James Poniewozik

It’s hard to stop a runaway meme, and the one that’s taken off in TV this year is that Heroes in the new Lost. Or, rather, the new, improved Lost.

The argument goes like this: Lost used to be a great, entertaining show, but it got so up its own, um, hatch with plot convolutions that it became impossible and frustrating to follow. Enter …

Is it unhip to be blogging about Survivor? Is this, like, so 2000 of me? Fine. I don’t care. You punk kids go play Wii or something.

Here’s what I thought:

* Now there’s a novel idea–what if you cast a reality show with a bunch of white contestants, and a bunch of black contestants, and a bunch of Asian contestants, and a bunch of …

When Fox News went on the air over 10 years ago, it sold itself with the brilliant slogan “Fair and Balanced.” As a piece of marketing, it was ruthless and efficient, in four short syllables saying that there was a problem with the rest of TV news and that Fox was the solution. Now, as Fox gears up to launch a business chnnel later this …

In the print edition of TIME, my Culture Complex this week is about the burgeoning and horrifying phenomenon of hipster-parent memoirs. Toddlers in mosh pits! Babies in indie record stores! Gen-X parents clinging to their alternative cred with Veggie Booty-stained fingers!

Of course, it’s not a hipster scene without a feud among …

Anna Nicole Smith, 39, died today. She wasn’t a TV star, exactly, though CNN describes her as that; by the time she made her reality TV series she was already disturbingly down the path of dissolution and collapse, and it made her show excruciating to watch even for somebody paid to watch excruciating TV. [Update: Biography Channel …

For starters, it gots to be Survivor: Fiji, which by the standards of the previous few seasons has been Stealth Survivor. I’ve seen little publicity for this edition, other than the free PR generated by the unfortunately-timed coup in the host country. Still, I return, even though the show has gotten less and less hip over the years. …

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen last night’s episode of Lost, make a small incision in your kidney and don’t stitch it up until you’ve finished watching it.

So: This is the first Lostwatch since the time.com folks turned on the Comments spigot, so I’m counting on you to do the lifting here. But here are my thoughts.

* First here’s a …

Friday Night Lights, in full HDTV glory, thanks to the valiant efforts of Jean from Time Warner Cable, who unlike many cable servicepeople I have encountered over the years, did not stare at my Tivo box as if he were being asked to assemble a particle supercollider. Beyond that–well, we’ve got Lost (already watched, more on that later) …

Monday I wrote about the impending rise of Jeff Zucker to the top of NBC Universal. Yesterday, I made an effort to say something nice about him. Even though he had shown little taste or aesthetic savvy in picking shows for NBC, even though he had presided over a major decline in NBC’s ratings and been rewarded for it, you still, I wrote, …

The most compelling TV of the week is in a newspaper. A newspaper website, to be specific: Britain’s Sun newspaper is hosting the cockpit video of a U.S. “friendly fire” incident that killed a British soldier. The footage isn’t graphic or gruesome–it’s powerful, really, because you see the targets the way the targeters see them, as …

So it turns out that if you make a commercial in which two men accidentally touch lips and then mortify their flesh in horror, some people will find it homophobic. Masterfoods USA has announced that it’s pulling the Snickers “Kiss” ad after protests from gay groups, thus ending the TV run of the most risque use of a chocolate confection …

…possibly, nothing. It’s all in the hands of Time Warner Cable, which somewhere in a four-hour window today is supposed to install two Cablecards in my new HD TiVo. (Don’t know what Cablecards are? Good for you! I’d explain, but that would be too dorky even for Lev’s blog.)

I know, I know. When the TiVo Series 3 came out, I whined …

Three items from the mediabiztertainment news: (1) Apple Corps and Apple Inc. have resolved their long-running name dispute; (2) Jeff Zucker is poised to be named head of NBC Universal today; and (3) Viacom and YouTube are still at a standoff over YouTube’s rights (and Viacom’s compensation) concerning copyrighted video.

Each in its way …