Entertainment

Lewis (left) works at home. Bravo Photo: Isabella Vosmikova

We had CNNFN, we have CNBC, coming up this fall we’ll have the Fox Business Channel or the Ha Ha I Own Dow Jones Channel or whatever it ends up being called. But I increasingly have the feeling that Bravo has become America’s dominant business channel without anybody knowing …

SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read this post until you’ve watched Big Love. With a butterscotch sundae and a Seven-Up.

HBO photo: Lacey Terrell

So despite the HBO promos last week declaring that this would be the Big Love everyone was going to talk about, I didn’t see that coming. (I had my money on Lois whacking someone, probably Frank.) …

I’m starting to think that Flight of the Conchords has defined a category: the story-proof comedy. Last night’s episode by rights should not have been any good. There was a weak premise. (Bret and Jemaine get discriminated against for being New Zealanders by a fruit vendor–by the way, did I miss it or was there not a single kiwi joke? …

Tomorrow show host Tom Snyder died this weekend at age 71. Snyder’s heyday was before my time–at least, before my staying-up-past-midnight time–so I’m not going to pretend to have extensive, fond memories of the man who pioneered the late-late night talk slot before David Letterman.

But the few times I did catch Snyder’s show was …

HBO photo: John P. Johnson

With two episodes remaining in the season, I’m going to try to observe a moratorium on the overall question of whether John from Cincinnati is good or bad. Masterpiece or disaster, genius or folly, I’m into it too deep now; it’s either building toward something at the end of the season or it’s not, and we’ll …

Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse held their panel at ComicCon in San Diego yesterday. I hear from TIME’s Rebecca Winters Keegan, who’s on-site, that after the TV critics forced Harold Perrineau’s return from Steve McPherson on pain of torture at press tour, there was little in the way of actual news from the session. There …

So the big question about The Simpsons Movie has been: Is it a funny, successful movie in its own right or just an extra-long Simpsons episode? I’ve finally seen it, and I can report: Yes and yes.

To be more specific: the movie works because it’s just like a classic Simpsons episode, in ways that regular Simpsons episodes often are not. …

Parker as pot dealer Nancy Botwin in Weeds. Monty Brinton/Showtime

In this week’s TIME, with LA correspondent and Laura Linney doppelganger Rebecca Winters Keegan, I take a look at the bumper crop of lead actress roles on cable for the likes of Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Mary Louise Parker (above), et al.

Now I know what you’re …

To follow up the recently broached topic of what happens when TV shows become films, I’m catching a screening of The Simpsons movie several entire hours before it opens in theaters. Ah, the perks of working in the MSM! It’s almost as good as being the 97th caller at Hot 97.

Meanwhile, over at IMDB, somone better connected than I am has …

The CW / Timothy White

Test Pilot is a semiregular feature this summer sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots may be rewritten, recast and reshot before airing, and end up much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so let’s get on …

It may be time to declare LDG a good idea while it lasted. After a thought-provoking run in the wake of the mind-blowing May finale, last week’s post generated a whopping four comments as of present count. Is it me? Is it you? Ah, let’s just blame society.

It may just be that, without new episodes of Lost to stir the drink, each week’s …

We don’t often cover the restaurant business at Tuned In, but we don’t often witness the opening of restaurants from Top Chef winners. Perilla, the eatery run by season 1 winner Harold Dieterle, gets the Frank Bruni review treatment in today’s New York Times. Bruni awards Perilla one star out of four, which if you’re unfamiliar with the …