What’s good, bad and happening, from pop culture to high culture | Page 3

American Idol Starts Tonight, Except It Doesn't

The revamped, re-judgified 10th season of American Idol begins tonight, with a lot of questions swirling about how the show will survive the loss of Simon Cowell, how well Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez will do, and whether the show will ever find a really big star again. Tonight’s episode will… tell us pretty much [...]

+373 days ago

Wedding Bells at TLC, More British People Coming to Your TV Set

By James Poniewozik

There used to be an unspoken deal between the British and Americans regarding television. Their part of the deal was that they would be allowed on our programs either as reality-show villains or if they adopted unrecognizable mid-Atlantic accents like Hugh Laurie. Our part of the deal was, there was no our part of the [...]

+Uncategorized | 373 days ago

The Morning After: Howard Stern, Leno and (His) Manhood

By James Poniewozik

CNN’s new primetime show Piers Morgan Tonight immediately improved on Larry King Live’s ratings its first night out, getting over two million viewers for its inaugural interview with Oprah Winfrey. Time will tell how much of that is due to Morgan and how much to the guest; as last night’s guest, Howard Stern, said: “What’s [...]

+Uncategorized | 374 days ago

Good News for Kabletown: U.S. OK's Comcast-NBC Merger

By James Poniewozik

Comcast has federal approval to combine with NBC, after the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department both approved the deal this afternoon. Besides providing clarity for 30 Rock storylines going forward, the decision makes possible the first acquisition of a major broadcast network by a cable company. (TIME’s parent, Time Warner, owned a cable [...]

+Uncategorized | 374 days ago

HIMYM Watch: Friends for a Funeral

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s How I Met Your Mother coming up: When the last episode of How I Met Your Mother ended with Marshall getting the news of his father’s sudden death, I gave the show credit for, unlike many sitcoms, being willing to engage real emotions and not-so-funny passages in life. It’s one thing, [...]

+Uncategorized | 374 days ago

Regis Philbin Announces Retirement

By James Poniewozik

Regis Philbin, morning-show host, game-show phenom and the man who, according to Guinness, has been on television for more hours than any other human, announced on today’s Live with Regis and Kelly that he will be stepping down from the show, some time around the end of the summer. Philbin is a master of what [...]

+News Media | 374 days ago

Piers Morgan's "O"-Level: A Cheeky, Odd Introduction

By James Poniewozik

Oprah Winfrey was a puzzling, or maybe perfect, choice of first guest for Piers Morgan Tonight. There is probably nothing more you want to know about Oprah. Or, sure, there is—but nothing that she’s going to tell you. But she was an attention-getting big “get” (even if she’s been speaking everywhere since the launch of [...]

+Review Movies | 375 days ago

Golden Globes: The Stars Get Social with Their Stalkers

By Richard Corliss

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globes — the least reputable and most avidly watched pre-Oscar awards show — validated critical opinion last night by handing out prizes to the perceived leaders in many Academy Award categories

+375 days ago

TV Tonight: Harry's Law

By James Poniewozik

Say what you like about David E. Kelley’s body of work—and I’ve said enough over the years—I have to at least give him credit for basing a career on trying to upend our expectations of TV. But his new NBC drama, Harry’s Law, forces the question: when the way a particular writer “subverts” our expectations [...]

+Uncategorized | 375 days ago

Big Love Watch: Now What?

By James Poniewozik

Brief spoilers for last night’s season premiere of Big Love coming up: It was fitting that the season opened with the Henricksons, literally, in the wilderness. Over four seasons of Big Love, Bill has cast himself as the family’s guide as they seek a Promised Land separate from the abuses of Juniper Creek and the [...]

+Uncategorized | 376 days ago

Ricky Gervais' Golden Globes Insurrection

By James Poniewozik

The Golden Globes are most entertaining when watched in the company of someone who knows that the awards and the awarders are best not taken too seriously. Last night, that person was host Ricky Gervais, who—hilariously and to Hollywood’s apparent discomfort—didn’t so much host the awards as he conducted a three-hour roast of them. It [...]

+378 days ago

TV Weekend: Last Chance at Love

By James Poniewozik

In its fourth season Big Love, HBO’s drama about plural marriage, had problems with plural storylines. As befits a show about big families, Big Love was never afraid to be expansive, developing a large cast and piling on story developments, but the torrent of can-you-top-this plot developments became almost comical. To his big-box housewares store [...]

+Movies | 378 days ago

Top 10 Music-Video Directors Who Now Direct Movies

By Glen Levy

Michel Gondry, director of The Green Hornet, cut his teeth helming music videos. He’s the not the only one to take that leap: TIME takes a look at other filmmakers who have made the move from music to movies

+Uncategorized | 378 days ago

TCA Roundup: Headless Peacock in Hotel Bar

By James Poniewozik

Another round of headlines from the Television Critics’ Association winter press tour, which is winding down at the lovely Langham Hotel in Pasadena, and it was NBC’s turn to face the critics and reporters… * …except no executives were on hand to do so. NBC has a new team coming in to run the network [...]

+378 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: Peeking at MTV's Skins

By James Poniewozik

In the new issue of TIME, I review MTV’s American remake of raunchy teen dramedy Skins, which debuts Monday. Like the British series it adapts—too directly at first, its biggest flaw—it’s bluntly risqué and showily amoral when it comes to sex and drugs; it will keep the Parents Television Council good and busy for a [...]

+Review Movies | 379 days ago

Stay Away from the Horns of This Dilemma

By Richard Corliss

The dilemma of Ron Howard’s new comedy, starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be

+Uncategorized | 379 days ago

Modern Family Watch: What a Croctopus

By James Poniewozik

Not a ton to say about the most recent Modern Family, which featured two subplots straight out of the Wacky Misunderstanding School of Sitcomedy—though for my money, the most amusing storyline involved Phil and Claire’s shared dorky love of bad movies. (Phil on sequels: “They usually get a new cast around 5. That’s where the [...]

+Uncategorized | 379 days ago

TCA Roundup: Conan Is Over It, But Not That Over It

By James Poniewozik

More headlines from the Television Critics Association press tour out west: * Don’t expect Conan O’Brien to make a Super Bowl commercial with Jay Leno this year either. * Glee’s Heather Morris is ready to do more parody videos. And she has her own Flipcam now, so she can make that happen. * Kevin Reilly [...]