Simon Baker in 'The Mentalist' The Mentalist: The CBS drama, starring Simon Baker, is only one of several shows to benefit from CBS's "Project LENO." CBS
 

by Linda Holmes

This has really been an oddly bruising week on the pop-culture beat on levels both significant and petty, between exhausting saturation coverage of Jon and Kate, three much-discussed celebrity deaths, the giant box-office haul for the almost universally despised Transformers movie, and general (and repeated) stupidity relating to Perez Hilton, about whom I always prefer to hear (and say) as little as possible.

But eventually, you have to kind of return to normalcy, and today, we find the march toward the fall television season continuing with CBS's announcement of what it's calling "Project LENO" (har har, it stands for Late prime Enhanced News Opportunity," geddit?).

This is its attempt to cooperate with its affiliate stations to promote the 10 p.m. dramas -- The Mentalist, The Good Wife, Numbers, and the C.S.I.s both Miami and N.Y. -- that it will be putting up against Jay Leno.

Expect a lot more of this nonsense as the fall draws closer. Dear CBS: If you're going to be cute and come up with fake acronyms, you can do better than that. "Late prime Enhanced News Opportunity"? That is Large Annoyance Made Easy.

categories: Television

10:24 - June 26, 2009

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