It’s graduation day here at Lost Summer School–I’m on vacation the next two Thursdays, and after that I think we can use a nice little de-Lost-ification break for a while as fall premiere season gears up. So one last question, and probably the biggest one: What role are the Numbers going to play? I don’t [...]

MTV It’s Laguna Beach. But no Laguna. And a different Beach. Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County, debuting tonight on MTV, moves the Laguna Beach formula up the coast. The original Laguna, of course, also gave us The Hills, whose third season debut–which I still have to catch up on–drew around three and a half [...]

Well, that was quick. John from Cincinnati aired its last episode Sunday, and, never one to resist a Christ parallel, David Milch has risen again three days later to start work on his next series for HBO, according to Variety: Sources said the creator will develop the project about a Vietnam veteran who returns to [...]

…wondered, whatever became of My Father’s Word? The geniuses at VH1′s Best Week Ever have the answer. HBO could have saved John from Cincinnati by borrowing a little from a certain Queen City workplace comedy. Arguably, David Milch beat them to the joke by actually casting Howard Hesseman in JFC. But you still have to [...]

I’m not sure if I have it in me to do a weekly Damages Watch. Not that it’s a bad show–as a thriller, anyway, it’s still doing its job–but it’s not the kind of show that really lends itself to a week-by-week breakdown, because its appeal is all about the plot. Four episodes in, for [...]

Don Imus has settled his breach-of-contract lawsuit with CBS over his firing in the spring and reportedly is negotiating to return to the radio this fall, perhaps with WABC. (Now his lawyers are freed up to deal with the defamation suit a Rutgers player has filed against him and his former employers.) With Imus’s return [...]

I’ll admit, I have not watched Dan Rather much since he went to HDNet for his post-CBS gig. (For that matter, I didn’t watch Dan Rather much at CBS.) But tonight, he offers up a Dan Rather Reports longform investigation of problems with electronic touch-screen voting machines; including reports of machines being hustled off the [...]

You no longer need to keep 9/11/14 cleared on your calendar; HBO has cancelled John from Cincinnati. The question, as asked in the comments here and elsewhere, is whether this now means we get those oft-promised two wrapup movies for Deadwood. (To anticipate: forget seeing the whole series again. People have moved on.) As of [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, I want you to celebrate my indomitable will to survive by watching Big Love. I don’t think we’ve discussed this here, but this season David Byrne has been serving as musical consultant on Big Love. (Continuing a trend of alternative rockers migrating to TV: Trent Reznor is reportedly [...]

The CNN/YouTube debate for Republicans is back on, rescheduled for Nov. 28. Or at least the YouTube debate for some Republicans: Mitt Romney, reportedly, is still holding out, having said–in reference to the Democratic debate last month–that “the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.” [...]

In what counts as major news mostly to TV households with minor dependents, Nickelodeon’s spinoff channels Noggin (commercial TV for toddlers in the daytime) and The N (tween and teen shows by night), which now share a channel, will become separate channels at the end of the year. (It’s the TV equivalent of finally getting [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Watch John from Cincinnati before you read this, or we’re all going to be toast. HBO photo: John P. Johnson Leave it JFC to conclude–and in the absence of miraculous intervention from Cincinnati, we’ve got to consider this a series finale–with a wrap-up, what-happened-to-them epilogue that left the show more puzzling, not less. [...]

Time.com’s Richard Zoglin posted a tribute to the legendary host earlier today. People like Johnny Carson may have defined late-night TV, but Merv Griffin practically single-handedly made daytime and syndicated TV, not simply through his talk show but through his production empire, which was responsible, for starters, for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. When Time’s [...]

Kirk Edwards/Showtime; Cliff Lipson/Showtime This Sunday Monday, Showtime returns Weeds and introduces the David Duchovny comedy Californication. I first heard about Californication and couldn’t wait to see it; then I watched it and kind of didn’t want to review it. I really like Duchovny, not just because of The X-Files; he’s a good comic actor [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this, put some slipcovers on your couch and watch Mad Men. AMC So: Pete–not a total unsympathetic worm? Who knew? Four episodes in, Mad Men is showing an intriguing ability to change itself up from week to week. The first two episodes handled the plot in the usual serial style, [...]

Mad Men Watch will be a little late today–have a deadline for the stone-tablet version of Time magazine. In the meantime, a little something to keep you unproductive at your own job. In my post on cable shows yesterday, I offhandedly trashed Mad Men’s opening title sequence, but I notice that its viewers on YouTube [...]

Monty Brinton/ CBS Test Pilot is a semiregular feature this summer sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots may be rewritten, recast and reshot before airing, and end up much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so let’s get [...]

Adweek looks at the TV angle to News Corp’s acquisition of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, specifically the possible synergies for Rupert Murdoch’s new Fox Business Network. (Link via Romenesko.) What synergies? After all, Dow Jones has a deal that binds its employees to contribute only to CNBC for years. Unless, you know, [...]

AMC’s Mad Men. AMC The New York Times’ Bill Carter rounds up the hot hot hot summer that basic cable TV has been having, with The Closer, Army Wives, Mad Men, Saving Grace, Damages and others becoming critical or commercial hits or both. The summer-is-the-season-for-cable story is a bit of a perennial, but cable does [...]