Long after you’ve become too old to enjoy after school cartoons, their theme songs continue to bounce around your brain. TIME …
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The Flintstones Hit 50
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As you may already know from having visited Google, it’s The Flintstones’ 50th anniversary. I watched Flintstones reruns—and various later spinoffs—as a kid, but I hadn’t revisited Bedrock until a couple of years ago, when the Tuned In Jrs. went through a brief Flintstones phase. …
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Paging Archie Bunker: Can Scripted TV Still Move the Culture?
My post on Modern Family’s Big Gay Kiss Episode this morning reminded me of a discussion Jaime Weinman of MacLean’s and I had at his blog yesterday, in a post of his partly inspired by a post of mine on the death of Lone Star. Essentially, he makes the argument that big mainstream broadcast hits still exist and still matter–because …
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The Morning After: West Coast Chung-Chung
There is something in me that is just constitutionally unable to appreciate yet another cop procedural, even or especially when it’s another Law & Order. (I can appreciate why people loved the original, for instance—I just can’t feel it and am not interested in faking it.) So you won’t be surprised that I didn’t love last night’s …
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Modern Family Watch: Lips Service
Although I knew it was coming, I actually missed the kiss between Mitchell and Cameron the first time I watched last night’s Modern Family. (I’m considering that a non-spoiler, seeing as how widely the smooch was reported and discussed in advance.) I looked down for a second, probably typing down some quote, and it was there and gone, …
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Greg Giraldo Dies at 44
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Greg Giraldo, whose sharp and searing standup was familiar to fans of Comedy Central and Last Comic Standing, died Wednesday from the effects of a prescription drug overdose. Giraldo, a former lawyer, brought an intelligent and combative style to Comedy Central’s roasts as well as the panel of …
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The Morning After: Wife and Sons
Great news everybody! I had a really productive work day! Bad news, everybody! That work day did not include getting around in time to last night’s Sons of Anarchy or The Good Wife. Or to posting today’s The Morning After discussion post in the, um, morning. But so as not to make this a total washout, I’m putting it up for your …
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Glee Watch: Oops! They Did It
Spoilers for last night’s Britney Spears-themed Glee coming up:
After last season’s polarizing Madonna episode of Glee—I was firmly on the “couldn’t stand it” pole—I’ll admit I was looking ahead to the Britney Spears episode with dread. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. If “Britney/Brittany” wasn’t the best episode of …
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What Lone Star's Alamo Means for TV
And the 2010-11 broadcast season claims its first victim: Lone Star, which had the (coincidental? not so much?) distinction of also being the best-reviewed new broadcast show of the fall.
I liked Lone Star’s pilot a lot, and thought the second episode was promising. I also think, though, that its critical reputation has been a little …
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TV Tonight (And Tomorrow): The Tenth Inning
Tonight and Wednesday, PBS debuts Ken Burns’ The Tenth Inning, his four-hour sequel to Baseball. TIME’s Sean Gregory, who unlike me actually knows something about the sport, interviewed Burns and partner Lynn Novick about the doc:
TIME: The film deals with controversial figures like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, yet we don’t hear
…
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TV Tonight: No Ordinary Family
Plane crashes are the new getting hit by lightning. That’s my takeaway from tonight’s debut of ABC’s No Ordinary Family, a light drama about a family of four who gain superpowers after their plane ditches into glowing water in the Amazon. My impressions of the show haven’t changed a lot since I Test Piloted it earlier this summer: it’s …
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David Simon's Genius Now Officially Certified
Today the MacArthur Foundation announced its list of “geniuses” in the arts and sciences who will receive a no-strings grant of $500,000 each to pursue their work. Among them, David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme, who in addition to the half-mil can now put “GENIUS” on his business cards, just like Wile E. Coyote.
Joking aside, …
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The Morning After: Uneventful
Spoilers for last night’s episode of The Event coming up:
The problem with The Event, and broadcast-network mystery serials in general, comes down to a question: what was the lesson of Lost?
I would argue that the lesson—which few if any attempts to make “the next Lost” seem to get—is that if you start with fresh, original …