Space, from what I hear, is the place.

As such, the Discovery Channel has created a lovely four disc collection called “When We Left Earth,” which documents the past 50 years of space travel. I’m basing this on nothing, but my hope and expectation is that the documentary is a compilation of dudes who look like Ed Harris talking about how they had to wake the president by calling him on a bright red telephone.

However, the description says that the DVD includes interviews, on-board spacecraft video and dusty NASA archive footage. It’s all narrated by Gary Sinise and has four frickin’ hours of bonus features.  You don’t have to watch it all.

If you’d like to win the DVD, e-mail us at tifaux -at- gmail -dot- com with the subject line “Blast off to nerdery!”  I’ll pick a winner when I darn well please.

So I know he didn’t do a lot of TV, but I loved him. And I will miss Paul Newman a whole damn lot. One time my coworker J and I saw him sitting in the passenger seat of an SUV on Broadway outside our office. And…it was awesome. Because it was Paul Newman. And he just seemed like a splendid human being, in addition to a fine actor and humanitarian.

My favorite Newman, as you can see, is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, although he is spectacular as Butch Cassidy. Paul, I hope you are somewhere with fast cars and delicious salad dressings.

As we move into the final month of the presidential campaign, SNL seems to be ramping up its political content a bit, offering two political sketches in opening half-hour or so. It began with another killer Fey-Poehler Palin sketch, in which Fey again played the VP candidate as a grinning plain-folks yokel whose sunny incompetence flummoxes Poehler, this week playing Katie Couric (the dynamic is a neat reversal of the stars’ chemistry on Weekend Update and in Baby Mama, where Fey typically plays down-to-earth to Poehler’s more outsized personality). The Palin sketches must more or less write themselves, but Fey and company always manage to find the right point to veer into absurdity, as when Fey’s Palin earnestly asked for a lifeline to assist with an interview question. Somehow they made a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? joke work.

The debate sketch fared less well, not only, I imagine, because it had to be created within about twenty-four hours, but because the Obama-McCain debate itself lacked any easy satirical hooks: few goofy turns of phrase and little embarrassing body language to allow Darrell Hammond (McCain) or Fred Armisen (Obama) the opportunity to really focus their caricatures of the candidates. Neither impression ranks among the performers’ finest, and so the debate sketch was essentially just a compendium of mostly-mild campaign-related humor.

• Bored at work? Read Claymates reaction to the gay announcement
• A history of the rise and fall of The Chappelle Show
• The Simpsons are 188 episodes away from beating Gunsmokes’ record for most episodes of a scripted series
• Check out Suede’s hoax collection for fashion week. Also, check out how he managed to get 4 of his designs on “The 100 most hideous looks of fashion week”
• A philosophy professor from York College uses The Office to teach ethics
• MSNBC rounds up the world’s strangest TV shows
• Dylan and Brandon return on Tuesday’s episode of 90210
• Pick up your own Cylon Raider for $949
• Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: Mock the vote
• Ed McMahon to become gangsta rapper
• Tim Gunn gets interviewed by Time Out New York
• Is this why Nina Garcia missed 2 episodes of Project Runway?
• This day in lists: 10 ways to watch TV at work without getting fired
• Rapper Shad bases his video for The Old Prince Still Lives On off of the intro from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:
  

After one of the more frustrating Emmy experiences in memory, Buzz proposed five ways to fix the show. (BuzzSugar)

Plattie explained exactly why she hates British soaps. (Pop Vultures)

Dipping her toes into the podcasting pool, Rae teamed up with Jason the TVahoilic and Amrie from My Take on TV for the inaugural TV times Three podcast “Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall.” (RTVW Online)

Only the boys of The Big Bang Theory could sit through three hours of Heroes and Scooter has thoughts on both season premieres and a few words on How I Met Your Mother. (Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green)

Vance is disappointed with buzzworthy shows 90210 and Heroes so far but is totally charmed by Privileged. (Tapeworthy)

This week, Jace took an advance look at HBO’s pond-skipping new comedy Little Britain USA, from the warped minds of David Walliams and Matt Lucas. Yes, you’ll be talking about Mr. Doggy come Monday. (Televisionary)

She’s easy to hate — the Tim Gunn disrespect, the constant laughing, the hyperconfidence — but Marisa can’t help but like Kenley on Project Runway. (TiFaux)

Raoul talked to Misha Collins about his role on Supernatural (TV Filter)