FX
Tuned In+Television | January 20, 2012

The Morning After: Archer and the Bandit

By James Poniewozik

In one of my favorite Archer episodes ever, Sterling and Lana have an adventure in a Florida Louisiana swamp, which is mainly exciting to Archer for its resonances with the Burt Reynolds classic Gator. “I’ve been waiting my entire life to say this exact phrase,” Archer says, excitedly: “I am commandeering this airboat!” Last night on FX, the animated spy series / family-office-dysfunction comedy returned, and two national treasures came together, as Archer ran into his idol in a bar. Whereupon Reynolds corrected Archer that the movie had “speedboats. Not airboats. I’m pretty sure. I directed it.”

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Tuned In+Tuned In | September 23, 2011

The Morning After: Cummings and Returnings

By James Poniewozik
NBC

You know the drill: too many season debuts, not enough time. Here’s your space to offer your morning-after critiques of the various premieres, returns and other TV shows of Thursday night, including: * the season premieres of Community (haven’t yet watched) and Parks and Recreation (solid, but what did you think?) * the CBS debuts, [...]

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Tuned In+Tuned In | September 15, 2011

TV Tonight: Season 7 of Sunny and an Archer Bonus

By James Poniewozik
FX

Consider this more a public service announcement than a review (I’ve been too busy with fall pilots to get through all the screeners), but FX’s Thursday comedy block returns tonight, a week before NBC’s does. Starting off is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia; in the premiere, Frank (Danny DeVito) falls for the tender ministrations of [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 28, 2011

The Morning After: Stop… Pooping!

By James Poniewozik

So here’s the deal: Now that Parks and Recreation is back and Archer has returned, on Thursday night we have several sitcoms that are capable of delivering a killer episode. Last season I tried for a while doing a picture gallery of Thursday comedies with paragraph reviews, but I felt I managed to hit everything [...]

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Tuned In+January 27, 2011

TV Tonight: Archer

By James Poniewozik

As a critic, there are screeners I watch out of obligation, screeners I watch studiously and screeners I gobble up immediately upon getting them, like a starving man gorging himself on chocolates. FX’s Archer is in the last category, a hilarious animated spy parody (with voice talent including H. Jon Benjamin, Jessica Walter, Chris Parnell, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 29, 2010

The Morning After: The Spy Who LOLed Me

By James Poniewozik

NBC’s comedies were in reruns last night, but that doesn’t mean there was no new comedy. FX’s Archer aired a new episode last night, and although I won’t discuss the specific episode—because I’m not sure if FX has been airing episodes in the order I received them—I can say that as I watched the five [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 14, 2010

TV Tonight: Archer

By James Poniewozik

Though I’ve fallen behind on The Venture Brothers, I tend to watch more Adult Swim than I blog about here. Partly because so many of the late-night toons are difficult to describe to the uninitiated, partly because people who love them already really love them, and people who don’t, or wouldn’t, tend to tune out [...]

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Tuned In+Television | December 31, 2009

Vacation Robo-Post: What Are You Looking Forward to in 2010?

By James Poniewozik

I may be on vacation, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not working. Depending on how you define “work.” As I write this, I’m already looking at a tall stack of screeners to watch for midseason 2010 (including Big Love, 24 and Chuck for January). And there’s quite a roster of high-profile new projects for [...]

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Tuned In+December 1, 2009

FX's Former Lawman Gets Justified

By James Poniewozik

FX announced its midseason schedule today. On tap: Archer, Damages and Nip/Tuck (doesn’t it feel like Nip/Tuck is always returning?) in January; a new Louis C.K. comedy, Louie, in the spring; and in March, the much-anticipated (by me, anyway) Timothy Olyphant drama, once called Lawman, which will now be titled Justified. Looking forward to the [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | September 18, 2009

Archer's Secret (Agent) Debut

By James Poniewozik

It’s not often that I get a PR pitch from a network asking me not to write about a new show it’s debuting. But last week FX wrote to say that it was sneak-peeking the first episode of its animated spy comedy Archer (starring the voices of H. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler and Jessica Walter), [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 14, 2009

Around the Dial: NPH to Host, FX to Spy, Seacrest to Cash in

By James Poniewozik

Other TV news I hadn’t gotten around to blogging yet:  * Neil Patrick Harris is officially hosting the Emmys. It’ll be legen—wait for it—dary! And that joke is over—wait for it—used! * FX has announced Archer, a spy-spoof animated comedy, for the fall. I’ve seen only a clip, which FX isn’t allowing anyone to share, [...]