By ROB OWEN, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Many voters who commented in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's annual Keep or Cancel poll said that TV is a vast wasteland, but few of them could agree on what makes it so.
For some viewers, it was reality TV. But others cited reality shows "The Biggest Loser" or "Dancing With the Stars" as favorites.

Call it a reboot, call it a "re-imagining," but you might as well call it "Star Trek 2.0."

Since PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" split itself in three last year -- creating "Masterpiece Classic," "Masterpiece Mystery!" and "Masterpiece Contemporary" -- the series as a whole has been more focused with better marketing opportunities for the PBS stalwart.

CBS's "The Mentalist" is the only true hit of the soon-to-conclude 2008-09 TV season, averaging more than 16 million viewers weekly, enough to place as the No. 7 prime-time series. The show's success had star Simon Baker smiling happily during a visit to the set in January.

The pop-music stars Jonas Brothers -- Kevin, Joe and Nick -- are about to become TV stars.

There are some truly funny moments in Fox's manic animated comedy "Sit Down, Shut Up," a series that requires almost rapt attention to pick up all the jokes and amusing dialogue that's hurled at viewers. If a TV series ever suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder, this is it.

Two new cop shows debut this week, neither one all that remarkable, but of the two, NBC's "Southland" evinces more nuance. It's also darker than ABC's "The Unusuals," which stumbles back and forth between silly and serious moments.

"Southland"

Creators of children's TV often cite the work of Fred Rogers on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" as an influence, but for Ford Riley, there was a more direct impact. Riley, the creator of Disney Channel's new "Special Agent Oso," grew up in Pittsburgh, the iconic figure's home base.

TV's best (only?) blue-collar drama, FX's "Rescue Me," returns for its fifth season this week, 19 months after the last original episode premiered in September 2007. Blame the writers' strike and FX programming strategy for the delay.

As far as production values are concerned, Comedy Central's "Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire" is the network's most ambitious series to date. But costumes and location shooting will only get the show so far.
The real question: Is it funny?