Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 773 days ago

To Salahi or Not to Salahi? NBCU Takes a Poll

By James Poniewozik

Say you happen to have the rights to make a reality show starring an infamous couple who—in the name of getting on a reality show—breached security at the White House by crashing a state dinner. On the one hand: to put them in a reality series would effectively reward their behavior, and how, making them even [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 773 days ago

TIME Names Bernanke POY: Your Thoughts?

By James Poniewozik

Tuned In doesn’t generally cover the Federal Reserve, but we do cover media, and this time every year TIME makes a media story out of itself by naming its Person of the Year. This year it’s Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman; you can read the story here, and editor Rick Stengel’s rationale for picking him [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 774 days ago

Getting a Little More Justified

By James Poniewozik

Busy working on things-that-are-not-this-blog. While I’m otherwise occupied, enjoy this new FX clip for Justified (formerly Lawman), premiering in March. It’s a trailer, rather than the cool extended scene we saw last fall (which is no longer available for embedding), but I’m excited anyway. Cowboy hats, Walton Goggins and rockets!

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 774 days ago

The Morning After: Ben Folds—Great Reality Judge, or Greatest Reality Judge?

By James Poniewozik

Because Mrs. Tuned In has an interest in choral music and because it’s December, we checked out the debut of the a cappella singing contest The Sing-Off. When I saw that the judges included a personal favorite, pianist-singer-songwriter Ben Folds, I didn’t know whether to be excited or depressed. I mean, I’m glad the man’s [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 774 days ago

Main Surprise Is Few Surprises for Globe TV Nominees

By James Poniewozik

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced its nominees for the 67th annual Golden Globe awards. On the TV side, the most noteworthy nominations were comedy slots for first-year shows Glee and Modern Family (at the expense, apparently of 2008 nominees Californication and Weeds—ouch, Showtime!). Really, though, given the Globes’ history of being quicker to [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 774 days ago

HIMYM Watch: I Just Want to Have a Smoke. Is That So Wrong?

By James Poniewozik

Quick spoilers for How I Met Your Mother coming up after the jump:

Tuned In
Tuned In+775 days ago

My Wife and Kids: Marriage, Parenthood for NBC Midseason

By James Poniewozik

After the Winter Olympics—the beautiful, beautiful dream amid which NBC can believe it is the leading network in broadcast television—NBC in March will launch its midseason schedule. Only two new shows will debut on it (because things are going so well!): the long-awaited and -delayed Parenthood and Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy-reality show The Marriage Ref. Details [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 775 days ago

Those Other People's Top 10 Lists

By James Poniewozik

The top-ten lists are starting to come out fast and furious, in TV as in everything else, and this weekend AFI released its list of the top 10 TV shows (as well as top 10 movies) of the year. Having been on the AFI jury a couple times before (most recently in 2008), I feel [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 775 days ago

Jack Bauer's Conservative Creator Lands Kennedy Mini

By James Poniewozik

Joel Surnow, the conservative half of the team that created and ran 24 for years, has found a home for the miniseries on the Kennedy family that he’s been shopping this year: the History channel. The eight-hour (apparently down from ten) project will be History’s first scripted miniseries. Will Surnow’s politics slant his portrayal of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 775 days ago

G-Steph's GMA Debut: Can He Master the Dumb News?

By James Poniewozik

In the interest of fairness, let me disclose: I cannot fairly review George Stephanopoulos‘ first day on Good Morning America, because I only caught the second hour of the program. On the other hand, let’s face it: that second hour is what is going to make or break G-Steph as a morning host. You may [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 775 days ago

The Morning After: Has Dexter's Game Changed?

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for the season finale of Dexter coming up after the jump:

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 776 days ago

Sarah Palin and William Shatner, Together At Last

By James Poniewozik

After an appearance by William Shatner, doing one of his dramatic readings from Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien had a special visit by a certain national author, reading from Shatner’s own autobiography: If they could only work out a deal to do each other’s audiobooks.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Advertising | 778 days ago

Jay Leno Is #1!

By James Poniewozik

…in product placement! From the get-go, The Jay Leno Show has been a business strategy first, an entertainment program second. And while its business success is debatable—it’s certainly cut costs for NBC, but often pulls no more viewers than Jay got at 11:30—Nielsen has released an interesting year-end list that finds the show has succeeded [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 778 days ago

Business Hours Are Over for FOTC

By James Poniewozik

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie have declared on their website that there will be no third season of Flight of the Conchords. While I would love it if they could continue to make a full slate of hilarious episodes, complete with songs, every year, the show was clearly incredibly labor-intensive, and the strain clearly showed [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 778 days ago

The Morning After: Flip! Flip! Flip! Adelphia!

By James Poniewozik

I don’t really have a good excuse for not doing more It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia writeups at Tuned In. Well, I have excuses, just not good ones. My Thursday-night/Friday-morning dance card is full enough as it is, and the episodes are self-contained enough that one review would probably be pretty much like the last. [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 778 days ago

NBC Comedies Watch: You Sleigh Me

By James Poniewozik
Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 778 days ago

Stephanopoulos to GMA: Stepping Stone, or the Prize Itself?

By James Poniewozik

ABC made official what has long been floated: that George Stephanopoulos will leave This Week and take over Good Morning America, starting next week. Hosting a morning show obviously takes a different skill set than a weekly political interview show. Whether Stephanopoulos is suited for it remains to be seen, and whether it is suited [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 779 days ago

Modern Family Watch: Innocente!

By James Poniewozik

Last night’s Modern Family was not its strongest, but the spirit of the season, and the fact that holiday episodes are often a little forced anyway, compels me to cut it some slack and focus on what I enjoyed: