One of the central rituals of the Television Critics Association's semiannual meetings is the "executive session," in which the heads of the networks meet with critics to tally up the successes, failures and lies of the past six months and to create new ones.

This summer, it's NBC's Jeff Zucker who gets to go first among the commercial broadcasters.

Zucker, who gets promoted as often as most people switch channels, is currently president of NBC Universal Television Group, a mouthful of a title that doesn't get him off the hook with TV critics, who remember him when he was just the new guy in Hollywood, a former "Today" show executive who actually thought "Emeril" was a really good show.

We also thought he thought "Coupling" was a really good show -- because that's what he told us this time last year -- but apparently we misjudged him.

"In all candor, we knew we were in trouble when we saw the first episode of 'Coupling,'" he told us this morning.

So call him a liar if you like, but don't call him stupid.

Thinking that the show sucked didn't stop him, of course, from airing it for a few dreadful weeks.

Apparently he was hoping he might actually have been wrong.

After a churlish critic then asked Zucker to name his other lies/mistakes/miscalculations -- he now wishes he'd left "Boomtown" on Sundays at 10 -- another demanded to know why, if he lied to us about "Coupling," we should believe anything he says today.

(As if.)

"You know, actually that's a fair question," Zucker said, resorting to the flatter-the-questioner mode that so many people here employ.

"I think, you know, everything on all the networks looks incredibly promising today, and you have to be incredibly optimistic," he said.

"I always try to be candid with you, and I would say that these five [new shows], I think these are better than we've had in a long time. Ultimately, it's the viewers that will decide. It won't be us and it won't even be" the critics.

So here's the deal: If you -- or at least those of you who belong to Nielsen families -- happen to hate "Joey," "Hawaii," "LAX," "Medical Investigation" or "Father of the Pride," then six months from now, Jeff Zucker will have hated them, too.

But until then it's a secret.