Tuned In
Tuned In+922 days ago

Neighborhood Journalism I: HBO Working on Scorsese Series

By James Poniewozik

  Before 6 this morning, I was riding my bike to work a shift at the Park Slope Food Co-op—that’s right, I basically am Gerald Goode—when I came across a block closed to parking, with street signs announcing shooting for HBO “series” Boardwalk Empire.    The show is actually a pilot for a series under [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 923 days ago

Walter Cronkite

By James Poniewozik

America’s most renowned news anchor died on Friday. My appreciation of him is on time.com: Newsman Walter Cronkite, who died at the age of 92, was so thoroughly and uniquely linked with the word “trust” that it is tempting to say that the word should be buried with him. In the generation since he left [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+925 days ago

Dead Tree Alert II: Get Fired Up for Torchwood: Children of Earth

By James Poniewozik

If you’ve been hearing about next week’s BBC America miniseries, Torchwood: Children of Earth, which I briefly review in TIME this week, you may have thought it’s not for you. You may think you need to be a fan and follower of the Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood, or Doctor Who itself, to appreciate it. I [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 925 days ago

Dead Tree Alert I: Who Pays for News?

By James Poniewozik

My current TIME column combines some themes I’ve written about in a few Tuned In posts lately, looking at the lengths journalists are going to to fund their work, and pointing out that even “free” news is paid for by somebody:   Will ___ save journalism? Lately it seems easier to find ruminations on that subject [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 926 days ago

Why Journalists Are Like SCOTUS Nominees

By James Poniewozik

Because of a disconnected cable box (unhooked for TIME’s office move) and a desktop Mac that has a hard time with streaming video, I’m not watching the Sotomayor hearings today. But having watched some of the first three days, and having read much of the commentary, it strikes me that you could replace “judges” with [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 926 days ago

Emmy Nominations: Something for (Almost) Everyone

By James Poniewozik

  The 2009 Emmy nominations came out this morning, bigger and—well, yeah, bigger. To spread the nominee wealth, draw in more fans of more shows (and, maybe, to increase the odds that the broadcast networks won’t get shut out by cable), the major categories were bumped up to six and even seven nominees.  The result: [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 926 days ago

The Morning After: Dark and Light

By James Poniewozik

Last night saw a couple summer-TV debuts I didn’t get around to reviewing. We had the Jerry Bruckheimer drama Dark Blue, with the ever-loud Dylan McDermott, in which TNT strove to break the stereotypes established by FX and AMC and boldly prove that a cable network can make a cop show just as formulaic as [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 927 days ago

Franken & Sotomayor: From TV to D.C.

By James Poniewozik

Think TV entertainment doesn’t influence politics at its highest levels? Think again! At Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing, new U.S. Senator Al Franken, who came to public fame on Saturday Night Live, reminisces with Sotomayor, who had said she was drawn to the law by watching Perry Mason (h/t Mediaite): I wonder if one day a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 927 days ago

You Are Dead To Me, Emmy! Who Must Be Nominated?

By James Poniewozik

If I were a good, traffic-generating blogger, I’d have done a whole series of run-ups this week to the Emmy nominations, category by category. Bad blogger, bad! But since the nominations are coming out tomorrow morning, now’s a good time to sound you out on it. So I ask: if you could pick one performer [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+927 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: TLC Takes the Cake, Again

By James Poniewozik

To the growing list of TV Trends I Cannot Understand, add this: Shows about cake. First came Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, then TLC’s Cake Boss. Now the latter network breaks the three’s-a-trend threshold by announcing new series Ultimate Cake-Off.  Maybe it’s because I’m a cook and not a baker, but the human drama of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 927 days ago

Media Offer Sanford a Sympathetic Ear (for an Exclusive)

By James Poniewozik

After South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s bizarre disappearance to Argentina and confession of an affair, you’d think he hadn’t a friend in the world. You’d be wrong. Behind the scenes, journalists, eager to land a big interview get, reached out to feel his pain.  The State newspaper, which had been leading Sanford coverage from the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 927 days ago

The Morning After: Oral Arguments

By James Poniewozik

Between closing a dead-tree article and packing up my office, I had time to watch the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings only on and off. Which is probably the most any sane person should be watching.  The point of a televised hearing, this one demonstrated again, is that it is a televised hearing. That is: barring [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Advertising | 927 days ago

But Wait—There's More! Billy Mays' TV Show to Live On

By James Poniewozik

I was on vacation when infomercial pitchman Billy Mays died, but beyond the obvious jokes (see this post’s headline), it was good to see him get his due at the end. Whatever you think of their products, advertisers, for better or worse, have an underappreciated effect on the culture of TV. Infomercials, in their way, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 928 days ago

Ctrl-See

By James Poniewozik

  Tonight is the debut of Miami Social, Bravo’s apparent effort to develop its own Hills-like reality soap about the relationships of a set of hot heterosexuals, bisexuals, trisexuals, etc. in the aforementioned city. If that doesn’t sound like your thing, I suggest going to NBC.com for the debut of Ctrl, a sweetly funny webseries [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+928 days ago

Tales from the Swag Heap

By James Poniewozik

Among the reasons blogging has been light lately, other than the usual work stuff, is that we in the TIME New York office are preparing to move, from the 22nd to the 23rd floor. Which means packing up every single thing in my office—by my count, for something like the third time in three years. [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 928 days ago

Around the Dial: NPH to Host, FX to Spy, Seacrest to Cash in

By James Poniewozik

Other TV news I hadn’t gotten around to blogging yet:  * Neil Patrick Harris is officially hosting the Emmys. It’ll be legen—wait for it—dary! And that joke is over—wait for it—used! * FX has announced Archer, a spy-spoof animated comedy, for the fall. I’ve seen only a clip, which FX isn’t allowing anyone to share, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 928 days ago

The Morning After: Angel of Death

By James Poniewozik

  SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for last night’s Nurse Jackie coming up after the jump.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Advertising | 929 days ago

The (Positive, Enthusiastic, Subsidized) Critics of the Future?

By James Poniewozik

I try not to do too many navel-gazing, whither-the-future-of-criticism posts, but today’s New York Times feature on bloggers paid to do sponsored posts promoting products is the sort of thing that gives me the heebie jeebies.   In a nutshell: successful bloggers can now earn income and freebies by doing posts and videos for advertisers [...]