What’s good, bad and happening, from pop culture to high culture

Dead Tree Alert: Hillary's SNL Strategy

My column in the print TIME this week is pretty much a polished-up version of this earlier post on Hillary and SNL, more or less. (Less, actually: it’s 50% shorter and, therefore, 50% better.) But if you haven’t read it yet—then it’s new to you! You always risk sounding a little ridiculous writing about things [...]

+Looking Around | 1538 days ago

More on the Guggenheim Job Search

By Richard Lacayo

In today’s New York Sun, Kate Taylor has a round up of the most-mentioned candidates to succeed Tom Krens at the Guggenheim. As I mentioned yesterday, LACMA’s Michael Govan is much mentioned among the mentioners. And Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer In L.A., who I thought I was being original in suggesting for “the [...]

+Uncategorized | 1538 days ago

Scrubs: The JAG of 2008

By James Poniewozik

Scant hours after the news that quarterlife would move from NBC to Bravo (and that, scant hours after the news that NBC canceled quarterlife) comes word that Scrubs is being saved–by moving to ABC. It’s still rare for a show to migrate among major networks: JAG went from NBC to CBS, and long before, Taxi [...]

+Uncategorized | 1538 days ago

The Morning After: Idol Free to Defile Beatles!

By James Poniewozik

It’s funny; the other night Mrs. Tuned In and I were watching ’70s night on American Idol and saying how cool it would be if someone picked a Todd Rundgren or Carole King song. We had to wait for the elimination-night medley, but we got both I Saw the Light and The Earth Move. And [...]

+1538 days ago

Lostwatch: Groundhog Day on Christmas Eve

By James Poniewozik

A changed Desmond arrives on Not Penny’s Boat. / ABC: MARIO PEREZ SPOILER ALERT: Before read this post, set your device to 2.342, set the oscillator to 11 Hz, and watch last night’s Lost. How badly is my mind blown? There’s a little rivulet of blood running out of my nose. Excuse me. I need [...]

+1539 days ago

Housekeeping: When Do You Like Your Lostwatch?

By James Poniewozik

A quick question to anyone here reading the blog at this hour: are you checking Tuned In wondering when the hell I’m going to post Lostwatch? Because here’s the thing, I already wrote it. Sometimes I write it up as soon as I watch, sometimes the next morning. But even when I write it immediately [...]

+1539 days ago

quarterlife Day Continues! It's Off to Bravo

By James Poniewozik

So there was this show, quarterlife. It started as a pilot on ABC. Then it got made on the Web. Then NBC bought it. Then it aired it, Tuesday night, and 3.1 million people watched. Then it got canceled. And now comes word that NBC’s corporate sibling Bravo is picking up up the series instead. [...]

+1539 days ago

quarterlife canceled after onesixthofitsrun

By James Poniewozik

That was quick. After pulling just over 3 million viewers in its initial runs, quarterlife is no more at NBC. The network pulled it after just one of the six episodes ordered, tying it with Emily’s Reasons Why Not as the shortest-lived network series ever. Producer Marshall Herskovitz quickly issued a statement vowing to carry [...]

+1539 days ago

quarterlife and What the Strike Did(n't) for TV

By James Poniewozik

I’ve heard a lot of excuses for failed TV series in my day as a critic. Usually they involve blaming the network, which is a good move because, hey, even people who love TV hate networks! The network didn’t promote us enough. They gave us a crappy time slot. They moved us to too many [...]

+Uncategorized | 1539 days ago

William F. Buckley

By James Poniewozik

I was on deadline most of the day yesterday, so I didn’t get around to noting the passing of Buckley, who–as Richard Corliss writes here–was as important a TV figure as he was a political and publishing one. Buckley was both a living anachronism and a man ahead of his time, as Richard points out; [...]

+Uncategorized | 1539 days ago

The Morning After: I Was a Willow Last Night in My Dream

By James Poniewozik

Smithson goes crazy on Crazy on You. / Frank Micelotta / Getty for Fox I was the youngest child in my family, with siblings nine to fourteen years older than me. (Yes, I was an accident.) What happens when you grow up with older sibs is that you end up having the pop cultural references [...]

+Looking Around | 1540 days ago

Tom Krens Leaves the Guggenheim

By Richard Lacayo

Tom Krens, the man behind the McGuggenheim, the museum as global franchise, is moving on. The Guggenheim board announced yesterday that Krens would retire later this year as director of the Guggenheim Foundation, a title he took on three years ago after he stepped aside as director of the museum. That job then went to [...]

+Uncategorized | 1540 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: If Only Barack and Hillary Sang

By James Poniewozik

One hitch in the theory that the media are in cahoots to get Hillary out of the race—ratings numbers like these, from MSNBC: MSNBC’s telecast of last night’s Democratic candidates debate drew 7.8 million viewers (9-10:36 p.m. ET), becoming the most watched broadcast in the eleven year history of the network, according to Nielsen Media [...]

+1540 days ago

Building the Ultimate Reality Show

By James Poniewozik

The other day I got a DVD screener for The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom, a reality show (hosted by Growing Pains’ Tracey Gold) in which women who have put careers on hold or given them up to stay at home get a chance to spend a week working at their would-have-been careers. It’s [...]

+Uncategorized | 1540 days ago

Live from New York Ohio: Hillary's SNL Defense

By James Poniewozik

Anyone who believes that corporate synergy does not work in TV should watch last night’s Democratic debate in Ohio. There we saw Hillary Clinton using one NBC Universal property (Saturday Night Live) to attack another NBC Universal property (MSNBC, the debate host) for its treatment of her. Fielding a question about NAFTA, Hillary–whose aides and [...]

+Looking Around | 1540 days ago

Death and Cameras

By Richard Lacayo

Susan Sontag, Peter Hujar, 1975 / © THE PETER HUJAR ARCHIVE Recently I finished Swimming in a Sea of Death, David Rieff’s memoir about the final illness of his mother, the writer Susan Sontag. She was 73 when she died late in 2004 of a virulent form of leukemia. Towards the end of his book [...]

+Uncategorized | 1540 days ago

The Morning After: I Just Want to Be Your Everything

By James Poniewozik

Don’t retire this Castro yet. / FOX I’m divvying up this week’s American Idol semifinal coverage with time.com editor / music critic Josh Tyrangiel, and his reviews of Tuesday’s boys’ night ’70s sing-off should be up any… second… now. (Whoa! There it is already.) If you ask me, Josh got the lucky half of the [...]

+Uncategorized | 1541 days ago

TV Tonight: quarterlife Jumps Screens

By James Poniewozik

Scott Michael Foster and Kevin Christy do whatever it is those kids nowadays do with the computer machines. / NBC Photo: Elisabeth Caren There is a generational war going on in your living room. In the one corner, your computer, that hot new property, what with its multitasking and IM abbreviations and viral videos, basks [...]

+Uncategorized | 1541 days ago

Hey, Ferret Face! What's Your Favorite TV Insult?

By James Poniewozik

Britain’s Radio Times (via the BBC), has performed a truly valuable service to mankind: chronicled the 25 greatest TV insults of all time. The list is understandably Brit-heavy–lots of references to knickers and such–but there are a few American shows represented. (How do you pick just one insult from Cheers’ Carla or Scrubs’ Dr. Cox?) [...]

+Looking Around | 1541 days ago

Machu Picchu: Sticky Wicket?

By Richard Lacayo

Over the months that I was working on Time‘s story this week about the antiquities wars, one thing that struck me was that last September’s “memo of understanding” between Yale University and Peru to return the Machu Picchu artifacts, which was supposed to be finalized within 60 days, never was. Now we’re getting a glimpse [...]