Where it’s ‘Legal’ to get ‘Lost’

We are once again, for the 22nd year, in the midst of the Museum of Television & Radio’s William S. Paley Television Festival, an occasion for lovers of television, or even of a single television show or star, to come out of their cubbyholes and go among their fellows.

Although TV encourages an illusion of community -- a world of eyes focused on identical images -- it is not social in the immediate, healthful sense; it does not bind you in proximity with your fellow humans, except perhaps afterward, talking about last night’s “Lost,” say, at the water cooler or its functional equivalent. But that is not the same as sharing an experience.

There is something special about the Paley festival programs, each of which honors a television series or personality, and features talent from both sides of the camera. It is, for one thing, a local opportunity, unavailable to the people of Syracuse or Sarasota.

For another, even here in the celebrity center of the world, where any trip to the supermarket or espresso dispensary may turn up a sitcom or singing star among the cornflakes or condiments, it remains stupidly exciting to see famous people in the three-dimensional flesh, in their ordinary clothes.

This year’s series -- composed of 12 programs and running through March 16 -- began Wednesday night with an evening dedicated to “NYPD Blue.” It continues tonight with an “In Living Color” tribute featuring three flavors of Wayans (Keenen Ivory, Shawn and Marlon).

Each evening has big-screen viewings of episodes and/or clip reels, followed by a moderated discussion and a Q&A;, during which you may finally unleash that question you’ve long harbored for David E. Kelley, whose “Boston Legal” is honored this year; or Dick Wolf, the man behind “Law & Order”; or David Milch, creator of “Deadwood.” (You will get a pretty good answer, I would imagine -- and if you ask Milch, a long one.)

Also on the docket are tributes to “Desperate Housewives,” with creator Marc Cherry accompanied by his female Gang of Five; “Lost”; “Jack & Bobby”; “The L Word”; “Veronica Mars”; and “Adult Swim,” as well as “An Evening With Michael Palin,” moderated by Harry Shearer.

The festival takes place not at the museum itself, whose local branch is in Beverly Hills, but at the roomier Directors Guild of America on Sunset Boulevard. (Many programs are nevertheless already sold out. But tickets may become available for any program five minutes before starting time, if you have a mind to wait in line and are feeling lucky.)

The festival is named for the founder of the museum and of CBS, and like that network, which has been home to “Harvest of Shame” and “Petticoat Junction” alike, it embraces the ridiculous and the sublime. And rightly so, as cultural import and artistic quality have very little to do with each other. Neither are high ratings a criterion for inclusion -- “Freaks & Geeks” was the subject of a 2000 Paley festival seminar, even as its life hung by what turned out to be too slender a thread. But it was an opportunity for fans to come out and show the love.

Like James Lipton’s “Inside the Actors Studio” series on Bravo, the Paley panels do their subjects the honor of taking them seriously, and sometimes more seriously than they seem to merit.

But it is always instructive to hear people talk about their work -- especially when they are not trying to sell you a ticket to their latest enterprise -- and to get a little glimpse into the complicated lever-pulling, the good intentions and theoretical foundations that produce even the most apparently thoughtless TV series.

Not all the panelists will be equally articulate, of course, but there are usually so many of them that the slack will be taken up, and the evening will be over too soon.

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William S. Paley Television Festival

Where: Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., L.A.

When: tonight-Saturday, Tuesday-March 12, March 14-16

Price: $29; $25, Museum of Television & Radio members, seniors and students

Contact: (866) 468-3399; www.mtr.org