Diane Sawyer deserves kudos for Friday's "20/20" special "Children of the Mountains," examining the life of kids who live among the poorest of the poor in central Appalachia.

It was a little showboat-y here and there for Sawyer, a Kentucky native, in some moments with her poverty-stricken subjects. But on balance "Mountains" was well reported, over a two-year period, and thoroughly heartbreaking. It reminds us that tolerating such abject poverty in the richest nation in the world is unconscionable.

ABC deserves credit for giving a big promo push to the special, which helped it deliver an impressive number by the standards of Friday nights and non-tabloid-y newsmag segs. The children of Appalachia may not be as sensational as a certain set of octuplets, but they are, IMHO, a whole lot more deserving of media attention.

At 10 p.m., "20/20" brought in 10.9 million viewers and 3.4 rating/11 share in adults 18-49, giving ABC a rare victory over CBS' "Numbers" in the hour and giving "20/20" its biggest Friday night aud in four and a half years.

A number of specifics cited in the special stood out. A 36-year-old woman with eight grandchildren. A church raising $1.85 at its Sunday offering. A 30-year-old mother (Angel, pictured above on far left with her daughters and mother) just out of rehab walking eight miles each way to attend her court-mandated GED classes. A 12-year-old girl taking care of her drug-addled mother. Young men filling up on Doritos, Red Bull and candy bars to make it through an eight-hour shift in a coal mine. An Indian doctor who works in a local clinic noting that the conditions among the mountain people are worse than he ever saw in his native country.

You can't watch this hour without welling up a few times. Sawyer makes the point that the spotlight that LBJ and RFK put on Appalachia in the 1960s did a lot of good for the area in terms of investments in infrastructure and education. Maybe this special will help renew a focus on the urgent needs of a new generation fighting 21st-century scourges -- prescription drug abuse, meth, incest, malnutrition, woefully inadequate schools and job training services. It's heartening that viewers turned out in the numbers they did for the initial airing. "Mountains" should get more exposure through online viewing on the ABC News website.

The ABC News site also has a list of non-profit groups trying to make a difference in the area. It's a place to start.

I may regret saying this but ..."Eastbound and Down" has grown on me. Kenny Powers, the foul-mouthed, bellicose cretin at the center of the show, has grown on me. I can't explain why.

I pretty much sat slack-jawed through the first episode, not believing what I was seeing, or hearing. It's hard to describe specifics without giving too much away, but suffice it say that Powers, played by Danny McBride, is an ex-Major League pitcher in the mold of John Rocker. He's not just politically incorrect, he's just wrong on every level of his life.

We meet up with the mullet-headed Kenny a few years after he's been drummed out of the game for a steroid scandal, and he's hitting near rock-bottom. All he's got to his name is his truck, his jet ski and his audio book of the Kenny Powers guide to life, a relic of the brief moment when he was a big wheel in baseball.

He's now reduced to moving back to his North Carolina home town and moving in with his well-meaning older brother, his churchy sister-in-law and their three young kids, and he takes a job as the P.E. teacher at his alma mater, Jefferson Davis Middle School.

Powers' old flame from high school days now works as a teacher there, and she's engaged to the nebbishy principal, but he's determined to win her back, etc. He also reconnects with his hard-living, beer-swilling old friends, including the owner of a local dive bar, Clegg (played by series co-creator Ben Best pictured left), who helps Powers self-medicate.

The premise isn't all that unusual, but the setting is. You can tell that the show is shot North Carolina with local extras. The tweens and teens in the middle school scenes don't look like L.A. kids who are angling for their SAG cards.

Here’s a news flash: “Lost” is a hit online. But so is CW’s “Privileged.”

For the first time, Nielsen Online has released rankings for online streaming of episodes and clips.
“Lost” tops the chart for the month of December with 1.4 million unique viewers, followed by NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” with 1.1 million.

By the yardstick of the total time viewers spent with a show online, the surprise leader in December was CW’s “Privileged.” The rating-challenged dramedy drew only 29,000 unique viewers, but those that did tune in stuck around for an average of 214.6 minutes.

There’s a big caveat to these rankings, however, in that they don’t include shows streamed via Hulu because Hulu won’t breakout its numbers to Nielsen (at least if I'm reading Nielsen-ese right. A Nielsen Online rep would only say that Hulu is "not available in our syndication service.")

Nielsen’s survey includes the websites of Hulu partners NBC and Fox, as well as ABC, CBS and CW. But by all accounts, Hulu's vid streaming traffic has outpaced that of the Peacock and Fox nets' individual websites. The survey captures clips that are embedded on other websites and blogs, as long as the streams come from the network's proprietary player (but not Hulu's player).

Oh, but this show knows how to throw curve balls. I think this episode of "Lost" is jarring because the many plot developments that were just thrown at us for the most part seem so darn...straightforward. It must set a record for a "Lost" episode in the characters' use of clear and explicit language.

Before we get to the review of the Big Moments and Great Lines of this seg, "This Place is Death," let's think about some space-and-time questions. Not so much the specifics of all the time traveling we've been doing this season, but the time frame for the milestone moments of the "Lost" chronology as we know it so far.

The Dharma Initiative is a 1970s-era invention (or does it go back to late '60s?). Rousseau and her team land on the island in 1988. Desmond and Faraday meet up with each other at Oxford in 1996, which would seem to be around the same time that  Faraday runs out on Theresa Spencer. The 815 castaways arrive on the isle of mystery in September 2004. Desmond gets there a few years earlier, right? From the "Jughead" seg, we know that Richard Alpert and his band of hot-tempered followers were there in 1954. And we believe the Black Rock pirate ship goes back to the heyday of sea-farin' men in the 1800s, right?

I'm thinking there's generational tectonic shifts going on with the island, at least in the modern era. It seems that every 10-15 years something mega happens. I wish I could place the time frame of Ben's gas attack that kills the Dharmas. Gotta be '80s, right, like maybe just before the time Rousseau arrives?

To me, the most interesting thing about this most interesting episode -- written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and helmed by Paul Edwards -- is the return of Christian Shepherd. Onward Christian Shepherd. (I try hard not to overuse that one more than once a season.) He just pops up like the proverbial bad penny in the strangest places.

After revisiting most of season one last year while waiting for season five, it struck me that a case could be made that the whole crazy mess starts with Jack's courageous, principled decision to blow the whistle on his father for getting behind the scalpel after having a few too many at lunch. That incident strips Christian of his medical license, and sends him spiraling into the bender that takes him to Australia, and eventually to the pine box that his bitter progeny has to come collect. And we all know what happens on the return flight.

Dustin Lance Black couldn't have announced his arrival as a player in the feature biz if he'd worn a sandwich board to the Writers Guild Awards.

The "Milk" scribe brought the award-season jaded crowd at the Century Plaza to its feet with his heartfelt call for the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community to think "beyond Prop. 8" and demand that the federal government enact legislation affirming their equal protection under the law on a scale of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Black (who says he generally drops Dustin and goes by Lance) may not quite be old enough to run for president (he was 4 when Harvey Milk was assassinated in 1978), but he knows his history. And he knows his showbiz history. He got a laugh in accepting his first award of the night by noting that "Milk" wasn't "the easiest subject matter to get produced. If you hadn't noticed -- it's pretty gay...and it's political."

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s should be a template for the gay community -- and now is the hour for activism, Black says, noting how many thousands of people took to the streets of L.A. in November after California voters approved Prop. 8's same-sex marriage ban. It is painfully ironic to Black that the anti-Prop. 8 campaign failed to heed Milk's example by de-emphasizing the gay rights factor, instead of making that the central issue. He knows whereof he speaks, having grown up as a self-described "closeted kid" in a devoutly Mormon, military family in San Antonio, Texas. (No question why he became a writer on HBO's "Big Love.")

Black's life changed when his family moved to the Bay Area when he was a teen after his stepfather was transferred.

"I think America does love gay and lesbian people - a lot of them just haven't met us yet," Black said backstage, channeling his movie subject as he held a trophy in each hand. "A lot of us are invisible. We need to come out of this invisibility, we need to let people know that we're your aunts and uncles, your teachers and your truck drivers. This is not just about marriage."

As for his next moves on screen, Black is looking forward to putting his docu helming experience to the test with his feature directing debut on "What's Wrong with Virginia." Liam Neeson has signed on to the project alongside Jennifer Connelly. No distrib yet, but Christine Vachon and Eric Watson are on board as producers. Black is also adapting "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" for "Milk" helmer Gus Van Sant, and he has something percolating at Universal, but it's not ready for "talking about yet," he said, just before his team of CAA reps and praiser Lee Ginsberg of PMK/HBH gently pulled him out of the press room.

Fresh off their 9000th award win, this time for best drama series at the Writers Guild Awards, the "Mad Men" scribe team is set to report for their first day of work on season three on Monday. Among the new faces in the room this year is Davey Holmes, an alum of HBO's "In Treatment," which took best new series.

Holmes was on hand at the Century Plaza to accept his award, and after the show hung out for a bit in the ballroom lobby with Sonya Walger, ex of HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me" and now one-half of the fans' favorite couple on "Lost." Walger also chatted for a bit with "Lost's" Damon Lindelof, and the sight of them together made me smile in a ridiculously fan-feverish way.

Other friendly faces in the post-show gaggle included "Mad Men's" Robin Veith, Becky Hartman Edwards and others from "Life on Mars," Matt Nix of "Burn Notice," the ever-charming Matt Selman of "Simpsons" fame, Greg and Susanne Daniels, Kirk Ellis and his wife (who became proud grandparents four days ago), and Endeavor's Tom Wellington. The WGA ceremony itself surely dragged in parts, but the company and conversation at the end was very nearly worth the wait.

Judd Apatow makes me laugh. He makes a lot of people laugh. He kept the packed house at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills laughing Thursday night as he moderated the "Beyond Words" panel of WGA Award nommed screenwriters. It was a good group -- Simon Beaufoy ("Slumdog Millionaire"); Lance Black ("Milk"); Tom McCarthy ("The Visitor"); Jonathan Nolan ("The Dark Knight"); and Eric Roth ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") -- that reflected a range of pics.

Apatow joked at the start about not preparing for the event, but he'd clearly done a little bit of homework. He zeroed in on Roth to start, noting that the esteemed screenwriter had been a friend of Jim Morrison when they both attended UCLA in the mid-1960s.

"Can we talk about that all night," Apatow said.

Roth breezed over this interesting chapter in the L.A./rock'n'roll/Hollywood history with a dry mention of weird scenes ("I did get high with him a lot") and the observation that the Lizard King, in all his tight- leather-pants-whip-it-out-in-Miami-rock-god glory, really wanted to be a respected poet, or maybe even a screenwriter. "He wanted to be here," Roth said. (I think he meant Morrison would've loved being in a setting that conferred on him the status of being a really good writer.)

Apatow then warned McCarthy that the only thing he was more interested in than Jim Morrison stories was behind the scenes tales of "The Wire." (McCarthy co-starred as a really craven character -- a corrupt newspaper reporter -- in the HBO drama's final season last year. He shredded in the role. I loved HATING him.)

"So, what role as an actor pissed you off so much that you decided to write," Apatow asked, zeroing in on the heart of the question, no matter how delicately phrased, that is always asked of actors who decide to write or direct, or do both in the case of the multi-talented McCarthy.

(Pictured above, from left: Eric Roth, Lance Black, Judd Apatow, Jonathan Nolan, Tom McCarthy and Simon Beaufoy.)

Dean Pitchford, a multihyphenate tunesmith and screenwriter, has experience on the awards show circuit. He won an Oscar for original song ("Fame") and he's been nommed for two more. He's been up for a Tony (for the tuner rendition of "Footloose"; he also wrote the screenplay for the 1984 pic), and nommed for multiple Grammy Awards.

This year he's going through the Grammy festivities all over again, but he's nommed in a category that he never dreamed he'd compete in -- children's spoken word album -- and for a project that has a significance to Pitchford unlike anything else he's ever written.

Pitchford's life changed seven and a half years ago when his younger sister, Patricia Colodner, died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. He had been a devoted uncle to his sister's two children, Colby, who was 9 at the time of her mother's death, and Jordan, who was 2, but amid the unspeakable trauma of losing their mother, the bonds between Pitchford and his niece and nephew grew immeasurably stronger.

"It's OK, he's with me."

No, Jack, you're with him.You might as well have a dog collar around you're neck because you are sooooo subservient to Benjamin Linus now that it's hard to take. Just ask Kate.

For all the curve balls that tonight's "Lost" installment, "The Little Prince," threw at us -- and they were fast and furious in the last 15 minutes (JIN! ROUSSEAU! JIN! JIN! JIN! JIN!), the one big moment of clarity I had was that Jack is just a goner. He may be cleaned up a bit, having sworn off the OxyContin and the facial hair, but he most certainly has lost his mind -- the sharp, skeptical, strategic mind that helped the castaways so much in the early going of Our Great Adventure.

I saw it most particularly when Jack and Kate were sitting in Kate's car outside the motel, when Jack talked Kate into letting him go confront Claire's mother. (It's always a good "Lost" episode when there are multiple references to Claire's surname, or in this case "Mrs. Littleton," though in point of fact I am not a Mrs. Littleton, but it's still cool...)

Jack pleads: "I can fix this, Kate." So cloying. If you have to spell it out, you're doomed. Jack of old would've been up the staircase before Kate had time to react, and he would've tried to punch out the lawyer on his way down the stairs. And then he would've wigged out some more and made sure he hadn't given the guy a concussion.

In the closing scenes, Jack just sounds ridiculous trying to convince Kate "we all need to be together." Earlier in the episode he tries to convince Sayid "Ben is on our side." Can't he tell how ridiculous he sounds? Sayid wisely corrects Jack: "The only side he's on is his own." But does Jack listen? Nooooo.

On Jan. 5, moments after Don Corsini started his gig as KTLA’s president and GM, the troops knew there was a new sheriff in town.

Why aren’t we doing more news?, Corsini wanted to know. Why aren’t we more competitive on breaking news?

After a few days of studying the newsroom’s rhythms and scrutinizing KTLA’s schedule, Corsini came to assistant news director Jason Ball with the idea for the station to add a 6:30 pm newscast. It would allow KTLA to offer local headlines at a time when the Big Three O&Os were serving up national and international reports from Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric and Brian Williams.

Great idea, Ball told Corsini. Then Corsini had another surprise for his lieutenant.

“Let’s do it tomorrow,” he told Ball.

After Ball picked up his jaw off the floor, he realized that this was his real introduction to the new boss.
As a news guy, he couldn’t ask for a more supportive leader than Corsini, who is a creature of L.A. television.