Press Tour Diary: Fox Day 1

Bear with me today, as I'm slightly hung over from last night's TCA Awards. (What you need to know: Lauren Graham did not win; Grey's Anatomy's super-cool trio of James Pickens Jr., Isaiah Washington and Sara Ramirez hung out at the after-party practically until last call; and I think career-achievement honoree Carol Burnett scored herself a role on best-comedy winner The Office.)
EXECUTIVE SESSION
9:04 am: Fox has single-handedly transformed the Ritz Carlton ballroom and foyer into a replica of SkyBar, complete with glowing tabletops, sleek flat-screen TVs and a DJ.
9:05 am: Fox forgot to include chocolate-covered pretzels in their traditional snack bags. Suddenly, their pilots are looking a lot less promising.
9:06 am: First question for Fox Entertainment president Peter Liguori: are audiences still responding to Quintuplets? (I kid. I kid.)
9:08 am: Liguori announces that he's going to dispense with opening remarks and get right to the Q&A. But first: some opening remarks.
9:09 am: First question: after the premature death of Reunion, why should audiences get attached to the new serialized thriller Vanished? Liguori concedes that "I do think the audience deserves some closure." In the future, he hopes to resolve such loose threads via other platforms, like the Web.
9:13 am: Liguori claims he did give Reunion producers a chance to wrap things up, but it was "too daunting."
9:17 am: Liguori says he's in "discussions" to bring Unanimous back, and then seconds later declares that "great content conquers all!" That made my head hurt.
9:21 am: Interesting tidbit: Liguori starts all of his sentences with either, "Look" or "First and foremost."
9:23 am: He only ordered 16 episodes of The O.C. because it's not starting until Nov. 1 and, truthfully, the show's ratings have been "a challenge for us." But Josh Schwartz has some "juicy" stories to tell, and there's a chance that order could be increased.
9:30 am: Liguori laments the loss of Patricia Wettig from Prison Break (she's on ABC's Brothers & Sisters), but says her devious VP will continue to pull strings off screen). Quick sidebar: rumor has it that heads rolled over Break's failure to secure Wettig.
9:39 am: "It was that show's time," says Liguori of the decision to put Bernie Mac down.
9:41 am: Liguori predicts that American Idol's ratings will erode this season. Sorry, but Gail Berman tried to play those diminished-expectation mind games with us two years ago. Fool us once....
STANDOFF PRESENTATION
10:01 am: It's Moonlighting if David and Maddie were hostage negotiators! It's also utterly forgettable, despite a killer cast that includes Ron Livingston and Gina Torres.
10:02 am: No! No! No! You're supposed to bring out the cast and get them miked up during the trailer, not after! We've been over this before, Fox!
10:03 am: There's no press-tour ritual more awkward than staring at a group of actors in silence as the sound man fastens mikes to their shirts. One. By. One.
10:10 am: Lots of boring talk about romantic chemistry and FBI negotiation tactics.
10:14 am: What did Sex and the City do for Livingston's career? "Being one of Carrie's Bradshaw's boyfriends," he says, "is the romantic-leading-man seal of approval."
10:17 am: I love Gina Torres, in ways that are both surprising and unnatural.
10:19 am: "Occasionally, I miss the spaceship," Torres says of Firefly. "But not that often. [At least] I still have a gun." Does she mean in real life? On Standoff? It's unclear.
10:30 am: A reporter accidentally pronounces costar Jose Cantillo's last name Castillo. On that note, let's pause for a moment of silence in memory of the late, great Santa Barbara.
10:32 am: This session is dying a slow death. Please, someone - anyone - put it out of its misery!
10:33 am: [ Crickets]
10:34 am: Paging Dr. Kevorkian....
Fox's merciful Jill Hudson finally pulls the plug. Time of death: 10:39 am.
'TIL DEATH PRESENTATION
1:31 pm: Or as one critic referred to it, "'Til November."
1:33 pm: Awkward silence as the bad sitcom's cast (featuring Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher) gets miked up.
1:41 pm: A svelte-looking Garrett overdid the spray tan - either that or his kidneys are failing. And Joely has apparently spent her time away from TV becoming Sophie B. Hawkins.
1:43 pm: Garrett is asked whether he regrets joking to a roomful of advertisers at last May's upfronts that he "f---ed" Ryan Seacrest. (He also cracked that there was a shuttle bus waiting to take Paula Abdul to Bellevue.) "He's on one of the biggest shows on TV and [I was] playing," he responds. "It was just good fun. They were great sports about it."
1:47 pm: Garrett is doing an impression of Bill Cosby. The critics respond by doing something they didn't while watching his pilot: They laugh.
1:49 pm: What happened to Garrett's Raymond spin-off? "I wanted to do something different," he says. "And we really couldn't get the writers Raymond had. It didn't make sense to do the show without [them]."
1:51 pm: A critic compares 'Til Death to Everybody Loves Raymond - and without an ounce of irony.
2:05 pm: A critic begins a question with, "It seems you have a built-in problem with this series...." Just one?
PRISON BREAK PRESENTATION
2:35 pm: Someone at Fox is reading my blog! The Prison cast gets ushered out and miked during the trailer! Hallelujah!
2:36 pm: Producers hint that Patricia Wettig isn't out of the picture yet.
2:39 pm: Even though the boys are on the loose, Fox River will still be featured during Season 2, says exec producer Paul T. Scheuring.
2:41 pm: Where are Robin Tunney (Veronica) and Sarah Wayne Callies (Sara) today? "They're working," says Scheuring.
2:45 pm: Wentworth Miller is very serious. And pretty.
2:49 pm: On jumping from Invasion to Prison Break, William Fichtner jokes that producers "promised me that there would be aliens on this show. And every fourth episode there will be orange things in the water." He adds that there are "no similarities whatsoever" between his Invasion sheriff and his Break FBI agent.
2:54 pm: Scheuring won't reveal whether Dr. Sara is alive or dead. (Tee-hee. Ask Ausiello readers already know the answer to that one.)
3:01 pm: Miller loosens up while discussing his prison tattoo. He admits the application process remains "arduous," but he doesn't mind it so much because it's such a cool special effect.
3:03 pm: "I'm not one who gets upset when things change," Fichtner says of Invasion's cancellation. "I enjoyed the season. It ran its course and here I am." Geez, for the sake of the fans, at least act like you're a little broken up about it.
3:18 pm: The session ends and a critic turns around and informs me that that was the 115th session of press tour. No wonder the room smells like death. Or is that 'Til Death?
KIDNAPPED VANISHED PRESENTATION
3:31 pm: Series creator Josh Berman looks like he's 12 years old.
3:32 pm: Dang, it's hot in here. To quote morning-show goddess Cass Van Rye, "I'm sweating like a prostitute in church."
3:36 pm: Rebecca Gayheart insists her ruthless journalist character on Kidnapped, er, Vanished isn't nasty, just driven. You keep telling yourself that, honey.
3:38 pm: Gale Harold isn't wearing socks.
3:42 pm: I offer to give my colleague Damian Holbrook $20 if he asks director Mimi Leder a question that incorporates the phrase "Pay It Forward." He mulls it over...
3:43 pm:... but ultimately declines.
3:45 pm: Ming-Na is fanning herself. OK, so I'm not the only one melting in here. Fox apparently spent all its money on the DJ.
3:49 pm: On the casting of John Allen Nelson as the senator whose wife is kidnapped, Mimi Leder explains that she was watching 24 and said, "Get me [him]!"
3:51 pm: Josh Berman is being very cryptic about where Kidnapped, er, Vanished will veer in its second season.
3:56 pm: Esai Morales says Kidnapped, er, Vanished is for people who have "brain cells to spare." Yeah, well, I'm watching it anyway!
Coming up tomorrow: Fox Day 2 (and the final day of press tour!). In the meantime, check back here around midnight PST for some exclusive prattle about a show 84 percent of you obsess about.