BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Although PBS comes under fire for what is sometimes lowest-common-denominator pledge-drive programming (coming to TV again next month), there's no question that the bulk of its shows are of a higher intellectual caliber than what's on most other TV networks.

		Related stories More coverage from the TV critics summer press tour can be found in Tuned In Journal.

That's certainly evident with two new programs coming to PBS this fall, both dealing with language.

PBS's "Independent Lens" will air the documentary "Wordplay," which was released in theaters last summer. The film amusingly chronicles the making of and playing of The New York Times crossword puzzle. Both celebrity crossword puzzlers (Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart) and everyday folks are profiled, including Tyler Hinman, a college student who competes in the 28th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

Puzzle editor Will Shortz said life experience helps at solving crosswords.

"You are better because you know more," Shortz said at a PBS press conference here yesterday. "Generally speaking, people reach the peak of crossword-solving speed in their late 20s or early 30s, when a combination of speed and knowledge meet."

Shortz said he's been accused of making puzzles too easy and too difficult.

"My goal is to challenge you to your limit," he said, "make you work your hardest, but ultimately I would really like you to break through because that's where the satisfaction comes. I like to hit the sweet spot in the middle."

"Wordplay" doesn't have an airdate yet, but the new children's show "WORDGIRL" premieres Sept. 7 after a sneak preview on Sept. 3. The show was first introduced as a series of shorts last year in the PBS Kids block. The Scholastic-produced program for children ages 6 to 8 will now air as 26 half-hour episodes its first season.

The animated series, with a fair bit of comedy, follows the adventures of Becky Botsford, a fifth-grader of ambiguous ethnicity from the planet Lexicon. Becky has a secret identity as a superhero who uses vocabulary to defeat bad guys, and she gets help from her monkey sidekick, Capt. Huggy Face.

Series creator Dorothea Gillim said she was inspired to make a show about words by her own experience as a child, when she asked her parents for a copy of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary as a gift. Each "WORDGIRL" half-hour will teach children four new words.

"I really wanted to work in the superhero genre because kids this age respond highly to it," she said. "I didn't want her to be too geeky, just to be smart. I wanted her to be cool so she can do everything Superman can do. She has super-hearing, super-strength, super-speed and she can make clocks stop to offset bedtime."

Sebak's next special

At Monday night's PBS press tour kickoff party -- held at Griffith Observatory to promote the upcoming series "WIRED Science" -- WQED producer/writer/personality Rick Sebak chatted up reporters about his upcoming national PBS show, "To Market to Market to Buy a Fat Pig," which premieres Aug. 1 locally and nationally.

He also said his next PBS special is tentatively titled "Ride Along the Lincoln Highway." Sebak said the program will be about the nation's first transcontinental highway that ran from Times Square to San Francisco, coming through the Pittsburgh area as Route 30. His goal is to have the program complete by October 2008.

Reilly resurfaces

On Monday, Fox announced that recently deposed NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly -- the guy who put "Friday Night Lights" and "30 Rock" on the air and then was dumped by the Peacock less than two months ago in favor of wunderkind producer Ben Silverman -- will become Entertainment president at Fox. The hiring reunites Reilly with his old FX buddy, Peter Liguori, who becomes Fox's Entertainment chairman. Together, they helped launch the FX hits "The Shield" and "Nip/Tuck."

Reilly couldn't help but take a bit of a jab at NBC in the announcement press release, saying, "I couldn't be happier to rejoin ... the Fox family and to collaborate again with my good friend Peter Liguori, who shares my view of being competitive by being creatively adventurous. The company has a top-down vision and the network has a collaborative environment and winning track record fostered by Peter Liguori, which I personally look forward to as a refreshing change of pace."

It should be a good, comfortable pairing of executives. And although I still think Reilly got a raw deal at NBC, after seeing the pilots for the uninspiring, lackluster fall lineup Reilly put together for his former network, I now better understand the decision to replace him.

Channel surfing

Despite lackluster ratings on TV, due to high interest online, ABC will bring back "National Bingo Night" for five consecutive nights in December. ... Fox has again yanked the final two episodes of "Drive," already rescheduled from July 4 to July 13. The episodes don't wrap up the story, so fans are just left hanging a little earlier rather than later in the show's run. ... ABC has pulled repurposed encores of ABC Family's "Kyle XY" off its Friday night schedule. The show will continue to air new episodes Mondays on ABC Family.