Those who tune out all things celebrity may not know there is a scandal raging around American Idol and its perky judge Paula Abdul. Corey Clark, a second season Idol loser, claims he had a secret affair with Abdul, during which she helped him pick songs and offered other assistance in his unsuccessful singing competition bid. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. There are certainly plenty of credibility issues to go around. • Clark was thrown off the show when an undisclosed cri...

The Office is NBC's second attempt -- and second failure -- in as many seasons to translate a popular British sitcom into a successful American franchise. While ostensibly being a documentarian's look at a dysfunctional regional office for a paper- and office-supply company, its main focus is the even more dysfunctional boss Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell. It's as if someone took Dilbert, stripped all the laughs out of it, then gave the pointy haired boss his own spin-off series...

    I watched Dateline 's (boring as Dateline usually is) 2-hour farewell to Friends episodetonight. In one section, Katie Couric went "behind the scenes" andtalked to the below-the-line talent that has helped put the showtogether over the last 10 years. While she talked to the setdesigner, she tried to pry the ending out of him. Though he wouldn'tgive it up, he did cryptically have this to say (paraphrased): "It ends with a beautiful view out of a hotel window....