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Corporate Press Release Theater: More Garbage on TV

BBC AMERICA I can’t endorse the series sight unseen, but on the basis of the premise alone, I am at least TiVoing BBC America’s latest reality show this weekend: Every year, the average British person throws out over 1,000 lbs. of trash, including $800 worth of food, with just a quarter being recycled. Most of [...]

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The Election on TV: What Next?

March 4 is over, and we have a winner: the TV networks. America, you lucky country, you are now looking at a full month and a half before Pennsylvania, with only a couple small contests. Meaning that, in the absence of any actual votes, the coverage of the campaign will become the campaign itself, in [...]

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How D&D Changed the Culture

Dungeons and Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax has died. At first blush, this seems more like a Nerd World topic, and Lev Grossman doffs his +2 Cloak of Protection to Gygax over there. But I couldn’t let the news go unnoted here, because far from being a hermetic obsession of antisocial geeks, D&D had a wide [...]

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Idol Watch: The Final Semifinals

My review of the men’s American Idol performances are up at time.com. The standard disclaimer applies: I am not a music critic nor a musical authority, just like the people who actually will choose the next Idol. Very good night for the guys; even the ones who weren’t good were not atrocious. My guesses for [...]

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The Morning After: New Amsterdam, It's Become Much Too Much*

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, right, fights crime shirtlessly. / Jeff Neira/FOX Before guys’ night on American Idol, Fox ran a promo for its new immortal-till-he-finds-true-love police drama, New Amsterdam: “A cop with over 300 years of experience.” What? I was watching American Idol to get away from the presidential campaign! As I mentioned briefly in the comments [...]