Patrick Harbron/NBC
Tuned In+Television | 15 hours ago

The Morning After: Second Act

By James Poniewozik

I was not as smitten with Smash as many of my fellow TV critics, but "Callbacks" did make a couple of choices that I liked very well.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Review | 5 days ago

The Morning After: 30 Rock at 60 Minutes

By James Poniewozik
Ali Goldstein/NBC

“Hey Baby, What’s Wrong?” had that padding-it-out feeling, as if the writers were students trying to meet a ten-page term paper requirement by fiddling with the margins and the font size.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 6 days ago

The Morning After: How the Mighty Have Fallen

By James Poniewozik
Michael Becker / FOX

I mentioned earlier on this blog that I’ve decided to save hours and sanity by skipping the American Idol auditions this season. I make an exception, at least partially, for the Hollywood round, which is one of my favorite parts of Idol even if Idol’s TV audience doesn’t seem to share that opinion. But last [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 7 days ago

The Morning After: Hey, Dollface!

By James Poniewozik
ABC/FRANCISCO ROMAN

One fun thing about seeing episodes of shows in advance is going on Twitter and watching people’s reactions blow up at a certain scene you know will freak them out. In the case of the two-hour premiere of The River, that would be: the dolls. (Spoiler alert: I just mentioned the dolls.) The feed of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 8 days ago

The Morning After: NBC, Finally Something to Sing About?

By James Poniewozik
Lewis Jacobs/NBC

After a post-Super Bowl promo, NBC got a huge number of new fans to tune in for the second season of The Voice. To my surprise, I’m one of them.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 19 days ago

The Morning After: To the Moon!

By James Poniewozik

There have been a lot of sitcom analogies made in this election. Last night in Florida, the show apparently became The Honeymooners. You decide who was Ralph and who was Alice.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 22 days ago

The Morning After: Doff Your Fedora for Prime Suspect, Tip Your Wings for Pan Am

By James Poniewozik
Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie in PAN AM. / ABC

Those of you still watching Prime Suspect or Pan Am, care to make the case for either show?

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 26 days ago

The Morning After: Archer and the Bandit

By James Poniewozik
FX

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 [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 28 days ago

The Morning After: Icepickin’ and Grinnin’

By James Poniewozik
Prashant Gupta / FX

FX’s Justified, coming off a second season that was one of the best things on TV in 2011, returned last night with an episode that included new nemeses, an icepick-wielding adversary and some old-fashioned Western shootistry. (Also back—TNT’s Southland.)

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 37 days ago

The Morning After: A Firm No

By James Poniewozik
Frank Ockenfels/NBC

One thing I can say for NBC’s legal-series take on John Grisham’s The Firm, which debuted last night, is that it gave me new appreciation for Work It. Not that The Firm is a worse show. It’s much better. But “much better” in this case is still a long way from good, and while Work [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 75 days ago

The Morning After: Light the Foos

By James Poniewozik
Lewis Jacobs/NBC

“Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism” would not make my all-time list of Community episodes, yet it’s the kind of episode I hope the show makes more of if it sticks around.

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 92 days ago

The Morning After: The Good, the Sad and the Odd, in a Night of Big Interviews

By James Poniewozik

I had to save Gabby Giffords for last. Giffords gave her first TV interview on ABC Monday night, the same night that NBC’s Bob Costas talked former Penn State defensive co-ordinator Jerry Sandusky, for Rock Center with Brian Williams, on the charges of child rape against Sandusky. The interviews aired in the same time slot—one [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 93 days ago

The Morning After: Homeland on the Road

By James Poniewozik
SHOWTIME

In a drama about terrorism, you would expect an explosion, but not of the sort that finished last night’s Homeland. In this stunner of an episode, Homeland blew up its status quo.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Tuned In | 100 days ago

The Morning After: Yes, No, Maybe So

By James Poniewozik
SHOWTIME

“You can’t deny the facts just because you find them inconvenient.”—Saul Berenson As I started watching last night’s Homeland, “The Good Soldier,” I noticed that the episode was written by producer Henry Brommell, the executive producer of the late, and at-least-by-me lamented Rubicon. And as the episode played out I was reminded of a episode [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 119 days ago

The Morning After: X, Men

By James Poniewozik

With Tuned In having been folded into TIME Entertainment, I’ve been trying to decide which of the old blog features do and don’t work in the new format—among them, The Morning After open-discussion posts for last night’s TV. But because I like having that option—and don’t have the time right now to post at more [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Tuned In | 140 days ago

The Morning After: Who’s That Guy? It’s–

By James Poniewozik
FOX

Having gotten all cranky yesterday over the second episode of 2 Broke Girls, let me offer a little balance here: the second episode of New Girl, “Kryptonite,” was really, encouragingly funny.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 141 days ago

The Morning After: Atrocious or Bodacious Cretaceous?

By James Poniewozik
FOX

Last night we finally saw the two-hour premiere of Terra Nova, which, whatever I thought of it, will stun me if it is not the highest-rated drama debut of the fall season. I won’t bother restating my blog restatement of my print-magazine review, but I was surprised to see that most reviews I’ve read pretty [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | 142 days ago

The Morning After: Successful Landing?

By James Poniewozik
ABC

It’s a print-magazine-deadline morning for me once again, so I’m not going to have time for a while to catch up with last night’s season debut of The Good Wife and I may or may not get around to posting. That’s where The Morning After comes in. Let us know what you thought of the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Tuned In | 145 days ago

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, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Tuned In | 146 days ago

The Morning After: Up Another Night

By James Poniewozik

Amid the crush of new fall-TV reviews, the premieres of returning shows tend to get shortchanged, and here at Tuned In I’m no exception, so I’ll give you this Morning After post to talk about what you thought of, for instance, last night’s double shot debut of Modern Family. (I will say this: if the [...]