A Black Eye: Just a Few of the Many Things Wrong With CBS These Days

1. I have a real bone to pick over the absence of 48 Hours Mystery on weekends, as well as on its website. It may be for old folks, but I like it. If somebody finds it on TV, let me know because I don't have one of those newfangled Tivos anymore.

2. Rules of Engagement is a not-great-but-fair-to-middlin' sitcom except for one thing: David Spade. I've always been pretty indifferent about him, but I find him to be a completely implausible fit for his role on the show, which is that of a "player" and womanizer--a successful one at that. Too bad Chris Farley's dead, or they could just have gone on forever and ever making the same movie over and over again. (I really did like Chris Farley, though.) David Spade is dating Heather Locklear, last I heard, but I think she's deaf and has cataracts, which explains that.

3. Worst of all is Big Brother, which is currently in its 179th season of good, clean skanky fun. I watched the show here and there for one season (the first), and couldn't take any more of it. Its loathability comes from its cast (about 10 trashy twentysomethings, accented with 2 or 3 older people and a few token minorities), its host (Julie Chen, a boring talking doll who only has the job--and her Early Show job, for that matter--because she is married to CBS President Les Moonves), its set (astroturf lawn and IKEA-fabulous house with too many abrasive colors), and its premise (boring and uncreative competitions, confusing rules, and neverending hemming-and-hawing about who'll vote for whom, who's doing whom, etc.), which leaves absolutely nothing to like about this great cataclysm of a show.