I’m a little late noting Current TV’s Naked China pre-Olympic documentary series, airing every night this week at 9 p.m. E.T., but Al Gore’s journalism-for-the-young-people network is also going to post the episodes online after they air. The five-part series looks at the contradictions of a country that is both officially communist and in the [...]

Jeez Louise—another freaking post about Barack Obama? If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re not alone. According to a new survey from Pew Research, 48% of respondents believe they’ve been hearing too much about Obama in the media. In contrast 38% say they’ve heard too little about McCain (compared with 10% who say that about Obama). [...]

Former TIME colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates has started blogging at The Atlantic this week, replacing the departed Matt Yglesias. There’s no real TV connection here; I just like his writing and always appreciated him for being the one person at Time with a name (arguably) as hard to spell as mine. And now that he no [...]

HIMYM’s Marshall and Lily: what kind of example are they setting for the children? / Eric McCandless/CBS The Parents Television Council issued a report today on sex on broadcast TV. The report, “Happily Never After,” you may not exactly be stunned to learn, finds there to be too much of it. In particular, the report [...]

I’m aware, by the way, that it seems sometimes as if I blog about nothing but politics here nowadays. But it’s August, and it’s an election year and that means that by default the election is itself the watercooler show on TV, at least until the Olympics start. But don’t take my word for it. [...]

AMC One of the most important and least-remarked-on transitions in life is the death of a parent. While it doesn’t get noted the way other developmental milestones do—puberty, graduation, parenthood, etc.—losing a parent is recognizing that you are ultimately responsible for yourself, and as much or more as those other landmarks, it changes you by [...]

In lieu of actual pilot screeners this summer, I’ve been getting e-mails from network publicity departments. Hey, we’ve got new publicity photos for 90210 available for the press! Check it out—we posted trailers for new NBC shows at our website! And I’m all, yeah, dude! I’d love to download and reproduce your publicity stills and [...]