Tuned In
MTV, it is glad to remind you, continues to be a brand leader in providing entertainment to the Young People of Today. And as I’ve said before, it is a pretty remarkable accomplishment that the network, since the early ’80s, has constantly reinvented itself to remain relevant—considering that MTV, were it a person, would be way too old …
Tuned InUncategorized
In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Federal Communications Commission in its lawsuit with Fox network over the FCC’s ability to fine broadcasters over the use of “fleeting” expletives.
I haven’t reviewed the decision firsthand—nor am I a lawyer—but the analysis suggests that the decision, while a win for …
Tuned InUncategorized
Spoilers for last night’s How I Met Your Mother coming up after the jump:
Tuned InUncategorized
I’ll be upfront here and say that I am not in the best position to assess last night’s Heroes finale. (Brief spoilers follow, if you’re concerned about that.) Heroes lost me early on this season, and I checked in on volume four only intermittently. Still, intrigued by having heard that the show was on an upswing, I had to at least …
Tuned InUncategorized
Spoilers for last night’s Chuck season finale coming up after the jump:
Every year around this time the National Trust for Historic Preservation releases a list of eleven historic sites around the U.S. that are threatened by decay, developers or natural disasters. The Trust will issue this year’s list at a press conference Tuesday in Los Angeles with Diane Keaton, a trustee of the group who is also a prime …
Tuned InUncategorized
In times past, journalists have complained that Presidents have been too unavailable to take questions from the press. This year, TV broadcast networks have had the opposite complaint—that President Obama’s prime-time addresses have too frequently cut into valuable airtime, costing millions in unrecoverable advertising revenue.
This …
Tuned In
To help save Chuck, I went with the Oven-Roasted Chicken footlong. As a TV critic, can I write this sandwich off on my taxes?
Tuned In
TLC has announced its summer programming, and it looks like there’s no summer vacation in the raising-the-kids-in-public business: scant weeks after season 4 ended, season 5 of Jon & Kate Plus Eight returns on May 25.
In other news, TLC will premiere the new series Cake Boss, which, added to Ace of Cakes on Food Network, brings us one …
We seem to be in a season for art theft books. A few months ago there was one about the 1989 break-in at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Now there are two that look back at how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and stayed missing for more than two years. The accepted facts of that case make for a pretty …
Tuned In
Friday’s Dollhouse was an intriguing one-off idea regarding the uses of the Dollhouse’s technology—a woman using it to literally return from the dead to witness its aftermath. But it was jarring, once the show had switched gears and committed to the ongoing story of the conspiracy and investigation, to return to the active-of-the-week …
Tuned InTuned In
I’m going to be delayed in doing any Sunday Watch posts, so I’m throwing it open for discussion of any weekend TV, including but not limited to:
* (SPOILER ALERT) The Amazing Race, whose two-part nonelimination round was not a surprise, exactly—it was clearly too early to get down to the Final Three—but annoying as usual …
Tuned InRemembrance
“Sassy” is the word that comes easiest to mind when describing an actress like Bea Arthur and the characters she played, most notably on Maude and The Golden Girls. But sassy finally seems too small for Arthur, who died today of cancer at age 86. It connotes perkiness and feistiness; Arthur, on the other hand, exuded too much stature and …
