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Tuned In+News Media | 108 days ago

Campaign Video: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em for Herman Cain

By James Poniewozik

Can this insane campaign ad help keep Herman Cain from inadvertently getting himself nominated?

Tuned In
Tuned In+127 days ago

The Morning After: The Fast Food and the Furious

By James Poniewozik

Quick spoilers for last night’s return of South Park below: Some last-minute deadlines prevent me from giving the longer writeup I was hoping to “Ass Burgers,” which resolved the sort-of-cliffhanger from the midseason finale. I found a lot to like in the episode, like the topical spoof of vaccine paranoia. (Even the semi-insensitive representation of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+127 days ago

Women Watch TV Like This, But Men Watch TV Like This

By James Poniewozik

Over at ThinkProgress, critic Alyssa Rosenberg (whom you should be reading if you aren’t already), has a thought-provoking post on all the new fall shows with female stars, and whether or not  those shows are actually speaking to a female audience. “This was supposed to be a great fall for women on television, but several [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+127 days ago

RIP Steve Jobs: He Let Us Inside the Media

By James Poniewozik

I spend most of any waking weekday inside Steve Jobs’ idea. I wake up to an alarm clock set by my iPhone, which is docked to it. I get up and go for a run, listening to my iPod Nano on shuffle. Back home I get dressed, listening to NPR (iPhone app). Breakfast time and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+128 days ago

TV Tonight: George Harrison: Living in the Material World

By James Poniewozik

Elsewhere at time.com, TIME film critic Richard Corliss reviews Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, which airs in two parts on HBO tonight and tomorrow: The “quiet Beatle” — the one who told an interviewer, “I’m even more normal than normal people” — was also the nicest Beatle: the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+128 days ago

It's All About the D'Oh: Is This the Way The Simpsons Should End?

By James Poniewozik

The TV news-o-sphere has been buzzing for the last day or so about reports that Fox has threatened to stop producing new episodes of The Simpsons if its voice actors do not accept a substantial—as in, nearly by half—pay cut. Considering that the show has been one of TV’s biggest successes since it began life [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+128 days ago

A.C. Nielsen, Godfather of TV Ratings, Dead at 92

By James Poniewozik

Some might say that TV is too much a business of bean counters, but Arthur C. Nielsen, Jr., who died Monday, was perhaps the most culturally influential bean counter of them all. Because, after all, the beans whose counting he revolutionized were all of us. TV is a commercial business, and shows (excepting public TV) [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+128 days ago

Glee Watch: Gotta Dance!

By James Poniewozik

In my review that posted earlier this morning, I neglected to mention one of the biggest reasons to root for the success of American Horror Story. It could give Ryan Murphy a full-time distraction, so that the new team of writers can get Glee under control, free from the need to throw in more and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+128 days ago

TV Tonight: American Horror Story

By James Poniewozik

Friends, I am not here today to argue that American Horror Story is, if I may use a critical-theory term, “good.” At least if one judges it by such factors as coherence, consistency or plausibility of characters’ motivations. The new series (FX, Wednesdays) comes from producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. Like their current show, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+129 days ago

The Rabbit Done Died: NBC Kills Playboy Club, Adds Brian Williams

By James Poniewozik

As the 2011-12 TV season begins its third week, it has claimed its first victim: NBC’s The Playboy Club, whose ratings plunged as low as its necklines, has been cancelled. Playboy was one of the most hyped new fall shows this year, though the attention was hardly all positive; Gloria Steinem, some local affiliates and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+129 days ago

Elsewhere on Time.com: Dancing Every Week

By James Poniewozik

As I like to say, there’s one thing you have to give TV credit for: there’s a lot of TV on it. Too much for me to review, or even acknowledge, as one man with one blog. But if you have not noticed, my colleagues at Time.com’s NewsFeed have been beefing up their weekly TV [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+130 days ago

The Morning After: Return Flight?

By James Poniewozik

Busy, busy, busy! As I mentioned in my Homeland post the other day, Sunday is quite the crowded viewing/blogging night for me right now, what with Breaking Bad wrapping up, Boardwalk Empire back in the regular rotation, and The Good Wife, Homeland and The Amazing Race, among other shows, competing for DVR space and time. [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+130 days ago

Arrested Development to Definitely Possibly Happen Again

By James Poniewozik

As surely as there is always money in the banana stand, there is always eternal optimism—encouraged by remarks by Arrested Development principals every half year or so—that the cast members of the show will reunite again and make the much-rumored Arrested Development movie. Sunday at the New Yorker Festival in New York City, accompanied by [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+157 days ago

Oscar Wants to Party All the Time: Eddie Murphy to Host Academy Awards

By James Poniewozik

In one of the most stunning news flashes since the shooting of Buckwheat, Eddie Murphy has been announced as the host of the next Academy Awards broadcast, next Feb. 26 on ABC. Murphy was apparently recruited as Oscar host by awards co-producer Brett Ratner, who directed him in the forthcoming movie Tower Heist. Murphy will [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+163 days ago

Summer School Report Card: What's Been the Show of the Season?

By James Poniewozik

It’s probably going to be a slow couple of weeks for coverage of current TV here because (1) it’s fall-screener season, which means I’m spending much of my time watching shows that won’t air for weeks or longer; and (2) it’s late August, so whaddyagonnado? So this is as good a morning as any, before [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+164 days ago

While I Was Out: Let Slip the Ducks of War

By James Poniewozik

My first day back at work, I’ve been catching up on some screeners and episodes I missed while I was away, which is another way of saying that I have no real problems. One of those was “Duckling,” the hourlong episode of Louie set in Afghanistan, and while it’s too late and time too short [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 164 days ago

The Freakout Before the Storm

By James Poniewozik

After a welcome vacation and a less-welcome hurricane-related flight cancellation (which, luckily, set us back only a day), I’m back. Kind of! Like the New York metropolitan transportation grid, Tuned In is gradually and fitfully restoring its regular schedule. Expect delays, scattered outages and surly, grudging customer service in the interim. Hurricane Irene was the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+168 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: Nostalgia for the Young People!

By James Poniewozik

Robo-James’ Time Machine has been indulging in my nostalgia all this week, but the delightful thing about America is that nostalgia is no longer merely for the old. In July, Nickelodeon began running a block of ’90s kids’ shows in late night, for not-that-alter-kockers (call them alternakockers?) who want to remember the hits of their [...]

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Tuned In+Advertising | 169 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: They Were Still the One

By James Poniewozik

It’s almost fall, which means that promos for new fall shows are starting to reach a crescendo. But one thing that we’ve lost amid all the multimedia advertising is what used to be a network staple: the fall-season promo reel. Above, see an example from the ABC “Still the One” campaign in 1977. What’s most [...]

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Tuned In+170 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: Angels in America

By James Poniewozik

When you remake a TV show that used to be a pop-cultural phenomenon, you’re remaking the idea of it as much as you are the show itself. That is, when ABC airs its reboot of Charlie’s Angels (or in this case should we call it a re-booty?), only part of the intended audience will be [...]