Where it counts is the margin it wins over its competitors, a large percentage that keeps canyoning open wider and wider as the years go on. See, ratings numbers are in the first curling and browning stages of being rendered useless. Because people are stopping watching television all across the board—from Animal Planet to Zoey 101—what with DVRs and magic television-playing computers and so much choice that one just sits staring blankly at the black screen, overwhelmed with having to make a decision.

So it's not the millions, whether they be 34 or 23, that are watching. What's important is that Idol beat the number two program on the air (Desperater Housewives) by a whopping 72% in the key adult demo. Basically, anyone who was watching TV last night was watching American Idol. And that's all that advertisers can have the power to care about anymore. If there were only three people left watching television the whole world over, the show that two of those people were watching would be the golden goose.

Idol is reaching that event horizon where all of its subsidiary offshoots are the real cash crop, and TV advertising is reaching the sad, hobo point where it becomes about quality, not massive slobbering quantity. So a 10% ratings dip from last year really means bupkis. It's still the most dominant show the Nielsens have ever seen, and it'll continue to be so until that terrible marketing/merchandising house of cards crumbles. Which could be soon! Or it could be ten years from now! Either way, don't look to the stand alone volume to augur Idol's demise. Only when some new young buck comes strutting along and knocks the karaoke kompetition off its number one block should anyone start worrying.

Or, you know, celebrating.

Though Anna Faris did an excellent job not-so-subtly impersonating a Cameron Diaz-esque actress in Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation, we vastly prefer Ullman's bolder take. Starting out by burping repeatedly, loudly, and proudly, "Diaz" explains (as she has in nearly every single magazine profile she's ever done) that she "just does that." It's cool, okay? As for how she became interested in this cause, it seems that while jet-setting with Bono aboard Larry David's plane, Bono proceeded to spread her legs and mime the act itself. Which "Diaz" happily re-enacts by pointing directly to the area in question. But our favorite moment by far occurs during the "clip" shown during the faux interview, in which Diaz extracts an overjoyed African girl mid-operation, turns towards the evildoers, and simultaneously pumps her gun while letting out one of her trademark "just one of the guys" farts. Though to her credit, pushing one's toned buttocks upwards while relieving oneself does seem to make the act slightly more ladylike. Ullman, we bow down to you once again, and promise to never stop incessantly recommending your show (Tracey Ullman's State Of The Union! On Showtime!) If you don't watch this show, we'll kill this...well, we'll just be sad.

• TRACEY ULLMAN'S STATE OF THE UNION [Showtime]