+1 that most Americans view atheism as a religion, on equal terms as christianity, judaism, etc... as if it is "group with a set of beliefs" as opposed to individual people who reject xyz belief. However when an atheist defines this, I think it inherently strengthens their position.

On a side note, I am a "cultural jew", and when someone brings up the fact that I'm "Jewish" in a conversation (I was bar mitzvahed too), I correct them about 75% of the time by saying that I'm non-religious/agnostic, etc.

David Boreanaz was on Conan recently (FBI agent Booth on Bones), and Ricky Gervais came up in the conversation; Boreanaz mentioned that he would like to get Gervais on the show, as it would be interesting to position an atheist against his character, who is strongly Catholic. I thought it was a bit odd that Gervais would have to play a character that matched his real life views, but whatever. Bones herself is an atheist on the show, and that is occasionally brought up already.

Also, there is a decent new show with Eric McCormack (Will and Grace) 'Perception', and there was an episode that focused on his being an atheist, although it was unnecessarily spiritualised up quite a bit.

Unless I am just noticing this stuff more recently than I used to, I would say that atheism on TV is portrayed quite positively, perhaps too much of it being a special case or a special character to focus on, rather than simply being a fact of life for that show or episode, but overall it seems to be a good thing. Conversely, shows that have a religious topic for that episode seem to be portraying negative things like cults or extreme evangelism, i.e. showing that there can be a bad side to religion.