MAYOR OF TELEVISION BLOG.

Byline: >DAVID KRONKE

Not so real

Some Reuters guy was absolutely devastated to discover that reality TV isn't really real.

Bear Grylls, star of Discovery Channel's "Man vs. Wild," apparently doesn't drink his own urine as frequently as the show might suggest:

"This British adventurer is now the subject of an investigation by U.K.'s Channel 4, which already has confirmed that Grylls checked into motels on a few occasions when he was depicted on TV having slept under the stars. Other allegations have been made suggesting that the crew that records Grylls in action isn't as hands-off as it might appear to viewers.

"Knowing what we now know, it will be a challenge to watch 'Wild' with the same zeal again."

Look, if you have a camera crew trailing you, the most danger you're gonna get in is getting bonked on the head by a boom mike, and even that has a foam filter on it so it won't hurt that much. And anyway, how much "zeal" did this guy watch "Man vs. Wild" with in the first place?

Will someone kindly break it to this guy that there's no Santa Claus, either? Because I personally couldn't stand to see his heart broken yet again.

HBO may write 'Dear John' letter

Here's all you need to know about what HBO thinks about David Milch's new series, "John From Cincinnati": It's not sending out screeners of episodes, beyond the initial three, to critics.

What this means: HBO sends pretty much everything out. Every episode of every series. The last time they bailed on a show, if memory serves, it was on "Lucky Louie," which died after its initial season under the oppressive weight of incessant critical excrement.

I was one of the very few critics who liked, for all its artful obfuscations, "John From Cincinnati." Clearly, I might've been able to more convincingly convey to viewers the show's positives had I access to whatever Milch was smoking when he created the show. (An aside to David: Got Milch? Just sayin'.)

The more pressing issue for Milch fans, of course, is what will become of those proposed "Deadwood" films should HBO ignominiously cancel "John From Cincinnati," as well. HBO's conundrum is: They want to hold on to Milch, but they don't want to air the kind of recherch(hrt) material he's become keen on.

This just in: Nation healed

They actually let Stephen Colbert into the White House.

Colbert, whose injury to his wrist last week escaped the notice of this blog due to the blur that was TV press tour, declared that he came to the White House to raise "wrist awareness." Colbert wanted his wrist cast signed by Tony Snow so that "the nation will be healed." Snow obliged, as did Tim Russert and Nancy Pelosi.