Dave on Demand | TV's IQ (Idiot Quotient)

If you are, in fact, smarter than a fifth grader (which apparently is now a matter of some conjecture), then TV may soon be too moronic for you.

ESPN has announced that it will televise the Rock Paper Scissors championship in May. I haven't been this excited since Gabe Kaplan was appointed one of the captains on Battle of the Network Stars.

And that's not all. ABC is rushing National Bingo Night to prime time. Contestants will compete with the studio audience to see who can fill a card first. I picture this as a lotto drawing that just goes on and on.

Apparently, a lot of people were complaining that Deal or No Deal was too challenging. They couldn't follow the strategy.

Seriously, TV programming is getting so juvenile that the next step may be the Schoolyard Channel. Spirited competitions of mumblety-peg and ring-a-levio will be followed by the channel's big ratings grabber: Spitting Contest.

People ask me all the time: Can TV get any dumber? My response: It's about to.

Who would have guessed? Big reveal on Lost this week: Jack (Matthew Fox) and Claire (Emilie de Ravin) are step-siblings. That plot twist might have had more impact if Lost obsessives hadn't been predicting that outcome on the Internet for the last year.

Was anyone struck by the heavy-handed religious symbolism of this episode with John Terry as the messianic doctor (named Christian Shepherd, for Pete's sake) who has now been disavowed by both his children?

What will stick with me is that final scene at the Others' bucolic compound as Jack and Tom (M.C. Gainey) were throwing around the football. Jack held up his end (Fox, after all, played for Columbia back when it was known as the worst college football team in America). But Gainey - he may look tough, but Bea Arthur has a better arm.

Is it Miller Time yet? I'm still recovering from last weekend. First, they sprang daylight saving time on us three weeks early. Then HBO scheduled a heavyweight fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Ray Austin at the unheard-of time of 4:45 in the afternoon. (Championship fights usually start around midnight.) Then, CBS3 broadcast the St Patrick's Day parade six days before St. Paddy's Day.

Do you have any idea how much recalibrating of my beer-drinking routine all this time-shifting caused? TV has made me a creature of habit. Stop messing with my schedule.

Promotional considerations provided by . . . Extra has a new segment called "Gimme Gimme" during which it enthusiastically plugs some luxury item or other - a designer watch, an exorbitantly priced beauty product, an exclusive health regimen or spa.

The infotainment show has stomped across that extremely thin line between publicity and outright promotion, because "Gimme Gimme" is nothing but a tarted-up commercial. How is this different from paid programming?

Our town. There has been a great deal of speculation lately about where The Simpsons Movie, due in July, should hold its premiere. Obviously, it should be in Marge and Homer's ancestral home of Springfield. But exactly which Springfield? Almost every state has one. (Heck, we have several in the Philadelphia area alone.)

Well, this week's episode provided conclusive proof that the true Springfield is in Pennsylvania. Marge's sister, Selma Bouvier, is the director of the town's department of motor vehicles. One of her underlings informs her of a looming crisis: "The new traffic cones are held up in Harrisburg."

Ha! Give us our red-carpet event. We'll bring the doughnuts.