Did you watch Saturday Night Live? Ben Affleck was lame. John McCain was funny. Cindy McCain was the funniest(!). The ending was strangely awkward. But you know what wasn't as funny as it should've been? The Keith Olbermann sketch. Ben Affleck's "Keith Olbermann" impression was basically his "Alec Baldwin" except louder. The sketch lasted forever and wasn't funny until the "special comment" at the end, which should've been the sum total of the bit (watch the whole thing after the jump, kids!). But apparently John McCain thought it was the best! The McCain campaign was delighted with the absurd bit, and said it was "about time" that SNL mocked MSNBC's most indignant anchoir. So of course Ana Marie Cox emailed Olbermann himself for his response to the McCain camp's response to his getting made fun of on a tee-vee show. He responded faux-good-naturedly and also had some secret sexy news about Sarah Palin going rogue!

Lemon Party! Looks like Tina Fey's second, third, fourth, and fifth jobs this year have paid off, as 30 Rock premiered last night to the biggest numbers in the show's history. THR says the sitcom lured 8.5 million viewers and a 4.1 18-49 rating, up 21% from its premiere last year. We're a little confounded by the fact that Rock still lost 800,000 viewers of The Office — what do you people need, every character on the show to couple up? A premature guest stint from Steve Carell? Prolonged sexual tension between Frank and Cirie (actually, that one we could live with)? [THR]

Brian Sugar, cofounder of San Francisco-based blog network Sugar Inc., sent two ominous Twitters this afternoon: "Sad day." "First rain, will last for 5 months." Was he just talking about the weather? Less than an hour later, he'd gathered his staff into a conference room and told them he was laying off nine employees, mostly in editorial — 11 percent of the company's 80-person staff. What's worse: More layoffs could come over the next two quarters, if ad sales don't improve.Sugar's CEO may have aimed to put employees on notice, in hopes of motivating them to perform. But leaving a shoe to drop is the worst mistake one can make in cutting employees, the meltdown's self-appointed layoff pundits agree. Sugar Inc.'s real problem may be self-inflicted: It took ad sales in-house from partner and investor NBC this summer, leaving it with a sales force still in development, right as the online-advertising market got a lot tougher.

The latest we're-supposed-to-care chatter from the tipline: "It was just announced yesterday that Ziff-Davis Chief Technology Officer Robyn Peterson is leaving to go to NBC. Ouch!" Ouch? The real ouch is that Ziff-Davis Media, the considerably reduced tech-magazine publisher, was paying someone to be its CTO in the first place.

30 Rock is back tonight — you may not have noticed. Like most of the show's viewers, we're excited for the return of Tina Fey's ensemble comedy, but the deathwatch will be on in full force after tonight. NBC's continued emphasis on stunt casting (Oprah! Steve Martin! Jennifer Aniston!) already reeks of desperation. We're skeptical a not-so-famous guest star in every episode is going to broaden the show's appeal any more than Liz Lemon's quest for a child will. Is the best comedy on television destined to be ruined in its quest for ratings?The early reviews are already in, with mindless Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley bizarrely noting the show's "satire hews so closely to the original that it is almost mimicry" as part of her "rave." WaPo critic Tom Shales is particularly high on next week's Oprah episode. Though Shales notes that he prefers Fey's Palin to the dour Liz Lemon character, both think Fey's popular Palin impression will give 30 Rock a boost. We want to believe, but we have our doubts. From its inception Tina Fey's show was destined to be a niche comedy that attracted SNL fans who enjoyed the insider-y view of NBC. For this third season, the network's promotional efforts have amped up. NBC is banking on the idea that Fey's Palin portrayal on a few highly rated SNLs and exposure in a modest hit film with a similar plotline in Baby Mama have given the show the exposure it needs to succeed in the high-profile post-Office timeslot. Given that the stunt casting for this episode is Will & Grace shrillster Megan Mullally, we have to question this approach. It's hard to see how featuring Oprah as herself is going to create buzz for the show — Oprah's viewership doesn't care if she's on a comedy show about the backstage life of a comedy show past whatever episode she's on. Comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Al Gore didn't improve viewership, and a slighter higher caliber of stunt casting won't help matters.

Amber waves of grain, arthritis ointment application, an emotionally distant Sarah Silverman the morning after—The Barack Obama Show really offered something for everyone. And by "everyone" we'd include network heads, as preliminary Nielsen numbers show the 30-minute hope-infusion juiced ratings across the board. Even ABC's struggling Pushing Daisies benefited from a small counter-programming bump, though still only managed to squeak out a meager 2.2. From THR:

Jason Kilar, the CEO of online-video site Hulu, has rediscovered a truism: less is more. Hulu, which is mostly owned by NBC and News Corp., runs fewer ads on the TV clips it licenses from its TV-network parents than they air when they broadcast the same shows. And yet the ads are more effective. This could simply be a novelty effect; everything about Hulu is new, so the ads also draw more notice. But Hulu may be onto something. Why don't networks try running fewer ads on air, too? (Photo via Alarm:Clock)

Duly Noted: To us, the simple three-note structure of the famous NBC chimes leaves little room for interpretation, but then, we lack the cunning intellect of NBC head Ben Silverman. According to Variety, the network is asking musical acts like T.I., the B-52s, and the Flaming Lips to record their own twist on the theme for ads that will air between NBC's shows. Is it too much to hope for that Silverman will submit his own, Ryan-Seacrest-approved version? "Hey, dwindling Knight Rider audience! Ding DING ding!" [Variety]

♦ Campbell Brown is reportedly pregnant. [TVNewser]
♦ Arianna Huffington and Tina Brown aren't in competition. They're best friends! [NYT]
♦ The Robb Report is on the market. The price? "Upwards of $100 million." [Folio]
♦ NBC has exiled the struggling Lipstick Jungle to Friday nights. [Variety]
♦ CNN's new (and appallingly unfunny) political humor show starring D.L. Hughley debuted this past weekend. [NYT]

The Office still offers plenty of laughs, but a certain reckless need to humiliate the characters has been missing from the show lately. This week that will change when the show's Halloween episode will feature a Dark turn from office perv Creed. The full episode preview, along with the latest information on Angela and Andy's nuptials, comes after the jump.The show hasn't abandoned the pure torture of its characters entirely: it was depressing and sort of appropriate that we found out Pam's ex-fiance Roy now works at the Vitamin Store — but come on, you should see his employee discount. And yes, the developing chemistry between Michael Scott and his HR rep makes a place deep inside of us cry out in pain. But it's time the show's writers got back to doing what it is they do best: really screwing with these people until the viewer can no longer comfortably watch what occurs. The coming blessing of Angela and Andy's wedding website should hopefully signal a return to that form:

Having already enjoyed the effects of one defribrillation at the hands of master career re-animator Quentin Tarantino, '70s TV acting icon (with occasional forays into B-movies like Alligator and Disney's The Black Hole) Robert Forster makes another deserved comeback on NBC's sprawling super-power fantasia, Heroes.On last night's action-packed episode, Forster reprised his role as the previously-thought-dead Petrelli family patriarch. Our initial fears that evaporated Oscar chances and a recurring role on Huff had inflicted unspeakable damage upon his physical well-being were quickly put to rest when Forster began laying his hands on various deathbed well-wishers, thereby sucking away their youthful supervitality and melting away the years. (We imagine Joan Rivers employs a similar technique.) In the scene above, his own son—played with convincing, Windex-conducting intensity by Milo Ventimiglia—falls victim to Forster's devious ways, stripping Ventimiglia of all his special gifts, including the one where he pretends to care about Japanese dolphins long enough to get inside some indestructable-cheerleader spanky pants.

· Vince Vaughn is developing and executive producing a single-camera sitcom for Fox, about "a couple of young men who are just out of college and starting to experience the real world." No title yet, but we submit Just the Tip. [Variety] · Intermittently engaging, Jimmy Smits-employing serial killer dramedy Dexter gets two more seasons on Showtime, promising we'll at least get to see Junior Dexter develop to his Terrible Dayschool-Slaughterer Twos. [Variety] · Universal wants to sell Rogue Pictures—the studio behind The Strangers and its sequel, The Strangiers— to Relativity Media. [Variety] After the jump: Which of NBC's homoerotically-charged new series just got a full season pickup?· Graphic novel Freaks of the Heartland, a Midwestern tale of "horrible secrets" about a monstrous six-year-old, will be adapted for the screen by Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green, who's also writing the adaptation of frat-hazing memoir Goat. [THR] · NBC ordered nine more episodes of Knight Rider, the first new NBC show to get a full-season pickup. Because it's so awesome! Have you seen what that car can do? [THR]

♦ The Rachel Maddow publicity machine rolls on (not that we mind, of course): According to today's Times, she's a "fresh face," MSNBC execs adore her, and her show's ratings have defied all expectations. [NYT]
♦ For reasons we will never understand, Fox & Friends is now more popular than CNN's American Morning and MSNBC's Morning Joe combined. [LAT]
♦ Sarah Palin will sit down with Brian Williams tomorrow. [TVNewser]

♦ Judy Miller is joining Fox News as a contributor. [WaPo]
♦ David Carr chats with lousy market prognosticator Jim Cramer, who concedes that it's "a completely humbling market," but won't apologize for suggesting everyone take their money out of the market. [NYT]
♦ Jeff Zucker says NBC will cut $500 million from its 2009 budget. [Reuters]
♦ Jeff Probst has a new show in the works: Live Like You're Dying will feature Probst taking a terminally-ill person on "the last adventure of their life." [EW]
♦ A report on the mood at the Frankfurt Book Fair. [NYO]
♦ Rick Yorn has left the the Hollywood management powerhouse the Firm. [Variety]
♦ Max Payne was the No. 1 movie at the box office this weekend, racking up $18 million in ticket sales. [LAT]

Left out of today's NYT story on the elite NBC page program: the harrowing story of last summer's pooping NBC intern. "Paper of record" my butt.

It's not clear whether Kenneth from 30 Rock had anything to do with it, but NBC's page program now gets 7,000 applicants each year for roughly 70 slots, an admission rate of about 1 percent versus 7 percent for the undergraduate college at Harvard University . The $10-per-hour work consists of fetching coffee, guarding studio doors and giving tours for "at least six days" per week, the Times said this morning. You may have to live in Harlem and work at a bar to make ends meet. Then there are the long hours and flashcards:

NBC political correspondent Andrea Mitchell is one of the network's news stars, so it's only natural that we've been seeing a lot of her lately. Even when the topic turns to the government's and the candidates' responses to the current financial crisis. But you will not see her, supposedly, when the discussion turns to "past economic decisions" that led up to the crisis. Because Mitchell is married to Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman who many say is basically responsible for the housing bubble. And that is their conflict of interest compromise: Mitchell will report as usual until the reasons we got to this point are discussed, at which point she'll quietly disappear from your television without explanation. Unethical! Or, you know, the standard way of doing business in political journalism. DC is an incestuous town and everyone knows and is basically friends with everyone else. The media-political complex has lots and lots of intermarried "journalists" and "operatives" and everyone has politely agreed to assume that everyone else is totally professional about it. So they get a bit tetchy when the Columbia Journalism Review is all "disclose your relationships or just be more independent or something" because what do those kids know? If Tom Brokaw wants to play golf with John McCain that is his business (note: we don't know if John McCain can play golf but the two are still definitely probably friends). The standard argument is that one has to find concrete evidence of "bias" before one can claim these chummy relationships are no good, but honestly the "bias" is so ingrained in the process that it's a useless task and one is best served by appyling a gimlet-eyed suspicion to everyone one sees on the TV and then voting for Ron Paul.

While we found Andy Samberg's SNL impression of Mark Wahlberg as a sort of less-successful Dr. Doolittle overly preoccupied with sending his regards to farm animals' mothers to be flat out hilarious, not everyone was as amused. For starters, there was Wahlberg himself, who was asked about the sketch several times on the Max Payne interview circuit. In the audio clip above, set to a series of modeling shots and film stills by Defamer videographer Molly McAleer, the Robitussin-abusing star of The Happening seems mildy irritated by the caricaturization:He tells them, "Maybe it was a little jab because I refused to do the show so many times...[It's] not as funny as Hot Rod, but the kid's gotta do what he's gotta do to make a living. I ain't knockin' it. It's all good." Wahlberg hits official Pissed Off levels, however, in an interview with the NY Post:

♦ Sumner Redstone is being forced to sell about one-fifth of his stake in CBS and Viacom to meet the terms of various loan agreements. Also: Shares in Viacom plunged after the company announced third-quarter earnings fell short of estimates. [Bloomberg]
♦ It's official: Hearst's Cathie Black announced CosmoGirl will fold. [Portfolio]
♦ A little perspective: Time Warner is now less than one-quarter of what AOL alone was worth before the merger. [SAI]
♦ After much drama (and a few leaked emails), Scott Rudin has decided to talk away from The Reader. [THR]

Barack Obama purchased a full half-hour of airtime on CBS and NBC. His very special infomercial is set to air Wednesday, October 29. John McCain probably can't afford to do this! It's also not unprecedented: Ross Perot did it, and it was hilarious and awesome. Also they used to do it all the time in the 1960s. But jeez, a half-hour is a long time! We hope he has a musical guest or something? Here is the best part of this news: "The buy will push CBS comedy 'The New Adventures of Old Christine' to 8:30 p.m. and pre-empt 'Gary Unmarried.' NBC typically airs the hourlong 'Knight Rider' in the slot, and will likely throw in a comedy repeat at 8:30 p.m." Thank you Senator Obama for preempting Gary Unmarried! Change you can believe in! In response, Senator McCain is going to co-host an infomercial for the Flavor Wave Over Turbo, which will air at 5 a.m. the following morning on Lifetime.