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The Simpsons may not get people talking the next morning as regularly as it used to, but it showed that it still can, thanks to an opening couch gag by British graffiti artist Banksy, which grimly satirized the means by which pop culture gets (literally, physically) made and merchandized:
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It’s …
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SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, sneak off into the woods with a friend and watch last night’s Mad Men.
Sincerity, as the joke goes, is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
Last night’s Mad Men, …
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SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, check into a motel and watch last night’s Rubicon.
After ten deliberate, talk-heavy episodes, last week Rubicon gave us a taste of the kind of action and violence we expect from other terrorism-and-espionage shows. Now, in the penultimate episode of its season, Rubicon showed that it …
Tuned InTelevision
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, curl up next to a nice bookcase and watch last night’s Boardwalk Empire.
Fans of The Wire had to be waiting for Boardwalk Empire, with its sprawling storylines, to finally spotlight …
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In my TIME print-edition column this week (not yet available online), I take a look at pop culture and the public school crisis. Besides Davis Guggenheim’s excellent documentary Waiting for “Superman,” the column covers two Friday reality shows that take very different approaches to public school ills: NBC’s School Pride, which …
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Spoilers for last night’s The Office coming up:
So last night, my laptop seized up and died on me as I was watching, appropriately enough, the death-themed Community on DVR. (I am having the machine vaporized and sealed in a lava lamp.) It was a fairly strong episode—see especially the Abed …
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I’ve seen the first two episodes of AMC’s new zombie thriller, The Walking Dead, but the network has placed an October 18 embargo on any “information,” so I’ve already said too much. (Tell you what! I’ll blink once for “Loved it” and twice for “Hated it.” There—did you see it?)
In the meantime, here’s a new …
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Regular Tuned Inlander rousseau writes:
James, can you do The Morning After for today? I missed Modern Family because I was watching the stunning, goosebumps-down-your-flesh film version of the recent New York Macbeth with the great Patrick Stewart on PBS last night. They turned the Scottish kingdom into a very fitting modern
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Tuned InNews Media
Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers to maintain his estate and …
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Quick spoilers for last night’s Modern Family coming up:
One of the toughest things about keeping house is keeping the house. As in keeping it together, making sure it does not physically disintegrate. Home ownership puts a strain on relationships because (1) it is a strain and (2) every little failing and glitch can become a …
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Earlier this week, Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Jon Stewart on stage at New York’s 92nd Street Y to discuss his upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity, Glenn Beck and other media and politics matters. And while the talk was recorded before the Rick Sanchez “Jon Stewart and the Jews Control the Media” flap, there was a little …
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This is the sad time of the fall when a TV critic has to decide that, good or bad, certain new shows have dim enough chances that there’s not time to follow them. Fortunately[?] this year the new fall crop is weak enough that that isn’t such a heartbreaker in most cases. But I’m glad—and therefore sad—to report that last night’s …
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Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:
There’s been a lot of talk lately among critics, including ones I respect and admire, about how terrible Glee is. And I can totally understand it. Glee is not consistent; at times it is not even coherent. It can be an awful show or a great one, often at the same time. It doesn’t follow the …
