Paul Schiraldi / HBO TV critics, myself included, like to focus on what David Simon criticizes in the show. And there’s plenty. But part of The Wire’s spirit, its heart, is in what it loves. And The Wire loves, above all, good old-fashioned work. As much as Simon believes that the war on drugs is [...]

Paul Schiraldi/ HBO In this week’s print magazine, I have a long-ish feature on the final season of The Wire. [News-pegged update: Barack Obama's favorite show!] It may be a bit Wire 101 for the already-converted; writing about this show for a general-interest magazine, you have to assume a good chunk of the audience hasn’t [...]

John Paul Filo/CBS I caught only Jay Leno’s opening monologue last night in the midst of blogging the caucus coverage, but I have to imagine it won’t do much to appease the writers’ guild officials who say Jay is breaking strike rules by writing the monologue. (The New York Times rounds up the controversy here; [...]

Somewhere behind all the bloviation and declarations of historical significance last night, there was an actual vote going on, and the beauty of the Iowa caucuses was that, unlike your typical primary, you could actually watch them on TV. C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 carried a live video feed from a Democratic and Republican caucus, though because [...]

The New York Times’ TV Decoder blog has last night’s late-night ratings, and for one night anyway, it looks as if David Letterman would have been better off making a deal for his writers not to come back. Jay Leno beat him in the ratings, 5.8 million to 4.7 million viewers, and increased his average [...]

A brief technical note: Tuned In has been upgraded to a new version of its publishing platform–which apparently has a much stronger breed of hamster turning the little wheel that powers it–and as part of the change, we’re now requiring that you register before commenting. I know this is a pain in the ass–it was [...]

Francis Specker/CBS Through the magic of TiVo, I’ve just powered through the rest of last night’s first strike-era late-night (or, in my case, early-to-mid-morning) talk shows. My impressions: Jay Leno: If the return was largely an expectations game, then Jay, working without writers, beat it last night. Did his show make me laugh a lot? [...]

NBC Photo: Paul Drinkwater The late night shows are back! The 2008 election may now officially begin! I’ll have a review of Jay, Dave, Conan et al. later today, once I’ve had a chance to get to them all on Tivo. But tonight was also an important return for another group of celebrities: the presidential [...]

As a TV critic, I’m supposed to bemoan all those awful reality shows that are being forced on us during the writers’ strike, but I must be honest: anything responsible for bringing us a new season of Wife Swap is not all that bad. Last night’s episode–with a family of feminist progressive homeschoolers swapping with [...]

Buried in the NY Times’ Wednesday Iowa campaign roundup: Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas on Wednesday professed his support for the striking television writers union just a few hours before he was expected to board a plane for a taping of the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno where he will face a vocal picket [...]

I’m officially on vacation until tomorrow. But I’m limbering up my fingers with a little low-impact blogging. And lo and behold, the late-night hosts have obligingly provided me with my material for my first day back by returning to the air tonight. But not, thanks to Worldwide Pants’ interim agreement with the striking writers, on [...]