EVERETT Now live on time.com: that list of great holiday TV programs that I told you I was working on earlier. Happy last day of November! You might ask, James, do you honestly think these are the greatest holiday shows of all time? And I would answer, well, sorta. It’s a list of seven memorable, [...]

On the fourth day of writers’-strike talks, the studios came back with an offer for payments on electronic distribution of writers’ work. This much is clear. Whether the deal amounts to more or less for writers, and whether it brings the strike closer to or farther from resolution, is iffier. The WGA, the New York [...]

My essay in this week’s print TIME is not literally about TV, but it’s about a holiday movie that’s become a cultural phenomenon through reruns on TV. A Christmas Story has supplanted It’s a Wonderful Life (and Miracle on 34th Street) as the favorite holiday movie of Americans of Gen X and later (as defined [...]

NBC Photo: Eric Liebowitz It wasn’t one of the best episodes of 30 Rock last night, but it was probably the most blatant reminder so far that the show has picked up the sitcom torch from Arrested Development. The storyline paralleling Jack and Tracy’s Little League team with the Iraq War recalled the “Mission Accomplished” [...]

MITCH HADDAD / ABC A little background first. I finally bought a new iPod. (Shortly after which, I learned how to fix the old one with a business card from a Vietnamese-sandwich place, so I now have two.) Being the cheap, boring, Consumer Reports-reading, never-buy-first-generation-tech guy, I am, I got a Classic. And this morning [...]

The major issue at the Republican YouTube debate: outsourcing. Not outsourcing as addressed in any of the questions; outsourcing in the form of the questions. Two YouTube debates into the campaign, it’s becoming clear that the format is not really about the possibilities of a new medium (as at the Democratic one, there were a [...]

SCOTT GARFIELD/ABC Tuned In’s Pushing Daisies contingent will have to carry on without me for now; I was watching the CNN/YouTube Republican debate live. (John McCain: “Life is not 24 and Jack Bauer.” They’re not going to like that at Fox.) By the way, Molly Shannon and Mike White? It’s a Year of the Dog [...]

Tonight, it’s the Republicans’ turn, in the CNN/YouTube Debate, to face questions submitted in video form by questioners on the Internet. Some of them may quite possibly not even be Ron Paul supporters. The least traditionally journalistic aspect of the Democrats’ CNN/YouTube debate in July was that the questions often came from questioners with unvarnished [...]

There’s been a lot of talk about how, between attention-getting protests and brilliant strike videos, the writers have been winning the PR war against the studios. I’m sure that it’s true; I’m not so sure how much it matters. Mind you, as a writer, I want it to matter: I want to believe that creativity [...]

NBC Photo: Michael Williams Sadly, that is not a typo. The Daly show–as in Last Call with Carson Daly–is reportedly planning to return to the air next week despite the writers’ strike. And he needs your help. The Smoking Gun reprints an e-mail, purportedly from Daly, seeking contributions to a “joke hotline” for a bit [...]

LEE MENDELSON PRODUCTIONS INC Tonight ABC debuts Shrek the Halls, its new Christmas special, which like all things Shrek is funny enough but basically one joke after another after another. Last night, ABC got old-school with A Charlie Brown Christmas, the first and last word in network holiday specials. Talk about that, or any other [...]

TWENTIETH-CENTURY FOX Nearly five years after its cancellation by Fox, Futurama returns today with the release of Bender’s Big Score, a straight-to-DVD movie. Although intended to ultimately be sliced and diced into half-hour episodes for rerun by Comedy Central (which acquired the reruns of the series), it actually hangs together well as a full-length feature, [...]

You know what the problem with network press releases is? Not being able to hear the authors laughing maniacally to themselves as they type. But it’s easy enough to imagine when you look at VH1′s announcement for Celebrity Rehab, debuting Jan. 10, a reality show hosted by Dr. Drew Pinsky (Loveline), which is exactly what [...]

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, secure your viruses and watch last night’s Heroes. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, patterns become clear. Constant war, famine, disregard for the environment…” Wow. At NBC, green really is universal. So at last we have a motivation of sorts for Adam. A plausible one, [...]

NBC Photo: Paul Drinkwater A little good news to jump-start your discussion of last night’s TV: Chuck has been picked up for nine more episodes this season by NBC, as has Life. If, you know, anyone ever actually writes new episodes of TV again. Did last night’s leave you wanting more?