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America Loves TV More, Televisions Less

Is nothing sacred, America? The Nielsen company reported yesterday that the number of US households with a television actually decreased by over a million last year; this marks the first decline in household TV ownership since 1992 (when figures were corrected to match census data). Does this mean the nation is rejecting TV? Not the [...]

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Glee Watch: When Times Go Bad, When Times Go Rough

Spoilers for last night’s Glee: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is a classic of pop rock, a genre that Glee introduced itself to the world with (Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”). And it’s a notoriously personal work, inspired by the couplings and decouplings within the group, compounded by gossip and misinformation outside the group—pretty much the essence of [...]

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Scott Pelley Named as CBS's Anti-Couric

CBS News made official today what had been unofficial for a while: Scott Pelley will succeed Katie Couric as anchor of The CBS Evening News, starting June 6. The announcement is pretty much the opposite of everything Couric’s was: it’s not groundbreaking, risky or surprising. He’s a competent, well-known CBS fixture—and falls into a reliable [...]

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Bin Laden's Death, The Comedy!

The killing of Osama bin Laden presented late-night comics an opportunity, as well as a challenge: how do you satirize good news? Jimmy Fallon (above), went the tried-and-true route of spoofing his network’s own programming, with a response to the news from “Donald Trump,” who complained that President Obama had deliberately interrupted Celebrity Apprentice. (“Where [...]

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The Morning After: Shaken and Stirred

In the middle of closing something for TIME’s second special issue within a week (a wedding and a funeral! it’s like a Hugh Grant comedy up in here!) so no time for a lengthy review of last night’s How I Met Your Mother, though I don’t think “The Perfect Cocktail” would have borne one out [...]

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Bin Laden's Death, Reported By a Media His Attacks Shaped

When Osama bin Laden sponsored the attacks against America in 2001, there was no YouTube, blogs were just rising as a medium, and TV was shaped by the aftermath of the mass killings. But the news of his death was broken last night on Twitter, a medium that didn’t exist on 9/11. Keith Urbahn, chief [...]

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Game of Thrones Watch: Snow Job

Before you read this post, have your valet being you many, many cups of wine, then settle in to watch last night’s Game of Thrones: “Winter is coming.” We know that. We’ve seen the ads, we’ve read the posters, we’ve had HBO repeat the tagline to us constantly for months. Winteriscomingwinteriscoming. And yet, when I [...]

Cave of Forgotten Dreams: Werner Herzog's 3-D Trip

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Land of Forgotten Dreams is an enthralled and mostly enthralling guided tour of what Herzog describes as “one of the greatest art discoveries in the history of human culture