by Katie Baker

by Joshua Alston

There are issues so polarizing, so emotionally draining, so morally fraught, that we never really solve them as much as we table them for a while. Euthanasia is one such issue, which has come back to fore during the vigorous debate over American health care. But it’s an equally important issue in the world of entertainment: when is it finally time to pull the plug and kill a TV show? I know there are emotions involved, believe me I do. But I have to be the cold realist—there are some shows that have to die. It’s simply too painful to see them in their current state. I can’t bear it, and I’m willing to make the tough choices that others can’t. What follows is a list of the shows that must be taken off the respirator post haste.

by Kurt Soller

MTV's reality TV juggernaut—in which young pretty things become terrible human beings—has become a meta genre: we know they're acting, so those questions about whether it's scripted are older than the Juicy Couture they wore on Laguna Beach. Viewers have given abandoned the idea that the lives presented on The City and The Hills are anything close to the lives of Whitney Port or Heidi Montag—they just want to believe that the plot lines are close to anything they could be going through.

Asked to appear on the Australian variety hour Hey Hey It's Saturday as a guest judge, Harry Connick Jr. sputters in disbelief when a Jackson 5 impersonation group entirely in blackface appears onstage. He first gives the group a 0 scorecard for the performance while the audience boos; later, at about 4:40 into the clip, Connick launches into an impassioned race-relations lecture explaining why blackface is a bad thing. "If I knew that was going to be a part of the show, I definitely wouldn't have done it," Connick declares on live TV.  The host appears genuinely surprised.

by Ramin Setoodeh

Presented without comment—tell us what you think, below.

by Joshua Alston

Of all the confounding behaviors that human beings engage in, perhaps none is more irritating—or more common—than hypocrisy. It’s fascinating when someone condemns behavior while engaging in it himself, which is what makes David Letterman’s relatively mundane sex scandal more intriguing than it has a right to be. He mercilessly joked about the illicit affairs of others while having just those sorts of affairs himself. To expose such a disconnect is oddly fun, and the more sanctimonious the person, the more rewarding the exposure.

This is what makes the documentary Outrage, which airs Monday and re-airs Thursday on HBO—on the eve of a gay-rights march in Washington, D.C.—such a guilty pleasure.

by Jennie Yabroff

by Pop Vox staff

David Letterman is in trouble again, only this time Sarah Palin is not involved. He came clean last night about a series of sexual affairs he's had with younger women on his staff which have resulted in an alleged plot to extort $2 million out of him to prevent a tell-all book. The host shared all this in lieu of a Top 10, in a strangely half-comedic, half-serious monologue that ended with him mimicking his extortionist in a leprechaun voice, to loud laughter from the audience.

The only thing is, will people actually care? Absolutely not. Here are our top 10 reasons why: