Earlier this year, Rep. Anthony Weiner showed us how an elected official can make himself look like an idiot over tweets that he sends to the electorate. Now Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has demonstrated how an elected official can …
Boardwalk Empire Watch: Unjust Deserts
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, stop pricing out autographed Ty Cobb baseballs in eBay and watch last night’s Boardwalk Empire.
God does not take bribes. This moral certainty at least we learned in last night’s …
The Morning After: A New-Old Peanuts Special, and Other Thanksgiving Leftovers
My Thanksgiving involved cooking most of the holiday dinner in Brooklyn and driving it to my mother-in-law’s house in New Jersey: smoking a turkey, cutting it in pieces and foil-wrapping them, and stuffing them into a cooler packed with towels for insulation. It was a job not unlike transporting an organ for transplant, or disposing a …
Turkey Day TV: Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas
It’s not often that an animated children’s special answers a question of broad religious import, but Fox’s Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, debuting Thanksgiving night, pulls it off. Santa Claus, it turns out, came before Jesus. At …
No More Lives to Live: Prospect Park Abandons Plan to Save ABC Soaps Online
Soap opera fans suddenly have two fewer things to be thankful for today. Prospect Park, the production company that made an eye-opening deal to rescue cancelled ABC soaps All My Children and One Life to Live, issued a statement …
The Republican Primary, as Re-Enacted by Jimmy Kimmel and Peanuts
The Republican primary candidates debated once again on CNN last night. If you’d like actual political analysis of the event, I’ll send you to my friends at Swampland, but other than some wrangling over military policy and Newt Gingrich’s position on immigration, there seemed to be few momentum-shifting moments. So instead, I invite you …
The Morning After: Defeat of Clay?
Brief spoilers for Sons of Anarchy below:
I’m more reluctant than usual to assess last night’s episode of Sons of Anarchy until we see how this all plays out, and if you saw the final moments of “Burnt and Purged Away,” then …
Poll: Fox News Viewers Less Informed (Except About the Nutritional Value of Pepper Spray)
So here’s a finding that may or may not surprise you: a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of New Jersey residents found that Fox News viewers were less well-informed about current events than respondents who watched no news at all. Our public discourse being the predictable thing it is, this means it’s time to debunk the poll and/or …
A Second Look At: Terra Nova
For half its first season, Terra Nova has felt like a series that was actively fighting against its most interesting qualities. You had a civilization starting from the wilderness to save humanity from extinction. You had a group …
The Morning After: Homeland: Let’s Twist Again
Quick spoilers for last night’s Homeland follow:
So to begin this write-up of Homeland honestly, I must go back to my writeup of the stunning “The Weekend,” about whose events I wrote: “As with any mystery-based serial drama …
Winter Is Coming Back: Preview of Game of Thrones Season 2
HBO has given an April start date for the second season of Game of Thrones, and this new promo video, which aired last night before Boardwalk Empire, offers a peek at how the series’ world will expand in the sophomore season, based on the second A Song of Ice and Fire novel, A Clash of Kings. Among the glimpses: the late King Robert’s …
Boardwalk Empire Watch: The Body of an American
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, gather all your friends around the wireless and watch last night’s Boardwalk Empire.
Over a season and a half of Boardwalk Empire, I’ve seen men have their throats slashed and get …
The Year Is Ending: What’s On Your List?
Like so many snarky, embittered Santa Clauses, TIME’s critics are busily making our year-end lists right now. As in past years, I’ll be counting down the 10 best series and episodes of the year next month, and I’ll probably …
