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NBC: 30 Rock to Become a Documentary

Not the high-school yearbook photo of NBC’s Ben Silverman. / NBC Well, not exactly. But in its fall schedule pitch for advertisers (repeated for reporters in Manhattan this afternoon), the front-and-center message from NBC’s execs could more or less have come out of the mouth of Jack Donaghy: Advertisers, we will pretty much do whatever [...]

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FNL Returns Next Fall! Or Winter! It Depends!

I just got back from NBC’s 2008–09 schedule announcement—what was once a lavish theatrical extravanganza in May and is now Ben Silverman in front of a PowerPoint in a conference room in April—but I wanted to rush out the most important bit of news for Tuned Inlanders. As previously reported, NBC has in fact worked [...]

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Corporate Press Release Theater: Elvis Costello to Dance About Architecture

Not exactly, but the singer/songwriter once used that simile to say what a pointless exercise writing about music was. Apparently, however, that doesn’t apply to talking about music, as he is about to demonstrate in a new show for Sundance channel:

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Hey, I Like to Watch My Swim Trunks Inflate!

Each of the major candidates this season has his or her own pop-culture surrogates or inspirations: Hillary Clinton has Tina Fey, Barack Obama has Will.i.am. Last night, John McCain appeared on David Letterman, and it would appear that the Republican Party is about to nominate… Don Rickles. A clip of C.P.O. Sharkey’s performance appears after [...]

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Unwanted Programming Advice: An HBO Teen Show

Unwanted Programming Advice is an occasional series in which I offer crackpot suggestions that, if heeded, would save—or destroy—TV networks. Last week, I advised History channel to get into the scripted-series business. Today: why HBO (or Showtime) should make a teen drama.

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The Morning After: Hooray for Dollywood

Could Brooke get a bottom-three scare this week?. / Frank Micelotta / FOX My morning-after American Idol reviews are posted now at time.com. [Yes, I know, for some reason they were posted with photos from last week's show. I'm working on it, if by "working" you mean "I just sent an e-mail to time.com's photo [...]