Emptying my notebook: Week 1

I wouldn’t know. Most of the time I am in the bowels of the hotel, inside a large ballroom, sitting with 150 of my fellow TV critics, listening to them ask these very same celebrities about the TV shows they will be starring in this fall.

Sometimes I ask questions as well. It’s not my strong suit. Most of my colleagues could pose a question and two follow-ups in the time it takes me to get to my point. Ellen DeGeneres once said to me, “Are you done?”

OK, so she never said that. My point is, sometimes less is more, as I was reminded this week during an entertaining session with James Spader and William Shatner, who had come to promote the ABC series “Boston Legal.”

We didn’t learn much about the show, which is rising out of the ashes of “The Practice.” ABC failed to provide critics with a screener tape, and the show’s creator and writer, David E. Kelley, who no doubt has the entire season swishing around in his brain, decided to skip the session. No visionary, no tape — but when you have Spader and Shatner, no problem!

Someone asked a question of Spader about the “eclectic” movie roles he has played, which have run the gamut from a sex-crazed medical intern to a sex-crazed accident victim. Spader gave an eloquent, thoughtful response lasting several paragraphs.

Shatner, who is to bombast what summer is to chiggers, took on all comers, fielding questions about his role on the 1960s show “The Defenders,” those campy Priceline ads and the new spoken-word CD he’s making with Ben Folds called “Has Been.”

The hour flew by.

“Mr. Shatner,” a reporter asked, “you seem to be having a lot of fun playing a cartoon version of William Shatner these days.”

Shatner furrowed his brow. “There’s something slightly denigrating about ‘cartoon,’ ” he said, which got a laugh. He added, “I’m just having fun. And what may seem to be a cartoon character is, in fact … reality.”

A big smile from Shatner and a big laugh from the room.

Later, asked what those Internet travel ads had done for his career, Shatner deadpanned, “Well, I can get a ticket on an airline now.”

***

Fortunately for those of us who don’t enjoy asking questions over a PA system, there’s usually time for some impromptu one-on-ones with the talent just after the press conferences but before the publicists summon the valets.

That’s where I caught up with Ted Koppel, following a session to promote ABC’s upcoming campaign coverage. The “Nightline” anchor looked at my nametag and said, “Kansas City, eh? Is the station there still showing us at 4 in the morning?”

Inside the ballroom, Koppel had been asked about his brief appearance in Michael Moore’s movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.” He was embedded with the 3rd Infantry during the Iraq war, and Moore used an image of him in fatigues and helmet — think Michael Dukakis — to illustrate how the news media allegedly aided the Bush administration before and during the war.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” is terrific entertainment, Koppel said, “but it is to the documentary what the ‘JFK’ film was to history, and what’s so alarming about that is it becomes increasingly difficult (for us) because ‘Nightline’ is not nearly so entertaining as ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’”

Afterward, I asked Koppel if he had had any regrets about joining the embed program.

I reminded him of the old phrase about Winston Churchill getting more out of alcohol than it got out of him and asked Koppel if he felt the same way about being embedded.

“Oh, I think it was a fairly even trade,” he replied. “I think the Pentagon got what it wanted out of the embeds, but I had no problem with that because I think they gave us what they promised. They promised total access; I had total access. If they ended up being pleased with what came out of the experience for me, that doesn’t make me feel that I was used. Or misused.”

***

The late Gene Siskel used to follow a rule of thumb when judging a bad movie: Would he rather watch a documentary with the filmmakers talking about their movie?

I thought of that last weekend when NBC had us watch a screening of “Father of the Pride.” This is the network’s other new sitcom, the one not spun off from “Friends.” It features computer-generated likenesses of the Las Vegas animal tamers Siegfried and Roy interacting with the family of animated lions who live behind their hotel.

I sat in the second row, directly behind Carl Reiner, the legendary comedian who voices one of the lions. Reiner roared on the screen and in his seat. His enthusiasm, and that of his co-stars, made up for the critics, most of whom sat through the screening stone-faced.

Afterward, the cast assembled on stage and was about to take questions when Reiner, who had a wedding to get to, stood up and yelled into his clip mike, “I’m going to take that as an opportunity to say everything I want to say!”

So he interviewed himself. “The question was asked many times before: ‘Why are you doing this?’ You know, I’m 83 years old. Why do I have to bother? … I have a feeling this is historic for television. If anybody disagrees with me here, you’re wrong!”

As Reiner stepped off stage, John Goodman, who voices another lion, stood up and declared, “I have a bris that I’m late for.”

But Goodman stayed. Squeezed into his chair, he mugged and shrugged and got big laughs from the critics. I know I wasn’t the only one wishing someone would televise him instead of “Father of the Pride.” (As it turns out, he’s also starring in a non-animated CBS comedy called, confusingly enough, “Center of the Universe.”)

***

No appearance at the TV critics’ tour may be more anticipated than that of Keith Marder. An affable publicist at the WB network, Marder has a past life as a TV critic. He also moonlights as a joke writer.

For years now Marder has opened the WB’s daylong presentation with a routine skewering his bosses, his bosses’ rivals, the rich, the famous, the infamous and whatever the critics are complaining about that week.

When Marder is done, the roomful of jaded scribes do something they would usually do only at gunpoint: They applaud and cheer wildly.

As you might guess, most of the jokes are too insidery or off-color to share here. These, however, are merely vicious:

“O.J. Simpson has been in the news a lot this year. … He said he would like to do his own reality show. What does O.J. do in a reality show, plead guilty?”

“I hear that PBS is upset with the FCC, and I agree. That agency is getting out of hand. Why, they just fined ‘Sesame Street’ for an episode that was brought to you by the letters F and U.”

“Joan and Melissa Rivers have left E! and are now on TV Guide Channel’s half-screen. I can only hope it’s not the half of the screen that their mouths are in.”

And finally — did I mention these were vicious?

“Who’s going to watch Siegfried & Roy? The tigers don’t even like them anymore.”