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One of my favorite shows of 2007, The Riches, returns to FX tonight. (Nutshell for nonviewers: family of Irish-traveler con artists comes upon a man killed in a car wreck on the way to his new house, assumes the identity of him and his “family” and moves to his high-class Louisiana subdivision.) That it …
Tuned In
With your most critically acclaimed drama just having gone off the air, the writers’ strike having choked up the pipeline for new material, and the competition ready to debut a number of new and returning shows, you’d think you’d be anxious to get some new shows—any new shows—on the air. Not if you’re HBO, apparently. The network has …
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After any major event of a campaign, a speech or a debate, pundits immediately emerge to answer the question they are incapable of answering: did the candidate do what he/she “needed to do”? What the candidate needs to do in any election, after all, has only tangentially to do with impressing pundits; ultimately, it comes down to the …
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Take 30 Rock and move it from an NBC writers’ room to a high-school faculty lounge, and you have, if not what ABC’s Miss Guided is, then at least what it’s trying to be. Played by Judy Greer (Arrested Development), guidance counselor Becky Freeley is, like Liz …
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In the last scene of the last episode of The Wire, Jimmy McNulty stopped his car, looked out at the Baltimore skyline, go back in and said, “Let’s go home.” Yesterday on The Huffington Post, David Simon metaphorically hit the brakes, did a 180 and drove back to say, “Wait a minute! I’ve got one more thing to get off my chest!”
The Wire, …
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Shows returning from their strike hiatus all have similar challenges: to remind the viewers why they’re watching, and to remind them what they’re watching. Last night’s How I Met Your Mother succeeded on both levels. First, there was a character-driven A-plot …
