Tuned In

Election Watch: Romney Wins, Loses Trump Primary

Mitt Romney gets the reality star's endorsement. But can he gain bona fides with The Donald's supporters without picking up his political baggage?

Tuned In

Stars in Need of TV Shows to Be Stars In

SHOWTIME

The other day here at Tuned in, while remarking on Lizzy Caplan‘s guest turn in New Girl, I said that someone needed to give her her own TV show to star in, stat. Yesterday, Showtime announced that Caplan has been cast as the female lead in the pilot for Masters of Sex, a potential new [...]

Tuned In

Dead Tree Alert: Smash: Broadway’s West Wing, or Its Studio 60?

NBC’s musical-about-a-musical has already collected a lot of bouquets. My review is in this week’s TIME, and while there was a lot I liked in the first four episodes of Smash, let’s call it a dissenting opinion.

Tuned In

The Morning After: Portlandia

FOX

I have not, if you are a regular reader of this blog and have been wondering, given up on American Idol, not yet. But I’ve sworn off watching the audition rounds, because of, um, my religion. (Got-other-things-to-do-ism.) Essentially, Idol is two different reality shows, and I’ve pretty much decided to skip the people-singing-badly one that [...]

Tuned In

Love, Peace and Soul: RIP Don Cornelius

Soul Train host and TV-music pioneer Don Cornelius has been found dead in his Encino, Calif., home of a suicide, according to police. My colleague Madison Gray has more of the details, and it’s a sad ending to the life of someone who brought us one of the purest expressions of joy ever to take [...]

Tuned In

New Girl Watch: The New New Girl

FOX

“Jess and Julia” used Lizzy Caplan’s character and her contrast with Jess to address one of the show’s issues head-on: the Zooey Deschanel cute overload factor.

Tuned In

TV Tonight: Key and Peele

In Comedy Central’s sharp new sketch show, two biracial comics have fun with the idea of leading a choose-your-own-identity life.

Tuned In

X’ed Out! Can Simon Cowell’s House Cleaning Save The X Factor?

Reports Monday say Cowell fired Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger and Steve Jones. But can The X Factor’s problems be fixed with a personnel change?

Tuned In

The Good Wife Watch: Whose Side Are You On?

CBS

A fantastic episode of The Good Wife exemplified one more reason to love this show: no other drama on network TV right now gives its viewers credit for as much intelligence.

Tuned In

Video: Game of Thrones Reloads for Season 2

Before last night’s debut (or re-debut after the December preview airing) of Luck, HBO shared another trailer for Game of Thrones, returning April 1. As usual, it’s full of tantalizing but brief snippets—glimpses of King Robert’s brother Stannis and his priestess/consigliere Melisandre, and Sansa in an uncomfortable situation with Joffrey—that are hard to infer much [...]

Tuned In

Dead Tree Alert: The Beautiful Losers of Luck

HBO

In the print TIME magazine out now, I review (subscription required) David Milch and Michael Mann’s new HBO series Luck, which debuts Sunday and which I loved. Eventually. Yes, this is another critic flogging a cable drama by saying “It’s really good, but give it a few episodes.” And I’ll throw in another caveat—this is [...]

Tuned In

The Morning After: To the Moon!

There have been a lot of sitcom analogies made in this election. Last night in Florida, the show apparently became The Honeymooners. You decide who was Ralph and who was Alice.

Tuned In

For the Love of Beets: Are You Ready for an Office Spinoff About Dwight?

Chris Haston/NBC

It is way too early—if this project even ever comes to pass—to say that this is a terrible idea. But this is a terrible idea.

Tuned In

There Is a Rap Song About Ron Swanson

There is a rap song about Ron Swanson. Why are you even reading the rest of this post? Why haven’t you just clicked “Play”? What more could you possibly need to hear? Well, all right: the track comes from Adam WarRock, whose past work includes a full album about Firefly (“M to the A to [...]

Tuned In

TV Tonight: Touch

FOX

The part of me who wants networks to branch out from cop, lawyer and doctor dramas wants to praise Touch for trying something different. But the part of me who actually watched the pilot has to recognize that it is at least 50% hoo-hah.

Tuned In

State of the Union: A Call for Unity, in a Political Package

A lengthy, listy speech appealed to Americans’ common goals, but was always conscious of political opponents in the room—and at least one Presidential rival outside the room.

Tuned In

Game of Thrones Season 2 Tidbits: Building Up Qarth, and Fleshing It Out

One of the many HBO programming announcements out of the winter TCA tour that I didn’t get around to commenting on was a return date for Game of Thrones‘ season 2: April 1. Information about the second series—and judging only by the source book, A Clash of Kings, it could be a doozy—has been coming [...]

Tuned In

The Morning After: Come Back, Loud Debate Audiences! All Is Forgiven!

Without the hoots and hollers from a partisan crowd, last night’s Republican candidates in Tampa were like sitcom actors looking for their laugh track.

Tuned In

The Morning After: Doff Your Fedora for Prime Suspect, Tip Your Wings for Pan Am

Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie in PAN AM. / ABC

Those of you still watching Prime Suspect or Pan Am, care to make the case for either show?

Tuned In

Colbert and Cain Do the Charleston: Which One’s the Comedian?

I’ve never been to Charleston, S.C., but I’m pretty sure that, for this afternoon at least, Randolph Hall at the College of Charleston was located at the intersection of Reality and Satire. There it was that Stephen Colbert and Herman Cain, unlikely ballotfellows, held a funny, serious and seriously funny rally to promote Colbert’s bid [...]