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American Idol‘s final 12 kick off the finals tonight with the music of The Rolling Stones (look for my picture-gallery reviews to post overnight), and somewhere Tyler Grady is cursing fate that he never got the chance to properly show off his Jagger strut. The choice of artist means that, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, someone …
Tuned In
Tonight FX debuts Justified, its Elmore Leonard-based US marshal drama starring Timothy Olyphant. I liked what I’ve seen a lot, and my review ran long enough ago that I figured I should point you to it again:
It seems like TV networks have been talking about remaking the western for longer than they actually made them. Maybe the genre,
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Just caught up on How to Make It in America, the first episode to air since the review copies HBO sent me. In my review, I, like most critics I’ve seen compared the series to Entourage (with which it shares a producer). The makers of the show have resisted the comparison, though it’s meant as a compliment: it reminds me of the things I …
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A moment of silence, please. A decade late, the Tuned In home office has entered the 21st century, with the adoption of a flat-panel HD screen. To make room, I have finally decommissioned my last cathode-ray tube set and, along with it, my last operating VHS tape deck. For a little historical perspective, back when I originally picked …
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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 Paris.”
In Band of …
Tuned InRemembrance
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxCvwizeKgc]
Peter Graves, best known for starring as Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible (or, for a later generation, for his appearances in the Airplane! movies and the Biography series he hosted), has died. The original M:I series was before my time, but I’m always impressed, watching it in …
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I’ll stay away from spoilers for last night’s Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains and, thus, avoid having to review the episode. (Highlight: watching a chairbound James gradually become Harvey Fierstein as he shouted himself hoarse in the immunity challenge.) A few questions instead:
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Spoilers for last night’s American Idol coming up after the break:
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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 project of The Pacific, …
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My print-TIME column this week: why are so many people suddenly watching big TV events this year? The Super Bowl, the Olympics and the major awards shows have all had big ratings increases, often after periods of decline. There are explanations for each, but that doesn’t explain the rise of all. There’s the argument that people are …
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Here’s a little light listening for your Thursday night: I recorded a podcast the other night with the Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan and Zap2It’s Ryan McGee. Basically, we each cued up the “Dr. Linus” episode and talked about our thoughts and theories as it played. Because this is Lost, and we’re critics, it runs longer than …
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It’s official: Conan O’Brien is launching a 32-city nationwide stage tour, starting April 12. You can get tickets for the Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television tour here, or here. Unless they’re already sold out and you can’t. (Conan has already announced extra dates in New Yorkâat Radio City, natch, right by NBC’s 30 Rock …
