Tuned In
Tuned In+542 days ago

TV Tonight: Swimming With Scots

By James Poniewozik

I must apologize for having been remiss in my coverage of Shark Week this year: the way I see it, you’ve seen one shark, you’ve seen 250 million years of evolution. In compensation, here’s CBS’s Craig Ferguson talking with most talented woman in TV history Julie Chen about his own Shark Week special, airing tonight [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 542 days ago

Happy "Birth" Day, Mr. President; Welcome to the Post-Fact Era

By James Poniewozik

Barack Obama celebrates his 49th birthday today. Or so he claims. According to a CNN survey, more than a quarter of Americans doubt that Obama was born in the United States; 29% say he probably was; and a mere plurality of 42% have no doubt. This despite widely reported empirical documentation of the President’s birth [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Advertising | 542 days ago

Sponsors Won't Punish $#*! for Bad Language, Will for Bad Ratings

By James Poniewozik

I’m not going to pretend you didn’t see this coming, but the Parents Television Council has called on advertisers to boycott CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, based on the Twitter feed shitmydadsays and the subsequent book. “Unless or until CBS chooses a different title for this program, we are urging advertisers to avoid sponsoring [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 542 days ago

TCA Roundup: Special FX

By James Poniewozik

The Television Critics Association press tour usually has the assembled journalists peppering network executives with difficult, sometimes even hostile questions. But then there are networks like FX, which airs a roster of critical darlings. President John Landgraf took the stage yesterday and was greeted with questions about how much the network was going to add [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 543 days ago

Death By Twitter: Cosby Proves Self Alive on CNN

By James Poniewozik

Larry King Live may be the go-to destination for coverage of celebrity deaths, but last night, Bill Cosby called in to confirm that he is quite alive. This, in contradiction to the Trending Topics list on Twitter—the list of most-mentioned subjects on the social-networking service—which for much of the day was topped by the phrase [...]

+Music | 543 days ago

Top 10 Overplayed Wedding Songs

By Kayla Webley
overplayed_wedding_songs_tout

Anyone who has ever been to a wedding knows that there are certain songs that can’t be avoided. TIME picks the most predictable reception tunes.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 543 days ago

TCA Roundup: No News Is… No News

By James Poniewozik

Fox, which is riding high on Glee, has the Death Star (American Idol) and has contractors busily at work on Death Star 2 (a.k.a. Simon Cowell’s X Factor), presented at the Television Critics Association’s press tour yesterday. Here’s what they had to say—and didn’t: * The biggest news hovering over the entire TCA tour has [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 543 days ago

The Morning After: The Kindest Cut

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Bachelorette finale coming up: The Bachelorette‘s Ali made her decision in the summer season finale last night, in a way that offered a little something for everyone. There was a rose for Roberto, who in turn got down on bended knee and pulled out an engagement ring, popping the box in [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 544 days ago

Mitch Miller, TV Singalong Host, Dies at 99

By James Poniewozik

Mitch Miller, the goateed bandleader who hosted NBC’s Sing Along with Mitch in the early 1960s, died Saturday at age 99. Miller’s music and his show were before my time, but I’ve always found the phenomenon of his show fascinating from the archival footage. Partly because Sing Along with Mitch was, in a way, before [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 544 days ago

The Morning After: Cross(word)ing the Rubicon

By James Poniewozik

I haven’t entirely decided how I’m going to handle AMC’s new drama Rubicon on the blog; Sunday night / Monday morning is already busy with (besides print magazine deadlines) sister show Mad Men—and while I’m not a True Blood aficionado, HBO’s upcoming Boardwalk Empire is a definite contender for regular-post status. In any event, since [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 544 days ago

TCA Roundup: Event Programming

By James Poniewozik

While you carried on blissfully unaware with your life this weekend, the Television Critics’ press tour continued making the world safe for new TV shows. Or is that from them? In any event, a roundup of the news from NBC and ABC’s presentations: * The producers of NBC’s sci-fi/thriller/mystery serial The Event would like your [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 544 days ago

It's Three Cheerios for Glee at TV Critics' Awards

By James Poniewozik

The Television Critics’ Association (of which I’m a member) gave out its 2010 awards in Los Angeles Saturday, and it was a big night for new program Glee. (It was a somewhat less big, but still non-shabby, night for Modern Family, Lost and Breaking Bad, among others.) I wasn’t at the awards this year, but [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 544 days ago

Mad Men Watch: Christmas Stalkings

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, apply some refreshing Ponds Cold Cream to your face and watch last night’s Mad Men. Christmas 1964 came to Mad Men this episode, and with it, several old friends showed up. There was creepy neighbor kid Glen (Marten Weiner, son of creator Matthew Weiner), who materialized as a [...]