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Lostwatch: Iraqi Torture Edition

[Spoiler disclaimer: I watched Lost last night. If you didn’t, there’s the door.]

Last week I was a little embarrassed to bring up the theory that Lost is playing out as a metaphor for the war on terror. This week, I’m embarrassed I didn’t have the idea earlier.

Last night, Sayid (Naveen Andrews), a former torturer in Saddam’s army, …

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Cheney on Fox: The Buckshot Stops Here

Tonight on national TV, Vice President Dick Cheney announced that, in the accidental shooting of his hunting pal Harry Whittington, the buck stopped with him. Sometimes, though, it takes three or four days for the buck to make it to its stop. (Maybe its plane was routed through LaGuardia during Sunday’s blizzard.) So it was that Cheney …

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Et Tu, Jack? 24 Turns Against the President

Whose side is Jack Bauer on? Last season of 24, a lot of pundits had decided: he was the Bush administration’s chief pop culture rationalizer of the war on terror. Several times in the season, Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) or his colleagues were called on to torture—giving injections, breaking fingers, improvising elecrocutions—to get key …

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Live from Turin—Sorry, Torino—It's NBC

The broadcast of the 2006 Winter Olympics, NBC reminded us from the get-go of the Opening Ceremonies, was going to be a triumph of technology. Hundreds of hours of coverage, all broadcast in HDTV for the first time! (The wonders of which will not be relayed to you by your correspondent, who watches a 20-inch box purchased sometime around

Tuned In Tuned In

Live from Turin—Sorry, Torino—It's NBC

The broadcast of the 2006 Winter Olympics, NBC reminded us from the get-go of the Opening Ceremonies, was going to be a triumph of technology. Hundreds of hours of coverage, all broadcast in HDTV for the first time! (The wonders of which will not be relayed to you by your correspondent, who watches a 20-inch box purchased sometime around

Tuned In Tuned In

Arrested Development Gets Torched

Tonight, Fox airs its last four episodes of the Emmy-award-winning sitcom Arrested Development at 8 p.m. E.T. Barring the still — possible intervention of another network (most likely Showtime), they could be the last ever for this acerbic series about a wildly dysfunctional, wealthy real-estate family.

I’ve written enough on

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The Customer Is Always Right—Except on Cable

That distant screeching sound you heard this afternoon was the sound of cable and media companies, collectively squealing like stuck pigs at a new report from the Federal Communications Commission, arguing in favor of "a la carte" pricing for cable. "A la carte" cable does not, alas, mean the ability to have your cable box deliver a

Tuned In Tuned In

The Customer Is Always Right—Except on Cable

That distant screeching sound you heard this afternoon was the sound of cable and media companies, collectively squealing like stuck pigs at a new report from the Federal Communications Commission, arguing in favor of "a la carte" pricing for cable. "A la carte" cable does not, alas, mean the ability to have your cable box deliver a

Tuned In Tuned In

Lostwatch: A Mass Deception of Weapons

Two thoughts, neither of them wholly baked, about last night’s episode of Lost (The usual spoiler-alert, avert-thine-eyes dictum applies here):

(1) Maybe no big-network show has asked viewers to identify so closely with so many characters who are, by most TV’s moral lights, pretty bad people. There’s Eko, for instance, who ran drugs

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A Brown and Bubbly Evening: The Best and Worst of Super Bowl Ads

Pop quiz: You’ve just placed an ad at Super Bowl XL.
When it’s done, you want the viewers to associate your product with (a)
a cavity search; (b) Leonard Nimoy; (c) being "brown and bubbly."

If you answered "any of the above," you should be
directing a corporate ad budget. These were the dubious messages of (a)
a Sierra Mist spot, (b)

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We Report, You Disrobe

It’s a truism among media-critic types that Fox News Channel is the "conservative" cable outlet. But every now and then, FNC airs something that makes you hit the TiVo rewind and pause buttons, repeatedly. Take this morning, on Fox News Live, when anchor Jon Scott did a hard-hitting interview with two models, in cleavage-baring halter

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Survivor: New! Improved! Now with More Immunity!

In recent seasons of Survivor, it’s become a ritual to see what new twist the producers would introduce into the game: bringing back former players, splitting the groups into multiple tribes, hiding immunity idols in the wilderness. In Survivor: Exile Island, Mark Burnett and crew have created a season with more twists than a challah

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