armed & famous, the greatest police-themed reality show ever to be set in muncie indiana, has been cancelled. officially it's only on hiatus, which means there is still a chance the show could return to cbs, with a likelihood roughly equivalent to the chance that pigs will evolve the ability to fly. this is particularly bad news for the muncie star-press, which will now have to find something else to obsess over.

according to news reports, the show has been cancelled because it suffered poor ratings as a result of being up against american idol. and what show can compete with that juggernaut? (of course, the irony is that american idol is now down to one hour a night, so that if armed & famous were still on cbs's schedule tonight, it would not be up against american idol any longer. that's showbiz for you.

the good news for ponch fans is that armed & famous has been shunted to sister channel vh1. this saturday, vh1 will air five hours of a&f, including a new, never-before-aired episode. two more uncompleted episodes had been planned, and those might surface on vh1 as well. or maybe they won't.

i must say that having a dvr with dual tuners is the way to go. our comcast-issued dvr is inferior to tivo in most ways, but that's one feature i'm glad i have that i wouldn't with a standard tivo. i can record two programs at once, which means i can watch 24 and not have to miss my favorite new show of the year, heroes. i could watch both american idol and armed & famous. and having dual tuners sure makes things easier on sunday nights, when everybody is competing to have the hippest content (fox, hbo, showtime, adult swim, and now sci-fi has moved battlestar galactica to sunday to make the night even more cluttered). since many of these shows are on cable, they're repeated ad infinitum throughout the week, which cuts down on conflicts a bit (as does having some hit shows available for free on demand), but the ability to watch or record two shows that air at the same time is a major advantage. ¶