CBS
Tuned In+Television | October 18, 2011

The Good Wife, Up All Night and the Spinoff-Within-a-Show

By James Poniewozik

Eli Gold's storyline on The Good Wife is the latest example of a spinoff-within-a-show: a subplot or story thread that, for whatever reason, is significant and yet separate enough from the main story—either in tone or plot—that you feel like you're watching a tiny TV show that someone decided to hide in a larger TV show.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 3, 2011

Checking in on Treme: Present at the Re-Creation

By James Poniewozik

General second-season spoilers for Treme below: I haven’t been blogging about Treme much this second season, partly because I’m cutting back on weekly reviews at Tuned In, but partly because the show offers both too much and too little to talk about. On the one hand, the show still takes its time, and—with exceptions like [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 22, 2011

TV Weekend: Reality and Fiction, with the Loud Family and Treme

By James Poniewozik

Forty years ago, a crew of cameras parked itself in the living room of a California family—the Louds of Santa Barbara—to record their lives. Forty years ago, this was still considered an unusual situation in America. An American Family, which ultimately aired in 1973, may have been on PBS and had serious documentary ambitions, but [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | March 4, 2011

Dead Tree Alert: Anthony Bourdain's Guilty Pleasure

By James Poniewozik

Surprise: My column in the redesigned culture section of TIME this week is not about Charlie Sheen! The other day I posted briefly about the season-debut Haiti episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. For the column I screened more of the upcoming episodes and spoke to Bourdain about how his show uses food as a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | February 10, 2011

Back Down in the Treme, As of April 24

By James Poniewozik

Since HBO scheduled the debut of Game of Thrones for April, I’ve been wondering when Treme—which went back into production recently—would land back on the schedule, especially since HBO has become flush with series. Dave Walker of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the premiere reporter on the Treme beat, has word today the series will return [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 21, 2010

David Simon on Treme, the Finale and Its Critics

By James Poniewozik

I could have added a link to my Treme review below, but this is good enough for its own post: Alan Sepinwall has a post-season postmortem interview with David Simon, in which the show’s co-creator talks about the first season, addresses some criticisms of the show, explains his thinking behind some of the storylines and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 21, 2010

Treme Watch: This City Won't Wash Away

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for the first-season finale of Treme coming up: Treme finished its first season with a finale that very much mirrored its pilot: sprawling, wide-ranging, deliberately paced, and—at about 83 minutes—expansive. It recalled our first encounter with these characters in ways both stylistic (another montage to the sound of a tune that Davis spins in [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 14, 2010

Treme Watch: Down to the Holy River

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s episode of Treme coming up: “Unlike plot-driven entertainments, there is no closure in real life. Not really.” —Creighton Bernette

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 7, 2010

Treme Watch: Farewell to Flesh

By James Poniewozik

Quick spoilers for last night’s Treme follow: Mardi Gras, the event that Treme built toward—much as the New Orleans calendar builds toward it—came to the series last night. “All on a Mardi Gras Day” began with a kind of montage, showing various characters eating king cake and prepping for the holiday. And then the entire [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 10, 2010

Treme Watch: New Orleans Is Coming Home

By James Poniewozik

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for last night’s Treme coming up, along with an off-the-menu plate of crawfish. Before Treme debuted, David Simon and Eric Overmyer took pains to say that the show was not going to be The Wire: New Orleans. One way in which it would differ, they said, was its scope. Where The Wire [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 3, 2010

Treme Watch: Homecoming and Awaygoing

By James Poniewozik

Warning: spoilers for last night’s Treme follow. This was the first episode of Treme that I didn’t see in advance, and once I caught up with it, other deadlines got in the way. In the interest of putting it out there for your discussion, I’ll skip the big overview—the episode, it was pretty plain, focused [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 25, 2010

Treme Watch: If This FEMA Trailer's A-Rockin…

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s episode of Treme coming up after the jump:

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 19, 2010

Treme Watch: David Simon on Pity and Tourists

By James Poniewozik

If you’re reading this, it means that I’m traveling on assignment right now and didn’t get around to doing a writeup of the second episode of Treme. Instead, you can use this thread to discuss the episode yourselves. (Nutshell: I thought it came together more tightly than the long, impressionistic pilot; Lambreaux’s confrontation with the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 13, 2010

Treme Gets an Encore

By James Poniewozik

I haven’t yet seen ratings figures for the premiere of Treme, but HBO must have seen something it liked—creatively, commercially or both—because two days after airing the pilot it’s picked up David Simon’s New Orleans drama for a second season. [Update: 1.4 million viewers Sunday, it turns out, so that would be "creatively."] From the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 12, 2010

The Morning After: Treme-ndous?

By James Poniewozik

Having been all Treme all the time on Friday—with my Treme feature, my Treme review and my interview with Treme co-creator David Simon—I’m going to skip a full-on review recap of the show’s ninety-minute pilot last night. (I plan on doing a regular Treme Watch for the whole season, time permitting—though work travel next week [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 9, 2010

Dead Tree Alert: Treme; Plus, Full Treme Review

By James Poniewozik

This week’s print edition of TIME has my feature on HBO’s Treme, debuting this Sunday, for which I visited a shoot in New Orleans (or, technically, Gretna) early last month. As usual, but more than usual, I overreported and underwrote. In the space I had allotted, I left out a lot of research on the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | March 31, 2010

TV Writer David Mills Dies

By James Poniewozik

David Mills, an Emmy-winning writer and producer who worked on acclaimed shows including NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner and The Wire, died yesterday at age 48, of a brain aneurysm. His death comes less than two weeks before his newest series—Treme, co-created by his longtime colleague and friend David Simon—premieres on [...]

Tuned In
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 [...]