ABC Katherine Heigl of "Grey's Anatomy" is among the TV stars who have succeeded in movies. She stars in this summer's comedy "Knocked Up."

While laughing my way through a Saturday-night showing of the big-screen comedy "Knocked Up" a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that just about everyone on the screen was from a TV show. Primarily, two TV shows: "Freaks and Geeks" (1999-2000, NBC) and "Undeclared" (2001-02, Fox).

"Knocked Up" director Judd Apatow cut his teeth on these series, presumably grew frustrated when each show got canceled after a single season and moved on to the movies, where he's directed the blockbuster hits "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (with TV star Steve Carell of "The Daily Show" and "The Office") and "Knocked Up."

While Apatow's company of actors from "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared" is a relatively unusual fraternity, it's worth noting that the female lead in "Knocked Up" is also a TV star, Katherine Heigl of "Grey's Anatomy."

Where once TV took its cue from movies and was considered the inferior medium, it has achieved parity. Actually, TV has become the superior creative medium.

Nowadays, you're just as likely to have a movie based on a TV show as you are to have a TV show based on a movie. Look at the July release schedule: "The Simpsons" movie arrives in theaters July 27 and a live-action "Transformers" film just opened in theaters Friday. It's not just the old toys driving that robot resurgence; it's nostalgia for the animated "Transformers" TV series.

And look no further than the host of this year's Oscars — TV star Ellen DeGeneres — for proof that the great divide between movie stars and TV actors has narrowed.

To be sure, there are some discouraging similarities between the two mediums. Just as movie folks see opening-weekend box office results as the be-all, end-all of whether a movie is a success, TV folks look at the premiere ratings for a show and make snap judgments about its future. When it's a crummy reality show, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when it's a quality scripted series with potential, it can lead to heartbreak.

Series prove the premise

Still, there's more quality programming on TV today than there are good movies released into theaters. Granted, everyone loves to slag on TV, and it's a favorite whipping boy among lazy, uncreative politicians come election time. But TV can boast of airing such well-made, yet disparate series as HBO's "The Sopranos," Showtime's "The Tudors," NBC's "Friday Night Lights," ABC's "Ugly Betty," CBS' "The Class" and Fox's "House," which all aired in the first half of 2007.

Even if you took just a half-dozen episodes of each of these shows (and there are many more programs that deserve the "quality" label), that's still more than 30 hours of quality entertainment. That equates to about 15 movies. Have there been 15 movies worth seeing this year? That's doubtful.

"If you want to write movies like the movies they were making in the early '70s, you're doing cable television," writer Blake Masters ("Brotherhood") recently said.

Flop can be viewed as art

Even a high-profile TV flop like NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" is better than most films today. Part of the reason "Studio 60" was judged so harshly was because it was compared with other TV shows; put it up against most movies, and "Studio 60" is a genius work of art.

Uh-oh, I used the A-word. Some critics explained the clash of reactions to "The Sopranos" finale by casting it in an art-versus-entertainment context. Fans who saw the show as art were satisfied with the non-ending. Fans expecting to be entertained were incensed. The reality, of course, is that TV can be both. It's mostly entertainment, but now and then some shows are so good they rise to the level of honest-to-goodness art even as they entertain us as we sink deeper into our sofas.

There's still an undeniable luster to the silver screen, and I truly hope that never completely dims, but TV is the gold standard for sophisticated visual storytelling.