"The Spin Room" is the worst show in the history of CNN -- amateurish political talk of the frat-boy variety. Hosts Bill Press and Tucker Carlson exchange chuckles and giggle uncontrollably, highly pleased at having their very own TV show.

Carlson's a young rightist thug; Press, the lightweight inheritor of Michael Kinsley's liberal mantle on "Crossfire," is, astonishingly, worse. Tonight, for example, as a gag, he brings out "a special guest" -- a puppet on strings, which he dubs Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. It's a sophomoric prank for a national news show.

Here's another example of the show's tone: When Press brings on a legal analyst, Laurie Levinson from Loyola Law School, he says, with forced jollity, "You're making history tonight! You're the first guest to repeat an appearance on 'The Spin Room,' a high honor indeed!" Carlson laughs along delightedly.

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It's not clear what the point of this amateurish show is. The unprofessional antics never end; neither host has anything interesting to say.

It's a relief to switch over to Chris Matthews, on MSNBC, who blows every other news host away. He's smarter and keener than any of his guests, asks offbeat but piercing questions and runs his show with a virtuosic intelligence. (He gets off good lines, too: "This is an election held over by UNpopular demand," he says at one point, chuckling to himself.)

Matthews is on a roll this week with a couple of disreputable regular panelists: Mike Barnicle, the Boston Globe columnist who got fired after, it was charged, inventing a tearjerking story about two kids in a cancer ward, and Pat Caddell, the unpredictable pollster. Caddell calls himself a liberal Democrat but is now so mad at Gore he can barely speak: "This election has been hijacked by a confederacy of gangsters," he says. Matthews' best moment comes when a helmet-haired Republican representative won't shut up. He tries to interrupt a couple of times; she keeps talking. Finally, he erupts: "Congresswoman, this tactic of talking through other people's time is not going to go on any longer. I want you to get quiet for a moment."

(M.R.)

Monday, Nov. 27: "Ally McBeal" (Fox, 9 p.m.)

At 9 p.m., NBC went live to Vice President Al Gore's absurdly late plea for Americans to sit tight during his appeals.

Not Fox. The network built on "Married ... With Children," "In Living Color" and "When Animals Attack" went straight to what was advertised as a can't-miss episode of "Ally McBeal." Fox programmers know that America can get its news at 10 p.m. Not like anyone would be turning back to the other networks: NBC's "Third Watch" is a bad "ER," and who cares about the Carolina Panthers, who were playing on ABC's "Monday Night Football"?

Ally the character, like "Ally" the show, is now officially in love with Robert Downey Jr., who plays Lawyer Larry, and who had his own tie-in with the 10 p.m. news. (We'll get back to that later.) The cute couple are in the early stages of a relationship, the two-month ride of "I can't believe you use two alarm clocks too!" whose regular sex and permanent Friday night dates would thrill anyone.

David E. Kelley, the guy who writes "Ally McBeal," loves this stuff. He's made it a regular theme on the show, where characters tend to fall in love, run off into the land of witty relationship banter and then break up when they get to the "she wants me to spank her" part of the more mature, grounded relationship. Kelley should know that fishing off the company dock is always bad luck; of all the office couples, only Richard and Ling, the meanest, shallowest couple in the bunch, still keep it together. And that's only because Ling drives Richard nuts by infusing her panties with the smell of money.

But we're getting off subject. Other shows have formulas. "Ally McBeal" has themes. One of Kelly's favorites is that two women kissing does wonders during sweeps. Another is that professional people who seem to have everything squared away are really human car wrecks. (John, who is supposed to be the best lawyer, is a bottle of quirks who kept a pet frog and had a remote control installed on one of the office toilets so he wouldn't have to deal with "remnants.")

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