Last evening, two "entertainment news" shows, The Insider and Entertainment Tonight showed heavily- promoted exclusive coverage from the Panama set of the new James Bond movie, Quantum Of Solace. They delivered- but the price paid to enjoy these snippets was almost too much to tolerate. I had been happily ignorant of how these "cut and paste" clip shows had been faring in recent years because I don't think I've tuned into them since I wanted to get the scoop on Spencer Tracy's next movie. The shows are split into separate programs, but they are completely indistinguishable and are hosted by some of the same people. The shows have so little regard for the intelligence of their audience that segments are broken down into childlike mini-stories for people  with such short attention spans that they find movie trailers too drawn-out.. Thus, the Bond piece was hacked up and spread throughout the two shows, meaning you had to suffer through Donny Osmond 's(!) hosting duties for a full hour. A minute or so of a Bond segment would be shown, then it would cut to another fragment of another story that was also split between the programs. The shows are edited by a hampster on speed. The pace is so frantic it makes a video game look like Heaven's Gate. In between the Bond snippets, there was a big exclusive interview with Senator Barack Obama. When exactly Senator Obama officially became part of the show business community is beyond me, but his coverage on an entertainment show will put plenty of arrows in Senator Hillary Clinton's quiver regardig her charges that the media is conspring to get this man elected. In any event, after countless teases about the "exclusive" nature of Senator Obama's interview, the bombshell he dropped to the fawning hosts was that - win or lose- he's gonna keep his promise to buy his two young daugthers the puppy they have been begging for. The other shocking revelation is that Obama has given up trying to convince his wife that she has enough shoes. Woodward and Bernstein must have been green with jealousy! Incidentally, to make sure we know we're watching a video version of a supermarket tabloid, everyone is referred to by their first name. So we learned about Anna Nicole's baby, Brad and Angelina's latest doings, and Barack's personal foibles. That's right - a United States senator and presidential frontrunner is referred to like he's Bono or Liberace.

If you were able to suffer through this jawdropping mess, you were treated to two gorgeous blonde mannequins (who are as indistinguishable as their shows) alternately slinking about the Bond set asking questions that were so dumb they made Regis Philbin look like Torquemada. Since none of the Bond segments seemed to last longer than it would take to prepare a minute egg, it was hard to discern a feel for the production. Among those snared into the interviewee's chair were director Marc Forster, leading ladies Gemma Arterton, Olga Kurylenko and star Daniel Craig. The general news broken by this collective was: nothing. The tight-lipped cast and crew revealed absolutely nothing about the story or the production. "Wait and see", "Can't tell you" seemed to be the phrases of the day, though 22 year Arterton did say she had the challenge of shooting a torrid love scene with Daniel Craig on her very first day. How many women out there wish they could be put in such a nerve-wracking situation? We did get some good closeups of the ladies, who are appropriately gorgeous and hopefully will continue the trend of recent Bond movies in that they will also prove to be good actresses. Forster was seen so briefly that if you blinked, you missed him. Craig, somehow looking even more impressive than he did in Casino Royale, did his best to be polite in the face of ludicrous questions about whether he'll wear a tight bathing suit again or whether Bond will have sex (which is like asking if a western will have horses). Craig, who can barely tolerate interviews with legitimate journalists, finally lost it and on two occasions, the program had to blip out expletives with giant "007"'s imposed over his mouth. He was smiling when he said them, but you could tell he would have preferred walking over a bed of nails than sitting in that chair another second. The interviewers were  largely confined to  a back stage and the front of a bar. We did get some brief looks at the main palace where key scenes would be filmed, reputed to have once been the mansion of deposed dictator Noriega. Since that might require a modicum of historical and political knowledge, the hosts never pursued the angle. There was also what appeared to be some previously released B-roll footage of Craig doing his own stunts and dangling high from a rope. For the record, the action looked impressive. Given the precious time and resources the Bond producers afforded these shows, they should strap the production company executives to a laser table for making 007 fans sit through the Osmond reunion story just to get a few brief glimpses of what promises to be the action movie of the year.. - Lee Pfeiffer