Why Sunday Night Football is more important than Monday Night Football

When ESPN took the vaunted Monday Night Football franchise away from ABC four years ago, the sports giant assumed that the weekly games would maintain their dominance on the sporting landscape. Once that move was made, however, NBC instantly snatched up the floundering Sunday Night game that ESPN had relinquished and, ever since, the two franchises' roles on the weekly football landscape have been reversed.

There are several reasons for this, with the topmost being that NBC is a network while ESPN is on cable. America still has some subconscious discomfort with cable dating back to the days when ABC, CBS, and NBC were the only networks on the air. These are the networks that our parents' generation is most comfortable with despite the innovation of cable. For instance, when considering the new season's TV shows, the networks that receive the most attention are ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, with cable shows receiving a lesser degree of attention. This has changed a bit in recent years, but that has more to do with the cable generation coming of age than anything else.

The other reason that NBC is more interesting is the presentation. To put it mildly, NBC's presentation is just sexier and stronger than ESPN's. NBC has put together the strongest announcing booth in the game, with Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels serving as the only team worth listening to right now. ESPN, however, has failed to find the proper chemistry in the booth, experimenting with people like Tony Kornheiser that just seem uncomfortable. ESPN may be a sports conglomerate, but NBC is a media conglomerate and can afford an overall sleeker presentation.

The final reason that NBC is stronger than ESPN is the flex schedule that Dick Ebersol ingeniously insisted on working into the contract. With the plan, NBC has a game that it schedules in the beginning of the year and then, 12 days before the game, the NFL and NBC can change the game that has been selected for the game of the week in order to stir up interest. ESPN, though, doesn't have this power. For this reason, ESPN is going to be stuck with games like the Giants at Washington in week 16, Arizona at San Francisco in week 14 (even though these teams are bad, it may matter in their division race), Tennessee and Houston in week 11, and Baltimore at Cleveland in week 10. There are restrictions on the games that NBC can pick, but instead of being stuck with games that don't matter, NBC can pick the game that matters the most.

Football will always do well in America, but right now NBC has managed to make the NFL an all-day Sunday thing (take today, for instance, when 1 o'clock featured a Saints-Giants and Ravens-Vikings matchup while 4 o'clock featured an excellent Bills-Jets game and the Sunday game featured a scintillating Bears-Falcons game), while Monday Night Football has lost some power since moving to ESPN.

Letterman apology fascinating, terrifying

If you haven't seen it yet, David Letterman's nerve-racking 10-minute apology at least provides for enthralling television. Part of the reason for this is certainly that Letterman gave America something that it doesn't see from its celebrities very often - complete and total honesty on a national stage. Before I go into the matter any more, check out the video:



What is perhaps most striking about the clip is the audience's reaction. They start the clip by laughing along with Letterman, expecting this to be a prototypical late-night monologue from a man who has established himself as one of the snarkiest commentators of the late night scene. Around halfway through, however, they suddenly realize that Letterman is not kidding, at all.

We as a culture have become so used to our celebrities being little more than glorified goldfish parading down runways in designer clothing that when one of them takes the step of exposing his own flaws before the media can do it, the step seems nearly unprecedented.

The Internet plays a major role in this, as we all seem to know everything about anyone. Once the tentacles of gossip and rumors extend into very private details like they did Thursday, they acquire a degree of menace that is absent from People Magazine and E!

Letterman took what could have been the scariest moment of his life and, by stepping up and addressing it on his own terms, managed to turn it into one of the most positive moments of his public life.

Fox's Glee deserves rave reviews

When the pilot episode of Glee aired last spring, Fox essentially guaranteed that it would be one of the smashing successes of this season's new TV shows. With Dancing With the Stars, High School Musical, American Idol and various other shows performing well in recent years, the stage has quickly become an automatic hit when it is transferred to the small screen.

The reasons for this could be argued forever, but the most simple reason is just that theatrical productions (and shows about them) seem to be more fun, something that the country hasn't been in recent years. The carefree attitude of the performers is the direct opposite of the frantic reaction to the economy by professionals throughout the land.

Glee succeeds, however, precisely because it allows the kids to shine as performers even though they all have their own set of issues that they bring to rehearsals with them. (The fact that they did one of the best versions of perennial cover-bait "Don't Stop Believing" might help, too.) The tangled plot lines are beginning to become confusing, as pregnancies, affairs, coming out and other typical teenage drama are explored, but when the lights go down, the characters all manage to excel.

The show's decision to open this week's episode with a performance of Beyonce's "Put a Ring on It" was an excellent one, as it emphasized that the show really was about these people being performers, not the performers trying to be people. When Kurt's dad comes in to find his son in a leotard, however, the fun quickly stops and lying begins, at least until Kurt performs on what his dad considers the most important stage - the football field, giving him the confidence to tell his father the truth.

Glee's over-produced set (everything looks a little bit fake) aids the show's message, as it refuses to take itself too seriously and, in turn, doesn't let viewers become caught up in all of its drama. And really, that's the message of Glee - that drama and issues do happen, but that the most important thing will always be performing when it counts.