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I was going to post about the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street next week, since the seminal kids’ show debuted on Nov. 10, 1969. But yesterday I noticed a surge of traffic to the blog to some old posts on Sesame Street. As far as I can tell, they were driven by Google’s illustrating its homepage with Big Bird (now Cookie Monster) to …
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Yesterday a few critics and I were on Twitter jawing about which we considered the best comedies on right now. Because that’s how we roll, we TV critics. Modern Family came up, and while there was general agreement that the show is hilarious and clever and warm, I added that I hoped that its warmth didn’t get expressed, in every …
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Not only is Glee taking the night of tonight, but even Bravo’s Top Chef: Las Vegas is on vacation. In its place, however, Bravo is offering us a special one-off of the show, or what we refer to in the Tuned In household as “a ripoff episode.”
Unlike the clip jobs that Survivor like to insert in midseason, though, tonight’s Top Chef All …
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Having a crappy day at the office? I can’t offer you a new episode of Glee tonight. (I can tease you that I’ve seen next week’s episode, in which the on-again, off-again show is on again.) But in the meantime, the next best thing, Glee: The Music, Volume 1, has just been released online and wherever it is that they actually sell CDs …
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Elsewhere on time.com Sean Gregory has a story about Stephen Colbert’s quest to get the Colbert Nation to fund U.S. Olympic speedskating. Turns out it’s not just a publicity ploy—well, maybe it is that too—but a serious shot in the arm that could save a prominent U.S. Olympic sport. Given the awesomeness of the sport and the obvious …
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It was a good night last night for Republican gubernatorial candidates. Was it a similarly good night for universal-health-care-dispensing, lizard-skin-hiding, hope-and-change-preaching, thinly veiled Obama allegories? I gave you my thoughts on the first night of V yesterday; you give me yours. Also feel free to offer up any observations …
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The producers of the Academy Awards announced that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will host the next Oscar ceremony, which means that you can blame me if it sucks. Earlier this year, while doing my traditional crabby TV-critic’s postmortem of the show after it made a Hugh Jackman of itself, I wrote:
Doing a reasonably entertaining Oscars
…
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As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m having some housework done that’s taken our living-room TV out of the picture. The Tuned In Jrs. have had to make do for their daily fix of shows with DVDs on a seven-inch portable player. It’s always the children who suffer most.
One thing that’s gotten them through the week has been my review copy of …
Richard Moe announced his intention today to retire as president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 17 years in that job Moe really transformed it. He worked wonders to give vitality to the effort to save great old buildings and places.
When I first heard a few weeks ago that the art collection that once hung in the hallways and offices of Lehman Brothers was going up for auction, I wondered if it could make enough money to at least partly compensate Lehman creditors, who are owed something in the neighborhood of $250 billion by the disastrously defunct investment firm.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkzLHwe4-c]
30 Rock may wow the critics here in America—at least the fake parts—but in Germany, the New York Times’ Dave Itzkoff reports, something got lost in translation. The first airing of 30 Rock auf Deutsch got a 0.0 rating. Which it turns out is also a 0.0 in the metric system! …
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It’s Election Day in America. One election day ago, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, and TV is marking the anniversary with two earnest documentaries—and an alien invasion.
I exaggerate, but only a little. ABC’s V, which debuts tonight, may not be intended as an Obama allegory, but it has enough parallels with …
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Last night’s How I Met Your Mother, “Bagpipes,” demonstrated that the show is not letting Robin and Barney’s monogamous bliss get in the way of its fun. Where a typical HIMYM in the past might have involved Barney trying to school Ted in the ways of singledom, there’s also potential in Barney (in competition with Ted) trying to …
