As of today, our fantasy of an exotic lifestyle of TV criticism is officially over — beaten, bloodied and left for dead by Ray Richmond, who compares the debauched good old days of the Television Critics Association press tours to the nearly irrelevant confab starting tomorrow in Beverly Hills. It's the first such event since July 2007, back before last winter's conference was scuttled by the writers strike and mainstream media had begun shearing critics and culture writers from their ranks like slabs of fat.

In a summer that's been largely bereft of tantalising television moments (The Two Coreys notwithstanding), the premiere of Vh1's I Love Money has been shining like a beacon of bad taste on our horizons for some time. Conceived as the network's version of the now stagnant Real World / Road Rules Challenge franchise, I Love Money puts some of our favourite former contestants of dating shows like Flavor Of Love and I Love New York together in a villa to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real ... real drunk, that is. The show's first episode aired as a 90-minute special last night and, as expected, it blew our collective minds in the way it unabashedly celebrates the lowest of lowbrow culture.

While the Michael Hirschorn era at Vh1 will likely be best remembered for bringing pop culture talking heads (I Love The..., Best Week Ever), washed-up celebs (Surreal Life) and horny musicians (Flavor Of Love, Rock Of Love) into millions of homes, there is one program from his tenure that was just as critically acclaimed as it was popular. Back in the summer of 2006, a four-part documentary called The Drug Years aired to rave reviews — Variety called it a "fascinating insight into the growth of the counterculture and ... its eventual hangover" — and arguably became the first series in the channel's history that was equally appealing to pop culture enthusiasts and intellectuals. Now, after nearly two years worth of research and production, the same creative team that put The Drug Years together has returned with a brand new four-part doc entitled Sex: The Revolution. Defamer recently sat down with series writer Martin Torgoff and executive producer Brad Abramson to talk about the series that, as Torgoff explains, puts its focus on "how the sexual revolution fed into the dynamic of what became the Culture Wars in the United States."

Pamela Anderson is planning yet another small-screen comeback, but this time she's throwing out the scripts and going the reality route. The E! network —where they hand out shows to just about anyone with a sextape (or that sleeps with the boss)— is set to debut the half-hour Pamela this summer. The tagline? "The real woman behind the famous breasts" [Ed. Note - We would've gone with "The real woman behind the fake breasts", but that's just us]. As loathsome as this sounds, it's admittedly preferable to watching Anderson attempt to act (remember Stacked?), especially if E!'s cameras where there to film Pammy's behavior at Hugh Hefner's 82nd birthday party the other night.

We are most chuffed to discover that Channel Ten have bought the rights to the TV show Flight Of The Conchords and it will (at last, perhaps, just maybe - MAYBE!!!!!) end up being shown in Australia before the year is through!

After becoming an internet and TV sensation, and picking up a Grammy Award along the way, one can only wonder what the three more popular acts have achieved compared to Flight of the Conchords.

The comedy team/folk music duo of Bret McKenzie, 31, and Jemaine Clement, 34 are two Kiwis who worked clubs for years building up a cult following before getting their big break.

Their eponymous TV show portrays the pair trying to make it big in New York City after leaving New Zealand.

Each episode is punctuated with outbreaks of their quirky songs.

Network Ten has bought the rights to the TV series and may screen the show in Australia later this year.

If you need a reason to feel excited about being able to dive into the beautiful comic minds of Bret McKenzie and our future husband Jermaine Clement, we urge you to watch the following clip.

We hadn't watched this in over a year (thanks to Ms Fits who originally gave us the gift of FOTC, incidentally), and now we're swept up in sickly, sticky, stalky adoration of the lads again.

We wanted Cashmere Mafia to blow us away with wit and brilliance, truly we did. There's nothing we like better at the beginning of the year than discovering a gem of a show we can get obsessive about, leading us to cancel important social engagements in order to ensure we're sitting in front of the small screen at the same time each week, desperately craving another hit from the televisual bong.

After learning of Cashmere Mafia last year (a result of our incredibly pointless search for Frances O'Connor), we did express some reservations about the show's name, muttering in a concerned manner "We're glad to see two charming Australian actresses have been gainfully employed, but... Cashmere Mafia? Why not just call the show Labia and get it over with?"

Good to see that through all this Underbelly fracas and Ray Martin's defection, Channel Nine are Still The One - i.e. when it comes to cancelling/ moving-to-unwatchable timeslots their big ticket programming decisions!

Yes, we're only two weeks into the ratings year for 2008 and already the axe has come down on Nine's "hilarious" new comedy/hidden camera/vehicle for annoying character actors and comedians, Monster House.

We would've been sure that Rebel Wilson's adorable brand of grotesquery would've had the viewers flocking in droves, but it seems we know nothing about what the people want!

Channel 9 last night dropped Monster House from its Tuesday, 7.30pm, timeslot after it scored a terrible 632,000 audience across the capital cities.

The in-house production will be replaced by Bert Newton's 20 To 1 from next week.

...

The struggling Nine had placed great hope in Monster House, but had to shelve it after it scored prime time figures more akin to those SBS programs achieve.

It will be shelved until later in the year.

In any case, is anyone really that surprised? Nine's track record when it comes to "shelving" shows (not to mention just stopping and starting them whenever they feel like it) isn't exactly golden - and anyway, what were they thinking? We can understand pinning your hopes on Underbelly, but Monster House? Maybe back in 1989.

If there's one Australian media tendency (aside from Angela Bishop continuing to be employed) that really gets to us time and time again, it's this odd obsession our press has with Australians being nominated for awards, and - inevitably - not winning them, and the accompanying moaning and wailing.

The latest installment in this curiously jingoistic journalistic trend is today's mopey piece from News Ltd on the topic of Cate Blanchett not winning in either of her BAFTA categories.

Blanchett was up for two gongs at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) - leading actress for her starring role as Queen Elizabeth 1 in Elizabeth: The Golden Age and best supporting actress for her portrayal of music legend Bob Dylan in the acclaimed biopic I'm Not There.

The Academy Award winning actress had been a hot favourite to take out the supporting actress prize, but lost out to Tilda Swinton for her role as a workaholic lawyer in the thriller Michael Clayton.

The 38-year Australian, who is pregnant with her third child, also missed out on the best actress award which went to Marion Cotillard for her portrayal of the revered but troubled French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

Every year at awards season - whether it's the Oscars, Globes, BAFTAs, Tonys or the frigging Nobel Peace Prize - our press wets itself over our "special" arty people, revving themselves up so that in all but the most exceptional circumstances they are headed for a fall.

The darker side of this is the implication that in not winning, our nominated expats have in some way 'failed' us. Plenty of Australian athletes (for example) fail dismally all over the world, but that is apparently a worthy struggle against the odds; actors, musicians and other creative exports were lucky to be allowed to join the international party, but should probably look into a real job, etc etc.

Now, we love Our Cate as much as the best of them, and her I'm Not There performance was memorable (not so sure about The Golden Age...), but as inconceivable as it may be to True Blue™ papers like the News Ltd stable, we actually care who does win these awards, because - as shocking as it may seem - we actually watch films that don't feature Australian actors, actresses and artisans, too!

To continue to lead into stories in this fashion is to grossly underestimate the Australian public's cultural IQ.

TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY RECAPS

Television Without Pity has been around forever and many of you will be familiar with the site already. After we spent two months in 2004 lounging around on the couch watching Foxtel, we developed a hideous addiction to Seventh Heaven in all its heinous wholesomeness, and reading TWoP’s recaps of the show – filled to the brim with cheeky snide goodness – made us feel good again.

But hey, why stop (or, for that matter, start – we were young and stupid, forgive us!) with Seventh Heaven? There are plenty more shows that have been/are being recapped on TWoP. Perhaps start with the ridiculous Rock Of Love (WHY ARE THESE SKANKS COMPETING FOR A WASHED UP BRET MICHAEL’S LOVE? SERIOUSLY?! It defies logic and yet we cannot look away...) and go from there. Us? We just read all the recaps for the first season of Dexter. We are simultaneously furious with ourselves for not having the patience to watch it unfold for ourselves on the telly and happily sated.

We realise this story is about a zillion days old (well, published last Sunday) but in case you missed it, we thought it prudent to point out Julia Zemiro's interview with The Age over the weekend where she spills her guts about certain guests who have appeared on RocKwiz over the years.

"Tim Rogers, if he drinks too much, he's kind of unbearable," she says. "A week later you meet him at the ABC and he's the most delightful, intelligent, switched on, charming person. But with a skinful? A f---ing arsehole. Chris Bailey was the weirdest guest we had. He was so polite and erudite in life. But I think when the cameras were turned on, he thought he had to be kooky. He was just in gibberish land."

Hothouse Flowers' Liam O'Maonlai was another tricky one: "He's gone into a very weird world now," she says. "Very fragile." Chrissie Amphlett and Renee Geyer were also, she says, "difficult", adding diplomatically, "They've been through a lot".

We can quietly confirm that there were some mumbles in the Melbourne rock world Sunday night about the wisdom of Julia sharing these little guest related tidbits with a journalist. Still, Zemiro is so bloody charming. Rogers, Bailey, O'Maonlai, Amphlett and Geyer will probably happily appear on a RocKwiz special at some point in the future. Bless her to bits.

PS: Chrissie Amplett didn't appear to be "difficult" when she pretended to give our dear friend Reuben a head job on stage! CAN WE GET A HELL YEAH, RUBY?

(high fives)