SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, retire to your deck—overlooking a terrifying thousand-foot drop—and watch last night’s Game of Thrones.
The first few episodes of Game of Thrones, because they had such a vast world to establish, involved a lot of talking: characters talking about history, about dragons, about who …
NBC announced its 2011–12 schedule today, the first of the big networks to show its hand for Upfronts Week. (Click here for clips of all the upcoming shows.) I’ll have some thoughts on the previews we see after the upfronts presentation tomorrow, but here are some highlights, followed by the schedule:
* NBC launches six new shows in …
Monday through Thursday is “upfronts” week, when the major broadcast networks (plus some party-crashers like the Turner cable networks) present their schedules for next year to advertisers. (Cable has been holding its own upfronts piecemeal for the past couple of months.)
From the business end of TV, it’s the beginning of a ritual …
Quick spoilers for last night’s Friday Night Lights below:
I had planned, this week, to return to my regular schedule of reviewing Friday Night Lights for its NBC run, which I’ve dropped the ball on, so to speak, for the last couple weeks. You know what God does when you make plans: He dumps a bunch of other assignments on you, gives …
“For a Few Paintballs More,” the conclusion to Community‘s epic two-part finale/sequel to its vaunted first-season paintball extravaganza, wasn’t quite the tour de force of last week’s “A Fistful of Paintballs”; but since I was on the road and couldn’t weigh in on that one, this is a good time to give credit where due, and look back on …
Myriad reports out this morning say that CBS will retool its hit Two and a Half Men by replacing ousted cautionary tale Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher. (Kutcher teased toward a confirmation on his Twitter feed.) One almost wonders whether the network simply decided to twist the knife in Sheen by picking someone, anyone, with more …
It wasn’t quite the dramatic blitz of announcements that Fox had for us the other day, but NBC‘s 2011–12 schedule is starting to take shape. Among the new series ordered for next season are Smash, a musical described as a kind of grown-up Glee (we’ll see if that’s a contradiction in terms) and the remake of Prime Suspect with Maria …
Tonight, the four American Idol finalists sang songs that inspire them, plus the songs of Leiber and Stoller. (Inspired by the songs of Leiber and Stoller? Too bad!) Who was inspired? Who should be fired? Click the pix to read my reviews:
Spoilers for the season finale of Boardwalk Empire coming up:
Lead TV characters often develop a signature move over time: a gesture or expression that comes to define them. Think Ralph Kramden’s gesturing into the air on The …
Spoilers for the season finale of The Walking Dead coming up:
Because it had to create a first season of only six episodes so that AMC could air its first season starting Halloween, The Walking Dead had to fit a lot into a few …
Spoilers for last night’s Boardwalk Empire coming up:
Last week’s Boardwalk Empire may have had the actual gunfire, but “Paris Green” was chock full of people pulling triggers. There was a welter of activity, mostly …
Spoilers for last night’s The Walking Dead coming up:
Because we began The Walking Dead (after the pre-zombie prologue) with Rick, waking up after a coma in the midst of the apocalypse, each episode has been a process of filling in the blanks in his, and our, knowledge. Not only are we learning about the physical realities of Zombie …
Spoilers for tonight’s Walking Dead coming up:
The disadvantage of getting The Walking Dead on screeners is that I don’t get the full experience of watching the show late Sunday as it airs. That’s also the advantage. How the …
