Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1308 days ago

The Obama Comedy Deficit

By James Poniewozik

If there’s a single emerging slogan that sums up Campaign 2008, it would have to be: That’s not funny! The much-discussed controversy over the New Yorker Obama-as-jihadi cover is only the latest example. [Update: If you can read one more take on it, I highly recommend my former Salon colleague Gary Kamiya, who nails it.] [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1308 days ago

TCA Roundup: Fox Hunting

By James Poniewozik

* Fox News meets the press, and things get testy. Or it’s practically a lovefest. Either way, FNC trots out Karl Rove, and someone has the poor manners to ask why he’s talking to TV critics and not testifying before Congress. * Fox the entertainment channel announces that creators will have two chances a year, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1308 days ago

JPTV: Aging Out of the Demo

By James Poniewozik

Recent photograph of the author. / FOX Age ain’t nothing but a number. A number that inexorably grows larger, bringing you ever closer to your death, but a number nonetheless. If the recent nostalgia posts about Liz Phair and the Brothers Krofft were not enough of a hint, I turned 40 over the weekend. I [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1309 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: Bravo Grudgingly Acknowledges Runway's Existence

By James Poniewozik

In today’s CPRT, Bravo begins the massive two-day runup to the season premiere of Project Runway, a.k.a., That Show That’s Going to Lifetime That We Never Really Liked As Much As Real Housewives Anyway, But Whatever, Watch It If You’ve Got Nothing Better To Do: 16 NEW DESIGNERS STRUT THEIR STUFF AS “PROJECT RUNWAY” RETURNS [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1309 days ago

The Morning After: Big Brother Turns 10

By James Poniewozik

Cliff Lipson/CBS A few questions for those of you who tuned in to the premiere of Big Brother 10 on CBS: * Is it really that great an idea to incorporate the number into the title, as if it were the Super Bowl or a World War? Do you want to be reminding the audience [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1309 days ago

That New Yorker Cover and the Irony Gap

By James Poniewozik

…also known as: I’m Writing About That Damn Picture Too, Are You Happy Now, David Remnick? So that cover. Does it confirm the lies that Obama is a closet Muslim, and his wife a dangerous radical? Or does it reaffirm them? Does it add to the fog of half-truth and send the subliminal message—even to [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1309 days ago

Generation Kill: Iraq and Roll

By James Poniewozik

Stark Sands and Alexander Skarsgard as Fick and Colbert. / HBO photo: Paul Schiraldi As I mentioned last week, I’ll consider doing a weekly Generation Kill post if it seems like the miniseries is generating sufficient interest out there, but having just reviewed it, I’ll go light the first week, mention a few things I [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1309 days ago

TCA Weekend Roundup

By James Poniewozik

* Cartoon Network’s animated Star Wars series: sneak-previewed it is. * Will PBS allow Sir Ian McKellen to expose America to Sir Little Ian McKellen in a production of King Lear? It’s not saying. The network will also air a Ken Burns docu-series about the National Parks, which will air in about the same amount [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1312 days ago

TV Weekend: Centre of the Action

By James Poniewozik

Blame Canada. / Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS Besides Generation Kill, this weekend sees tonight’s debut of Flashpoint, a CBS crime drama—about a police special task force—notable mostly for the fact that it’s a rare Canadian import on U.S. TV,* having been ordered partly as insurance against the possibility that the writers’ strike would last until the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1312 days ago

H.R. PufnSpace

By James Poniewozik

Krofft Kwikies – Lidsville “Escape From HooDoo” It’s been something of a Sid and Marty Krofft Week here at Tuned In, what with the multiple references to The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, so what better way to cap off the week than the news that the Kroffts have launched a MySpace page, as part of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1312 days ago

Dead Tree Alert 2: Tim Gunn Endorses Obama

By James Poniewozik

Michelle Obama, that is. Also in the current print edition of TIME, Tim Gunn escapes the suspicious Bravo fortress of silence surrounding Project Runway to take 10 Questions from the readers of the magazine. None of which have to do with Project Runway itself. (I’m told, though I haven’t listened, that at least some Runway [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1312 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: Generation Kill

By James Poniewozik

PAUL SCHIRALDI / HBO In this week’s Time, I review HBO’s Iraq War miniseries Generation Kill, which debuts Sunday night. From what I’ve read so far elsewhere, is looks like the praise for the series will be effusive, and that praise will be justified: Kill’s strength comes from focusing not on why we fight or [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1312 days ago

The Morning After: TCA Roundup

By James Poniewozik

In yesterday’s news from the TV critics’ press tour: * HBO plans to combat its programming slump with a novel strategy: creating new television shows. (Also, in what is becoming a ritual announcement, those Deadwood movies are still never gonna happen.) * Speaking of HBO, let’s not forget the upcoming, and oxymoronic, American Little Britain, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1313 days ago

McCain to Do Conan

By James Poniewozik

NBC Word is in from NBC that John McCain will appear on Late Night with Conan O’Brien on Friday, July 18. It’ll be his first appearance there, according to the network, since 2005. I’ve been working on a future column having to do with pop culture and the candidates, and one side issue I’ve been [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1313 days ago

Lost Discussion Group: My Two Dads

By James Poniewozik

From this week’s Ask Ausiello (now relocated to Time’s sister publication/site, EW), Michael Ausiello shares a small bit of Lost dish: Team Darlton is doing their annual “radio silence” thing, so Lost scoop is at a premium these days. Luckily, I managed to unearth this little morsel: John Terry (Christian) and Alan Dale (Widmore) are [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1313 days ago

Office Webisodes Return: Kevin's Big Score

By James Poniewozik

Brian Baumgartner as Kevin. / NBC It’s summer, and the writers’ strike is over, which means that it’s time for the broadcast networks to finally launch some of that original online content that everybody was so exercised about last winter. Today is the debut of this summer’s webisodes of The Office. (The first is scheduled [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1313 days ago

The Morning After: TCA Roundup

By James Poniewozik

* Matthew Weiner will give you information about Mad Men when he is damn good and ready, and you will be damn good and entertained by it. Now stop bothering him and let him make his geniusy things. * History Channel plans Sandhogs, a series on the cannibalistic, lantern-eyed mole people tunnel diggers who work [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+1313 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: A Very Special Baby Borrowers

By James Poniewozik

OK, so I have already granted that NBC’s The Baby Borrowers is topical in addressing the very of-the-moment topic of teen pregnancy. (Though my gut tells me this issue, however genuine, is on the verge of becoming the shark attacks of summer 2008.) But the network seems to have let the matter go to its [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1314 days ago

AFTRA Ratifies Contract; Strike-o-meter Dives

By James Poniewozik

AMC The American Federation of Radio & Television Artists ratified its new contract yesterday. Although AFTRA is the smaller of the two actors’ unions up for contract renewal, the vote (approving the pact with 62% in favor) would appear to make a strike by the larger Screen Actors Guild less likely. Anything can happen, of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1314 days ago

More Hard-Hitting Campaign Journalism

By James Poniewozik

And while we’re on the subject of Barack Obama as pop-culture product, last night Access Hollywood debuted the beginning of its four part[!] interview with Barack, Michelle and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha. The Obamas—who have been on something of a soft-media assault lately, with a cover shot in Us and Michelle’s guest spot [...]