1) From "The Pen" to prime time
Doing their part to curb the recidivism of prison-prone celebrities, studio honchos have benevolently turned their soundstages into refuges for addicts, ex-cons, wife-beaters, drunk drivers and other pathological lowlifes. While criminal scandal once ended a performer's career (Fatty Arbuckle, Lenny Bruce), nowadays legal skirmishes and lawless behavior only seem to up a star's professional appeal. This regressive phenomenon is typified in the continuing employment of scandal-plagued celebrities like Rob Lowe and Hugh Grant and the recent reinstatement of actor-jailbirds Robert Downey Jr. and Charlie Sheen. In any other vocation, Downey and Sheen would have doubtlessly been shit-canned after their first court appearance. Are these men talented? No question. Are there sober SAG members who could have just as capably carried off the same roles? No question.

At the risk of sounding like a do-good prude, there's something troubling about a convicted drug offender (coke, crack and black tar heroin were all found on Downey) signed to a $75,000-per-episode "Ally McBeal" payday hardly a week after being released from the clink. Even more troubling is that his checks are being signed by prolific über-producer David E. Kelley. Someone of Kelley's standing endorsing Downey sends a disquieting message to all those fuckups-in-the-making that a job will always be waiting for them regardless of what felonious acts they may commit.

2) Celebrity sob stories
Using the media as their own personal psychiatrist's couch, attention-deprived celebs have resorted to public therapy as a means of drumming up buzz for upcoming projects. This wanton promotional ploy has become practically de rigueur, making it impossible to turn on a TV or pick up a magazine without seeing some neurotic star spilling his psychic guts about some woebegone emotional calamity (e.g. molestation, alcoholism, suicidal tendencies, etc.). Listening to these self-pitying jet-setters bitch and moan, it would seem that sitting on top of the world is an insufferable burden worthy of Job. Melanie Griffith, who is still getting leading roles, even if they come from her husband, still can't stay away from the painkillers. Meanwhile, we learn that love "depresses" Jim Carrey, who makes $20 million a movie and dates babes like Renée Zellweger. Anyone notice his timing?

Now maybe I'm just jaded, but are we honestly expected to waste our sympathy on ingrates hellbent on pissing away their own prosperity when there are people out there who actually warrant it? Instead of pandering to the hoi polloi with a "celebrities are people too" spiel, I would have more respect for ersatz tragedy cases like Jewel (whose much-ballyhooed early years were spent in log cabins and vans) if they stopped insulting our intelligence and reveled in their immodest success without apology or qualification. Just once, I would like to hear them publicly confess that given the choice between poverty and wealth, it's a damn sight better to be wealthy.

3) Familiarity breeds contempt
Steven Weber, Delta Burke, Craig T. Nelson, Victoria Principal, Tony Danza -- with these corpses resurrected from the television graveyard to head up this season's prime time lineup, is it any wonder network viewership is tanking? While whip-smart cable series like "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" favor nonconformist casting (James Gandolfini and Sarah Jessica Parker have benchmarked small-screen thesping with authentic, nuanced characterizations), the Big Four networks insist on playing it safe by stocking shows with war horses from series past. Living up to their reputation as myopic slaves to convention, programming heads have converted the medium into a recycling bin for has-beens, erroneously convinced that famous faces do good ratings make. The new strategy: Move overdone movie stars to the little screen. So far, the ratings for both "Bette" and "The Geena Davis Show" are disappointing at best.

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