The numbers are in for last night's debate and the winner is... still Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. John McCain and Barack Obama drew over 63 million viewers last night, according to Nielsen, but that was still under the nearly 70 million pairs of eyeballs attracted by their running mates Thursday night. (All three debates outdrew the 46.7 million for the second Bush-Kerry debate in 2004.)

Part of the difference can be attributed to the fact that Thursday is the most-watched night of TV in the week (the first prez debate got a mere 52.4 million on a Friday, which is a TV ghost town). Of course, also, no one was expecting to see Tina Fey on stage last night.

Though Tuned In has upped its politics-and-news content as the election gets closer, I haven't covered campaign ads much. That's partly because we have the rest of the political blog world for that, but also because I hardly ever see campaign ads, except online and on cable news. As a TV critic with Tivo and screeners, I don't see many ads, period. And also, I live in New York, whose electoral status is not much of a cliffhanger.

I am curious, though, and lucky me, I have an audience of far-flung TV watchers. So tell me: Where do you live, and what kind of campaign ads are you seeing? What sort of issues are they targeting where you live? Are they positive or negative? And are there any you've actually liked?

It's a double shot of offensive/scatological comedy tonight. On Comedy Central, The Sarah Silverman Program returns for the second half of its second season, with an outstanding episode in which Sarah gets high and discovers that it makes her a genius. At least for as long as the buzz lasts. I don't have a clip, but here's a season preview:

The show airs in its regular time slot starting tomorrow. Also, South Park returns, just when we needed it.

Not that surprising, but too bad, anyway: Michael Ausiello reports that FX has cancelled The Riches. I'll admit the show was uneven and didn't live up to its potential, but that potential was pretty great, and when the series was on, Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver were fantastic. Its premise, of people trying to flim-flam their way to success and build the American Dream using fast talk and no money down, seems timelier than ever. It's too bad we'll never get to see what the credit crunch would have done to Panco.

In other FX news, the network has renewed Sons of Anarchy, which I drifted away from after a second episode but probably should check back in on now. Did FX save the right show?

Thanks to all the Tuned Inlanders who showed up to represent at the liveblog last night; the whole thing is still posted if anyone's interested. As I said last night, the debate played like a nonevent from where I was sitting; but as I also said, it's possible it came across more informative and useful to the voters it was actually intended for—the ones just now starting to pay attention.

I thought Obama did a better job connecting with the audience and putting the issues in personal terms, though McCain closed strong on that front; his willingness to connect personally, however, did not extend to shaking Obama's proffered hand after the debate. Neither guy seemed to have that Clintonian, I-feel-your-pain thing down, but maybe that's my revisionist memory: I'm not sure I thought Clinton was that Clintonian back in 1992.

Interested to hear your morning-after thoughts. Or, more important: how were those Real Housewives of Atlanta?

Finally, I should probably apologize for not blogging more about The Shield; quite honestly, FX sends the episodes out in big batches and I tend to watch them several at a time, so I'm one or two behind at this point. Is the final season paying off?