One of the more comical incidents of the recent TCA television critics’ press tour was the attempt by the makers of The Playboy Club to defend its romanticization of its eponymous Bunny hutch as “empowering” to women. A lot of the critics assembled laughed it off. But you know what would really help to bolster their case? An …
CBS, for Some Reason, to Try Remaking Bewitched
From the Dept. of Things You Were Not Aware You Asked For: CBS has ordered a script for a remake of the ’60s sitcom Bewitched. What sorcery is at work here?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that people who remember Bewitched fondly do more so out of affection—for the charms of Elizabeth Montgomery, for the wacky two-Darrins …
Credit Downgraded, Intensity Upgraded on Cable Biz News
As you know, the stock market is way down. Or way up. Or in between, or both—I’m going to have to hedge my bets, because as I write this, the markets are whanging up and down like a telephone wire that an elephant just jumped off. Within the past hour or so, the Dow has been down about 200 points, because traders were apparently …
Test Pilot: Once Upon a Time
Test Pilot is a semiregular feature sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next season’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots can be rewritten, recast and retooled before airing, and the shows that eventually get on the air can prove much better or worse. But premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so …
TCA Roundup: ABC Plays Dress-Up
I checked out of the TCA television critic’s press tour a day and a half early, missing out on the final network to present, ABC, but plenty of TV writers have stayed to the bitter (except for the network-provided chocolate-chip-cookie swag) end. Here’s what they have to report.
* As I wrote earlier this summer, ABC this season will …
Breaking Bad Watch: When I Heard the Learn’d Meth Cooker
SPOILER ALERT; Before you read this post, turn off that karaoke machine, grab some vegan s’mores and watch last night’s Breaking Bad.
It’s been a methodical and steady first few episodes for season four of Breaking Bad, …
Game of Thrones, Mad Men and Nick Effing Offerman Top TV Critics' Awards
Sunday night, the TCAs—the Teen Choice Awards—will be handed out on Fox, with millions watching. Saturday night, a less-lauded TCAs—the Television Critics Association awards—were handed out at the Beverly Hilton, away from the cameras but with (I have to assume) much better winners.
Among the winners (full list appears after …
FX at TCA: More Louie, Wilfred, Philly. Less Pants.
Saturday is my last day at TCA TV critics’ press tour in LA (my colleagues will have to soldier on without me for ABC’s final presentation), and the network of the day was FX, which updated us as to what’s going on in the worlds of tortured male antiheroes and raunchy comedy. Some of the highlights:
* In the last year, FX was the …
Fox at TCA: Seth MacFarlane Remaking Cosmos (Really); Zooey Deschanel Sprinkles Pixie Dust
It was a packed day of sessions for Fox shows Friday at the TCA TV critics’ tour, including presentations for the dinosaur drama Terra Nova and reality-TV megafauna The X Factor. Here’s a sundry round of tidbits from the rest:
* When Fox held its upfronts presentation this spring, it had some programming news for the 2013 season: Seth …
Fox at TCA: Dino-Drama Terra Nova Is Still, Slowly, Evolving
Friday afternoon, Fox held a panel for the new sci-fi series Terra Nova at the TCA TV critics’ convention. Unfortunately, they only had about half the session ready, and the CGI rendering still wasn’t done for most of the panelists.
I’m kidding! Friday afternoon, Fox held a panel for Terra Nova, about a family who time-travel to the …
Still Crazy After All These Years: Simon & Paula's Disjointed X Factor Reunion
It has been too long since I’ve seen Simon Cowell be mean to people on a TV screen. But here he was at the TCA TV critics’ press tour session for The X Factor, appearing via satellite from what looked like a fancy hotel lounge in a geographically nondescript location. His first line, after materializing, supervillain-like, on the giant …
CW at Press Tour: Sarah Michelle Gellar and I Are Getting Older
This is what the TV obsession with demographics hath wrought: at TCA press tour session for the new thriller Ringer, Sarah Michelle Gellar, a 34-year-old woman, was fielding questions that implied she might be too old to be starring in a show on the CW network.
The meme began when one reporter at the panel began a question by …
Press Tour: Paul McCartney Says His Phone Was Hacked, Will Go to Police
The TCA TV critics’ press tour tends to exist in a bubble separate from the breaking news of the world, but it ended up producing some news in the British phone-hacking scandal by way of a satellite appearance by Paul McCartney, the subject of an Albert Maysles documentary on Showtime about his post-9/11 Concert for New York.
McCartney …