For starters, it gots to be Survivor: Fiji, which by the standards of the previous few seasons has been Stealth Survivor. I’ve seen little publicity for this edition, other than the free PR generated by the unfortunately-timed coup in the host country. Still, I return, even though the show has gotten less and less hip [...]

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen last night’s episode of Lost, make a small incision in your kidney and don’t stitch it up until you’ve finished watching it. So: This is the first Lostwatch since the time.com folks turned on the Comments spigot, so I’m counting on you to do the lifting here. But here [...]

Friday Night Lights, in full HDTV glory, thanks to the valiant efforts of Jean from Time Warner Cable, who unlike many cable servicepeople I have encountered over the years, did not stare at my Tivo box as if he were being asked to assemble a particle supercollider. Beyond that–well, we’ve got Lost (already watched, more [...]

Monday I wrote about the impending rise of Jeff Zucker to the top of NBC Universal. Yesterday, I made an effort to say something nice about him. Even though he had shown little taste or aesthetic savvy in picking shows for NBC, even though he had presided over a major decline in NBC’s ratings and [...]

The most compelling TV of the week is in a newspaper. A newspaper website, to be specific: Britain’s Sun newspaper is hosting the cockpit video of a U.S. “friendly fire” incident that killed a British soldier. The footage isn’t graphic or gruesome–it’s powerful, really, because you see the targets the way the targeters see them, [...]

So it turns out that if you make a commercial in which two men accidentally touch lips and then mortify their flesh in horror, some people will find it homophobic. Masterfoods USA has announced that it’s pulling the Snickers “Kiss” ad after protests from gay groups, thus ending the TV run of the most risque [...]

…possibly, nothing. It’s all in the hands of Time Warner Cable, which somewhere in a four-hour window today is supposed to install two Cablecards in my new HD TiVo. (Don’t know what Cablecards are? Good for you! I’d explain, but that would be too dorky even for Lev’s blog.) I know, I know. When the [...]

Three items from the mediabiztertainment news: (1) Apple Corps and Apple Inc. have resolved their long-running name dispute; (2) Jeff Zucker is poised to be named head of NBC Universal today; and (3) Viacom and YouTube are still at a standoff over YouTube’s rights (and Viacom’s compensation) concerning copyrighted video. Each in its way about [...]

With a settlement of $2 million, our long national nightmare is over. (And Hasbro will have to start paying for Lite Brite advertising again.) Now to attack the real urban threat: sneakers hanging from power lines.

How I Met Your Mother (weirdly, it’s about the Super Bowl, as if to promote its network’s broadcast retroactively), Heroes, 24–although, after the last couple episodes, it’s on thin ice with me. A little more Bauer family drama and they can blow the whole thing up as far as I’m concerned.

Variety is reporting that Jeff Zucker is going to be promoted to chief executive of the entire NBC Universal company, later today or tomorrow. It’s a curious move, because Zucker has headed up the NBC television business for the last several years, during which, you may recall, there has not exactly been a ton of [...]

My Super Bowl ad-review extravanganza is now up. It doesn’t take comments, so feel free to use this post to tell me how thoroughly full of it I am. To be honest, I’m too exhausted and commercialed-out to sum this up into one big wrap-up synthesis (I was shocked when I looked at the finished [...]

Continuing what is fast becoming a tradition here at Tuned In–namely, letting C. Brown come up with post topics for me–our correspondent asks: Who do you think is going to bite it on Heroes? I’m praying for Simone. Glad you reminded me, C. Brown, because while I have no inside knowledge I do have a [...]

It was a night to do a Midwestern boy’s heart good. There was Indianapolis squaring off against Chicago, of course. But in the end–or rather at the half–it was Minneapolis who tore up the field. When CBS announced Prince as the Super Bowl halftime act, I worried it meant that the wizard of Paisley Park [...]

Elsewhere on time.com, I’ve reviewed last night’s Super Bowl ads. (I’ll post a link once the extravaganza goes live. Update: Knock yourself out.) In other words, I already gave at the office–the home office–so I’m turning over the comments for your reactions. Any of the spots close the deal?

OK, so 45 minutes to game time — there are what, like three people using the Internet right now? Still, I’m multitasking with my laptop in front of the TV, so I may as well post. I’m going to be rating the Super Bowl ads for our Monday-morning postmortem at time.com. But I may have [...]

In the spirit of today’s theme–namely, that corporate America is all about getting the customers to do the work for you–let’s turn it over the mic to commenter C. Brown: James, how much tv do you watch in a day? I’m just curious is all. Because I think my job is just so tremendously fascinating, [...]

Of all the things David Letterman has given us–the Top Ten list, Stupid Pet Tricks, the Alka-Seltzer suit–maybe the most influential is the mainstreaming of absurdist humor. Back when Letterman was working as a local weatherman in Indiana, it was a truly weird thing for a weathercaster to talk about “hailstones the size of canned [...]

Speaking of Super Bowl ads, a few days ago in a post about big advertisers sitting the game out, a reader commented that the commercials have been less effective because the games are less interesting: Coaches challenges suck the life right out of a series. Players can’t celebrate naturally whenever they make a good play [...]