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Robo-James' Time Machine: How TV Taught Me to Be Jewish

My father was Catholic, my mother is Jewish. That means I was always Jewish, technically and culturally. In practice, as a kid I went to Catholic church; when I became a good teenage atheist, I stopped going to church, but I never had any Jewish religious education. I was always aware, through my Mom’s family, [...]

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The Morning After: Robo-Edition

This is Robo-James. The Morning After is a daily post in which humans can discuss the previous night’s television transmissions. Discuss, humans, discuss! Type on the clumsy keyboard interface with your puny flesh-hands!

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Mad Men Watch: I Went to a Garden Party

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, grab your copy of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and watch last night’s Mad Men.

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Programming Note

OK, I know what you’re thinking: Didn’t Poniewozik just go on vacation? And you’re right, I did, although in my defense, I don’t actually take real vacations, because TV criticism is not a real job. Normally in August I take off two weeks in a row; this year I had to reschedule one week because [...]

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Leno Loads Up on Stars, Just in Case

If you talk to people connected with The Jay Leno Show, they’ll tell you the new show will have more comedy and fewer guests, because viewers tune out the interviews in the second half of The Tonight Show. Leno often says that, in this celeb-saturated era, only a handful of guests really draw viewers anyway. [...]

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The Morning After: Top Chef and Gay Marriage

We’re into the fall-screener time of year, when the growing pile of shows-that-will-be-on-a-month-from-now is taking precedence over stuff-that-is-actually-on-TV-now. (HBO, for instance, just sent six episodes of Bored to Death, the Jason Schwarzman screwball-noir comedy, which after an iffy pilot is getting funnier by the episode.) So I’ll leave it to you to comment on last [...]

Top 10 Disappointing Blockbusters

Everett

As the summer movie season winds down, TIME takes a look at some of the biggest flops in box-office history.

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…And Now Conan Beats Dave (Among Youngsters) Without Showing Up

The late-night ratings for the week before last showed that a week of David Letterman reruns had beaten Conan O’Brien originals in total viewers, although the Conan originals still won in various categories of younger viewers. Last week, Conan was in reruns and Dave was in originals and… pretty much exactly the same thing happened: [...]

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Hope Davis, on Not Poehler-izing Hillary

Hope Davis as Hillary Clinton, in the upcoming HBO film The Special Relationship, is one of the more inspired casting picks I’ve heard in a while. (The “special relationship,” by the way, is not that between Bill and Hillary—or Bill and any other woman—but Bill and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.) Davis, besides being simply [...]

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Who Cares About a Melrose Place Remake?

As the New York Times told us yesterday, only the olds use Twitter. Readers of Tuned In are uniformly young and beautiful, and so you have no idea that, over on Twitter, some of us elderly TV critics—breathing the stench of the grave with every tweet—have been debating how the new CW remake stands up [...]

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Whedonverse, BSGverse Continue to Merge

It still seems strange to be writing an item on Dollhouse’s season 2, considering how unlikely the prospect seemed when season 1 ended. But TV Guide has a preview article, including news of yet more crossover to Dollhouse from the exiles of Battlestar Galactica. Joining BSG’s Tahmoh Penikett will be Jamie Bamber (Apollo) and Michael [...]

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Fox News on Kennedy: Short Shrift, or Right Coverage for Wrong Reasons?

When news of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death broke this morning, cable news kicked into full coverage mode. CNN brought on Paul Begala and others to remember the Senator’s political career. MSNBC’s Morning Joe had public and personal reminiscences of the politician and his legacy. And Fox & Friends had… a Law & Order: SVU fan [...]

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The Morning After: Rescue Yourself

Last week’s episode of Rescue Me was the last advance screener I’d been sent, and it may be a while before I get around to last night’s penultimate episode. So I’ll open up the discussion to those of you who did watch. Going into the season finale, do you think the longer, 22-episode season has [...]

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Colbert Suffers Setbacks in Space, on Earth

First he took on Wikipedia and South Carolina. Now Stephen Colbert’s campaign of self-aggrandizement is poised to go galactic; the space shuttle is scheduled to bring the International Space Station a new treadmill, named the COLBERT (Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill), after the Comedy Central host won an online naming contest. Colbert’s persona [...]

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Clone Wars Returns, With a Bounty of Hunters

It’s a big news day, at least for the Tuned In Jrs.: Cartoon Network has announced an Oct. 2 return date for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, its animated series. The new series actually has its own subtitle, Rise of the Bounty Hunters, and will focus on—well, you can figure it out. Folks like the [...]

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Nurse Jackie Watch: "Who Is Luckier Than Me?"

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, unplug your TV, plug it back in, and watch last night’s season finale of Nurse Jackie.

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MTV to Show Us Its Skins

MTV announced today that it’s making its own version of the British teen dramedy Skins, which has been running here on BBC America. I’m both excited and apprehensive. A few thoughts: * I had hoped a while back, in my recently-neglected Unwanted Programming Advice feature, that HBO or Showtime would make a teen drama of [...]

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Murder Suspect Dead; Reality TV Continues to Roam Free

Ryan Jenkins, the reality-dating-show contestant suspected in the murder of his model ex-wife, turned up dead of an apparent suicide in a Canadian motel. I’d been loath to write about the story, because while Jenkins’ appearance on VH1′s Megan Wants a Millionaire (hands up, who heard of it before the murder case?) provided a news [...]