Television

A new sitcom premieres on ABC Tuesday that blends scripted stories with improv. Sons and Daughters was created by Fred Goss and Nick Holly; its executive producers include Lorne Michaels, of Saturday Night Live fame.

Actress S. Epatha Merkerson just won the triple crown of television honors: an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actor's Guild award. To many Law and Order viewers, Merkerson will always be Lt. Anita Van Buren.

It's mid-season in the world of television, and that means some are being cancelled -- or simply phased out.

The idea that priests, like all men, are not perfect might seem like a tame one. But NBC's effort to translate the premise into a TV series has brought protests that the show is anti-Christian. Jack Kenny is the creator and executive producer of The Book of Daniel.

The actor died on Dec. 16, 2005, at age 58. We replay an interview from April 2000. Spencer is best known for his character Leo McGarry, the president's chief of staff, on the popular NBC series The West Wing.

The new TV version of Once Upon a Mattress, which will be broadcast Sunday night on ABC, features the return of Carol Burnett.

Two extremely popular versions of the Cinderella story were produced in the 1950s. Both are now available on DVD, and classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz has a review.

Comic and journalist Stephen Colbert is the former senior correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And true to the industry he parodies, Colbert's incisive work has landed him in the anchor's chair on a show of his own: The Colbert Report.

A new Showtime cable miniseries tells the story of Muslim terrorists in America. The controversial thriller Sleeper Cell premieres Sunday night.

Actor Neil Patrick Harris is starring in the new CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother -- but most people know him as a teenage doctor in the early 1990s TV series Doogie Howser, MD, which is now available on DVD. Harris also played a parody of himself in the film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

On the upcoming live episode of NBC's The West Wing, Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) will meet in a one-hour presidential debate. Sunday evening, their conflict will be aired live.

Henry Winkler plays a doctor on the new CBS sitcom Out of Practice, which premiered last month and can be seen Mondays at 9:30 p.m. Winkler also spent two seasons playing a lawyer on the TV series Arrested Development.

In several ways, the age of "infotainment" is foretold in Good Night, and Good Luck, set in the 1950s. The film tells of newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight against Sen. Joe McCarthy -- but it also details "the inherent debasement of mass news in a commercial culture."

Critic at large John Powers considers the films of Alfred Hitchcock as a new DVD survey of his work is coming out: Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection.

The major networks and several cable units are offering up new seasons in September. A new HBO comedy, Extras, stars Ricky Gervais, who remains best known for starring in and helping to create the original British version of The Office.

Since 1999, Mariska Hargitay has played a police detective specializing in sex crimes on the NBC drama, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Since 1999, Mariska Hargitay has played a police detective specializing in sex crimes on the NBC drama, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Earlier this year, she won the Golden Globe for best actress in a dramatic series.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the premiere of the new season of Lost. The ABC series about a group of castaways on an island is going into its second season.

Host and Fresh Air TV critic David Bianculli comments on television programming in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews a new DVD box set of The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons. It's a compilation of interviews and performances on the late-night talk show by some of the leading musicians of the 1960s and '70s, including Mick Jagger, Janis Joplin and Stevie Wonder.