HBO The problem with reviewing new episodes of a show like The Sopranos in advance is that you have to do it without divulging any essential plot points, which are kind of important to, you know, understanding what actually happens in the show: e.g., “Bobby coldcocks Tony during a drunk Monopoly game and they nearly [...]

In the print edition of Time magazine this week, I offer up my last word on American Idol. Except for all the other last words that I’ll be writing in the future, because apparently this freaking show is never going away. Which is kind of the point of the article: more specifically, if American Idol [...]

Every once in a while the Internet surprises you by suddenly coughing up an article you forgot that you wrote. Live on time.com now is my list of the top-ten best Sopranos episodes ever, ready for your perusal and umbrage. As I wrote there, naming the best episodes of a serial like The Sopranos is [...]

MARIO PEREZ/ABC Oceanic Airlines flight 815 crashed in September 2004. At that point, we were several seasons in to the run of Survivor. And yet, amid all the pop-culture references of Lost, no one breathes a word about the show. Come on! Sawyer, of all people, would be calling Hurley “Richard Hatch” constantly. But last [...]

My weekly American Idol review has been posted; AI served up something for Grandma last night, bringing in the legendary Tony Bennett for the weekly ritual of “mentoring” (i.e., having his advice generally ignored by) the singers. My picks this week? I’m going with a bottom three of Phil, Haley and–less confident on this one–Gina, [...]