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Tuned In+Tuned In | September 9, 2011

Louie Watch: The Waving Is the Hardest Part

By James Poniewozik

I’ve been generous with the praise for the second season of Louie, so I’ll also be honest about last night’s finale, “New Jersey / Airport”: it was not one of my favorite episodes of the season. (If you’re wondering, I would include “Eddie,” “Country Drive,” “Duckling,” and the one or two other episodes that you are about to remind me of.) Nor did it close on a note to match the transcendent diner-pancakes scene that ended season one.

But it was probably one of the most representative episodes, hitting on most every theme and device that has marked this terrific season of TV.

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 31, 2011

Summer School Report Card: What's Been the Show of the Season?

By James Poniewozik

It’s probably going to be a slow couple of weeks for coverage of current TV here because (1) it’s fall-screener season, which means I’m spending much of my time watching shows that won’t air for weeks or longer; and (2) it’s late August, so whaddyagonnado? So this is as good a morning as any, before [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 30, 2011

While I Was Out: Let Slip the Ducks of War

By James Poniewozik

My first day back at work, I’ve been catching up on some screeners and episodes I missed while I was away, which is another way of saying that I have no real problems. One of those was “Duckling,” the hourlong episode of Louie set in Afghanistan, and while it’s too late and time too short [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 19, 2011

The Morning After: A Louis CK Encore on Conan

By James Poniewozik

I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to write up last night’s Louie this morning, but after it aired, former Late Night with Conan O’Brien writer Louis CK also showed up on TBS’s Conan to chat with his old boss. (It was also, you’ll recall, as a guest of Conan’s on NBC that Louis [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 12, 2011

Louie Watch: Self, Love

By James Poniewozik

Last night’s double-shot of Louie was an example of a recurring structure of season two Louie episodes, and an unusual one for a sitcom. Louie is going about his business—work, life—and comes across another person. They talk. They just… talk. For a long time. And then the conversation goes in a direction you would not [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 6, 2011

FX at TCA: More Louie, Wilfred, Philly. Less Pants.

By James Poniewozik

Saturday is my last day at TCA TV critics’ press tour in LA (my colleagues will have to soldier on without me for ABC’s final presentation), and the network of the day was FX, which updated us as to what’s going on in the worlds of tortured male antiheroes and raunchy comedy. Some of the [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 29, 2011

Louie Watch: Tunnel of Love

By James Poniewozik

No time for a lengthy writeup of last night’s excellent Louie, “Subway/Pamela,” but a few quick, bulleted thoughts: * There are a lot of great things that Louie does, but it deserves more credit for bringing back the art of the silent film, as in the (mostly) wordless subway sequence that opened the episode.

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 22, 2011

Louie Watch: Your Beloved Racist Aunt

By James Poniewozik

Every week I say that I’m not going to write about Louie every week, and yet again here comes another episode so weird and strangely affecting that I can’t not say a little something about it. So here goes again. “Country Drive” was another of those Louie episodes that it’s hard to imagine working in [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 15, 2011

The Morning After: Louie and Joan, Sitting in a Tree

By James Poniewozik

As I’ve said, I’m trying to scale back on the weekly episode reviews here at Tuned In, and I’ve said a great deal already about Louis C.K. and this season of Louie. But we’ve come to the last of the four episodes of the show that I saw in advance, so it’s a good time [...]

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Tuned In+Television | July 14, 2011

Emmy Nominations 2011: The Good, the Bad and the Surprises

By James Poniewozik

The Emmy Awards are a big ocean liner that turns very slowly, and this year’s nominations, announced this morning, were no exception: a lot of familiar faces and a few new (or old but underrecognized) entries. So there were a slew of nominations for Mad Men, Modern Family and [Insert Name of HBO's Big Movie/Miniseries [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 24, 2011

Louie Watch: Pregnant Pause

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Louie below: Since I’m stepping back from weekly Watches on the blog, I don’t expect to be writing about Louie every week, though I’ll certainly be watching. But because I visited the set for the shooting of “Pregnant,” because it gives some suggestions as to the direction of the second season, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 23, 2011

Louis CK Interview, Part 2: Money and Mortality

By James Poniewozik

FX’s Louie, the dark-comic vision of Louis CK, returns for a second season tonight. (Also, the season-one DVD just came out; see above for a probably-NSFW deleted scene.) My feature on the comedian and the new season is in this week’s TIME magazine, and part one of the (lightly edited) transcript of our interview went [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 22, 2011

Louis CK Interview, Part 1: Fatherhood and Fear

By James Poniewozik

FX’s Louie, the dark-comic vision of Louis CK, returns for a second season tomorrow. My feature on the comedian and the new season is in this week’s TIME magazine. For that article, last month I sat down with Louis CK in an apartment in Upper Manhattan that was doubling as the show’s set and production [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 17, 2011

Dead Tree Alert: Happy Father's Day, Louie!

By James Poniewozik

In this week’s TIME, I have a feature on Louis CK, whose amazing, idiosyncratic comedy Louie returns to FX next Thursday. The piece looks at the unusual financial and creative deal that he has for the show, and how that allows him to make a show that’s a more individual vision than just about anything [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | November 5, 2010

Louis on Louie

By James Poniewozik

My Paley Center Q&A Wednesday night with Louis C.K. went great. Which is to say, he was great—all I really did was lob some questions, stepped back and let him go, while I tried not to touch my head too often. (I never know what to do with my hands at these sorts of things.) [...]

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Tuned In+November 2, 2010

JPTV: Live Q&A with Louis C.K.

By James Poniewozik

Tomorrow night (Wednesday, Nov. 3) I’ll be at the Paley Center in Manhattan, hosting a Q&A session with Louis C.K., star/director/writer/editor/almost-everything-else of FX’s fantastic, idiosyncratic Louie, which may well be my favorite new show of 2010. The session starts at 8:30 p.m. and runs until about 10 p.m.; the program includes a screening of clips, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 20, 2010

A Second Look At: Louie

By James Poniewozik

Louis C.K.’s new FX comedy, Louie, debuted while I was on vacation at the end of the June, so I wrote about it in a pre-holiday blog post the week before. If it got lost in the shuffle, let me remedy that by saying: Louie continues to be one of the best new series of [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 25, 2010

TV Next Week: Big People on Huge, Big Laughs on Louie

By James Poniewozik

I’m on vacation next week (but Tuned In will still be kicking, thanks to the cyborg duo of Robo-James and Steven James Snyder; more on that later). While I’m out, here are a couple debuts I won’t have time to write up at greater length, but are worth some attention: ABC Family’s Huge and FX’s [...]

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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 [...]