Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 631 days ago

NBC Reloads for Fall

By James Poniewozik

NBC continues its long, Marshall-Plan-like rebuilding process today with the announcement of three new series pickups for next season. Two of them are series I’ve heard entertainment chief Angela Bromstad talk up in the past: Love Bites, a kind of 21st-century Love, American Style from Sex and the City writer Cindy Chupack, and Outsourced, a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 631 days ago

Thursday Comedies Watch: "The Prize. The PRIZE…"

By James Poniewozik

Note: Be sure to take a look at this Tuned In Poll and tell me whether you want to keep this gallery-review format.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 631 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: Why Team Coco Matters

By James Poniewozik

In this week’s print issue of TIME, my column looks at Conan O’Brien‘s re-emergence on 60 Minutes (and on tour) and how his move to cable is another test of what it means to be a “star” in the age of niche media. Leaving aside the money (which thanks to a production deal, could earn [...]

+Movies | 631 days ago

Top 10 Worst Superhero Sequels

By TIME Staff
Everett

Hollywood requires every comic book movie franchise to pump out multiple sequels. Many of them…are just not very good.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 632 days ago

Tuned Inland Poll: Comedy Night (Reviews) Done Right

By James Poniewozik

A little housekeeping question about my morning-after reviews of Thursday night’s comedies. Now that NBC is in the position of having four good (or at least worth reviewing) sitcoms on Thursday night, I recently ditched the practice of doing longer separate reviews of one or two, and instead have been doing a picture gallery of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 632 days ago

TV Tonight: There Will Be Paint

By James Poniewozik

Since Community debuted, viewers have gone two ways on its pop-culture referentiality—actually, this viewer right here has felt both ways, often within the same episode. It can be hilarious; and it can be too much. I really like the show and think it’s only gotten better, but I love its characters as well as its [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 632 days ago

Modern Family Watch: Tell Me What You Really Think

By James Poniewozik

It can seem forced when TV shows do episodes in which several groups of characters experience some version of the same conflict. For an extended-relations show like Modern Family, it works more naturally, because each member is, to an extent, a variation on the same person. This worked in “Airport 2010,” in which the members [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 632 days ago

Idol Watch: When Harry Met Idol

By James Poniewozik

Quick spoilers for last night’s American Idol elimination coming up after the jump:

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 633 days ago

The Morning After: Glee-I-Y Edition

By James Poniewozik

Between a late night last night, catchup posts this morning, and a visit to the Boardwalk Empire set this afternoon (I know: poor me!), I’m not going to have time to catch up on last night’s Glee, so you can do it for me. After the first three episodes of the spring season, I have [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 633 days ago

American Idol: Judging the Final Five

By James Poniewozik

The remaining quintet of Idol contestants, under the mentoring of Harry Connick Jr., performed the songs of Frank Sinatra last night. After the jump, see who got under my skin:

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 633 days ago

Lostwatch: Here Come the Waterworks

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, grab your things—here, take this backpack—and watch last night’s Lost. While Lost was airing on the East Coast last night, I was at the Time 100 gala at the Time Warner Center, seated between Rachael Ray and Lost producer Carlton Cuse. (Through dinner, Cuse was getting text updates [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 634 days ago

CNNBS? And Is Katie Couric the Next Larry King?

By James Poniewozik

Gabriel Sherman at New York Magazine ‘s Daily Intel blogis reporting that CBS News and CNN are in “deep talks” about a possible partnership that would allow them to share talent, cut costs and, they hope, grow their respective audiences. I don’t want to put too much stock in it yet; such a deal has [...]

+Music | 634 days ago

Top 10 Protest Songs

By micahernst
protest_songs_tout

TIME’s 2011 Person of the Year is The Protester. Here is a look at the artists who have best turned anger into song.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 634 days ago

The Morning After: Chuck Vs. the DVR

By James Poniewozik

Willard Week continued last night, with Fred Willard following up his Modern Family guest spot with an appearance on Chuck, pairing with Swoosie Kurtz as a married spy couple whose squabbling gave newly attached Chuck and Sarah pause. Also potentially giving them pause is another married spy couple, the protagonists of Undercovers, which NBC picked [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 634 days ago

HIMYM Watch: I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

By James Poniewozik

When you have a  comedy involving five friends, two of whom are married, and the other three of whom have already hooked up and broken up, there’s not much you can do to introduce relationship tension within the group. In “Twin Beds,” HIMYM tried to do that, not by bringing Robin back together either with [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 635 days ago

Treme Watch: Homecoming and Awaygoing

By James Poniewozik

Warning: spoilers for last night’s Treme follow. This was the first episode of Treme that I didn’t see in advance, and once I caught up with it, other deadlines got in the way. In the interest of putting it out there for your discussion, I’ll skip the big overview—the episode, it was pretty plain, focused [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 635 days ago

NBC Goes Undercover With J. J. Abrams

By James Poniewozik

I suppose the thing that really would have qualified as news would have been if NBC didn’t pick up a highly publicized, presumably less-than-cheap pilot from J.J. Abrams, but nonetheless: the network has given the go-ahead to Undercovers, the married-spies romance-drama. Good thing that NBC doesn’t already have a romance-drama about a couple who also [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 635 days ago

Do You Care If Daily Show Staffers Wrote Jokes for Obama?

By James Poniewozik

That, anyway, is the word from The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, who reports that David Axelrod told him the Prez received jokes for his White House Correspondents’ Dinner standup from writers for The Daily Show. (For a review of Obama’s, and Jay Leno’s, performances, see this post from my colleague and history-of-comedy authority Richard Zoglin.) [...]