Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 808 days ago

Lou Dobbs Gets Off of CNN's Lawn

By James Poniewozik

In an odd moment in a career that has not exactly lacked for said moments, crotchety CNN host Lou Dobbs abruptly announced on-air today that he is leaving the network where he has worked most of three decades (and hence, most of its existence). Leaving as in today. From his statement: Over the past six [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 808 days ago

Dollhouse Falls Asleep for the Last Time

By James Poniewozik

  No one could say they didn’t see this coming, but The Hollywood Reporter says it’s official: Dollhouse has been canceled. Fox, it reports, will finish running the rest of the 13 episodes of season 2.   Whenever a show with an intense fan base gets axed, there is wailing and gnashing and second-guessing. This [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 808 days ago

Hannitized For Your Ideological Convenience

By James Poniewozik

On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart busted Fox News’ Sean Hannity for doctoring coverage of a rally against the congressional health-care-reform bill, by intercutting it with footage from Glenn Beck’s much bigger 9/12 rally two months ago: Amid the recent charges from the White House that Fox is behaving like a political attack machine, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 808 days ago

Leno Show Removing Last Vestiges of Not-Tonight-Show-Ness

By James Poniewozik

When The Jay Leno Show premiered, the parlor game was guessing how well it would do against its big-network competition. Now it’s guessing which basic-cable show will beat it next. Jay’s been topped so far by Monday Night Football, Sons of Anarchy and SpongeBob (that last one not a direct competitor but still no badge [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 808 days ago

The Morning After: V-2

By James Poniewozik

  It’ll be a while before I catch up on last night’s V, so I’ll let any interested fans DIY the discussion for now. Last week’s pilot ended up being the highest-rated new show premiere of the season (with the exception, I believe, of the Kanye-assisted premiere of The Jay Leno Show). The pilot was [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 808 days ago

Sons of Anarchy: Full Throttle

By James Poniewozik

Brief spoilers for last night’s Sons of Anarchy coming up after the jump:  

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 809 days ago

Breaking: Non-White Males Allowed in Late Night

By James Poniewozik

Does George Lopez own the song “Low Rider”? The classic War tune was the theme for his ABC comedy, and it also kicked off his new TBS talk show, where the multiethnic band’s ’70s anthem underscores an idea that Lopez re-underscored in his monologue: This was a show intended for an audience that “looks like America.” [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 809 days ago

HIMYM Watch: She Was a Big-Boned Gal from Southern Alberta

By James Poniewozik

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

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 809 days ago

How Sesame Street Taught Kids to Watch TV

By James Poniewozik

Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary today, and as I noted last week, some fans of Fox News have been marking the occasion by suddenly getting offended over a two-year-old sketch from the show. One point I neglected to make in my post, but that should be obvious, is that complaining about Sesame Street doing [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 810 days ago

Another Vision for NBC

By James Poniewozik

“If creaky old NCIS can draw 20 million viewers, imagine what the combination of money, creativity, smart casting, production values, and an innovative broadcast-network programmer could do.” With the right breaks? I’m guessing, oh, maybe 10 million. Cynicism aside, I highly recommend Mark Harris’ take on the many troubles of NBC in New York magazine, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 810 days ago

The Morning After: One-Two Punch

By James Poniewozik

  It’s a sign of how much the broader cable universe has matured that the big Sunday-night finale we’re talking about was on AMC, and HBO’s shows are the afterthought. But last night’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and (especially) the season finale of Bored to Death were very good in their own right.  

Tuned In
Tuned In+810 days ago

Where Are the Cartoons Going? Not Cartoon Network

By James Poniewozik

  The surest sign that MTV had hit the big time was that it stopped airing music videos. Ditto VH1. The more of a mainstay Food Network became, the more it aired shows that weren’t about cooking. The big money for cable news channels is not in news, but in opinion.   Cartoon Network has [...]

+Books | 810 days ago

Stephen King on His 10 Longest Novels

By Gilbert Cruz
stephen_king_tout

In an interview with TIME, the prolific author reflected on his ten most monstrously large books.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 810 days ago

Mad Men Watch: Buying the Farm

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, call up some old friends you haven’t seen in a while and watch last night’s Mad Men.  

Tuned In
Tuned In+813 days ago

Mad Men Finale: Programming Note

By James Poniewozik

Mad Men‘s third-season finale airs Sunday night, and because of Matthew Weiner’s understandable desire for secrecy, it’ll be the first episode of the season critics won’t be seeing in advance. So I’ll be watching on plain, old-fashioned TV, like the little people do. What does this mean for my post-show reviewing? I may end up [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 813 days ago

30 Rock Watch: Subway Series

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s 30 Rock coming up after the jump:  

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 813 days ago

Office Watch: Slappy Birthday

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s The Office coming up after the jump:

Tuned In
Tuned In+813 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: The Third Bias

By James Poniewozik

  My column in this week’s print TIME expands on a bullet point from my post a week ago, on the Pew Research poll that asked TV viewers whether they believed the networks they watched had a liberal or conservative bias. The problem with this dichotomy, used not just by Pew but media critics all [...]