditch. What network genius thought of Ann Curry as an anchor? Who could possibly stand a steady diet of her neediness?

To compound its error, NBC then made it clear they were dissatisfied, but still left Curry twisting on-air for weeks.

It was like watching a baby seal get clubbed, not a pleasant prospect over your shredded wheat.

Now, after severely wounding The Tonight Show with the Conan debacle, NBC apparently wants to finish it off for good.

Jimmy Fallon? Really? Weak monologuist, dreadful interviewer, and a desire to please so desperate that it drips off Fallon like flop sweat.

If you've seen any of his innumerable commercials for Capital One, you've got a pretty clear idea of his hosting chops.

True, Jimmy is a really good impersonator of singers and writes funny song spoofs. So give him a channel on YouTube; don't hand over broadcast TV's last great institution to him.

The whole process is kind of fascinating to watch, though. NBC is systematically destroying the ends that justified its meager means.

Is it tripe yet? Impressed by the first episode of Hannibal. Until I saw the credits. When your show's protagonist is a blue-ribbon cannibal, do you really need a "culinary consultant" on your crew? Just seems creepy.

A secret passion. Neatly executed TV cross-reference on CBS's The Good Wife this week. Diane (Christine Baranski) wants her own background vetted by her investigator Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) as a precaution.

Kalinda discovers a skeleton: some torrid bodice-ripping prose on Diane's computer that turns out to be fan fiction from the CW's bloodsucking teen romance Vampire Diaries.

Diane, of course, denies all knowledge of the prose and of the show on which it is based.

Why? An obsession with the Elena-Damon-Stefan love triangle only makes you more attractive.