Prashant Gupta / FX Because FX is generous enough to send episodes of The Shield far in advance, I have now watched through two episodes short of the finale. Through seven seasons, I’ve struggled to put my finger on just what it is that makes the show so disturbing to me. I mean, there are [...]

Spoilers for Project Runway… do not follow the jump, because I was liveblogging the debate while it was on. It’s sitting on my Tivo, but rather than make you wait, I’ll throw the thread open to your finale comments, and maybe I’ll add my own once I get to around to watching. Update: Watched it. [...]

As I write this post, CNN and CBS have just come out with their insta-polls, which gave the debate to Obama by what I believe was the biggest margin of any of the debates. I was surprised, and then I wasn’t. CBS’s poll gave the debate to Obama by a two-to-one margin. I’m an Obama [...]

Which is going to be for you? Which is more suspenseful? Will Kenley go negative? In either case, forget about tonight swinging the gay vote.

Can any CNN personality be funnier than Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty? The network is about to find out, as it gives a Saturday 10 p.m. live show to comedian D. L. Hughley. Hughley, a Bill Maher regular and former costar of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, will interview guests and riff [...]

Just a reminder that Michael Grunwald, Karen Tumulty and I will liveblogging tonight’s final Presidential debate at the usual location, currently occupied by a threatening-looking countdown clock. Whenever I look at it, I have an urge to decide whether to cut the green wire or the yellow wire. Your predictions about the questions, strategies and [...]

Tonight, Comedy Central debuts David Allan Grier’s Chocolate News, the melanin-enriched newsmagazine partner to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, attempting three years after Chappelle’s Show to launch a counterpart to the aforementioned, more-vanilla news satires. First, the good news. The following monologue, in which DAG exhorts America to “vote for the white half” [...]

Before last month’s Project Runway fashion show in Bryant Park, I ran into Laura Bennett, the past Runway finalist who was cheerfully nonchalant about having a career and six kids. (My favorite quote of hers about adding a new baby to the family: “Just throw it on the pile!”) It was just after Sarah Palin [...]

Over at The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder has an interesting post about a partisan dispute over press coverage of campaign events and the whackjobs who attend them: So crazy liberals at Obama-Biden events occasionally make fun of Sarah Palin in crude terms, and at times, a more than a few folks have yelled that McCain is [...]

FOX I recently got a screener for Fox’s midseason drama Lie to Me, starring Tim Roth as a cynical genius who studies “deception detection”: the science of noticing tiny “microexpressions” in a person’s face to determine whether they’re lying, what they’re thinking or how they’re feeling. The show is yet another example of the TV [...]

So last night saw the debut of My Own Worst Enemy. (To what Mediaweek described as “sluggish” ratings.) Is it your new best friend? Your thoughts on that, TV sports or any other Monday-night tube welcomed.

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, get your flail and watch last night’s How I Met Your Mother.

TIME’s movie critic (and TV whiz in his own right) Richard Corliss sent along this e-mail about last night’s Mad Men, which I’d noted played up the fascination/leeriness of Americans for Europeans in the early ’60s: The touchstone was LA DOLCE VITA, Fellini’s divine-decadence drama that sold Americans on the notion of Europe as a [...]

Those of you not in the mood for action vehicles for Christian Slater (that are also action vehicles for actual vehicles), and who have not gotten enough politics on TV already, might want to check out The Return of the War Room on Sundance tonight. A sequel to the renowned documentary about the rapid-response team [...]

NBC Photo: Mitchell Haaseth NBC’s drama / car commercial My Own Worst Enemy, starring Christian Slater, debuts tonight. Pro: The pilot was much better than I expected it would be. Con: I expected it would stink. Deadlines on a couple non-review pieces kept me from doing a full-fledged review, so I hope to come back [...]

AMC SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, try some exotic food—it’s a pepper stuffed with cheese!—and watch last night’s Mad Men.

USA Network Photo: Isabella Vosmikova Friday night, USA’s The Starter Wife graduated from miniseries to full-fledged series. I neglected to point you to my brief review from the last print TIME, but better—or at least no worse—late than never: At last, a Gossip Girl for the old people! Reprising her role from the smash miniseries, [...]