Well, it's official: The Powers That Be are punishing us for not being fans of "The West Wing," a transgression that apparently constitutes a mortal televisual sin these days. What can we say, folks? We're sure it's an excellent show and all (indeed, we're slavering cultish devotees of Aaron Sorkin's previous short-lived series "Sports Night"), but the simple fact of the matter is that our TV-watching time is sadly limited these days, and our schedule is all full up as far as programs to follow each week. Plus, we find the subject matter a mite heavy-handed-- and, you know, Martin Sheen as President? Maybe if we didn't have this indelible mental image of him running from intestinal-snake-conjuring voodoo cultists in The Believers we'd be more receptive.

But don't worry; like we said, the universe has taken note and now we're suffering for our sins. As you may have surmised, in addition to being drooling addicts of All Things Apple, members of the AtAT staff are also television junkies of a degree not typically seen outside of the wildest dreams of A. C. Nielsen. Because of this, we're particularly sensitive to Apple TV commercials, and when we know that there's one we haven't seen floating across the airwaves, it's enough to give us throbbing migraines and a distinct coppery taste in the backs of our mouths.

And thus, the punishment: faithful viewer Matt Pruett was the first to inform us that Apple debuted a brand spankin' new Switch ad last night-- during, as by now you've no doubt guessed, "The West Wing," which means that your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff hasn't yet seen it. Moreover, said ad reportedly features none other than cello-totin' bad boy Yo-Yo Ma, which means that it was a celebrity Switch ad we missed. Even as the Ma-man was presumably extolling the virtues of the Mac to millions of viewers with better taste than ours, we're pretty sure we had-- ready for this?-- "Birds of Prey" on as background noise as we puttered about with the daily chores. How's that for some karmically head-kicking irony?

To make matters worse, of course, as of broadcast time, the Yo-Yo Ma ad is still conspicuously absent from Apple's web site. While repeated viewings of Janie Porche's Christmas-saving grin help dull the pain, we're clearly not going to be right in the head until the new commercial gets posted, probably later today. In the meantime, we'll be right here saying a couple hundred "Hail Emmys" as penance and thinking about what wicked, wicked people we've been. Or maybe we'll just bag on the sleep entirely and spin our "Sports Night" DVDs instead.