Tuned InUncategorized
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 …
Tuned InUncategorized
I’m guessing I had the same huh-what? reaction many of you did when Ed McMahon went on Larry King last week to say that he was facing foreclosure on the mansion that he has been trying to sell for $6 million. (Sure, that sounds like a lot, but back in the day you could buy a whole bionic man for that.) As McMahon, 85, explained it, he …
Tuned InUncategorized
I haven’t regularly followed any edition of The Bachelor/ette since, oh, the Trista era. Nor am I any more inclined to watch it now that the show is two freaking hours long. (Did we really lose that many narrative subtleties at an hour’s length?) But I checked in on last night’s Bachelorette long enough to see DeAnna and her date …
Again. Back Wednesday.
Tuned In
Here’s a pleasant surprise if you work in the broadcast TV business: it turns out that the fact that no one watches your shows anymore is no impediment to running a successful business. It may even help. Mediaweek reports that, counter to expectations and despite a recession, advertisers are paying more this upfront season for the fewer …
Tuned InUncategorized
So the thing I was skeptical about before watching Discovery’s When We Left Earth in HD was: why exactly would old film benefit from high definition? Grainy footage is grainy footage, right? But comparing it with the standard-def version I screened, there does seem to be a difference: HD can’t make blurry footage crisp, but HDTV (and, …
Tuned InUncategorized
SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for Friday’s Battlestar Galactica coming up after the “Jump!… Jump!… Jump!…”
Tuned InRemembrance
Sportscaster Jim McKay died over the weekend at age 86. I make no secret on this blog that I don’t watch a lot of sports, but for me, McKay—known for his versatile coverage of the Olympics and for being the voice of ABC’s Wide World of Sports—brings back for me the weekends as a kid when I still did, and when his WWS broadcasts …
I caught an early look at The Cool School, a documentary about the West Coast art scene in the 1950s and ’60s. Directed by Morgan Neville, co-written by him and Kristine McKenna, it premieres Tuesday at 10 P.M. on PBS.
It’s built around the focal point of L.A. art in those days, the Ferus Gallery, Ur-institution of the West Coast art …
Tuned In
Discovery’s next big docu-showcase, When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, is another example of the technological limitations of contemporary TV criticism. The multi-night history of the space program, beginning Sunday night, arrived in …
Tuned In
It’s been a week since the Lost finale, which makes this an opportune morning to relaunch the summer Lost Discussion Group. I don’t have a topic for you, but I have a good reason for that: I forgot.
But I’m going to spin that as a good thing, because maybe the best way to kick off is simply to re-evaluate how the season 4 finale looks …
Tuned InUncategorized
The city of Los Angeles is suing Tuned In’s soon-to-be-former corporate sibling, Time Warner Cable, for shoddy customer service. Mind you, I’m not a lawyer and can’t judge the validity of the suit one way or another. But I have to enjoy the idea of anyone creating headaches for a cable-company customer-service department, rather than …
Tuned InUncategorized
I feel like I may have been the only TV critic who really liked Swingtown, or close to it anyway.
A running theme in several of the reviews was comparing it to fellow TV period piece Mad Men, unfavorably. (Alessandra Stanley’s review in the New York Times, weirdly, seemed …
