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E32 CALENDAR LOSANGELESTIMES TELEVISION RADIO ABDUCTED.RETURNED.CHANGED. 2005 NBC Universal Entertainment Cable Group. All Rights Reserved. THE4400.COM SERIES PREMIERES JUNE 5 EVERYSUNDAY9PM Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (May 23-29) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish.

Nielsen estimates there are 277.93 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions. Program Network View- ersProgram Network Viewers 1 American Idol 2 American Idol 3 CSI: MiamiCBS21.22 4 LostABC20.71 5 HouseFOX19.52 --------------------------------------------6 Law Order: SVUNBC16.38 7 CSICBS16.09 8 Law Order: Criminal Intent NBC14.98 9 Two and a Half Men (9:30 p.m.) CBS14.86 10 NCISCBS14.74 --------------------------------------------11 Two and a Half MenCBS14.37 12 Without a TraceCBS13.21 13 24FOX12.23 14 MediumNBC11.79 15 Las VegasNBC11.27 --------------------------------------------16 NASCAR Nextel FOX10.23 17 AliasABC10.07 18 Still Standing (8:30 p.m.)CBS9.83 19 Cold Case 20 and Amber Get CBS9.66 --------------------------------------------21 22 Still StandingCBS8.49 23 Dateline: NBC 24 Fear FactorNBC8.26 25 60 MinutesCBS8.10 --------------------------------------------26 ContenderNBC7.98 27 48 Hours MysteryCBS7.82 28 Cold Case 29 30 Law Order: Trial by Jury (Wed.) NBC7.70 --------------------------------------------31 Frey: Witness for the CBS7.46 32 Desperate HousewivesABC7.43 33 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC7.14 34 Numb3rsCBS6.87 35 Law Order: Trial by Jury (Fri.) NBC6.84 --------------------------------------------36 Crimetime SaturdayCBS6.46 37 Primetime LiveABC6.42 38 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: They Do That? ABC6.34 39 Law OrderNBC6.27 40 --------------------------------------------41 ERNBC6.24 42 Lost 43 60 Minutes WednesdayCBS6.10 44 Tour of ABC6.06 45 Will Grace (9:30 p.m.)NBC5.94 --------------------------------------------46 Joey (8:30 p.m.)NBC5.93 47 Will GraceNBC5.88 48 AnatomyABC5.79 49 50 JoeyNBC5.59 --------------------------------------------51 52 7th HeavenWB5.54 53 NCIS 54 Funniest Home Videos ABC5.37 55 Most WantedFOX4.96 --------------------------------------------56 Cops (8:30 p.m.)FOX4.91 57 EverwoodWB4.77 58 JAGCBS4.69 59 WWE 60 Desperate Housewives (Sat.) ABC4.45 --------------------------------------------61 GirlfriendsUPN4.36 62 CopsFOX4.35 63 Myself and 64 65 Lost 8 p.m.)ABC4.00 --------------------------------------------66 Half and HalfUPN3.98 67 Hope FaithABC3.90 68 8 Simple RulesABC3.88 69 Joan of ArcadiaCBS3.80 70 Less Than PerfectABC3.72 --------------------------------------------71 One Tree Hill 72 Complete SavagesABC3.50 73 CutsUPN3.39 74 One on OneUPN3.23 75 The O.C. (9 p.m.)FOX3.11 --------------------------------------------76 The O.C.FOX3.07 77 Britney Kevin: ChaoticUPN3.04 78 EveUPN3.00 79 Home 80 All of UsUPN2.57 --------------------------------------------81 RebaWB2.43 82 Blue Collar TVWB2.34 83 Blue Collar TV (8:30 p.m.) WB2.32 84 85 Bad Girls GuideUPN1.83 --------------------------------------------Living With FranWB1.83 87 Steve Big TimeWB1.64 88 What I Like About You (8:30 p.m.) WB1.54 89 What I Like About YouWB1.40 90 One Tree Hill --------------------------------------------91 EnterpriseUPN1.29 92 CharmedWB1.20 93 One Tree Hill 94 Enterprise (9 p.m.)UPN0.94 Network averages Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

Network Last week Season to date FOX12.519.98 CBS9.4212.84 NBC7.789.72 ABC7.219.97 UPN2.823.35 WB2.513.32 Los Angeles Times From Associated Press The conclusion of another competition and the season finale brought more than 50 million viewers to their television sets last week on the final day of the television season. An estimated 30.3 million people saw Carrie Underwood beat Bo Bice on two-hour finale, according to Nielsen Media Research figuresre- leased this week. Instead of shrinking from such withering competition, which aired at the same time, averaged 20.7 million viewers. another in the crop of impressive freshman dramas that included with 19.5 million viewers. expect to see those numbers again anytime soon.

summertime, and the network prime-time schedules in the weeks ahead feature a mix of reruns and reality shows. CBS reality stars Rob and Amber had 9.7 million guests to their wedding special on Sunday. ABC learned the ugly flip side to having popular prime-time serials: that7.4 million watched on Sunday and 5.8 million saw indicates that the shows repeat well. ABC also had one of the more unsightly sweeps performances when its made-for-TV movie on Donald Trump drew a paltry 5.6 million viewers. Fox easily won the week, averaging 12.5 million viewers.

CBS had 9.4 million viewers, NBC had 7.8 million, ABC had 7.2 million, UPN had 2.8 million, the WB had 2.5 million and Pax TV had 520,000 viewers. Prime-Time TV Rankings A big finish into the lives of working-class actor (endless auditions, negligible sushi, no mansion in sight). is another of these, starring Kudrow and executive produced by Michael Patrick King, who shepherded and the rise to iconic status. They set their considerable comedic claws and fangs on the network sitcom game, in a show that is executed in the manner of one of Christopher mock documentaries. But lacks the sweetness that Guest manages to convey toward his characters, even as he presents them as un- self-aware oddities suffering small humiliations.

They know what doing, Kudrow and King.They are very good at the details of world the Zone Diet meals got in the fridge, the soulless, pot-smoking sitcom writers who loathe what her hackiness says in turn about their own lives. But while Guest was in a way pulling for the small-town thespians in for or the dog-show- obsessed in in demonstrates a harder-edged dislike for Valerie Cherish; one of the problems with the show is its rhythm, scene after scene in which the arc goes from self-delusion to barely hanging-in-there ego jolts. The paradox is that the humiliations are well-drawn, even as the comedy plays as a colder kind of comfort. Thanks to Valerie Cherish has a Choice, just one, and it means so awfully much to her. So does every crumb and morsel of fame ever received, including her one and only appearance on Tonight Show With Jay In her home, a still shot of Valerie on Tonight hangs on a wall of fame documenting her years on Valerie calls the photo, as if speaking of something she once loaned to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

That moment is enough to signal sad but funny insecurities, except that it then gets overcooked; in Tonight still, a monkey on head, and she explains that it pooped on her. was a real water-cooler Valerie says, without irony. Though the range of the character feels limited, Kudrow is good at staying in Valerie, at conveying all that she fears inside about her age and her image and her career, but which comes out in a too-optimistic birdsong or else completely fake bonhomie. Worse, she actually utters the sentence need to know that I am being when feeling particularly threatened. This is a character three clicks away from completely unraveling, and Kudrow means to keep her right there, on the edge of her extreme narcissism a similar, if less winning, balancing act than Ricky Gervais managed in the BBC comedy Deter- mined not to be a footnote on an True Hollywood (although do one, no doubt, gratis), Valerie, when first we see her, is not only about to audition for a new sitcom pilot but she has also allowed a reality TV show crew into her life to chronicle her so-called comeback.

Instantly, the relationship between Valerie and Jane (Laura Silverman), the reality crew producer, begins to show signs of fraying, mostly because Valerie seem to understand that the cameras are there not so much to chronicle her triumphant return to television as record every side moment of her life, as when she tries to duck behind a door to argue with her husband, Mark (Damian Young), about problems with the water pressure in the downstairs powder room. Her comeback will take the form of and a deliberately inane sitcom about four sexy singles sharing an apartment, one of whom is supposed to be Valerie, until the network sees the pilot and realizes not credible (amalleable term in the sitcom world) opposite her three young costars, whereupon she is re-cast as Aunt Sassy, the wacky aunt upstairs. I got Valerie tells the reality show camera after being cast in the show, whereupon Jane, off-camera, tells her to do it again, only bigger. Valerie: is supposed to be Jane: just think that your reality could be more Valerie: you and I have to talk. Can you turn the cameras off Jane: It sounds like HAL telling Dave he shut himself down in A Space These are the funniest moments in the show, the way portrays the crew following Valerie around as an intrusive force whose very gaze she desperately wants but can neither understand nor control.

Also leavening things occasionally is Robert Michael Morris, as longtime hairdresser, Mickey, whose task is to keep long red hair tuned to the early But mostly the show returns again and again to the ritual humiliation of its main character. We see Valerie late at night, through the camera perched on her kitchen ceiling, rehearsing a joke for and as she moves progressively further and further through a chocolate cake. to self: After a long day at work, I need to see is the dreadful line she keeps trying, in different shades, all of which come out predictably lame. an awful truth in that sequence, a truth that mask the punitive tone. Like itself, it feel like a comment on reality TV, it feels like a comment on Valerie Cherish the comedy equivalent of low-hanging fruit.

Claudette Barius HBO Kevin Connolly, right, plays the childhood friend who helps to guide the career of a rising actor (Adrian Grenier) in the HBO series, whose second season premieres Sunday. Kudrow regroups at HBO Notebook, from Page E1 By Marc Fisher Washington Post WASHINGTON Audiences for traditional news media are becoming ever smaller. Many Americans are experimenting with technologies that let anybody play publisher or reporter. Now, as the big media search for ways to shore up public confidence, one of public most creative storytellers is reaching into history to take the medium back to the future. Dave Isay a New York- based producer who has captivated public radio listeners with intimate stories he has collected by, for example, giving tape recorders to kids who live in the roughest of Chicago housing projects is presiding over a drive to collect 250,000 oral histories of everyday Americans.

Inspired by the personal narratives recorded by the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, StoryCorps recently parked its two Airstream trailers in front of the Library of Congress for 10 days. Inside, StoryCorps staffers assisted people both prominent and not as they crafted 40-minute conversations with a relative or friend about the big questions in their lives. Recordings of the resulting stories will be placed in an archive at the American Folklife Center. Excerpts from at least one story a week are being played each Friday on National Public idea is so Isay says. inundated with so much phoniness all day: celebrity stories, TV, radio, newspapers.

In this culture where we spend so much time shouting, screaming at each other, providing this quiet space where you can just talk. You bring anybody you want, somebody you love, to the booth, and we create akind of magical space where people can Facilitators help people shape their interviews, then get out of the way and just listen as people who know each other best probe in intimate spaces. So you hear parents tell their children how they first fell in love, and children asking parents how their marriages went wrong, and old folks telling secrets withheld for decades. Most of work focuses on people who ordinarily make the news, giving voice to people who work on death row, people whose faiths lead them to behave far outside accepted norms, barbers and embalmers, obsessives and rejects, a castle builder and a carnival barker. Chuck Brown, godfather of go-go music, came to the StoryCorps booth the other day with his younger brother, the Rev.

Robert Brown, and the two talked about growing up in rural Virginia, about personal things, tough Chuck voice dropped to a whisper jail, and playing guitar, trials and it all Robert Brownsaid. And the brothers, old enough to be retired but still making music and preaching the gospel, nudged each other like little boys. Their story, like the thousands the StoryCorps will collect as the Airstreams travel from coast to coast, a kind of spontaneous revelation of the American NPR President Kevin Klose says. is a companion to people. People welcome us into their lives in a unique Some of that connection has been lost over a generation of corporate blandness on the radio.

Americans basically get in the media when their house burns down, and not says Steve Inskeep, the host. struggle with The stories Isay collects are not news in the traditional sense, but they are classic tales of triumph and despair, survival and love. Blogs, podcasts, independent film the new media offer people who feel ignored or misread by the big media a chance to take control. On public radio, StoryCorps is one way the big boys hope to reconnect. Just friends, sitting around talking Public radio hopes thinking small will help it reconnect, as listeners get a chance to hear everyday stories.

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