While Flesh-James is on vacation, Robo-James has generated this free-for-all thread to discuss anything that’s caught your eye in the worlds of TV, media, or other matters Tuned Inland-y. Think of it as do-it-yourself guest blogging.

While Flesh-James is on vacation, Robo-James has generated this free-for-all thread to discuss anything that’s caught your eye in the worlds of TV, media, or other matters Tuned Inland-y. Think of it as do-it-yourself guest blogging.

I’m on vacation even as I write this. The things I do for you people! I got episode 4 of Mad Men before leaving but didn’t have time to write a full-fledged Watch, so think of these as starting points, then fledge them yourselves: * So after all the discussion of That Scene last week, [...]

Photo by Shiny Things. Can you hear it? The cheerful whirring of servo motors… the friendly clank of metal limbs… the jolly hiss of a nozzle dispersing a paralyzing nerve agent to neutralize possible biological adversaries—why, it’s our friend Robo-James, here to lay down the binary code at Tuned In while my lazy, carbon-based butt [...]

After the phony fireworks and the phony singing, how could Chinese Olympic organizers possibly top themselves? With phony Chinese! OK, that’s a slight distortion. But a slighter one than, we’re learning in dribs and drabs, pervaded the production of the ceremonies. According to Reuters, a segment of the festivities that the ceremony’s media guide described [...]

My current column in Time looks at the cultural battle in the Presidential campaign—over who is a “celebrity”—and asks: Why, after all, is celebrity an insult? Personal magnetism, the ability to galvanize attention and rally masses: this is a bad quality in a Chief Executive? J.F.K. and Ronald Reagan managed to soldier on with this [...]

So that’s what the hell that sport is called. I think I’m going to keep calling it “basketsoccer,” though.

In retrospect the amazing thing is that they didn’t do this sooner, but the next “cycle” of America’s Next Top Model will include Isis, a 22-year-old transgender model who describes herself to Us Weekly as “a woman born physically male.” Good for them, I guess, and maybe this will entice me to check out what [...]

Since we discussed the parallels between “The Benefactor” and The Sopranos yesterday, I want to recommend Andrew Johnston’s outstanding breakdown of the episode, and what Mad Men has learned from Matthew Weiner’s old show, at The House Next Door: The Sopranos was a highly serialized show from the beginning, and in some ways became more [...]