Disney/ABC/ESPN took over the National Basketball Association from NBC, which means we are finally rid of John Tesh's aggravating theme song and gnatlike sideline reporter Jim Gray. Unfortunately, ABC has decided the hoops-watching public still needs to be poked with the long wooden stick of annoyance that is announcer Bill Walton.

Here's what I'm concerned about heading into this year's edition of the Masters golf tournament. And it's not whether Augusta National Golf Club should admit women members. It's whether these tournaments will hire crack teams of security guards to apprehend and savagely beat every cretin who bellows "Get in the hole!" every time a putt is struck.

In 2002 we bid adieu to "Ally McBeal" and agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of "The X-Files." Both these shows broke new ground before their creators ran them into it. (The ground.) I hadn't seen "Ally" in eons when I witnessed a promo last year in which Ally gets caught bending down and sniffing the blue jeans-encased buttocks of a construction worker played by Jon Bon Jovi, because apparently she has a compulsion to smell men's asses. I knew then I'd made the right decision.

While we're talking about televised drama, "The Sopranos" just wrapped up a disappointing season of mostly boring episodes with a redeeming finale that contained a riveting portrayal of an exploding marriage. The acting remains superb. James Gandolfini eating pasta as Tony Soprano -- head lowered like an ox, shoulders slouched -- is as gloriously nuanced as Al Pacino dabbing his face with a towel as Michael Corleone. "The West Wing" is a well-written drama, featuring superb acting, that I never watch.

"Six Feet Under," yet another feather in HBO's cap, continues to raise the bar in the field of TV drama. "24", the hit from last year that unfolds in "real time," is into a second season. I'm not saying the plot is Byzantine, but this year Nina will turn out to be a quintuple agent.

When does the plug get pulled on "NYPD Blue"? And do its producers have some agenda about rescuing former child and teen actors? First it was Rick Schroder and now it's Zach from "Saved by the Bell."

A winner has yet to emerge in the war of spinoffs between "Law & Order" and "CSI," the two highest-rated crime dramas on television. I don't think they've gone far enough. America needs more. I predict the top three shows in the 2003 Nielsen ratings will look like this:

1) "Law & Order: A Very Special Victim's Unit"
2) "CSI: Boise"
3) "Law & Order: Jury Duty"

In the world of comedy, the unfunny "Everybody Loves Raymond" continues to draw inexplicably huge ratings and rake in Emmy awards. People are still watching "Friends," apparently. "Will and Grace" has its moments. "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" has won critical acclaim, though not ratings, for eschewing formula in favor of the inventive, wacky humor he helped establish on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."

HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has emerged as the best comedy on television. Larry David, the creator of "Seinfeld," stomps on every last shred of the predictable sentimentality one finds on network sitcoms. David, who plays himself, borrows aspects from the characters of both Jerry Seinfeld and Jerry's pal George Costanza, who was originally based on Larry, according to legend. He's as smoothly capable and in control as Jerry and as painfully antisocial as George.

Even when "Curb" isn't funny, it gets your attention by being flat-out wrong. Witness this year's "The Special Section,' a subpar episode in terms of laughs, in which Larry's sole reaction to the death of his mother is anger over having not been invited to the funeral. Thereafter he uses his mother's death to get out of the most trivial social obligations. Then he hatches a scheme to dig up her body and move it to a better part of the cemetery. With humor that beyond the pale of mainstream morality, David risks alienating his audience if the jokes fall flat. He's got cojones of steel, a condition largely absent in network comedy and one of the reasons for the show's popularity.

Late-night talk shows in 2002 remained the place where Americans go to have the discomfiting and scary news of the day digested for them into harmless jokes. David Letterman, still self-hating, remains smarter and edgier but slightly less popular than the sugary Jay Leno, who gets along and goes along.

When Al Gore played Trent Lott on last week's "Saturday Night Live," it brought to mind a very creepy moment from the 2000 presidential race, when George W. Bush, appearing on Leno's "Tonight," donned a paper Al Gore mask while Leno wore Bush's likeness. The message from Bush to America was clear: The gap between televised illusion -- what you see -- and reality is unbridgeable, there's no real difference between the two candidates, so vote for me because I'm more likable than he is.

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