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TV blog: Obama on '60 Minutes,' 'Life on Mars'

VERNE GAY; ANDY EDELSTEIN

November 19, 2008

'60 MINUTES'

AND OBAMA

Obama was very good. Of course, you say - he's always that way. But I felt, and maybe you did, too, that he thought as he spoke, and that the words he used were not dropped as mere recitations of former campaign promises, but a reaffirmation of those. Whatever you think of the wisdom or lack thereof of some of his stands - say, the closing of Guantánamo, and Steve Kroft's obvious failure of follow-up (um, where do the prisoners go?) - those positions were stated precisely and intelligently.

-VERNE GAY

'LIFE ON MARS' MEETS KOJAK

This is almost too good to be true. On last Thursday's "Life on Mars," which takes place in an imagined 1973, Harvey Keitel's Lt. Gene Hunt was part of a group held hostage by a guy who had taken over the psych ward of a hospital. ...

Now back in the real 1973 on the very first episode of "Kojak" - the spiritual godfather of "Life on Mars" - a group of innocents is held hostage by a gang of desperate armored car robbers, led by ... Harvey Keitel.

-ANDY EDELSTEIN

FOX, NBC STATIONS TO POOL LOCAL COVERAGE

Here's a development I imagine will send chills through the entire TV news business - Fox and NBC- owned-and-operated stations will pool their local TV news coverage in various markets, beginning with Philly in January. No word yet on NYC, but it will happen here, too.

Why a chill? Because this will let stations from coast to coast combine resources, and when you see those words in conjunction, you know the next word is "layoffs."

-VERNE GAY