more Lee Siegel here--

"Imagine an Orwellian fable that had all the mass media of American society silenced--or mute with complacence--and confined to a kind of internment camp, with the exception of television, which for some reason escaped the censor's attention. It's up to television to save the country! It tries. It makes brave attempts--developing twelve new 'Law & Order' franchises, for example. It ascends to ever-higher levels of innovation and originality. But it can't.

This is a medium that people watch in their underwear, for goodness sake. Who's going to rush out of the house wearing his Calvin Klein briefs into an advancing wall of shields and truncheons? Ouch. You're going to give up that late-night mango sorbet and go out there and pile up furniture on Fifth Avenue to try and slow down the tanks? I don't think so. Why, I bet even if Jon Stewart, the Danton of cable television, called for a revolution in the face of the most horrendous injustice--say, you could no longer wear your favorite baseball cap while eating in a nice restaurant--not a single one of his ardent followers would leave their dormitory rooms to fight for what was right. "