Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 850 days ago

SYTYCD Upskirt Scandal: News Flash or Non-Flash?

By James Poniewozik

So last night on So You Think You Can Dance, an aspiring contestant reacted to some good news by rolling on the floor in her short skirt, exposing her bare crotch to primetime America and inviting the wrath of the FCC. Unless she didn’t. After the video and stills were posted online, SYTYCD producer Nigel [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 850 days ago

TV Tonight: Hank and The Middle

By James Poniewozik

Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton both starred in long-lasting hit comedies in the 1990s (Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond). On Fox’s short-lived Back to You, they teamed up as news anchors, forming a kind of sitcom-star supergroup. Now they’re debuting back-to-back sitcoms on ABC, a symmetry that demands comparison. When two sitcoms stars once united [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+850 days ago

The One Where Matt LeBlanc Gets a Showtime Series

By James Poniewozik

A Friends star changes career direction by making an inside-showbiz satire for a pay-cable network: in the TV industry, they call it “pulling a full Kudrow.” OK, they don’t, but they should. (The variation—making an overserious inside-showbiz drama for NBC, is referred to as “a full Perry.”) First Lisa Kudrow made HBO’s The Comeback; now [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 850 days ago

The Morning After: The Better Wife

By James Poniewozik

When the pilot of The Good Wife aired last week, I wondered whether the show would continue to focus on its ongoing story, about Alicia and the aftermath of her husband’s sex scandal, or if it would mainly become a law-case-related-to-Alicia’s-personal-situation-of-the-week. I still suspect the show is too much of a law procedural to become [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 850 days ago

Elmo, Michelle Obama to Indoctrinate Your Kids With Veggies

By James Poniewozik

To usher in Sesame Street’s 40th year on air starting Nov. 10, First Lady Michelle Obama will be appearing on the show to continue to spread her radical/Marxist/fascist message about planting gardens and eating vegetables. Having successfully turned an American city trying to get the Olympics into a partisan political issue, Obam-antagonists now have a [...]

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Tuned In+TV Ratings | 850 days ago

Leno TiVo-Proof? Not So, Says TiVo

By James Poniewozik

Now that the TV-cost-reduction experiment otherwise known as The Jay Leno Show is in its third week, the numbers are starting to accumulate. After a big debut, his average nightly take has been bouncing around 6 million or so—above, but not a lot above, the 5 million he averaged on Tonight—depending on the strength of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 851 days ago

The Washington Post Slaps the Twitter Handcuffs on Its Staff

By James Poniewozik

Here’s something everybody should understand about journalism. The reporters, columnists and news anchors you follow almost all have opinions about the subjects they cover. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it is a good thing, because any person who immersed him or herself in a vital, contentious subject all day and formed no opinion [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+851 days ago

TLC (Semi-) Divorces Jon Gosselin

By James Poniewozik

In the end, only one Gosselin could end up with custody of the post-breakup Jon & Kate Plus 8, and it turns out that Mom won. TLC announced today that Kate Plus 8 will debut on Nov. 2, with newly-liberated play-ah Jon in a continuing but “less regular role.” Translation: having Jon show up with [...]

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Tuned In+851 days ago

AMC Sets Date to Release Its Prisoner

By James Poniewozik

AMC’s remake of The Prisoner is debuting on Nov. 15! Yay! It’ll air two hours a night for three nights straight! Yay! It’ll be preceded by a marathon of The Matrix movies! Ya— um… [confused muttering]. My yay!-ing, by the way, is based strictly on anticipation; I haven’t seen any of the remake yet. But [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 851 days ago

HIMYM Watch: They're Lilys! Identical Lilys, All the Way!

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s How I Met Your Mother coming up after the jump:

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 852 days ago

The Morning After: Family Guys

By James Poniewozik

I’ll be up front about this: I’m behind on Dexter, whose fourth season started last night on Showtime. I’m planning to catch up, but I had too many other obligations, and too little goodwill left from a disappointing third season, to make it a priority. Those of you who caught the debut, feel free to [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 852 days ago

TV Tonight: Trauma

By James Poniewozik

The first few minutes of Trauma, the paramedic drama that debuts tonight on NBC, seems determined to show where the network put some of that money it’s saving with The Jay Leno Show. Depicting a crisis/rescue/disaster on a rooftop high above San Francisco, it starts with a guy getting fried in an electrical accident and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 852 days ago

Mad Men Watch: Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, recline on your fainting couch and watch last night’s Mad Men.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 853 days ago

Jenny Slate's SN F-in' L Debut

By James Poniewozik

New Saturday Night Live cast member Jenny Slate made a splash in her debut on last night’s SNL premiere, letting slip the above F-bomb in a skit with Kristen Wiig. Could it have been a publicity stunt? One never knows, though her facial reaction suggests it was an old-fashioned you-know-what-up. (With which I can sympathize. [...]

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Tuned In+855 days ago

TV Tonight: Welcome (Back) to the Dollhouse

By James Poniewozik

Words I would not have guessed last spring that I would be typing today: Dollhouse returns for a second season tonight. The series made an amazing mid-season creative course correction during its first run and surprised everyone by getting renewed (on low ratings but the strength of an intense fan base and healthy DVR replay). [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 855 days ago

TV Weekend: Ken Burns' National Parks

By James Poniewozik

Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea begins its nightly run (twelve hours, in six parts) on PBS Sunday night. Last week, I wrote a column about how its premise—that Big Government saved wilderness and national treasures that private enterprise would have destroyed—is a lot more politically pointed (in the year of the Tea [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 855 days ago

Glenn Beck Gets His SNL Closeup

By James Poniewozik

If you haven’t yet seen it, Glenn Beck received a tribute greater than the cover of TIME magazine last night: a Saturday Night Live (in this case Weekend Update Thursday) parody. I have to think there is far more you could do with a Beck opening monologue than this snippet. (Think Ben Affleck’s Keith Olbermann.) [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 855 days ago

The Morning After: Time to Give Up on Survivor?

By James Poniewozik

Thursday night is becoming a high-class problem for TV viewers: on one night, we’ve got NBC’s comedy block (its two-hour comedy block, Mr. Leno), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Fringe, Project Runway, FlashForward and Survivor. (Also Grey’s Anatomy, Vampire Diaries, etc., for those of you who partake–feel free to discuss any of those below.) I [...]