Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 414 days ago

Office Watch: A Holly, If Not Jolly, Christmas

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s The Office coming up: When Holly (Amy Ryan) broke up with Michael Scott, she really broke up with all of us, didn’t she? Ryan’s casting in the show was so right, and her character’s oddball fit with Michael so perfect, that when their relationship failed to survive her move to Nashua, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 414 days ago

Community Watch: Snow Fortress of Solitude

By James Poniewozik

There’s a delightful little detail in “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” last night’s stop-motion holiday episode of Community, that fascinated me. When characters “appear” and “disappear” from the Planet Abed fantasy world, they open a little curtain in the fabric of the fantasy, through which you can see—the study room, which they other characters, playing along with [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 415 days ago

Top 10 Episodes of 2010: The Best and the Rest

By James Poniewozik

My list of the Top 10 TV Episodes of 2010 is also up at time.com. See my post about my Top 10 TV Shows picks for some explanations and general thoughts on listmaking. After the jump, some particular comments about the episode list, the quick-and-dirty version of the list, and some honorable mentions:

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 415 days ago

Top 10 Shows of 2010: The Best and the Rest

By James Poniewozik

TIME’s annual collection of top-10 lists is up, including my list of the Top 10 TV Shows of 2010. (Also up is my list of Top 10 TV Episodes, which I’ll cover in a separate post.) After the jump, I’ll post my complete list, along with a partial list of honorable mentions. But first a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+415 days ago

It's Not TV; It's TV Online

By James Poniewozik

Tuned In’s sister blog Techland covers a couple of TV-biz stories with a common, unstated theme: the slow but gradual fading of TV as something you get exclusively through TV networks on a TV set. First, HBO (like TIME, a Time Warner company) is considering offering its programming through other means besides as part of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 415 days ago

Modern Family Watch: Don't Bite Your Friends

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Modern Family coming up: “Dance Dance Revelation” was an amusing but not stellar Modern Family, hobbled by the title storyline involving Claire and Gloria’s rivalry as school-dance organizers. I know some people find Claire overly shrill and grating as a character; I don’t, and I actually think that Julie Bowen has [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 416 days ago

The Morning After: Psych!

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for this week’s finale of season three of In Treatment coming up: Those of us who were particularly anxious to find out the resolution of Sunil’s story on In Treatment had to wait a little longer this week, as HBO pulled a switcheroo and aired the final Frances session first. And, we soon learned, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 416 days ago

WikiLeaks Cables: Desperate Housewives Vs. Terrorism

By James Poniewozik

Last week, we learned via WikiLeaks that the U.S. State Deparment had produced a cable analyzing trends of anti-Americanism in Canadian TV. But it now appears that the U.S. has an offensive as well as defensive posture on televisual warfare—and not just in Canada, which we’ve been bombing into submission with our sitcoms and dramas [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 416 days ago

Glee Watch: The Dickensian Aspect

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up: The title of Glee‘s last episode of 2010, “A Very Glee Christmas,” pretty much said it all for me. There was no special significance to the title except to reference the very, very, very often-referenced “A Very Brady Christmas” and to send the message: This is a Christmas [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 417 days ago

The Morning After: Getting Older and Getting Better

By James Poniewozik

I was not expecting to automatically like TNT’s Men of a Certain Age when it debuted last year, not having been a huge fan either of Everybody Loves Raymond nor of most of TNT’s scripted schedule. But the show turned out to be a huge, if modest and low-key, surprise. (Really it should be in [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 417 days ago

The Sing-Off Returns: Handicapping Season Two

By James Poniewozik

The Most Important Television Event of Our Era, the a cappella battle The Sing-Off, returned last night to NBC with its three judge panel, Nick Lachey and this time ten entrants showcasing the diversity and lovable dorkiness of singing without instruments. Who’s a threat? Who’s going home? After the jump, a quick, and by no [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 418 days ago

No Second Chance for Terriers

By James Poniewozik

Sadly but not surprisingly, FX has decided not to renew Terriers for a second season. The emotionally satisfying thing to do would be to pretend that FX is run by idiot philistines who blindly killed a show that was on the verge of becoming a hit. But it would not be the honest thing. Terriers [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 418 days ago

Don Meredith Dies at Age 72

By James Poniewozik

“Dandy” Don Meredith, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback turned Monday Night Football color commentator, has died of a brain hemorrhage at age 72. I’m not enough of a football fan (or old enough) to remember well his run with the early Cowboys, and my fondest TV memory of him may have been not a sports broadcast [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+TV Recap Boardwalk Empire: Season 1, Episode 12 | 418 days ago

Boardwalk Empire Watch: They Did It All for the Nucky

By James Poniewozik
HBO

Spoilers for the season finale of Boardwalk Empire coming up: Lead TV characters often develop a signature move over time: a gesture or expression that comes to define them. Think Ralph Kramden’s gesturing into the air on The Honeymooners or Larry David’s incredulous stare on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Nucky Thompson’s signature move is reaching into [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 418 days ago

Walking Dead Watch: The Big Decision

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for the season finale of The Walking Dead coming up: Because it had to create a first season of only six episodes so that AMC could air its first season starting Halloween, The Walking Dead had to fit a lot into a few hours. It ended on an installment that, while suspenseful and exciting, [...]

+Movies | 421 days ago

Top 10 Movie Dance Scenes

By Gilbert Cruz
Everett

Dance involves movement across space and time—something that the cinema does very well. TIME presents the most memorable dance scenes in film history.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 421 days ago

Office Watch: Get Back

By James Poniewozik

This is a little bit of a tortured analogy, but bear with me. The Office so far this season has reminded me a little of a band that late in its career, after becoming known for a string of ambitious, baroque albums, decides to take a step backward stylistically, get back to basics and release [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 421 days ago

Community Watch: Straight Up

By James Poniewozik

I’ve already seen grumblings in some TV blog comments that last night’s episode of Community, “Mixology Certification,” was not funny enough. I suspect that I may have liked the episode for more or less the same reason that other fans didn’t: that is, I agree that it was lighter on the jokes and absurdity than [...]