That’s right, the summer 2010 press tour of the Television Critics Association – that’s TCA to you, see? – has come and gone, leaving in its wake a piece that I love to compile but hate to finish. It’s just that kind of experience: there’s always something else to write about.

I know I say this every time, so you’d think my mindset on the tour would’ve changed by now, but I still continue to get excited when I fly to California and spend the better part of two weeks ensconced in a hotel, watching and listening as closely as possible (which, admittedly, isn’t often as closely as I’d like) to various stars, directors, producers, and writers as they do a dog and pony show to promote their program. I know they get sick of it sometimes, but for my part, I still haven’t. I spend the better part of 48 weeks of the year in Chesapeake, VA, a place where I do not regularly cross paths with the people that you see on your TV screen. As such, I remain excited about the opportunity to participate in these ridiculously cool opportunities, and I still feel like I have to share the experience with you, the reader, lest they begin to seem normal to me.

It’s not normal.

It’s the TCA press tour.

And trust me, unless you’re actually in show business, life doesn’t get much less normal than this.

Most entertaining panel by a broadcast network: “Circus,” PBS. Given the subject matter of the series – yes, it really is about the circus, specifically what it’s like to be part of a traveling circus in 2010 – it wasn’t entirely surprising that the panel kicked off with acrobat Christian Stoinev demonstrating some of his gymnastic abilities, but that didn’t make his performance any less impressive.

Plus, he earned bonus points for incorporating a cute little dog named Scooby into the act, who jumped onto Stoinev’s butt, strolled down his back, sat on his feet, and looked as calm as possible as Stoinev balanced semi-precariously on his parallel bars.

Most entertaining panel by a cable network: “Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town,” IFC. When I walked into the ballroom and found that we’d all received autographed DVDs of the Kids’ latest endeavor, I thought, “Can it get any better than this?” (I’m a sucker for anything autographed.) Indeed, it could, as the Kids – minus Mark McKinney, who’d been called back to Canada because of a family emergency – held court and kept us in stitches.

Some of my favorite moments:

QUESTION: How long had it been since you had cross-dressed professionally before (“Death Comes to Town”), and was that sort of a difficult readjustment for any of you?
SCOTT THOMPSON: Define “professionally.”
QUESTION: With a large crew.
SCOTT THOMPSON: Oh.
DAVE FOLEY: Not just any exchange of money.
BRUCE McCULLOCH: So if you shoot porn with a small crew, that wouldn’t count…?
KEVIN McDONALD: That’s not cross-dressing professionally.
DAVE FOLEY: Yeah. If you put on a nice shirt and give a handjob at the bus station, that still is professional.
SCOTT THOMPSON: Yes, it is.
BRUCE McCULLOCH: And by “handjob,” we mean “Bible reading,” as we like The Bible.

* Dave Foley on the audience response to Scott Thompson’s cancer being in remission: “I’m getting a sense that a lot of these people are on the cancer side. Well, I hope you are proud of yourselves. ‘Oh, dammit, not another one beating cancer. Poor cancer. When will people learn to love cancer?'”

* Scott Thompson: “I had a much easier time making (‘Death Comes to Town’), even though I was fighting cancer, than I did with ‘Brain Candy,’ honestly. It was tougher to fight Paramount. Because, at least with cancer, you can win.”

QUESTION: Do you find that people, when they see you, wanted to just squash your head? Because, like, I’m sitting here, like, resisting.
DAVE FOLEY: Yeah, a lot of time it has no reference to that gesture. It’s people actually want to crush our heads.
KEVIN McDONALD: The first apartment I ever moved to in Los Angeles, 1996, I was in bed the first night, and a couple were having a fight in the floor above me. And he was crying, “I’m going to crush your head,” and I thought they were fans, but it turned out they weren’t.
DAVE FOLEY: Yeah, it was a bloody homicide.
KEVIN McDONALD: It was a bloody homicide, yes.
DAVE FOLEY: But still, you felt flattered.
KEVIN McDONALD: But still, I felt flattered.

* When asked about their current relationship with Lorne Michaels, who introduced them to the U.S., McCulloch said, “I watch him get a haircut once a year when I go to ‘Saturday Night Live,'” while Foley claimed, “I chill his Amstel Light.” (“And drink it,” added McDonald.)

* Kevin McDonald made the bold choice of using the word “guff” at one point, receiving no end of ridicule from his fellow Kids. “It’s a tough word,” said McCulloch,”I know it’s tough to hear.” Thompson gasped and shrieked, “You said ‘guff‘!” Foley, however, offered a practical solution to the assembled journalists. “You can put asterisks in that. Just G-asterisk-asterisk-asterisk for your print,” he said, adding, “Of course, you online media people can just change it to ‘fuck.’”

* “Death Comes to Town” was filmed in North Bay, ON, but Foley said that it was a rarity for locals to come up and acknowledge their recognition of the Kids. “Canadians don’t do that,” explained Thompson. “Yeah,” agreed Foley. “They’d just come up and start talking to you like they knew you. You know, you would be in the grocery store, and somebody would just come up behind you and say, ‘Special K is marked down today. I’m getting the Special K as well. What are you doing later, Dave?’ And that was how you knew they recognized you.”

* The miniseries features Foley playing “the kindly old town abortionist,” which made it a bit difficult to scout for locations. Foley said that they had to keep making up stuff to tell the people of North Bay, saying things like, “Yeah, this scene, it’s a gynecologist’s office,” or “Oh, it’s an obstetrician’s office.” Or, as Scott Thompson claimed, “It’s a very bad day care.” At this, the crowd of critics erupted with a mixture of boos and laughs. “That was good,” Thompson assured us. “That was bad,” Foley assured him. At this, Thompson nodded, grinned, and admitted, “Very bad.”

Most out-of-control panel by a broadcast network: “Raising Hope,” Fox. I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t laugh really hard at Cloris Leachman’s antics as she wrestled control of the panel away not only from her co-stars but, indeed, from the assembled critics as well, demanding that her chair be moved from one end of the stage to the other and requesting that those asking questions stand up and/or sit down.

At some point, though, I think most of us were left wondering how much of the chaos we were witnessing was intentional and how much was a woman not knowing when to stop trying to be funny. About halfway through, Leachman finally calmed down, going almost completely quiet and giving the others a chance to answer a few questions. By that point, it was very much appreciated.

Most interactive panel by a broadcast network: “Masterchef,” Fox. Last time, Gordon Ramsay had the assembled critics compete to see who could whip up the best topping for Baked Alaska.

This time, he tested our palates by passing out little cups of gazpacho to everyone and asking us to determine the ingredients contained within. The critic who determined the final of the 15 ingredients won a free dinner from one of his restaurants. Sadly, that critic was not me.

Guilty-Pleasure Panel of the Tour: “Jersey Shore 2,” MTV. Love them or hate them, the “Jersey Shore” gang are ubiquitous in any discussion of 2010 pop culture, so it was nigh on impossible not to at least be intrigued when MTV quietly added a “Jersey Shore 2” panel to their proceedings. But who, we wondered, would be in attendance? The answer: every last (CENSORED) one of ’em.

(Actual panel wardrobe not pictured.)

Inevitably, though, it was the one and only Snooki who pulled the best quote of the panel, adding a new word to the vocabulary of American and Canadian TV critics: “snookin’.”

“Snookin’ is when you’re lookin’,” she explained. “So if I say I’m snookin’ for love, I’m snookin’ for a guy. If I snooked the night, then I took the night. Get it?”

Um…

“My snooktionary is coming out, and you’ll understand my language,” she assured us…and, yes, she claims she’s serious about that.

5 Greatest Moments of Complete Honesty During The Tour:

1) Alex O’Loughlin on “Hawaii Five-0”: “If this one doesn’t go, I’m completely bewildered. I have no idea how television works at all.”
2) Carrie Fisher on how it felt to walk onstage wearing a Princess Leia wig: “Like an asshole. A complete, undignified jerk-off. But other than that, really good.”
3) Snooki on her run-in with the law: “Obviously, it wasn’t a good time, but, you know, I didn’t hurt anybody, and I just went out to have a good time on the beach, and you know, stuff like that happens in Jersey. I was in the drunk tank for a little bit. I had too many tequilas.”
4) Billy Gardell (“Mike & Molly”) on his waistline: “I think I’d like to lose some weight. I mean, everybody’d like to be a little bit better than they are, you know, but everybody has a different tick, man. Mine just happens to be pizza. It’s okay. You can laugh at that. I’ve got a mirror. Lighten up.”
5) David Cross on poor decisions he’s made in his life: “I shit myself one time. I mean, it wasn’t a decision. I just thought it was going to be a fart. So it turned out be a bad decision. What’s another poor decision? Oh, telling the thing about shitting myself. That was stupid. Why would I do that? It was unnecessary.”

Most common recurring question during the panels: I’m pretty sure that every single actor whose ancestors can be traced back to India in any capacity whatsoever was asked for their opinion about NBC’s “Outsourced.”

Most awkward segue into an equally awkward question: During the panel for TV Land’s “Harry Loves Lisa,” the reality series starring Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna, a critic casually brought up the fact that Prop 8 had been repealed, then added, “Which reminds me of ‘Making Love,’ with Harry and Michael Ontkean. What are your thoughts about maybe a sequel to that movie with Michael? And Lisa, when you see that movie, what do you think? Does it get you going?”

The “So, Paul, What Do You Hear About Ringo’s New Album?” Award: During the panel for “Mr. Sunshine,” Matthew Perry…and, indeed, virtually the entirely assembly of critics, I’d have to guess…was left dumbstruck when he was asked, “Do you ever see David (Schwimmer), and does he talk to you about his goals?”

Strangest rant by a panelist: Yoko Ono. This probably isn’t too much of a surprise, given the widow Lennon’s tendency toward eccentricity, but many critics – including myself – were left flabbergasted by her explosion over one critic’s innocuous question about why she decided to remain in the Dakota after John’s murder. First, she declared it to be “a slightly racist remark, and maybe sexist, too,” but then she really went off.

“You guys are doing that, but when somebody like me, who is probably not part of your culture, how you think, ‘Why she still living there? We wouldn’t live there. Well, maybe because she has a different tradition and she doesn’t care about the fact that he died there.’ You know, something like that. A little bit more barbaric or something. No. I think that you would want to live there, too, because you cherish the memory of that person. That’s one. But also the other thing is, for you to be able to say something like that, ‘How dare she’s living there?’ is sexism, because I know that all guys wouldn’t care. They would just live in the house, you know,whatever happens. They may not even care that they got a divorce or whatever happened. They would just live in the house, and no one’s going to comment. No one’s going to comment that you would go to maybe a whorehouse or something like that right after your wife died. ‘I’m so sorry. He must be so sad.’ I was still sad, so I’m still living in that house. Do you mind?“

I felt so bad for the guy who’d asked the question, who – once he could get a word in edgewise – explained, “Okay, I did not mean to be racist nor sexist, and I don’t know where whorehouses got into this conversation, but when my dad passed away, my mom wanted to go live in Florida, and it’s just…people grieve differently.” Yoko halfheartedly tried to backpedal, saying, “I was being a little bit facetious, I’m sorry,” and she probably was. But, wow, talk about lashing out…

Panelist most likely to have one of his comments thrown back at him when his series premieres: Joseph Fiennes, who plays Merlin in “Camelot,” Starz’s new take on the classic Arthurian legends. Fiennes said of his character, “I think of Merlin as a sort of cross between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Donald Rumsfeld.” This, of course, resulted in an immediate follow-up question, requesting a bit more clarification on the resemblance to Rumsfeld. “Well, I don’t want to draw too many parallels and be boxed in a corner too much,” Fiennes replied, “but I just think it’s really about political agenda.” Toward the end of the panel, the matter was brought up again, leading him to muse that he’d basically shot himself in the face by having made the comparison in the first place. Muttered executive producer Chris Chibnall, “I knew that was going to get us in trouble…”

Panelist who looked the least thrilled to be in attendance: Maura Tierney, “The Whole Truth,” ABC. I’m sure it was mostly because she wasn’t looking forward to people quizzing her about her health, but she looked perpetually like she was going to burst into this song:

Cable series with the least sense of history: “Mad Genius,” Fuse. Any music fan worth their salt would be intrigued by a show which, according to the network’s description, “delves into the minds of musicians, the eccentricities, the world view, the influences of some of the major artists in the world and connects them to their artistic contributions to the groundbreaking music that they create.” We’re sitting around thinking about the possibilities: Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, Peter Green, Brian Wilson, and the like. Who does Fuse cite among the show’s subjects? Britney Spears and Li’l Wayne. Wow. Just…wow.

Most unintentionally off-color moment from a broadcast network panel: During the “$#*! My Dad Says” panel, executive producer Max Mutchnick had a moment of uncertainty about the proper verb to describe the process of sending out a message through Twitter and accidentally referred to “Dad” creator Justin Halpern’s “beautiful Twat.” Realizing his slip of the tongue, Mutchnick stammered, “I don’t know how you say it,” but not before William Shatner shook his head with mock dismay, saying, “That’s twisted.”

Later, Shatner used the phrase “people who Twit,” after which executive producer David Kohan smirked and countered, “I think it’s Twat.” A chagrined Mutchnick suggested that the proper verb was “Tweet.” Shatner snapped back, “Well, I know it isn’t ‘Twat’!”

Best use of a panelist’s absence: Peter Tolan. It’s not like his cohort Denis Leary was supposed to be there for the lunchtime “Rescue Me” session, but the fact that he wasn’t gave Tolan the opportunity to relish the solitude of the stage. “I’m so glad to be here by myself and not with Denis Leary,” he said, “because he is an attention hog, and the secondhand smoke, really, I’m lucky to be alive, frankly, at this point. It’s been seven seasons, and of course “The Job,” the show we did before, which was my idea, as was ‘Rescue Me.’ I am really lucky to be alive. I’m sure there are tumors just waiting to take me pretty much after this lunch.”

Most promising new cable program that I didn’t know much about before going into the tour: “Teen Wolf,” MTV. Turns out it’s being executive-produced by Jeff Davis, the man behind “Criminal Minds,” so suffice to say that it’s darker than the original film. Bonus: the pilot was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who’s had an affiliation with MTV since the day the network began…literally, since he directed this video:

Least promising new broadcast network program that I didn’t know anything about before going into the tour: “My Generation,” ABC. It always takes me forever to check out ABC’s new series, as I hate watching screeners on my computer (the network stopped sending out DVDs of its programs long ago), so I hadn’t investigated “My Generation.” Turns out it’s a look back at a high school class from 2000 and how they’ve changed since they graduated. As I said to a compatriot during the panel, “I’m pretty sure the only thing that’s going to make me want to tune into this show is if a killer starts picking off the twentysomethings one by one.” Mind you, I haven’t seen the pilot yet, but the trailer pretty well served to cement my theory.

Coolest anecdote(s) from a press scrum: Actually, it was less a scrum than an impromptu roundtable, but after PBS’s “Pioneers of Television” panel, my esteemed peer Marc Allan invited me to grab a chair and join the conversation he was having with Martin Landau, and others soon had their recorders out as well. It was Marc, however, who asked the two big-money questions.

First, Marc asked Landau if he had ever had the opportunity to meet Bela Lugosi, who he portrayed (and won an Oscar for doing so) in Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.”

“No, I never met Lugosi,” replied Landau. “But I met Karloff…and had tea with him! I was doing some post-synching on a television show, and we both left our respective studios at the same time and met in the hall. At the time, Jack Nicholson was actually my student. Jack studied with me for three years, and Jack had just finished a picture for Roger Corman with Karloff. Jack wasn’t very good in it. He was much too contemporary. But, anyway, I saw Karloff in the hall, and we greeted each other. I said, ‘You just worked with a friend of mine.’ And he said, ‘And who might that be?’ And I said, ‘Jack Nicholson.’ And he said, ‘Oh, yes. Poor boy. Where are going now?’ I said, ‘Home.’ He said, ‘Would you like some tea?’ I said ‘yes,’ and we went to the commissary and had tea and little sandwiches, and I got to spend a little time with him.”

Then, as if psychic, Allan asked Landau about the one project I’d been chomping at the bit to hear his recollections about: “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island.”

“I had a good time doing that!” said Landau, offering surprising enthusiasm as he reminisced about working with “Chick Hearn and a bunch of robots, noting that it was the last time he’d worked with ex-wife Barbara Bain, who’d been his co-star on “Mission: Impossible” and “Space: 1999.” “People say that it was the worst moment in my career,” he said, with a laugh, “but I actually had fun on that show. The first day I was on it, though, was the day that Reagan was shot, so when we got to the set, everyone was…well, you know. So I told about three or four jokes and loosened everyone up, and from that point on, we had a good time.”

Really, I could go on about the conversation for several more paragraphs, since the next topic of conversation was how he was offered the role of Mr. Spock on “Star Trek” before Leonard Nimoy. Suffice it to say that I hope to get a one-on-one with Mr. Landau one of these days…but if it never happens, sitting in on this one was still pretty damned cool.

Favorite one-on-one interview at a TCA function: Tom Selleck. I’d been trying to confirm or deny the possibility of talking to Tom about his new CBS series, “Blue Bloods,” but it was all very sketchy about how long he’d be at the CBS evening event. I therefore set up camp near the front door of the function, waiting for him to arrival. When he did, I followed behind him and his publicist, and once they reached their table, his publicist turned, saw my nametag and recognized my name, and waved me over to him. Tom smiled at me beneath his mustache and said, “No one will sit with me. Will you sit with me?” So I sat with him…and he was just as nice a guy as you’d want him to be.

Favorite one-on-one interview which took place elsewhere: Brad Meltzer. I’ve been a fan of Brad’s thrillers for several years, and when he made the jump into writing comic books, by God, I was right there with him. I’ve even traded the occasional E-mail with the guy. This, however, was the first time I’d ever actually met him. It was worth the wait.

Most intimidating one-on-one interview: Spike Lee. Spike seems like someone who could be a prickly pear if you don’t know what you’re talking about, so I blew off a concert by Vinyl Candy (sorry, guys) in order to make sure I’d seen his new HBO documentary, “If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,” before our conversation. Fortunately, it paid off: Spike was great.

Best party: CBS. These guys almost always take home the gold. Not only does lots of their talent show up, but they always hold them somewhere that you can actually move around without feeling like you’re bumping into someone or on the verge of knocking someone down.

Worst party: Sony. It was a tremendous turnout of talent, so much so that in another locale it might’ve ended up being cited as the best party, but it was so freaking packed that you could barely move and rarely hear anyone well enough to do a decent interview.

Party that I usually don’t enjoy but this time did: Fox. They like to use their “American Idol” money to rent the Santa Monta Pier for the night and let us and their talent go nuts with the food, the drinks, and the rides. Normally, I complain about how it’s not terribly conducive to doing interviews, what with the loud music and the noise of the rides. This time, my wife was there with me. I still didn’t do many interviews…but I did get to ride the Ferris Wheel with the woman I love. Yeah, yeah, we’re disgustingly cute. Get over it.

My 5 Favorite Cheap Thrills of the Tour:

1. Getting a hug from Jayma Mays of “Glee.” Yes, my wife was standing right there. (So was Jayma’s husband, Adam Campbell, for that matter.) But even my wife thinks she’s cute.
2. Talking to both David Cross and Bob Odenkirk on the same tour. Hopefully, there are “Mr. Show” fans out there who will appreciate this accomplishment as much as I did.
3. Telling Tom Hanks that I really loved “Mazes and Monsters” / Having Tom Hanks use me as a prop while telling a story (TIE). This was the third time I’d met my generation’s Jimmy Stewart, and each time I’d told myself that I was going to bring up the classic TV movie from early in his career, but when my fellow Bullz-Eye buddy Ross Ruediger broached the subject of “Splash!” and got five minutes worth of stories about working on the film, I decided that this was my time to shine. All I got for my trouble was a smirk, followed by a look that may or may not have been pity.

In retrospect, I probably should have just stuck with my Hanks encounter from earlier in the evening, when he’d been telling some story or other and, since I was closest to him, used me to illustrate how the person in his story kept poking someone in the chest. Anyone who tells you that I was considering getting a tattoo of the resulting bruise is a dirty liar. (That was just drunk talk.)
4. Bill Lawrence telling my wife that I’m awesome. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve talked to Bill Lawrence on the phone and in person, but my wife had never had the pleasure. At the ABC party, however, she spotted him holding court and decided to approach his assistant just to see if she could slip in long enough to introduce herself. She hadn’t gotten past the words “my husband is Will” before she was informed that “we love Will” and quickly hustled over to Bill for introductions, where the good Mr. Lawrence echoed his assistant’s statements. I should clarify that it’s not the compliment itself that made for the cheap thrill but, rather, the fact that Bill Lawrence made my wife feel good about her lot in life. I mean, she’s married to a TV critic, fer crissakes. She needs all the reassurances she can get.
5. Having William Shatner abruptly end our interview by clapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Thanks for your time.” Ah, it wasn’t going that well, anyway. And, besides, who cares? Captain Kirk touched me!

Cast most likely to get me into trouble: “NCIS.” I don’t know what it is about Michael Weatherly and Pauley Perrette, but I always end up finding myself on the verge of breaking some rule or other when I’m around them.

With Michael, he loves to tell stories when he knows you’re not recording him, and they’re invariably filled with some tidbit or other where you’d feel guilty running them intact. As such, I can’t tell you about what happened when he gave Robert Wagner’s E-mail address to Roger Moore…but if you ever meet Michael, ask him about the time he and Jessica Alba met Elvis Costello and Peter O’Toole. It’s a good’un.

As for Pauley, it’s become a TCA tradition that we take a picture together whenever we see each other: she holds the camera in front of us and takes the picture herself, and heaven help anyone who tries to take it for us. Unfortunately, as I learned after my first tour of duty with the TCA, it’s a no-no for members of the organization to take pictures with the stars. Pauley knows this. She just doesn’t care. This time, she assured me, “It’s seven years bad luck if we don’t take one every tour!” I’m pretty sure she didn’t have any documentation to back this up, but she took the picture anyway. Seriously, the woman’s a force of nature. Fortunately, I think everyone in the TCA knows this about Pauley, so I think they’d probably see her as an exception to the rule…but, just in case, I’m keeping the picture to myself.

Most awesome visit to the set of a network show: “Friends.” Don’t get me wrong, visiting Wisteria Lane is cool whether you watch “Desperate Housewives” or not, and the intricacies of the “Parenthood” set were remarkable to behold, but the power of pure sentimentality trumped them both. No, it’s not where the show actually filmed, but it’s all of the original items, and they look exactly like they did when they originally filmed the show. What I’m saying to you is that I stood in the middle of Central Perk. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Most disappointing visit to the set of a network show: “Undercovers.” This new NBC series has a certain amount of potential, and in fairness, the sets – one of which is a working kitchen – did look pretty cool, but the fact that none of the cast nor the producers could be bothered to make it to our visit ultimately made it feel like a bust.

Most pleasant reminder that, once in awhile, you make enough of an impression on the people you interview on the phone that they actually still remember you when you meet them in person: A month or so ago, I interviewed Nate Torrence in conjunction with “She’s Out of Your League” hitting DVD, and when he mentioned that he was in the cast of ABC’s “Mr. Sunshine,” I said, “Well, then, I’ll look for you when I’m at the TCA tour.” Flash-forward to ABC’s post-panel party, where I see Nate and go up to introduce myself, but before I can finish reminding him who I am, he quickly lets me know that he needs no reminder. “I get up there for the panel,” he said, “and I’m, like, ‘No one is going to ask me anything. I’m just going to sit here.’ But then I go, ‘Hey, wait a minute, what about the guy from Bullz-Eye? I think he said he was going to be here! Maybe he’ll ask me a question!’” Of course, when he said this, I immediately felt awful that I hadn’t actually asked him a question…

Most unpleasant reminder that, no matter how much you’ve enjoyed someone’s work on television, they still see you as a journalist and therefore don’t really want to talk to you if they can help it: Chandler was always my favorite Friend, I really liked “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” and unlike some of my peers, I laughed pretty hard at the pilot for “Mr. Sunshine,” but I can’t say that I’m as thrilled with Matthew Perry as I used to be.

I tried to be as polite as possible while waiting to chat with Perry during the ABC party, but on two separate occasions, although he clearly knew I was loitering in his vicinity for that purpose (the recorder in my hand was, to my way of thinking, kind of a dead giveaway), he pointedly opted to continue conversations with co-stars and friends rather than acknowledge me. One of my peers stopped by during my lengthy loiter and told me that I had the patience of a saint to wait the guy out, but in the end, even Francis of Assisi would’ve given up on Perry: once he finished the conversation, he turned to try and leave without turning toward me. Before I could stop him, though, the writer standing next to me snared him, then kindly gestured in my direction and said, “I was waiting for you, but he’s been waiting even longer.” Perry endured questions from both of us for a few minutes, but then he said, “I’m going to walk away now.” And he did.

I know the guy’s dealt with plenty of these TCA parties during the years that he was part of the NBC family, but given that he’s not only the male lead in “Mr. Sunshine” but also the creator and one of the show’s writers, I really expected him to be more enthused about the chance to promote the series.

I should add, though, that my wife – simply by speaking the truth – ended up kind of getting the last laugh on Perry. At the Sony party, she was talking to Megyn Price (“Rules of Engagement”) when Perry came up and started talking to Pryce. My wife waited politely for Perry to finish, but when he did, he turned to my wife and, with a decidedly dejected look on his face, said, “I suppose you want to interview me.” She looked right back at him and said, “Oh, God, no!”

Admittedly, all she meant was that she was just a guest at the party and therefore wasn’t doing interviews with anyone, but I am assured that the look on Perry’s face was priceless nonetheless.

Most awesome live performance of the tour: Michael Feinstein jazzing it up and occasionally even kicking out the jams with his 17-piece band as part of a dinner-and-a-show performance to promote his upcoming three-part PBS miniseries, “Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook.” I’ve respected Feinstein’s work since I heard him cover “Both Sides Now” on an Elektra Records compilation entitled Rubaiyat, and somewhere around here I’m pretty sure I still have a copy of his Isn’t It Romantic album on cassette, so I figured I’d get a polite but somewhat easy-listening performance that would make for a nice wrap-up to the evening.

My bad.

My jaw was left on the floor by how much energy the man put into the seven songs he played for us, which began with “The Lady Is a Tramp” and ended with “For Once in My Life.” Suffice it to say that I became the proud owner of Feinstein’s The Sinatra Project the next time I visited a record store…which, as it happens, occurred only a few days later.

Best off-site visit that was in no way connected to the tour: Amoeba Records. I usually make a point of swinging by my favorite Hollywood record store whenever I make it into town, but my schedule in January didn’t lend itself to a visit, so it’d been a year since my last dig through Amoeba’s always-awesome bargain bins.

Unfortunately, when I arrived, I found that what would’ve otherwise been a pretty cool coincidence – Elijah Wood was doing a DJ set for the store – totally screwed up my fun, as they’d set up a barrier to keep people from getting too close to Elijah as well as to keep too many people from rushing the DJ booth…and it was right in front of the store’s fabled $1 bins. So if you happened to be there that day and heard a bearded and bespectacled gentleman grumbling, “Fuckin’ Frodo,” now you know why.

Best piece of swag: HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” flask. I think this is actually the third flask I’ve gotten in the last year: The CW gave them out last summer with the “Melrose Place” reboot, possibly because I needed a lot of alcohol to make the show endurable, and then Fox sent one out in conjunction with “Family Guy” not terribly long ago. What made this one so special? It was all in the presentation. Everyone was presented with a copy of The Anti-Saloon League Yearbook 1920…and when you opened it, you found a flask-shaped hole carved into the pages which housed our gift. How awesome is that?

Worst trends of the tour:

1) Networks attempting to squeeze as many panels into one day as possible. In fairness, CBS and Fox were fantastic with their respective families of networks, dividing their presentations into two days. Not so NBC-Universal, who forced us to endure a single day of panels and even between-panel events in order to cover series from NBC, SyFy, USA, Oxygen, Bravo, and MSNBC. And as an FYI to the Discovery Networks, if you’ve got things scheduled so that, after two questions, the moderator has to say, “We’ve got time for one last question,” you’ve got things scheduled way too tightly.

2) Networks neglecting to include panels for existing shows. It makes sense, given the tight quarters on the schedule, but it’s no less disappointing. CBS gave us a “Big Bang Theory” panel, The CW offered “Gossip Girl,” and Fox gave us “Glee,” but for the most part, existing series were relegated to between-panel events in the lobby of the ballroom. Sure, it’s nice to have coffee with the cast of “Modern Family” in theory, but the end result is lots of scrums and limited opportunities for one-on-one questions. I’m not saying I’m the most gregarious when it comes to asking questions during the panels, but it sucks to not even have that chance.

3) Networks missing from the tour altogether. AMC made a major splash at Comic-Con with “The Walking Dead,” and, hey, fair enough, the show’s based on a comic book. Similarly, Matthew Weiner seems to be pretty pissed at the press right now, so that’d probably explain the lack of a “Mad Men” panel.” But given that other members of Rainbow Media family of networks were in attendance (IFC and WeTV), it felt like a slap across the face that we didn’t even get a state of the union address from an AMC exec, especially when they announced their new series, “The Killing,” a mere three days after the tour wrapped. And wherefore art thou, Turner? All of those new series on TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, and the like, and we don’t get a single panel for any of them? I know Conan doesn’t really need more promo for his new show, but it sure seemed like an opportunity missed.

And, as ever, we wrap things up with a bitch session…

Most annoying moment of the tour: having my request for a one-on-one chat with Tony Danza declined because, as his personal rep purportedly said, “This isn’t his kind of interview.”

Now, granted, this came through channels rather than directly from the rep, and I can’t imagine that Tony Danza himself has anything to do with declining the interview, but that’s the reason that was cited in the E-mail from A&E, home of Danza’s new reality series, “Tony Danza: Teach.”

As someone who’s the son of a retired teacher and the husband of a woman who works with autistic students, I’m well aware of the importance of education and how students affect the lives of teachers just as much as teachers affect the lives of students, so I was immediately intrigued by the concept of the series. Additionally, one of my friends had once had dinner with Danza and had nothing but nice things to say about the guy. No surprise here: I put in for an interview.

Now, please understand that I’ve been turned down for more than a few interviews in my time, and I’ve come to accept the heartbreak of rejection when it comes to an actor’s busy schedule, even when it’s patently clear that “busy” translates into “he only talks to the bigger, better-known outlets, and, frankly, I’ve never even heard of your site.” In the end, it really all comes down to this: I’m someone who needs closure on things, and if a rep is going to tell me that their client is opting out of talking to me because “this isn’t his kind of interview,” then I don’t think it’s too much to ask why it isn’t his kind of interview. I mean, maybe it’s something I can change, y’know? So I asked. But I never got an answer.

Do you know why? If so, drop me a line…or, better yet, if you’re already that deep into the Danza camp, anyway, then go ahead and tell Tony that I’d still really like to talk to him. After hearing him talk during his panel, there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that this teaching gig was a full-fledged life-changing experience for the guy. As such, I’d like to do whatever I can to help promote “Tony Danza: Teach”…and, yes, even after all of this whining, I do still think you should watch it when it premieres on A&E on October 1st.

This was the first time the summer tour had been held after Comic-Con rather than before, so there was a certain amount of grumbling about the fact that the fans were getting a certain amount of information that would’ve ordinarily gone to the critics first, but it must be said that the networks did a pretty good job of pacifying us. And, besides, aren’t the fans supposed to come first, anyway?

Although the content that I managed to accrue during the course of the tour will continue to come your way for quite some time to come, what you see before you is a summary of the highs and lows of the event, mixing stories you may have already read on Premium Hollywood with many that I simply haven’t had a chance to discuss yet. As ever, it was a heck of a good time, full of the kind of moments that leave me grateful that I managed to get that journalism degree from Averett College back in 1992, pleased as punch that Bullz-Eye and Premium Hollywood have given me the opportunity to cover the tour, and, most of all, that there are lot of great readers out there who seem to enjoy the tales I bring back from these strange TCA adventures that I’ve embarked upon.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Most Enthralling Panel by a Cable Network: “P.O.V. – Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” PBS.

As someone who has spent the majority of his journalistic career as a music critic (and, even before that, spent a decent chunk of time as a record store clerk), I was easily as excited about this panel as anything else on the schedule. I mean, c’mon, Patti Smith? She’s a legend…and the audience treated her as such: the questions were well-considered, and in turn, Patti’s answers were well-constructed, informative, and entertaining. Despite my excitement, I had somehow developed an expectation that she might be reserved and, indeed, perhaps a bit prickly with her responses, but she was smiling and laughing and enjoying herself. When she broke out her guitar at the end of the Q&A and proceeded to favor us with a couple of songs, I dare say I wasn’t the only one who was completely mesmerized. After Patti’s performance, we absconded to a PBS-sponsored cocktail party, where writer Marc Allan – a veteran attendee of the TCA Tour – said that this might’ve been the single best panel he’s ever attended. I don’t know if time has tempered the immediacy of his reaction, but the more I think about it, the more I think he could well be right.

Funniest Panel by a Cable Network: “Bored to Death,” HBO.

There was always a pretty good chance this panel was going to take this category by storm, given that it was going to feature Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson, and Zach Galifianakis, but I had no way of knowing how hilarious the creator of the show, Jonathan Ames, was going to be. Granted, Galifianakis still won the day by offering up enough great lines to warrant my compiling a full-fledged Top 10 list of them, but it was Ames’ quick wit that sent me to eBay to pick up one of his books. (I opted for “Wake Up, Sir!” If anyone else has any recommendations for others, however, I’m ready to hear them.)

Most Enjoyable Panel by a Broadcast Network: “Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live, Hell’s Kitchen & Kitchen Nightmares,” Fox.

By the time Fox took the stage for their various panels, we were well past the halfway point of the tour, and most of us had begun to hit that invisible wall which makes us start to zone out of the proceedings and just start wishing we were back home. Fortunately, Chef Ramsay decided that he wanted to add a bit of interactivity to the proceedings, and given that he was there to talk up his latest series, “Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live,” it made complete sense. As such, he invited the audience of critics to follow a recipe and whip up the topping for their own serving of Baked Alaska. It would be fair to say that I did not do spectacularly (one look at mine, and he sadly sighed, “Oh, mate…), but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

Most Unnecessary Panel by a Cable Network: “Dark Blue,” TNT.

Not that it’s a bad show, but what was the point, really? The series had already been on the air for a few weeks by the time of the panel, but not long enough for most of us to have developed any particular dedication to it yet. Worse, TNT preceded it by offering up scenes from their upcoming series, “Men of a Certain Age,” starring Ray Romano, Scott Bakula, and Andre Braugher, which made us far more interested in knowing more about that show.

Most promising new broadcast network program that I didn’t know anything about before going into the tour: “Life UneXpected,” The CW.

Given how many programs are already premiering in the fall, I made it a point to try and avoid watching episodes of series that wouldn’t be arriving until January, but that was definitely a mistake on my part when it came to “Life UneXpected,” starring Kerr Smith and Sheri Applebly. The video presentation showed a sweet and intriguing new series about a teenage girl who reunites with her biological parents. It’s so unlike anything else on The CW these days that Dan Fienberg of Hitfix.com asked the producers outright, “Is there any concern that you may have made this pilot for a network that doesn’t exactly exist? Because this is sort of a warm, fuzzy, family, everybody-together pilot, and if you look at The CW’s shows for the Fall, they’re less that.” But Paul McGuire, president of entertainment for The CW, assured us that “Life UneXpected” is “a series that’s going to be something special à la ‘Gilmore Girls,’” so let’s hope the network gives us the chance to enjoy this series as long as we did that one.

Most promising new syndicated program that I didn’t know anything about before going into the tour: “The Dr. Oz Show.”

I can honestly say that I’ve never sat through an entire episode of “Oprah,” so I didn’t really know anything about Dr. Mehmet Oz except that he’s apparently been a staple of her show for some years now. But as he told us about his new daytime series by using a PowerPoint presentation which absolutely felt like something he’d put together (rather than, say, a precisely prepared creation done by the boys in Marketing), then followed it with a Q&A session, it was remarkable how he held everyone’s attention. I’ll say to you what I said to my peers: if it had been a pyramid scheme, he’d have my life savings by now. It was that impressive. When his show premieres this fall, God help me, I think I might actually sign up for a TiVo season pass.

Panelist who most knew his audience, for better or worse: Ken Burns.

He was there to discuss his new PBS series about America’s national parks, but before the panel began, he became aware of something that had gone missing from our tables.

“When the doors opened, there was a companion (‘The National Parks: America’s Best Idea’) book as a centerpiece at each table,” Burns noted, “and I now notice they’ve all disappeared. This is obviously something every table will have to deal with on your own, who among you has the book, but we want to say that we will have enough books for everybody, and if you will just leave us your card or write down your name, we will send you the book. We had hoped not to burden you with the weight of this heavy tome, but clearly there are 25 among you here — and I don’t want to call anyone out — who have decided that it is not too heavy a burden to take.”

Um…oops? But for the record, had my swiping of the book from the table turned into a thorny legal issue, I was already prepared to cite the case of Finders v. Keepers as precedent.

The panel that every 15-year-old girl (and, let’s be honest, quite a few women of other ages)in America was jealous of me for experiencing: “The Vampire Diaries,” The CW.

You can bet that CBS is still kicking themselves over the fact that they canceled “Moonlight” just as the combination of HBO’s “True Blood” and the “Twilight” films were about to make vampires into Hollywood’s hottest commodity, but at least The CW had the good sense to fast-track the development of this popular book series into a TV series. Sadly, the majority of the show’s cast members – including Ian Somerhalder, late of “Lost” – weren’t able to make it into Pasadena in time to attend the panel, but I feel certain that the presence of Paul Wesley would’ve been more than enough to keep the average teenage girl swooning throughout the proceedings.

Largest panel that really only needed to consist of one person: “Cougar Town,” ABC.

During the course of his many remarks in the “Cougar Town” panel, creator Bill Lawrence joked that he’d told his cast, “Hey, you guys want to come to Pasadena while I talk for a while?” And when I say “joked,” I mean he was probably being completely and totally serious. Lawrence has often said that his childhood dream was to grow up and become a talk show host, and it’s never more evident than when he’s holding court during one of his show’s panels. It’s not that he steals the show as much as it is that the critics know how entertaining he can be, so they defer to him with their questions…and when they do, he takes the ball and runs with it.

Most awesome visit to the set of a network show: “The Office.” I sat at Michael Scott’s desk, I sat at what used to be Pam’s desk (she’s in sales now, you know), I was given a tour of the set by Angela, and those who come to my office will now seen that I have been declared an Assistant to the Regional Manager at Dunder-Mifflin. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Biggest mixed-bag visit to the set of a network show: “Bones.” It’s always nice to see David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel, and it was cool to see Booth’s base camp at the FBI, but we’d been promised a look at Bones’s lab at the Jeffersonian and were denied as a result of filming commitments. Understandable, sure, but it was still a major bummer.

Best off-site visit that was in no way connected to the tour: I arrived early enough on the day before the tour started that I was able to go to dinner – my first-ever experience eating Ethiopian – with one of my Popdose colleagues, Jon Cummings, then attend the so-called “Girls Night Out” concert at Molly Malone’s as part of the International Pop Overthrow. It was great to finally see the Paula Kelley Orchestra, but the best part of the evening was definitely the performance by Kay Hanley, late of Letters to Cleo. Sadly, she didn’t break out anything from “My Friends Tigger & Pooh,” but she still rocked the hell out of the joint. I was dead on my feet by the end of the night, but it was totally worth it.

Best party by a cable network: Food Network.

In addition to meeting Brian Boitano, host of the awesomely-titled series, “What Would Brian Boitano Make?”, the latest round of “Iron Chef” contestants each had their own booth where they were making their signature dishes for your dining enjoyment, some of which were positively to die for. Eric Greenspan made a Tallegia grilled cheese and short rib sandwich on raisin bread that I could’ve eaten all night, Robert Trevino created a combination of manchego cheesecake with pata negra that blew my mind, and Jose Garces threw together a sandwich consisting of a pork belly bun with Togarashi mayonnaise that seemed to be universally praised. Great stuff all around.

Best party by a broadcast network: CBS.

The function took place at the Huntington Library, and it technically wasn’t just a CBS party, since it also incorporated the folks from The CW and Showtime, but we’re still going to let them have it on a technicality. I didn’t get as many interviews during the festivities as I did at the other network parties, but it was so star-packed that it was hard to complain because…well, what, like I can moan about the fact that there was too much talent there? Every time I turned around, someone awesome was walking past me, from LL Cool J to John Lithgow to the cast of “The Big Bang Theory.”

In addition, it was a beautiful venue…though, to be fair, just getting away from the hotel upped it a notch. (All of the other broadcast networks stayed within the grounds of the Langham, which is where the various panels took place.) The combination of all of these factors definitely made it the most memorable gathering of the second half of the tour.

Recurring trend of the tour: writers trolling for Ben Silverman one-liners. CBS’s Nina Tassler replied to something he’d said about her in the past, saying, “Well, you know, I’m really just a D girl, so I wouldn’t comment on that.” When the topic came up during Fox’s session, Peter Rice said, “I assumed you were going to ask if he was going to judge on ‘Idol’ next season.” Bill Lawrence opened the “Cougar Town” panel by saying, “So, Ben Silverman…” (Unfortunately, he never really let loose about the man who’d headed NBC during the network’s final season of “Scrubs,” instead asking the rhetorical question, “Can you say ‘off the record’ to 230 people?”) Even NBC’s Angela Bromstad got an unintended laugh when she began her response about Silverman’s departure by saying, “Well, I think that this has always been Ben’s plan.” What, to inspire half a dozen punchlines during the course of the TCA Press Tour? If so, I think it’s fair to consider it a success.

Best panelist rants: Thomas Jane, during HBO’s “Hung” panel.

From the moment Jane said to one critic, “Speak into the mike and tell me how you feel about my penis,” it was clear that things were probably going to be interesting, and when he assured us that he prefers the word “cock” over “dick,” we knew that theory was correct. But while his panel-ending comments about how he feels about prostitutes were probably in jest, our favorite moment came in the midst of his reply to a question about how he felt about the show when it was first pitched to him.

“You know, the fact is that it’s all fucking fate and luck, man. This is fate and luck that we are all up here together talking to you about a show about a guy with a big dick. Right? Fate and luck. There is no reason this show should be good. The show should be bad. It’s about a guy with a big dick who fucks people for money.”

Nice, Thomas, very nice. You kiss Patricia Arquette with that mouth…?

Best anecdote that I heard from someone who I wasn’t even interviewing at the time: Megyn Price.

When I walked up to Drew Carey so that I could revisit an earlier discussion with him about his favorite bad movies (in 2007, he assured me that “Boat Trip” was so bad that it was actually a must-see), Price – of CBS’s “Rules of Engagement” – proceeded to tell a story about how she used to make a point of going to see certain shows on Broadway simply because they looked like they’d be horrible.

“David Cross and I decided that we were going to go to ‘Footloose,’ because we were, like, ‘It’s gonna be so bad that it’s gonna be fun!’ So we’re sitting in the theater, and we decided at intermission that we were just gonna do shots. We were, like, ‘It’s gonna get better, because now we’re all drunk!’ So we go back in and we sit down, and these boys in front of us, who were, like, fifteen and were clearly there under duress from their mother, turn around and say to David, ‘Hey, you’re in ‘Mr. Show.’ We thought you were cool.’ And he was so bummed for the longest time! He was, like, ‘No, no, if you’ll just let me explain…! I’m here ironically!’”

Cheapest thrill of the tour: Shaking hands with Robin Williams.

There’s generally at least one person per press tour who leaves me feeling completely unlike a professional journalist and turns me into a total fanboy. In January, it was Ozzy Osbourne. In July, it was Robin Williams. I had a fleeting moment where I had to choose between taking a photo and shaking his hand, and although the photo would’ve been more permanent, I went for the memory. If he hadn’t been in the process of leaving, I would’ve told him that I’d been a fan ever since I wrote a fan letter to “Mork and Mindy” and, in return, ABC sent me a postcard with his pre-printed autograph (and Pam Dawber’s, too), but in the end, I was succinct and just said, “I’ve been a fan for a long time.” In return, he said, “Oh, thanks, man, I really appreciate it,” and it’s a testament to his acting abilities that he said it in such a way that it really felt like he hadn’t heard the exact same thing a million times before. Or maybe he really does still enjoy having people tell him that.

Best piece of swag: Who doesn’t like free stuff? Granted, the networks have cut back, so it’s not like we’re getting bombarded with awesome swag the way we used to, but there’s still some pretty cool stuff being offered to us. I particularly liked the “Fringe” flashlight which sends out its beam in the same of a butterfly, and my daughter dug the PBS Kids tote that she’s now using as her library book bag, but all told, I think the win has to go to the Dunder-Mifflin nameplate that I received after my tour of the set of “The Office.”

Coolest moment of the tour for my wife: Oh, man, there was a lot of competition this year. Was it having Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory” recognize her from their conversation last year? Was it getting her picture taken with Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”) and Sam Trammell (“True Blood”)? Or was it geeking out and getting to meet Doctor Who himself, David Tennant? I just checked with her, and she says that, since she didn’t really get to talk to Tennant very much, she’s going with her conversation with Parsons. But, y’know, that’s her answer today. It could change tomorrow.

Coolest moment of the tour for my daughter: This was also a good tour for my daughter, in that Sofia Vassilieva thanked her for being a fan of her work in “Eloise at the Plaza” and Yeardley Smith said “hello” to her as Lisa Simpson, but as much as she enjoyed those moments, they ultimately paled in comparison to the fact that her daddy also met three residents of “Sesame Street” and asked each of them if they’d mind offering her a personal greeting.

Coolest moments of the tour for me: As I’ve mentioned before, it’s all pretty cool to me, since I spend 48 weeks out of the year in Chesapeake, VA, and therefore don’t get the opportunity to mingle with the stars on a regular basis, but with that said, what I’m particularly enjoying is the fact that some of these folks are actually starting to remember me from our previous encounters. Pauley Perrette jumped at the chance to take our picture again (in our first encounter, she demanded to hold the camera in front of us and take the shot herself, assuring me, “I’m really good at this!”), pointedly saying to the publicist who offered to take it for us, “No, no, this is our thing.” Talk about surreal…but even that couldn’t top the fact that, as soon as Bill Lawrence spotted me, he thrust out his hand and said, “Will, what’s up? How’s it going, buddy?” He then introduced me to his wife, Christa Miller, and told her about how I had met up with him at the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, VA, then made sure I knew that he’d be heading back to W&M again soon. Before I let him continue his rounds with the other critics, I asked if I could grab a quick shot of the two of them together, and I don’t mind telling you that it’s probably my favorite photo of the entire tour.

Coolest person I still haven’t gotten to talk to, even after three tours: Hugh Laurie.

I did at least manage to enter his gravitational field this time, but he slipped away from the throng within fifteen minutes of the Fox function’s kick-off.

Most intimidating person to talk to: Chevy Chase.

Actually, this suggests that I actually talked to him. In truth, I opened my mouth to ask a question, only to have him say that he needed take a break for a few minutes. But given that the conversation immediately prior to that involved his discussion about how he used to participate in a regular poker game with Johnny Carson, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, and Carl Reiner (not to mention the fact that I was standing close enough to him that I could’ve – but didn’t – run my finger down the dimple in his chin), it was hard to be unaware of his place in television history. I was fully prepared to approach him later, but he never failed to be surrounded by a crowd, so it never came to pass. Oh, well, maybe next year.

Least intimidating person to talk to (and I mean that in the best possible way): Ed O’Neill.

When I arrived at the ABC party, I saw him stroll out of the main ballroom and onto the patio, so I thought, “Okay, maybe I can catch up with him out there.” As it turned out, there was almost no one on the patio, and after Ed grabbed a drink from the bar and sat down, I caught his eye and raised my recorder uncertainly. He immediately waved me over, and although it ended up starting off slightly awkwardly (he’d thought I was the person who’d asked him the first question during his panel earlier in the day), we ended up having a great one-on-one chat for several minutes, talking about his new series, “Modern Family,” contributing to David Faustino’s online series last year, and his work with David Milch over the years. Did you know that Milch, creator of “Deadwood,” had originally written the part of Al Swearengen for Ed? True story.

Most genuine celebrity: It’s getting harder and harder to pick one of these, since I’m consistently discovering that a lot of celebrities are pretty genuine, but I’m gonna have to give the nod to Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory.” The guy is up for an Emmy this year, but he’s just as nice a guy as you could possibly hope to speak with. He was at the TCA Awards, and when I saw him at the CBS party, he immediately lit up and commented how nice it was to see me again, and before he left, he made a point of coming over and asking if I would be at the Warner Brothers party later in the week. “If so,” he said, “I’ll see you there!”

Person Who Necessitated the Institution of a Three-Strikes-And-You’re-Out Rule: Hayden Panetierre.

To put this in proper context, you must understand that, in almost twenty years of doing interviews, I don’t even have anyone who’s earned two strikes, but Hayden went three for three at the NBC parties I’ve attended over the course of my trio of summer press tours.

In 2007, I managed to ask her precisely one question, which she answered lazily before wandering away. In 2008, I waited patiently for an interview as she finished a casual conversation, and although both she and her publicist clearly saw me, they both turned and walked in the opposite direction when the conversation was over. I unintentionally but audibly said, “Oh, no, you didn’t,” at which point her publicist attempted to pacify me by assuring me that she had to go to the ladies room and would be back. (She wouldn’t be.) This year, I decided I’d give it one more shot.

As I was steeling myself for her impending indifference, a colleague came up and said, “Do you want to double-team her?” Just as we were heading her way, another critic beat us to the punch by calling Hayden’s name…and I saw Hayden’s eyes roll as far back as she could muster, then turned and offered about the most fake smile imaginable, in no way hiding the “I don’t want to be here, let alone answer your questions” look in her eyes. My colleague and I approached nonetheless, and we watched as several other writings entered the newly-created scrum. After the fourth or fifth time Hayden reacted to a new tape recorder as if someone was thrusting a knife at her, I finally just said, “Screw this” (albeit under my breath), and bailed out, but I got the impression that the scrum broke up not long afterward, anyway. C’mon, Hayden, if you don’t want to be at the party, don’t come to the party…and if you have to be at the party, then at least pretend to be civil, would you? We’re not paparazzi. We’re TV critics.

A buddy of mine has a far better relationship with Hayden and her publicist than I do, and he says he’s going to do what he can to hook me up with a phoner with her. Despite the newly-instituted rule, I would be willing to make an exception for a one-on-one interview, mostly because it would be nice to actually confront her – politely, of course, because that’s how I roll – about my experiences with her at past parties. But will I get the chance to do so? Stay tuned…

It was an absolutely surreal experience to pull up in front of a building in Valencia, CA, and see a sign which read, “Scranton Business Park,” but it got even more bizarre as we stepped into the Dunder-Mifflin warehouse and immediately saw members of the cast milling about. We were quickly divided into small groups and taken on a tour of the actual Dunder-Mifflin office by cast members, and I was fortunate enough to be part of the group led by Angela Kinsey, who plays Angela Martin on the show.

My wife and I met Angela in 2007 when we attended our first TCA Awards ceremony, as “The Office” had taken home the award for Best Comedy Series that year, so I was already well aware that her real-life personality is the polar opposite of her character’s. She’s constantly laughing, and you could tell that, although she was no doubt drafted into the task of giving us this tour, she loves her job and doesn’t mind talking about it in the slightest. It was incredibly cool to be able to see the intricacies of the various certificates on the walls of the office, as well as the personal photos on each of the desks, but I think my favorite moment was when she told us that Brian Baumgartner, who plays Kevin, still has a post-it on his desk that was written during the very first episode of the show. No, wait, I take that back: it might’ve been when she recited back to us the way she used to have to answer the phone when she was an operator for 1-800-DENTIST. Well, either way, it was a real treat to have her give us the tour personally. We were also given the opportunity to take our photo at Michael Scott’s desk, which I absolutely took advantage of, but all things considered, I think I actually might like this shot from Pam’s desk better:

After the set visit, we returned to the warehouse, where we were each presented with our own nameplates which declared us to be Assistant to the Regional Manager of Dunder-Mifflin…and you can bet that mine sits on my desk at this very moment. From there, we were offered coffee and pastries as we sat down for a Q&A with the cast (minus Rainn Wilson, who wasn’t feeling well) and producers of the show.

It won’t surprise you to learn that there were many laughs to be had, but few were timed quite as well as the first one. The question at hand was a simple one relating to the fact that the series was celebrating its 100th episode: “Did you expect it to last this long?” Producer Greg Daniels began to answer the question, saying, “I don’t think any of us did. You know…” Suddenly, there was much whispering from Steve Carell. Daniels leaned over to hear what Carell was saying, nodded, then looked back at the critic who’d asked the question and replied, “That’s what she said.”

(Carell also proceeded to get the next laugh, when, after being asked how he keeps finding depth in a character who ultimately is very shallow at the surface, he replied, “I just model it after my own shallow self.”)

If you’re looking for news about the upcoming season, we were able to get a little bit here and there. At various points during the Q&A, the following information was revealed:

* As you might expect from someone who’s preparing to become both a husband and a father, Jim’s going to be going through some changes this year. “I think Jim’s ambition has always been more of an issue than his skill,” said B.J. Novak (Ryan). “I think it seems to most of the writers that he would be great if he tried, and I think one of the themes this year is Jim going for it more and trying and challenging himself, especially with the wedding and the baby on the way. I think that that will be really fun to see.”

* As far as the Pam / Jim relationship goes, most of what we’ll see will take place within Dunder-Mifflin. “I think we’re going to try to see it in the office and how that affects people who work together,” said Paul Lieberstein (Toby). “But we will be going out for the wedding. We’ll meet the family, and it will be fun.”

* Per Jenna Fischer, “Pam is going to be walking down the aisle very soon because she is pregnant, but trying to hide that from certain members of her family. So they’re getting married pretty quickly…in, like, the fourth episode. I actually just had a fitting for Pam’s wedding dresses, like, just right before I walked in here, and that was a really special moment.”

* According to Lieberstein, there will be more romance in the office beyond Pam and Jim. “Andy likes Erin,” he revealed. “Erin isn’t quite aware of that yet, and we’ll play that out for you.”

* Sadly, however, Michael should prepare for a dry spell. “I guess it might be a rough year for Michael Scott,” said Lieberstein. “There’s no one on his horizon.”

* After being prompted for further information about the season, Lieberstein and Daniels had a brief huddle before the former gave up an upcoming storyline which takes place at Dunder-Mifflin while Pam and Jim are on their honeymoon. “Michael is meeting with an Italian gentleman, and it comes to everyone’s belief that Michael has just met with the mafia, and they’re extorting him for insurance money,” he said. “The coalition of reason is a little weak in the office.”

* Also in the cards for an upcoming episode: a Dunder-Mifflin shareholders meeting.

There was also considerable talk during the Q&A about the changes that have gone on with the characters of “The Office” since the series began. Two of the most notable: Steve Carell’s hair and weight.

“Part of the evolution was between that pilot and Season Two, I lost about 25 pounds, in part because of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin,'” explained Carell. “That sort of formed the look partially there. I think that first year, the look was really scary. I don’t know if there was any word from the hierarchy at NBC that he needed to be at least reasonably watchable, but there wasn’t any big conscious decision. The hair just changed a little bit and got a little fluffy.”

“Part of the character changed, though,” noted Daniels. “Michael was more an antagonist in the first season, and, you know, became much more a person that you rooted for. So you had to root for somebody with less hair gel.”

“I’ve always sort of seen him as a sympathetic character,” Carell observed. “You know, even people who are obnoxious and in-your-face or unlikable to most, I believe that there are other sides and other gray areas to everybody, and I always felt that he was a kind of guy whose intentions were good and his heart was in the right place, but he just has a disconnect socially, and sort of that emotional blind spot. So that’s kind of how I’ve proceeded with the character.”

In the first season, the computers of the supporting characters didn’t even work. “My agent actually told me that we were required to bring paperwork to look busy,” said Kate Flannery (Meredith).

“I thought I was going to a temp job,” said Oscar Nunez. “It was a great gig. Basically, you just want to get on with your work and not be filmed. So as an actor, it’s weird, because you’re like, ‘Oh, the camera.’ And you just don’t want to be filmed.”

“My memory of the first year or two was Oscar and Angela and I in the corner deciding that our show was better,” said Brian Baumgartner (Kevin). “And we were just going to make up bits and force people to film them whenever we could.”

“We also said that we could maybe pitch it to Telemundo,” said Angela. “‘Los Contadores‘!”

The evolution of the Jim & Pam relationship was also a topic of conversation, which John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer were more than happy to discuss.

“You know, when the relationship started and it was kind of an unrequited love relationship, I would get a lot of fan mail from people who were also pining away for someone else in their office, and they were enjoying watching that,” said Fischer. “And then when we finally got together, we’d get mail like thatwe’re expecting.” So I feel like we’re sort of growing up with our fans, and we’re going through those same life stages as the people who have been watching us from the beginning. I think maybe that’s one of the reasons why the relationship has continued to be successful: it’s been growing realistically.”

“I definitely would attribute it all to the writers,” said Krasinski. “I think that we’ve had a great time doing it, but I think there’s very little credit that we can take for the ideas and what it is to go ahead and do. And I think that to write such incredibly real moments has always been my favorite part of the relationship. Probably my favorite episode is ‘Booze Cruise,’ and that moment on the top of the boat where they allowed silence to play at the moment that I was supposed to tell her that I loved her. I knew from then that I’d just sort of do whatever they told me to do with this relationship, and I think that they followed that. I loved when they said that we would find out that we were pregnant before we got married. And I just thought, ‘That’s real, and it’s gutsy.’ And you kind of would follow people anywhere if they choose to be that gutsy.”

Lastly, if you’ve been sticking with the show in hopes that the documentary that’s been filmed in Dunder-Mifflin for all of these years will finally be released (as was the premise of the concluding special for the British “Office”), I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been wasting your time.

“Well, in the beginning, we always said that, if we ran out of ideas for the way the show was being produced, we would see the documentary,” admitted Daniels. “And having said that now, we might not be ever able to see the documentary, since it will be a mission of defeat in some way.”

Well, you know, if you had a Scottish brogue. And were funnier.

The TCA has had a long-standing relationship with Mr. Ferguson, but I swear to you that his ongoing gesture of buying us pizza whenever we hold our organization’s business meetings has nothing to do with my enjoyment of his show. With that said, however, I can’t say that the messages that he includes with the pizza – like the one below – haven’t made me respect him more. I mean, as someone who has an affinity to the printed word (as opposed to the online word), I have to give him props for this:

Craig stopped by the TCA tour for what was described as an “informal press conference,” which is no doubt why he started the proceedings by saying, “First of all, let me say my wife is standing by me through this very difficult time,” adding that “Buenos Aires is lovely at this time of year.” From there, he was willing to tackle any and all questions that were thrown at him, but before I offer up some of my favorite moments, I must drop this bombshell: he’s considering getting rid of the puppets.

Yes, I know: I’m as upset as you are. And so were many of the others in attendance, several of whom immediately gasped in horror.

“That reaction right there?” said Ferguson. “That’s what I’m looking for: controversy. ‘No puppets? That’s it! To the presses…that don’t exist anymore!’ I don’t know, I’m getting bored with puppets. If I can’t think of anything else to do with them, I’ll have to let them go the way of all flesh.”

As you can imagine, we did our best to pretend that he never made this comment…I don’t think I want to live in a world where “The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson” doesn’t provide me with my weekly puppet quota…and instead chose to focus on the funnier and more thoughtful bits of the “press conference.” Here, then, are ten of my favorites…

1. “One of the luxuries of doing a television show every night…it’s almost like you had an outlet of where you could just broadcast your thoughts. Perhaps something on the Internet would be popular in the same way. That’s why I never would Twitter: because I’ve got an hour to fill every fucking night. What the hell else am I going go to say? ‘Going to say things about things.’ So it’s really just me doing that. That’s all it is. And so I think there’s a part of it which is retro, in the sense that it’s someone just talking on television, which they used to do back in the day, and another part of it is extremely contemporary. It’s the broadcast of unedited thought…which is, you know, causing the newspaper shortage.”

2. “The other night, I was talking about Dave’s show, and I got the name of Dave’s show wrong. Now, what I could do? ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ is what I said, which is apparently not the name of his show, and I got into trouble saying it. Now, what’s more interesting is to watch a sweaty vaudevillian try to get out of a situation like that rather than cut it and make it pristine. I don’t have the patience for that, and I would prefer as a viewer to watch the mistakes. I am my own blooper reel as it happens.”

3. “At 12 and 13, I thought I would be an astronaut. By 17, I thought I would be dead by the time I was, you know, this age. It’s a constantly changing thing for me. I think for everybody, I don’t think just for me. I always kind of half expected I’d end up doing something in show business because it was tolerant of drunkenness and you could meet girls. But, you know, I’m married, and I’m ‘teetotals,’ but I’m still here because I don’t know where else to go.”

4. “I think my show is probably closer to ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse’ than anything else I’ve seen, and that is an aspiration. That’s a great show. I don’t know where we are, but wherever we are, we won’t be that next week. I do know that. That’s why the puppets won’t stay forever. It’s important to keep moving. There was a point, you know, when I had a sound board, and I was always doing the sound board, and people asked about the sound effects. Or there was the cheeky monkey thing. We have to keep moving because I’ll get bored, and if I get bored, then I think we start doing retakes when I make a mistake, and then the rote sets in, and then there’s focus groups and then committees about ‘I don’t know about this joke.'”

5. “I don’t want to be poor. I don’t want to be rich to the extent that all I care about is keeping my job. I don’t care enough about keeping my job right now. That’s good. That makes me effective at what I do. I don’t want to be frightened of getting fired. So, to that end, I suppose my ambitions are that I spend less than I earn. I don’t want to have the ambition of a time slot or a number of dollars. Do I want to make a lot of money? Fuck, yeah. But do I want to make it at the expense of…look, I’ve met a lot of rich people who are douche bags. I don’t want to be that…or any more of that than is necessary. So I hope to, I suppose, in some way try and maintain some…if I have any…type of integrity. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. That’s my ambition.”

6. “I watched Jimmy (Fallon) in his first week…maybe 10 minutes of it. I remember during that time Jimmy Kimmel – who is a very nice man – gave an interview, and he said, ‘We all watch and anybody of the late night guys says that they don’t watch another show is lying.’ So I guess I’m lying, but the truth is I don’t watch the other late night shows. You know the shows I see? I see ‘Duck Dodgers’ and ‘MythBusters.’ That’s what I fucking watch, because I’ve got an eight-year-old son, you know. I watched Jimmy, and I liked him. I thought he was good, but I stand by what I said the last time: I never thought we were in competition, and I don’t think we are in competition now. The last time I talked to you guys, I said I thought Jimmy’s competition was ‘Adult Swim,’ and I still believe that. I think my competition is sleep. Or the ShamWow commercial, or whatever the hell is on cable, or whatever video game. I don’t know. I just do what I do.”

7. “I don’t really understand (ratings). When they say people age 18-34, and then they go 18-49, I said, ‘Well, what? So the people in the 18-34, are they in the 18-49? Or is this different people that are not in the 18-34?’ Then you go, ‘Do all ratings stop at 49?’ And they do. You go, ‘I’m 47. So in two years, I’m fucked. Fuck you! No!’ I don’t really understand how it works. I know it’s important because everybody writes about it like it’s religion, but all I know is this: the numbers can change dramatically, and people get pay raises. Here’s what I do know, and this is probably the wrong thing to say in a room full of journalists, but it seemed to me…I don’t know if this absolutely accurate, but when Jay was shit-canned from NBC, he was the leader in all numbers, and then they fired him. I don’t want to get fired. So perhaps keeping your head down is what you should do with the numbers. I don’t understand how it works, but it clearly matters. Yet I don’t know why. I think the truth of it is this: I think it makes you sound clever if you talk about them, and I think that’s what a lot of people do. I understand that. I want to sound clever, too, but I swear to God, I don’t understand it.”

8. “What I think we’ve been doing at this show…I hope what we’ll be doing at the show is deconstructing and deconstructing and deconstructing the format, and the more we deconstruct the format, if we are successful in doing that, the more we separate ourselves for good or ill from the format. The format is tired. The format is tired, and it is old, and…look, here’s the reality: I’m another middle-aged white guy telling jokes late at night on TV wearing a suit. And that’s tired, you know? So I want to mess with it. Because that’s who I am, I want to mess with it. I want to poke it with a stick. I want to do it. I swear, I don’t know if I’m part of it. I kind of would like to be. You know, I kind of like to be, ‘Hey, what’s going to happen with that?’ And then another part of me thinks, ‘Well, then I’ll end up like that. Then I’ll be important. Then I’ll be worried about the fucking 18-18 1/2 demographics.’ And I don’t want to be. So I’m conflicted a little bit with it, I guess.”

9. “I’d like to announce I got my pilot’s license on Friday of last week. And I’ll tell you why I like aviation: because it is the complete opposite of show business. In show business, you bullshit, you bullshit, you bullshit, and that’s what you do, and that’s how get ahead. In aviation, you bullshit, you fucking die. You’re gone. So when Andy says to you in show business, ‘Can you do that?’ You go, ‘You bet I can.’ When Andy says to you in aviation, ‘Can you do that?’ You better tell the truth, because if you can’t, you know, you’re on the local news, and that’s that.”

10. “David Letterman, no matter what the numbers have ever been, ever, in the past…David Letterman is the king of late night television. All right. Now, I know there are press releases and other people that can prove to you scientifically that that’s not fucking true, but
I’m telling you, that’s true. I’m very happy to work for him and to work close to him, but if there is a successor to Johnny, then, of course, it’s David. My relationship with David Letterman is that I sit at his feet. I’m kind of his bitch. In the modern parlance, you know. I sit at the feet of the master.”

It was an interesting experiment for Fox to air the series pilot months before the series was to make its proper debut, but it created the kind of buzz that makes network executives giddy.

“We didn’t really think that a one-time-only play was going to be about ratings,” said Reilly. “It was really a marketing stunt to a certain extent, and it’s something that has ended up being very successful. In fact, it could be the marker for something we’re going to employ more frequently, because our marketing effort in these things get wedged into such a narrow window from the time they’re ready to put out there to the time they air. We wanted people to talk about it and take time to get their heads around it. It did a 4.3 rating ultimately in the Live-Plus-Seven. It’s been sampled by 25 million people between TV, the online site, and Hulu, which has been unbelievably strong. We’re going to repeat it again. We’ve heard the chatter, and the talk continues to get more and more positive.

“We were at Comic-Con last week, which was a stretch for this show,” he admitted. “We were nervous nobody was going to show up. It wasn’t even in the main venue. There were thousands of people out the door, and it was like The Beatles were there. There’s something happening with the show. With that said, we’re both very confident there is a core audience for this show that is going to be there and it will be successful. How much the upside is…? I don’t think we’re looking for this to be necessarily the biggest phenomenon of the fall. It is a little bit of an offbeat show, but we’d certainly love to have it in that square success category. We know it’s a creative success because we’ve now seen the work. So all in all, we like that strategy. It worked very well.”

There’s a very important question, though: is it possible that “Glee” is too good to be a long-term success? After all, the critics love it, which is, as often as not, the kiss of death for a series.

“Sometimes things find a niche audience,” admitted executive producer Brad Falchuk, “and oftentimes those are very high quality things that can’t find a broad audience. I don’t think we have that problem. I think we are for a broad audience. I think there will be people in certain niches that will enjoy the show in their own specific way, but our intent is always to make something that a lot of people would enjoy. I’m not a big musical fan, I don’t like musicals, and I didn’t want to make a musical, and so the idea was to attract me and Ian (Brennan, producer) and 70 other different categories of people that would enjoy it. I hope that we’re so good that people can’t not watch.”

Fans of “Party Down” were no doubt disappointed at the news that Jane Lynch would be missing out on that series’ second season due to her commitment to “Glee,” but she’s the first to clarify that it wasn’t a position of choosing one over the other. “(‘Glee’) was in first position, technically,” she explained. “But I’m having the time of my life. I am acting in the role of a lifetime, and the words that they have written to come out of my mouth are some of the best, most heinous things I’ve ever said in my life. I could not be happier. I really loved doing ‘Party Down,’ but this is really a highlight.”

Lynch’s role in “Glee” shares certain personality traits with her role in the film “Another Cinderella Story,” which begs this question: what draws her to parts like this?

“I’m scheming and arrogant,” she said, with a grin. “You know, I don’t necessarily know, but I love that lack of shame, and I find it fascinating that a lot of people walk through life that way thinking they’re really something and they can be that mean. And I guess I’m attracted to that on some level. I don’t think it’s first and foremost in my personality, but it’s a lovely delicious thing to call upon, and I love doing it, obviously. I do it a lot, actually, but I think it’s reached a pinnacle with Sue Sylvester. She has to be the most scheming, unashamed, entitled person I’ve ever played…and I’m just adoring it.”

Given Kevin Reilly’s comments about the show’s reception at Comic-Con, it will probably not surprise you to learn that life has already begun to change for the young stars of the series.

“We were just so happy at the response that we got,” said Lea Michele, who plays Rachel Berry on the show. “We’ve been in this little ‘Glee’ bubble of finishing the 13 episodes and working really hard, so we were just really thankful to get to see the reaction, especially when we went to Comic-Con. That was so great. And we’re also just about to go on a 10-city tour in a couple of days, and hopefully we’ll get to meet people that have seen the pilot and that are excited for the show. We are really excited about that. You’re going to have all of us kids on a plane going to tons of cities, all of us together.”

“Our Facebooks have gone crazy,” added Chris Coulfer (Kurt Hummel).

“You know what’s funny,” said Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray), “is that I was on a plane yesterday, and ‘So You Can Think You Can Dance’ was on the plane. I was sitting next to two people, and a commercial came on, and the guy sitting next to me kind of did this look, looked back at the screen, and looked one more time. And later on, he was, like, ‘Were you the girl in that commercial?’ Those things are weird. When we went to the upfronts, you know, and saw all the huge balloons everywhere, people walking around…it’s exciting, because you forget, especially when it’s not airing in conjunction with shooting, that you’re making something that people are eventually going to see. And once that starts happening…I mean, for a lot of us, this is a big first, so it’s thrilling, but it’s shocking every time you have a moment like that.”

The cast can likely expect many more moments like that come September 9th, when “Glee” makes its proper debut with an episode entitled “Showmance.” It’s also worth noting that a director’s cut of the pilot will be airing the previous week, in case you were one of the folks who missed it the first time around and have been chomping at the bit to see what all the fuss is about.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the possibility of a “Glee” CD, you’d better believe that’s already in the works. Per producer Dante de Loreto, “We’ve produced over 60 tracks so far for the show, and we’ve got a partnership with Columbia Records. We’re hoping that the first soundtrack CD will come out in November, and if it’s successful, hopefully there will be a second one.”