I'm not saying the Murdochs weren't good television (though I'm still trying to figure out why the best moment, when Wendi Deng sprang into action to defend her 80-year-old husband from a man with a pie, wasn't initially clear - Fox News seemed to have the best view of the attack - but by midafternoon was everywhere).
For the purpose, however, of the seemingly inevitable movie, the subsequent testimony of Rebekah Brooks was probably more useful.
Not so much for what she said, but because of how she said it.
And, let's face it, how she looked saying it.
Brooks, the 43-year-old former News of the World editor and News International chief executive who was arrested Sunday in connection with the phone-hacking scandal, is just the kind of character who'd render a movie about the scandal watchable, with a meteoric rise from humble beginnings followed by a terrible fall.
And the fact that she's an interesting-looking woman with an unruly mane of red hair doesn't actually hurt.
So for "Hacked" (or whatever they eventually call it), I propose Julianne Moore for Brooks and Michael "Dumbledore" Gambon for Rupert. Lucy Liu could probably handle Deng's moves (and vice versa).
But as for James Murdoch, any pretty boy in a suit who can stick to a script would probably do fine.
* I'm not sure who first decided that one of the big incentives - let's just call it a prize - on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Weight-Loss Edition" (10 p.m. Mondays, 6ABC) should be skin-removal surgery, but it kind of makes me miss the days when people just went on TV to win cars or refrigerators.
OK, so maybe a fridge would send the wrong message, but what's the right message here? That someone who's upended his or her life to lose a tremendous amount of weight shouldn't expect to be physically acceptable until a surgeon's been involved?
