And speaking of hot-button issues involving the President… there is suddenly renewed media attention to the claim that Obama was not born in the United States and thus is not eligible to be President. This theory has been around for years, was hot on the Internet during the election, has been thoroughly debunked, and at this point, …
The Morning After: Opening the Gates Flood
Last night, President Obama gave a press conference aimed at helping to sell his health-care overhaul plan. This morning, TV news was all over it—though not necessarily over health care. The last question was about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in his Cambridge home, raising the question of whether the African …
Test Pilot: Community
Test Pilot is a semiregular feature sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’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 …
Why Does the Boston ICA Work?
I’ve been mulling over the recent Boston Globe piece about the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the success it’s had in drawing crowds. The Globe says that in the two and a half years since it re-opened in its new and much larger home the ICA has become “the second most visited museum in the region”. They don’t specify …
You Too Can Spy on Jay Leno's Stagehands
NBC has just unveiled its website for the upcoming Jay Leno Show, which includes a couple of behind-the-scenes blogs, a page devoted to Jay’s cars and a Leno routine about “Internet fatigue.”
As if to illustrate this last point, the site’s most curious feature is a live 24-hour webcam feed of the under-construction stage set. A quick …
What a Drag It Is Getting Old
Two unrelated, yet entirely related, items, about the discovery that getting old is not the fun-filled candy buffet that it’s made out to be.
First, dailybeast.com editor (formerly of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Talk) explains that if you’re in the media and you’re in your fifties, this is a pretty terrifying time. Unless you’re …
The Morning After: They Are Still Coming
It’s an otherwise slow TV week, and there was plenty of interest yesterday, so I’ll throw today’s Morning After thread for the second night of summer event Torchwood: Children of Earth. I’m guessing that if you’ve watched this long, you’re in for the duration, but for me night 3 really kicked the miniseries into a higher gear, so if …
Comic-Con Goes On Without Me
San Diego Comic-Con—the once-comic-book extravanganza and now one-stop promotional launchpad for all of pop culture—kicks off tomorrow. The TV element has grown along with everything else (this year, there are panels not just on shows like Lost but also the likes of Glee), but because someone has to keep the lights on while the rest …
TV Tonight: The Colony
The first thing a TV critic notices watching the post-apocalyptic-scenario reality show The Colony (debuts tonight on Discovery) is how little use there is for TV criticism in a postapocalyptic scenario. The series, which throws together 10 people to survive holed up in a warehouse after a simulated epidemic has destroyed civilization, …
The Wanted: Not Needed
While NBC debated whether to cut into Sharon Osbourne’s screen time on America’s Got Talent to air a Presidential press conference, it did have no trouble last night airing the embarrassing “news” program The Wanted. The series’ premise: a journalist and several counterterrorism and war-crimes experts seek out accused terrorists and …
Obama Shifts Health Presser for NBC & the Hoff
America’s Got Talent. And, Wednesday night, America is getting yet another President Obama press conference, this one focused on the President’s pitch for health-coverage legislation. Can it get both?
It will on NBC, which agreed to carry the press conference after the White House moved it an hour earlier, guaranteeing that David …
Project Runway and Lifetime: Can the Dress Fit?
Lifetime has released its first trailer for the upcoming season 6 of Project Runway (plus new companion series Models of the Runway):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0-PSGom03A]
On the one hand, it looks like, well, another season of Project Runway. But I’m still left wondering whether the show will seem mismatched in the …
The Morning After: They Are Coming
Last week, I gave you my thoughts on the excellent miniseries Torchwood: Children of Earth. Now it’s your turn to tell me what you thought of the first night. I’m particularly curious what Torchwood fans thought of it, since (1) I’m not one and (2) I’ve heard (and written) so much about its appeal to non-fans that I wonder if fans notice …