Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 466 days ago

Tom Bosley, 1927-2010: American Dad

By James Poniewozik

Tom Bosley, a TV fixture as the Cunningham paterfamilias on Happy Days, died today at age 83. There are two types of TV dads: those who play somebody’s dad, and those who make you feel as if they could be—almost, in some way, as if they are—your dad. Bosley was the latter. His Howard Cunningham, [...]

+Television | 466 days ago

Top 10 TV Moms June Cleaver Would Hate

By Kayla Webley
Everett

When it comes to television characters, we seem to love bad moms just as much as squeaky clean ones. TIME takes a look at some ladies June Cleaver would have hated.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 466 days ago

Sarah Palin Goes Fishing, Catches Political Metaphor

By James Poniewozik

TLC has released more preview video from Sarah Palin’s Alaska. In today’s installment, the Palin family goes on a fishing trip, and encounters—this is too perfect—a mama grizzly. (OK, I’m not a zoologist and cannot ascertain if the species is in fact grizzly, but I’m sticking with it for now.) “I love these mama bears,” [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+TV Recap Boardwalk Empire: Season 1, Episode 5 | 466 days ago

Boardwalk Empire Watch: The Swearin’ of the Green

By James Poniewozik
HBO

Brief spoilers for Sunday’s Boardwalk Empire up next: Between AMC’s Sunday finales and a large-ish print-magazine piece that I’ve been on deadline for, I didn’t get around to reviewing the very strong Boardwalk Empire episode, “Nights in Ballygran.” I’ve read elsewhere on the web that this was the show’s most Sopranos-esque episode yet; but to [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 466 days ago

The Morning After: Event Horizon

By James Poniewozik

If you were wondering if The Event would be around long enough for you to commit to, good news—NBC picked the sci-fi serial up yesterday for a full season, along with Outsourced and Law & Order: Los Angeles. The Event has slumped seriously in the ratings since it debuted, but maybe NBC has decided it [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+467 days ago

Obama to Appear on Mythbusters, Bolster America's Giant-Mirror Capability

By James Poniewozik

President Obama and Discovery Channel announced today that the chief executive will appear on the Dec. 8 episode of Mythbusters. And surprisingly, the myth being busted has nothing to do with either Islam or Kenyan birth certificates. On the episode, Obama will ask Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to test whether it was possible for [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 467 days ago

Mad Men Watch: Put a Ring on It

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, get out of the pool, turn on the TV in your hotel room and watch last night’s season finale of Mad Men. We should not be surprised, in retrospect, to find Don Draper’s work and home lives running in tandem on Mad Men. Season three was about the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 467 days ago

Rubicon Watch: I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover

By James Poniewozik

    SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, pop in an old Meet Me in St. Louis DVD and watch last night’s season finale of Rubicon. “Do it. Do it.” With those words, not so much encouraging as defiant, Rubicon ended its first season bringing Will face-to-face with the conspiracy behind the clover messages [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 469 days ago

Barbara Billingsley Dies At 94

By James Poniewozik

Barbara Billingsley, best known as Cleaver family matriarch June in Leave It to Beaver, has died at age 94. Through June Cleaver, Billngsley created one of that handful of TV characters who we’ve come to know not just as people but as symbols of the ideas and social threads of an entire generation: in her [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 470 days ago

Sanity and Qualms: Stewart, Colbert Merging D.C. Rallies

By James Poniewozik

It’s been heavily foreshadowed for a while to anyone watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but sure enough, on last night’s TDS we learned that Stephen Colbert didn’t get a permit (or “didn’t get a permit”) for his March to Keep Fear Alive counterpoint to Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. So last [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 470 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: Uncommon Law Wife

By James Poniewozik

I’ve been writing a lot in this space lately about the disappointing fall broadcast lineup, and how the networks have all but given up launching challenging shows (particularly dramas), turning that job over to cable. (It’s worth noting, by the way, that however badly Lone Star flamed out, even the most successful of the network’s [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 470 days ago

30 Rock Watch: The Live of the Party

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for 30 Rock’s live episode coming up. I am typing this post LIVE, with no edits or backspacing to correct typos! You can’t prove that I didn’t! 30 Rock may be about a lot of things—work, politics, gender and race, snack foods—but at its most enjoyable it’s a TV show having fun with the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 471 days ago

O'Reilly, View Hosts Throw Down on Set

By James Poniewozik

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was a guest on The View today, and brought up the subject of, as he referred to it, “the mosque down here on 9/11.” As you might have guessed, he, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar had a reasonable and good-natured discussion about sensitivity and civil liberties an angry, bleeped-out shouting match [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 471 days ago

Modern Family Watch: Selected Shorts

By James Poniewozik

There’s often less to say about a decently successful episode of a sitcom than a bad one, which is about where I stand on Modern Family’s “Strangers on a Treadmill.” Three of the four storylines hit (the miss being Jay’s quinceanara foul-up, which was pretty much one underdeveloped joke), and maybe the most noteworthy accomplishment [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+TV Ratings | 471 days ago

Which TV Viewers Should Count?

By James Poniewozik

    It’s a common and understandable myth that TV shows stay on the air by getting as many viewers as possible. They don’t. In commercial television, shows stay on the air by making money, something that relates to, but does not correlate directly to, getting as many viewers as possible. If you’re a network [...]

+472 days ago

Caprica: Murders, Bombs, Betrayal – and the Slight Whiff of Desperation

By Steven James Snyder

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to notice the rather startling shift in tone and intensity of last night’s Caprica. All season long, the show has been trying to find a way to pull in bigger Battlestar Galactica-like ratings, even as some sci-fi pundits have mused that the show isn’t electric enough for their [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 472 days ago

The Morning After: Some Good News for a Change

By James Poniewozik

I’m about to say something that may seem cynical, so first: Seeing the Chilean miners (still being evacuated as I type this) emerge from the rescue pod into the light has been moving, inspiring and a reminder of the power of live television news to deliver a story of raw human triumph. OK, now the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 472 days ago

Glee Watch: It Takes Two

By James Poniewozik

    Spoilers for last night’s Glee following: One criticism I’ve heard from non-fans of Glee is that the show is essentially American Idol with a script. And I could see how an episode with the title and theme “Duets” could reinforce this view. On its face, the episode’s structure was little more than an [...]