Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1343 days ago

The Morning After: The Rest Is Still Unscripted

By James Poniewozik

ABC I haven’t regularly followed any edition of The Bachelor/ette since, oh, the Trista era. Nor am I any more inclined to watch it now that the show is two freaking hours long. (Did we really lose that many narrative subtleties at an hour’s length?) But I checked in on last night’s Bachelorette long enough [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1344 days ago

Upfronts: TV Doing Just Dandy Without Viewers

By James Poniewozik

Here’s a pleasant surprise if you work in the broadcast TV business: it turns out that the fact that no one watches your shows anymore is no impediment to running a successful business. It may even help. Mediaweek reports that, counter to expectations and despite a recession, advertisers are paying more this upfront season for [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1344 days ago

The Morning After: Rockets' Red Glare

By James Poniewozik

So the thing I was skeptical about before watching Discovery’s When We Left Earth in HD was: why exactly would old film benefit from high definition? Grainy footage is grainy footage, right? But comparing it with the standard-def version I screened, there does seem to be a difference: HD can’t make blurry footage crisp, but [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1344 days ago

BSG Watch: Might as Well Jump

By James Poniewozik

Roslin (Mary McDonnell) confronts life and death. / SCI FI Channel Photo: Carole Segal SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for Friday’s Battlestar Galactica coming up after the “Jump!… Jump!… Jump!…”

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 1344 days ago

Jim McKay, 1921-2008

By James Poniewozik

Sportscaster Jim McKay died over the weekend at age 86. I make no secret on this blog that I don’t watch a lot of sports, but for me, McKay—known for his versatile coverage of the Olympics and for being the voice of ABC’s Wide World of Sports—brings back for me the weekends as a kid [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1347 days ago

TV Weekend: To the Moon! (Etc.)

By James Poniewozik

Yes, I have a picture of a Titan booster rocket on my blog, and yes, I am happy to see you. / NASA Discovery’s next big docu-showcase, When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, is another example of the technological limitations of contemporary TV criticism. The multi-night history of the space program, beginning Sunday night, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1347 days ago

Lost Discussion Group: Second Thoughts

By James Poniewozik

It’s been a week since the Lost finale, which makes this an opportune morning to relaunch the summer Lost Discussion Group. I don’t have a topic for you, but I have a good reason for that: I forgot. But I’m going to spin that as a good thing, because maybe the best way to kick [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1347 days ago

I Love L.A.

By James Poniewozik

The city of Los Angeles is suing Tuned In’s soon-to-be-former corporate sibling, Time Warner Cable, for shoddy customer service. Mind you, I’m not a lawyer and can’t judge the validity of the suit one way or another. But I have to enjoy the idea of anyone creating headaches for a cable-company customer-service department, rather than [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1347 days ago

The Morning After: Got That Swing?

By James Poniewozik

Ex-Deadwooder Parker goes from 1876 to 1976. / Cliff Lipson/CBS I feel like I may have been the only TV critic who really liked Swingtown, or close to it anyway. A running theme in several of the reviews was comparing it to fellow TV period piece Mad Men, unfavorably. (Alessandra Stanley’s review in the New [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1348 days ago

You Be the Reaper: What Show Has Lived Too Long?

By James Poniewozik

Is it finally his time? / FOX It’s a writing day for me, which means that I’m going to be spending most of it not writing. On this blog, that is. It’s also Brooklyn Queens Day, which means no school for outer-borough kids, which in turn means that Tuned In Jr. and Tuned In Jr. [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1348 days ago

About That Whole "The Strike Is Over" Thing…

By James Poniewozik

The Screen Actors Guild is still negotiating, with a contract deadline of June 30 coming up. And Variety reports today that despite a separate deal struck by sister guild AFTRA (which represents fewer TV actors), SAG and the producers are not coming much closer together yet. The questions, as Variety lays them out: * Will [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1348 days ago

The Morning After: Chef d'Oeuvre

By James Poniewozik

Top Chef’s final four. / Bravo Photo: Virginia Sherwood It was a late election night for me Tuesday, so while you were watching the Top Chef [Update: episode before the] finale, this delicate flower was watching the inside of his eyelids. Which means I will spend the day desperately (and probably unsuccessfully) trying to avoid [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1349 days ago

More Sessions for In Treatment?

By James Poniewozik

When HBO picked up the second season of Tell Me You Love Me, I wrote: “File this under News I Didn’t Expect to Be Reading This Soon and Come to Think of It Probably Ever.” Well, I hope there’s still room in that manila folder. The LA Times reports that In Treatment may get a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1349 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: The Many Faces of Toni

By James Poniewozik

SHOWTIME For Showtime, a Diablo Cody comedy about a woman with many personalities who is not Tracey Ullman: Los Angeles, CA – (June 4, 2008) – Showtime Networks has fast-tracked the pickup of THE UNITED STATES OF TARA, a new 12 episode half-hour comedy series starring Academy Award®-nominated actress Toni Collette (“Little Miss Sunshine”) as [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Movies | 1349 days ago

The Carrie-Clinton Connection?

By James Poniewozik

Over at Slate, Timothy Noah, who’s been writing about pop culture and the election, suggests that the success of the SATC movie is the result of disappointed Hillary voters drowning their sorrows. No, seriously. He wrote that. I guess somebody had to draw this connection; I just can’t believe it wasn’t Maureen Dowd. A while [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1349 days ago

Breaking: McCain Suggests Summer Series

By James Poniewozik

We may as well further overextend the metaphor of the morning: if the hit series of the regular season just ended, how do you hang on to the viewers until fall? With summer reality programming! In a speech this morning, John McCain suggested a series of ten joint “townhall meetings” with Barack Obama throughout the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1349 days ago

The Greening of Discovery

By James Poniewozik

Gurwwitch confronts the Hutchinson family about their wa$te. / PLANET GREEN Tonight at 6 p.m., Discovery Home Channel becomes Planet Green, a testament to the fact that eco-mindedness has become part of the national consciousness, a mainstream attitude, and a really awesome ways for advertisers to sell things. I’ve seen only a sampler of Planet [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1349 days ago

Election Watch: A Finale, and a Cliffhanger

By James Poniewozik

And so last night, the surprise hit of the 2007-08 television season came to an end… but with a cliffhanger. As had been foreshadowed for some time now, Barack Obama declared victory in the Democratic primary in a climactic speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, setting up a dramatic fall-season storyline with John McCain. But as [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1350 days ago

TV Tonight: 30 Days a Week

By James Poniewozik

I don’t have time to full-on review it, as I really need to start doing some things that are not this blog, but a quick reminder that Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days returns tonight to FX. (Nutshell premise: every week, a subject spends a month living the life of someone else whose lifestyle is very different, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Movies | 1350 days ago

Should Men Be Allowed to Review SATC?

By James Poniewozik

An interesting post at Hollywood Wiretap about a subject that I had been curious about but never got around to researching fully: were male critics more likely to pan the Sex and the City movie than women? I hadn’t thought so, mainly because the harshest reviews I’d read were from two female critics, Salon’s Stephanie [...]