It was PBS Day yesterday at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, and you know what that means: drugs, swearing and cattiness! By which, of course, I mean: steroids in baseball, a respectful discussion of FCC policy and The Cat in the Hat. The too-hot-for-TV highlights follow:
* Ken Burns gave a presentation for The Tenth …
I didn’t write the TV feature in the new print issue of TIME, but it’s good enough that I’d gladly take the credit: contributor and art blogger Carolina Miranda takes a look at Bravo’s Work of Art, as it’s received by other artists. The reviews are mixed:
[T]here’s been some sensitivity over how the show portrays artists. “We get so
…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEfTHGcork]
I must apologize for having been remiss in my coverage of Shark Week this year: the way I see it, you’ve seen one shark, you’ve seen 250 million years of evolution. In compensation, here’s CBS’s Craig Ferguson talking with most talented woman in TV history Julie Chen about his own …
Barack Obama celebrates his 49th birthday today. Or so he claims. According to a CNN survey, more than a quarter of Americans doubt that Obama was born in the United States; 29% say he probably was; and a mere plurality of 42% have no doubt. This despite widely reported empirical documentation of the President’s birth in Hawaii in 1961, …
I’m not going to pretend you didn’t see this coming, but the Parents Television Council has called on advertisers to boycott CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, based on the Twitter feed shitmydadsays and the subsequent book. “Unless or until CBS chooses a different title for this program, we are urging advertisers to avoid sponsoring such an …
The Television Critics Association press tour usually has the assembled journalists peppering network executives with difficult, sometimes even hostile questions. But then there are networks like FX, which airs a roster of critical darlings. President John Landgraf took the stage yesterday and was greeted with questions about how much …
Anyone who has ever been to a wedding knows that there are certain songs that can’t be avoided. TIME picks the most predictable reception tunes.
Fox, which is riding high on Glee, has the Death Star (American Idol) and has contractors busily at work on Death Star 2 (a.k.a. Simon Cowell’s X Factor), presented at the Television Critics Association’s press tour yesterday. Here’s what they had to say—and didn’t:
* The biggest news hovering over the entire TCA tour has been the …
Spoilers for last night’s Bachelorette finale coming up:
The Bachelorette‘s Ali made her decision in the summer season finale last night, in a way that offered a little something for everyone. There was a rose for Roberto, who in turn got down on bended knee and pulled out an engagement ring, popping the box in such a way as to show …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dY9gtYeHhk]
Mitch Miller, the goateed bandleader who hosted NBC’s Sing Along with Mitch in the early 1960s, died Saturday at age 99. Miller’s music and his show were before my time, but I’ve always found the phenomenon of his show fascinating from the archival footage. Partly because Sing Along …
I haven’t entirely decided how I’m going to handle AMC’s new drama Rubicon on the blog; Sunday night / Monday morning is already busy with (besides print magazine deadlines) sister show Mad Men—and while I’m not a True Blood aficionado, HBO’s upcoming Boardwalk Empire is a definite contender for regular-post status.
In any event, …
While you carried on blissfully unaware with your life this weekend, the Television Critics’ press tour continued making the world safe for new TV shows. Or is that from them? In any event, a roundup of the news from NBC and ABC’s presentations:
* The producers of NBC’s sci-fi/thriller/mystery serial The Event would like your …