Craig Kilborn: Hard to believe he’s celebrating his fifth anniversary as the host of “The Late Late Show.” All that does is makes my missing Tom Snyder all that much more deep…Snyder had the last of the “talk shows,” since nowadays they are all more “comedy” (Leno, Letterman: comedy. Kilborn: mind-numbingly simplistic, about as funny as throwing up at a frat party) than talk.

When Annie was sick (maybe I’ll talk about 1998 sometime; if you don’t know about it, she was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant with our only child - was an ugly year), we routinely watched and enjoyed Tom, who opened every show with a rambling monolog that had nothing to do with anything other than maybe his day. Many evenings in Hershey’s hospital, we spent a little while forgetting about the chemotherepy running into her veins watching his show.

He had guests on who generally weren’t promoting anything, and he’d talk to each guest or a good 15-20 minutes. What made him really good was his ability to listen to his guests.

And there was no better television anywhere than when Bonny Hunt was his guest. The two of them clearly enjoted each other, she is one of the fastest commedianes in the world, and he one of the easiest audiences. The two of them, just sitting on facing chairs, were simply riviting.

Tom, I hope to see you back increasing the average intelligence of television one day real soon.

24: Man, I love this program. There isn’t anything else on television as pulse-poundingly exciting as each hour in Jack Bauer’s day. Ok, ok, if you step away from it you might notice how implausable the plots are, but screw it - you don’t want to think while watching this show, you just sit back and let your heart race along with Jack’s.

Eight more episodes to go this season, and eight weeks in a row to enjoy Jack’s attempts at saving the world again. Hot dawg!

The West Wing: Last week’s episode “The Supremes” was the first episode of this season that came anywhere near approaching the writing of past years. And even that episode served to show how close-but-no-cigar this year without Aaron Sorkin really is. Honestly, I don’t care if he did smoke too many mushrooms…no one, and I mean no one, can write snappy dialog like this guy. NBC screwed up by firing him, and they’re too stubborn to admit it.

Hustle: The brits are seriously lucky; “Hustle” is running on BBC1 now. This is a great (although, like all BBC shows, all too short) series co-starring Robert Vaughn, best known as Napoleon Solo in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” I’ll let you head over to the BBC website for particulars on the show, but it is a truly enjoyable series that contains elements of “The Sting,” “Mission: Impossible,” and maybe even a dash of soap opera. Since last year’s “State of Play” is finally scheduled on BBC America (another serious “Thumbs Up” from this finger-deprived critic), maybe “Hustle” will show up sometime this fall for Americans to see. If it does, see it. Seriously.