I don't watch a whole lot of television entertainment shows. For a period of several years I didn't watch any at all -- I watched a variety of news shows, wrote this blog and played video games. Lately, however, I've been hooked on "Heroes" on NBC and I belatedly jumped on the "Veronica Mars" bandwagon on The CW.

One of the reasons I don't watch a whole lot of TV is that, frankly, too many of the characters and plotlines aren't edifying. For example, there's this anecdote courtesy of Rick Kushman of the Sacramento Bee:

Marc Cherry, the creator of ABC's "Desperate Housewives," and a man who put in plenty of time in the mills of show business before hitting it big, told TV critics how the network censors can get, shall we say, lost in the small things.

He talked about an episode in which Eva Longoria was in bed after a tryst with her 17-year-old gardener. He got a request from the network.

"The censor looked," Cherry told critics, "and said, 'Does she have to smoke?'

"And I went, 'So you're good with the statutory rape thing?' "

Nope, I'm not a big "Desperate Housewives" fan. Don't get me wrong, I don't want every TV show to be "Touched by an Angel" or "7th Heaven." But there's way too much garbage that's just useless.

In classic Bill Cosby fashion, I told you that story so I could tell you this story.

Tuesday night's episode of "Veronica Mars" had all the warning signs of being the kind of episode that really ticks me off. The episode is entitled "There's Got To Be A Morning After Pill," and the mystery that Veronica is asked to solve is who slipped RU-486 to this college co-ed causing her to lose the baby she is carrying. (If you're interested in watching the episode, you can do it online here -- it requires a small download for the media player.) The ironic twist is that this young woman is a preacher's kid -- the daughter of a local televangelist who's on the tube "all the time."

I won't give away the whodunit, but let me say that some of the tactics used by some in the pro-life movement are rightly condemned in the episode. There was a period in the late '80s and early '90s when many pro-life protesters were more concerned with shutting down abortion clinics than truly trying to help women who found themselves in a difficult situation.

The Christians portrayed in the episode are a mixed bag -- just like in real life -- but I must confess that I was relieved at how the preacher was written and portrayed. (I guess that gives away that he at least isn't the bad guy.) The writers didn't take the easy way out that too many in the entertainment industry do by demonizing the preacher, instead he is an inspiring figure -- the type of man many would aspire to become.