Last hurrah for the Knights. ABC/PATRICK HARBRON It’s summer and that means the whiff of smoke in the air… charcoal, roasting marshmallows and–sniff? what’s that?–the acrid smell of the networks burning off their failed shows from the previous season. NBC has already torched Studio 60 over the summer and ABC did Traveler. Tonight, the alphabet [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, watch Damages. And check your mail. Carefully. So of course the week after I decide to do a Watch on Damages, the show serves up an episode that… well, I don’t have that much to say about. That’s maybe the peril of writing about a series that’s more [...]

Part 2 in Tuned In’s piggyback-on-Alice-Park’s-stories series: McDonald’s owns your child’s brain. If you saw Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Supersize Me, you probably remember the creepy scene in which Spurlock’s unscientific poll found that kids were more likely to recognize a picture of Ronald McDonald than one of Jesus Christ. Now researchers at Stanford have found [...]

A new study from the University of Washington has found that, shockingly, you cannot buy a future Ivy League acceptance for your child for the price of a $15.99 DVD. The researchers found that videos like those in the Baby Einstein series not only don’t advance language development, they may impede it. My colleague Alice [...]

A brief housekeeping note. For about a year now, I’ve been writing a pop-culture column called Culture Complex in the print edition of Time magazine. I know what you’re thinking: “The print version of Time? They stopped making that in, like, 1976, right?” No, really, there is one. I think they also put out an [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this, watch last night’s Big Love. Or I’ll spank you. HBO photo: Lacey Terrell So Bill is officially a jackass now, right? The irony of his video-poker deal is that he sees it as a means to eventually stop living a lie (having to deny being polygamists), but he can [...]

Speaking of Bravo reality shows, anyone who’s watched them for several years–anyone who’s watched any TV for several years–has witnessed an evolving phenomenon: the gradual shrinking of the censor’s bleep. It used to be that even on a Bravo reality show–or, say, a network show like Fox’s Action–one of the major curse words would be [...]

For Top Chef et al. fans, a fascinating cover story in this week’s New York magazine on Bravo reality shows. Turns out they’re reality shows: they’re cast for entertainment value, and the contestants don’t immediately become top-tier designers, chefs and hairdressers. Not even close. Among the saddest revelations: that Andrae “AHN-drae” Gonzalo of Project Runway [...]

HBO photo: John P. Johnson I have no inside intelligence on whether we’ll ever see a second season of John from Cincinnati, but if we don’t, I do hope David Milch casts Ed O’Neill in whatever he does next. However baffling or maddening JFC can be, O’Neill (who starred in Milch’s sadly short-lived Big Apple) [...]

IFC / Susan Anderson OK, Mr. Killjoy TV Critic: you didn’t like The Company–what am I supposed to watch on TV this Sunday? One of cable’s best low-key pleasures of 2006, IFC’s The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, is back for a second season. Starring, created and written by the brassily sardonic Laura Kightlinger, it’s [...]

The Dow Jones / News Corp. deal has entered the 2008 Democratic primary, with Fox News as the new Willie Horton. In an e-mail to supporters, John Edwards called on Democrats to speak out against the merger and “take the necessary steps” to stop it. Regular readers know that I’m pretty libertarian on media-and-government issues. [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Watch last night’s Mad Men before you read this. And don’t forget the cake. This week’s was the first episode of Mad Men I didn’t receive an advance screener of, and so watched on TV like a civilian. So it was the first time I saw the interview segments after the show with [...]

In the print TIME this week, a brief review of TNT’s six-hour CIA miniseries The Company, debuting Sunday night. I’m loath to expand on it, because the review is the only thing brief associated with this mini. A history of the cold war told through the stories of a set of American and Russian spies, [...]

Has the Tuned In community embraced Damages? I had considered giving it Watch status this summer but last week’s post drew an underwhelming response, so maybe the show doesn’t merit it. Or maybe it’s me. Anyway, brief, mildly spoiler-y thoughts on episode 2, because it’s been a while since I screened it. I was a [...]

This week: the white rabbits. Yes, I posted about this last week, but it was late on a Friday, there was no good video available yet, and also, dude! White rabbits! Magically multiplying! Like rabbits! That’s good for at least two posts! Here’s the video, screened by Lost’s producers at ComicCon last week: (The video [...]

Filming for Shark Week’s Perfect Predators. Doug Perrine/Seapics.com Sharks have legs. In its 20th year, Discovery Channel’s Shark Week had its biggest debut ever, drawing 3.9 million viewers to Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack Ever on Sunday night. There’s the publicity pull of the big 20th anniversary, of course, but I suspect Shark [...]

Queen Babs has filled one of the vacancies at The View roundtable, hiring Whoopi Goldberg. From the ABC press release: Barbara Walters, creator/executive producer and co-host of ABC’s “The View,” officially announced today, live on “The View,” that Whoopi Goldberg has been named moderator of her Emmy® Award-winning morning talk and entertainment show. Since the [...]

The morning after News Corp.’s all-but-finalized acquisition of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, Fox News Channel demonstrated the fairness and balance it’s world famous for. “Oh, come on, let’s just say it! I’m excited!” said Fox business correspondent Dagen McDowell, flashing a smile the width of an ear of corn. “Who isn’t excited!” [...]