By ERIC DEGGANS, St. Petersburg Times

Imagine the most powerful woman in the media at the other end of a telephone line, emotion building in her voice as she asks to bring the story of your book to millions of her devoted followers.

That's how Oprah Winfrey joined forces with University of South Florida professor Ray Arsenault after she saw the PBS documentary inspired by his award-winning book, "Freedom Riders."

When you fire up two new TV products made by the biggest names in computer technology, you don't expect a funky diversion headed quickly for the Goodwill pile. You expect to see the future of television.

But which vision of tomorrow will survive?

It turns out that the creators of "Lost" had already shown us the series' end before Sunday's night's 2-1/2-hour finale extravaganza. We were just too caught up in the details to see it.

Even now, Elisabeth Moss can't avoid questions about The Scene.

For fans of AMC's addictive, high-quality drama "Mad Men," it was when months of plot lines and missed opportunities came together in a single, searing bit of dialogue.

Speaking over the phone, Tom Kenny sounds lot more like an overworked middle-aged dad than the hyperkinetic voice behind one of TV's biggest cartoon hits ever, Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" -- now marking its 10th anniversary on the air.

The idea came after reading Twitter messages between actors Steve Buscemi, Kirstie Alley and Melissa Gilbert -- where a compliment from Buscemi (later unmasked as a fake), sparked a horrifying joke from the real Alley about group sex:
I'm convinced celebrities must be taught how to use this thing.

As a professional TV viewer, it's something I've always been reluctant to admit, whenever talk turns to NBC's second-longest-running drama series.
I still watch "ER."

When I met comic Lily Tomlin on the telephone, it would be days before bratty "Batman" star Christian Bale's profanity-laden tirade on the set of the latest "Terminator" movie brought the celebrity meltdown back to prominence.

Spencer Duhm really, really wanted to compete on the 18th cycle of CBS' popular castaway competition, "Survivor: Tocantins."

Turns out, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau made the right call.All the newspapers that accepted Trudeau's cartoons for this week depicting Barack Obama winning the presidency -- delivered a week before the election results would actually be known -- get to look like visionaries for publishing an artist ahead of the curve.