CNBC just issued the sudden and sad news that Mark Haines, founding anchor of the channel’s signature program Squawk Box, died last night. The channel has launched a lot of business-news stars in its time, but Haines was as close as anyone to being its defining face and voice. Like a lot of financial laymen, I’m sure, I watch …
Glee Watch: If You Can Make It Here…
Spoilers for the season 2 finale of Glee below:
Seen one way, New Directions blew their visit to New York by wasting a lot of time. They spent their visit mooning around Broadway stages, running around the fountain in Lincoln Center and getting into pillow fights, while spending apparently all of five minutes slapping together two …
Judging American Idol: The Final 2
And then there were two: Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina dueled it out in the season 10 finale of American Idol Tuesday night. It was the boy next door vs. the girl, um, next door to him! It almost wasn’t, however, as Lauren strained her voice, as explained on Idol‘s stage by the world’s most informally dressed doctor. Who got a clean …
Oprah Watch: O's Happy Day
The United Center sendoff for Oprah Winfrey has been the most moving celebration of good works and selflessness since the star-studded two-part televised special that Gandhi threw for himself. And if the first day of the special was celebritastic, then the second was positively celeborgasmic. Will Smith! Jamie Foxx! Rosie O’Donnell! …
Playing God: Mark Burnett to Make Bible Miniseries for History
The History channel, as we all know, puts a premium on the veracity and historical truth of its projects. That was the ostensible reason, for instance, that the channel rejected the miniseries The Kennedys, saying that the political story did not meet its standards of accuracy.
Now History has a new project: Survivor producer Mark …
Oprah Watch: Surprise!
The first day of Oprah Winfrey’s three-day send-off began about as low-key as you would have suspected, with copious tears, A-list celebrities and cheering crowds holding up video placards like something straight out of a Super Bowl halftime show. The program of events, a voiceover intoned as the titles rolled, was “One of the …
Happy Lost Day! One Year After
A year ago today, Lost came to an end, the Island castaways (or many of them) met in the afterlife, and the Internet exploded. I reviewed the finale the night the show ended; I reconsidered it a few days later; and I returned to rewatch the finale at the end of last summer.
I had planned, at one point, to return not just to the Lost …
MSNBC Hires Non-Puppet Michael Steele; Roger Ailes Wants to Be GOP Puppetmaster
Fox News’ Republican-professional commentator ranks have been thinning lately, with contributors Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum leaving to explore Presidential runs. So you’d think that Fox might be a promising perch for former GOP party chief Michael Steele. You would be wrong: the defenestrated RNC head is not an especially popular …
Game of Thrones Watch: Talk to the Hand
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, fix yourself a nice juicy horse snack and watch last night’s Game of Thrones.
“A Golden Crown” was the final episode of Game of Thrones I saw in advance before I reviewed the series. In that review, I quoted a couple of scenes that, for me, captured the essence of Thrones’ attitude toward …
Upfronts 2011: What We Learned
The major broadcast schedule presentations, or “upfronts,” ended yesterday. I’ve given some impressions of the 2011–12 shows we saw previewed this week, but it’s worth repeating that those are nothing more than impressions, based on trailers, which can give nothing more than a thumbnail idea of a show and often a misleading one. Over …
Office Watch: You're Not the Boss of Me
Spoilers for last night’s season finale of The Office below:
There are three ways to look at “Search Committee”: (1) as an episode in itself, (2) as a way of judging the overall success of season seven of The Office and (3) as a table-setter for the extended life of Dunder-Mifflin without Michael Scott. I want to have something more …
Parks and Recreation Watch: A Little Horse With Grief
Spoilers for the season finale of Parks and Recreation, below:
Earlier this season, Parks and Recreation followed up the splendid “Harvest Festival” episode with “Camping,” in which Leslie Knope dealt with an unexpected complication of the festival’s success: what was she going to do for a follow up? What if she could never match that …
Upfronts 2011: Sarah Michelle Gellar Is Back, and Other Familiar Sights from The CW
The CW is TV’s newest major (if you want to call it that) broadcast network, even if you count the predecessors it was formed from—The WB and UPN—which date back to the mid-’90s. But it’s old enough by now to have a history, and the new shows it announced today, rounding out the broadcast upfronts for the year, recall that history …
