The TV Zone

Sorry, gang, but nothing else to add about today's Memorial and attendant coverage. You've seen it all (above). Heard it all. .

And maybe - I have a sneaking suspicion - you may not be able to read another word about it all.

But in the off-chance you do, here's my wrap in tomorrow's paper.

R.I.P., MJ.

What a day on TV. It seemed like two days, really. Or three. Enough comments, observations, and declarations to fill all the days of the week, in fact. From morning till night, the Memorial dominated the airwaves as nothing has since the Obama inauguration, which seems so very long ago.

In tone, there were two sharp contrasts to the day. The Memorial was a made-for-TV event produced by TV pros Kenny Ortega ("High School Musical") and Ken Ehrlich - a veteran of numerous Oscar, Emmy and Grammy telecasts - who combined grand spectacle with almost painful intimacy. The coffin, draped in brilliant red flowers, commanded the center of the screen, while the towering vidwall, orchestra, choir, performers and speakers themselves seemed to radiate above and beyond it. The audience, those thousands of ticket holders, were out in the dark somewhere – apart from the spectacle instead of a part of it.

And while memorials are not meant to be entertainment, this one often was. With performances by Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, or Jermaine Jackson, that was inevitable. But the real TV takeaway moments had less to do with music and more with image - of a distraught family huddling in a protective cocoon, or (especially) of a daughter, Paris, in a moment of pure unguarded anguish.

Those emotions seemed too concentrated, to intense, for casual viewing. You almost wanted to turn away. Of course, you could not.

-Photos: Michael Jackson Memorial

-Photos: Fans react

Then, there was cable coverage – that yeasty doughnut surrounding the Memorial. The chatter started first thing the morning, then the networks ceded territory to cable networks like E! BET, MTV, MSNBC, CNN and Fox. There wasn't much to talk about. That didn't stop cable, and never has.

To be polite, some morning coverage was often unrestrained. To be impolite, the networks occasionally coughed up volcanic, gaseous, steaming clouds of hyperbole and hooey. "Even the funeral of Princess Diana didn't take on this importance," declared Chris Jansing, the anchorwoman at MSNBC. "Probably the biggest media event, the biggest Internet event ever," someone announced on CNN.

"It's notable that even on the day of his funeral, the whole thing is kind of a freak show," said Fox News' Shepard Smith, who noted that the "elephants" were forthcoming - the parade, tomorrow (remember?)

Facts were elusive, and for the most part irrelevant. Relying on police estimates, the networks predicted a million outside the Staple Center, then half a million…75,000… 5,000…and finally, "it looks it looks like a big crowd, “ said a reporter on CBS, “but here we think it's only about 500 people."

There were curious non-sequiturs. E!'s Giuliana Rancic, for example, noted, "there will be a lot of surprise celebrity appearances [and] we just saw Larry King make his way into the Staples Center…”

Then, there was at least one prediction that sent a cold chill up the spine of some viewers, when Fox analyst, former Jackson attorney, Brian Oxman promised, "we're going to be dissecting this for a long long time."

-Photos: Michael Jackson Memorial

-Photos: Fans react