Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 26, 2010

The Morning After: A Re-Introduction

By James Poniewozik

It’s been a while since I’ve given a little introduction to The Morning After posts at Tuned In. There’s a lot of TV on television, and most nights there are more noteworthy shows—for better or worse—than I have time or inclination to write about the next day, because of other deadlines, other obligations and extreme [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 19, 2010

From the Video Vault: Basilone and LaGuardia Selling War Bonds

By James Poniewozik

Those of you watching HBO’s The Pacific have been following the story of John Basilone (Jon Seda), the Marine hero and Medal of Honor winner who was dispatched to tour the States and pitch war bonds to fund the troops. While I’m aware, I thought I’d show you this bit of archival footage from that [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | March 15, 2010

The Morning After: Welcome to The Jungle

By James Poniewozik

While I was in New Orleans earlier this month, I went to a premiere screening of the first episode of The Pacific sponsored by the National World War II Museum. Tom Hanks, introducing the episode, said that the challenge in this miniseries “was how to enter into this massive map with no recognizable names like [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | March 12, 2010

HBO's The Pacific: What Fresh Hell

By James Poniewozik

If you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the [...]

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Tuned In+March 5, 2010

Dead Tree Alert 1: Tom Pacific

By James Poniewozik

There’s a TV-related cover on the print TIME this week, though I didn’t write it; historian Douglas Brinkley looks at HBO’s The Pacific, Tom Hanks and the actor’s drive to become America’s celebrity-historian-in-chief. As Brinkley notes, the follow-up to Band of Brothers is similar and in significant ways very different:

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Tuned In+Television | January 6, 2010

HBO Adds to Stable With Milch, Mann Horse Drama

By James Poniewozik

David Milch is back in business with HBO, this time writing Luck, a drama pilot, to be directed by Michael Mann, about horse racing. There’s no guarantee that the pilot will become a series—since making Deadwood and John from Cincinnati, Milch made the HBO cop pilot Last of the Ninth, which never made it to [...]

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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+Uncategorized | November 12, 2009

HBO Prepares Pacific Invasion

By James Poniewozik

When I want to take a break and drive myself crazy, I look over my year-end best-TV-list candidates and try to whittle them down to 10. I didn’t realize until this year—with a surfeit of shows that could arguably land in a top 10—what a blessing the writers’ strike of 2008 was. And next year [...]