Tuned In
Tuned In+871 days ago

Wheel of Fortune Kills Free Spin. Is Nothing Sacred?

By James Poniewozik

Last week, Robo-James’ time machine looked at the evolution over the decades of Wheel of Fortune. That eternal process continues; the game show starts a new season Monday, with a new twist that—like many in the past—sounds like a needless complication of something that already worked. The “Free Spin” wedge will be replaced by “Free [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Advertising | 871 days ago

Cougar Town Marks Its Territory

By James Poniewozik

No, Courteney Cox hasn’t gone into a new line of work. This sign—snapped a block and a half from my house—is part of a stealth campaign for Cox’s upcoming ABC sitcom Cougar Town. Cox’s character, besides being an older gal with an eye for the younger fellas, is also a real-estate agent, which career must [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 871 days ago

TV Tonight: Happy Glee-turn

By James Poniewozik

Between the May sneak-premiere and the incessant advertising, it probably seems like Glee is entering its fifth season on TV. In fact the snarky-with-heart high school show choir comedy returns tonight with its second episode. And while it’s not as knock-your-socks-off as the pilot (while retaining some of the same problems), it continues to show [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 871 days ago

The Morning After: We're Gonna Have a TV Party Tonight

By James Poniewozik

When Sons of Anarchy debuted on FX this time last year, I appreciated it but couldn’t really get myself to like it; it was (like The Shield, creator Kurt Sutter’s alma mater) relentlessly brutal, but (unlike The Shield) without characters I could get attached to or interested in. Toward the end of the season, I [...]

+Music | 871 days ago

Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Beatles

By TIME Staff
Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Beatles

In honor of the long-awaited The Beatles: Rock Band release and the band’s digitally remastered studio albums, TIME explores some of the lesser-known facts about the Fab Four

Tuned In
Tuned In+872 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: More Support (Staff) for Jay

By James Poniewozik

At some point, I’m going to post more excerpts from my interview with Jay Leno that didn’t make it into my cover story this week, but for now, office duties, catching up on mail and, well, actually watching TV take precedence. In the meantime, New York magazine has an insightful cover on Leno’s erstwhile late-night [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 872 days ago

TV Tonight: Mediocrity Has a New Address

By James Poniewozik

What’s the best yardstick by which to fairly judge the CW’s new remake of Melrose Place? The 1990s original? Last year’s remake of 90210? The CW’s other stable of soaps and teen dramas? (Please don’t say actual good television. I mean, we’re talking Melrose Place here.)

Tuned In
Tuned In+872 days ago

While I Was Out

By James Poniewozik

I’m back. I didn’t actually go anywhere. I was on staycation at home, where the Tuned In Jrs. were still out of school. (And still are! School starts on Wednesday for public students in New York City, so Obama cannot eat the brains of the schoolchildren of Brooklyn today!) For the TV critic on vacation, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 873 days ago

Mad Men Watch: Gimme Shelter

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, put on your cesta, make sure you don’t put that pelota through the TV screen, and watch last night’s Mad Men.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 876 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: Leno on Letterman

By James Poniewozik

It’s just a week and a half until The Jay Leno Show begins airing a thousand hours a week on NBC, so apropos of my supersized Leno story this week, it seems as good a time as any to close out Time Machine Week with a look at Leno doing Late Night with David Letterman [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 876 days ago

The Morning After: Robo-Edition

By James Poniewozik

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!

Tuned In
Tuned In+877 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: In Which I Write A Lot of Words About Jay Leno

By James Poniewozik

As if you needed proof that the week before Labor Day is the slowest news week of the year, I have the cover story in TIME magazine. It’s about Jay Leno, his new show and how this big gamble and cost-saving measure represents, as the cover line says “the future of TV” (for better or [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 877 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: The Kids from C.A.P.E.R.

By James Poniewozik

Before The Jonas Brothers, before iCarly, before Hannah Montana—yea, even long before Saved by the Bell—there was the Saturday-morning live-action kids’ show. Like any good child of Generation X, I have chunks of my brainsphere better reserved for remembering physics equations and American history instead stuffed with memories of Electra Woman and Dyna-Girl, Lidsville and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 877 days ago

The Morning After: Robo-Edition

By James Poniewozik

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!

+Books | 878 days ago

Top 10 Oddest Marvel Characters

By TIME Staff
Top 10 Oddest Marvel Characters

On Aug. 31, Disney announced it would acquire the comic-book publisher Marvel for $4 billion. But the Mouse gets more than just the rights to Spider-man, The X-Men and other bankable superheroes: it also inherits Marvel’s vast stable of some 5,000 heroes and villains — some obscure, some unusual and some bizarre. Here’s 10 of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+878 days ago

Sawyer to Replace Gibson; Let Oppressed-White-Male Rhetoric Begin

By James Poniewozik

Oh-so-briefly interrupting staycation to note that Charles Gibson is retiring as host of ABC’s evening newscast, to be replaced by Diane Sawyer, meaning that white-male TV anchors are now officially oppressed. Cue Glenn Beck editorial in 5, 4, 3… Seriously, the interesting implication of the move for network evening news is how Sawyer’s performance will [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 878 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: The Best Show Not on DVD?

By James Poniewozik

I’m not really sure if I should be embedding this video. The clip above is from Relativity, my favorite Zwick-Herskovits drama of all, which ran one season on ABC in 1996-97. It’s on YouTube, as is apparently the whole rest of the series. Its provenance is, shall we say, open to question. But it’s the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 878 days ago

The Morning After: Robo-Edition

By James Poniewozik

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!