James Poniewozik

Today at the Hilton Theater in New York City, executives of MyNetworkTV announced their exciting, provocative, all-high-definition new fall schedule of shows. Undoubtedly the first thing you want to know about the exciting, provocative, all-high-definition fall schedule of MyNetworkTV is… what the squank is MyNetworkTV? Whose

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ANDREW ECCLES / ABC

The upfronts are a song and dance routine. At ABC’s presentation at Lincoln Center today, for instance, network execs noted that while ABC is not actually the number one network, they are the number one network in "upscale audiences," however they define the term. (Said Jimmy Kimmel during a mid-upfront monologue:

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You would think, with all the buzz surrounding its big marquee dramas, that ABC would not have much work to do in drawing up a new schedule. But ABC’s lineup is a little like a Central American oligarchy: there is a tiny elite, a vast underclass and not much in between. Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost live in mansions atop

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COURTESY NBC

How do you know a network is in bad shape? When it starts telling you how much the TV critics love it. Kicking off NBC’s upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall, when a more robust network might have trumpeted its ratings and demographics and glossy magazine covers, was a clip reel of scenes from its boutique comedy

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You’re a once-powerful, now struggling TV network, one of whose many, many problems is a late-night comedy show, still pulling in viewers but widely regarded as mediocre for most of the past decade or two. What’s the solution? More of it! Twice–no, three times as much!

To be fair, Saturday Night Live is still capable of

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You’re a once-powerful, now struggling TV network, one of whose many, many problems is a late-night comedy show, still pulling in viewers but widely regarded as mediocre for most of the past decade or two. What’s the solution? More of it! Twice–no, three times as much!

To be fair, Saturday Night Live is still capable of

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Tuned In will be spending this week at the upfronts — the week, once every year, when the broadcast networks rent out Manhattan venues like Radio City Music Hall and Lincoln Center to unveil their fall schedules to their advertisers. There are musical numbers, skits and plenty of song-and-dance, at least the variety that involves

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There have been several insinuations over the years that the voting on American Idol is rigged. If it is, we learned last night that it is not rigged nearly well enough, as America chose to vote leather-lunged rocker Chris Daughtry–long pegged as a favorite to win–off the show.

I’m not crying for Daughtry, who (1) got spectacular

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SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading now if you don’t want to learn that last night’s show revealed that Eko is actually the reincarnation of the polar bear killed in the pilot episode. Just kidding. Although it would be cool. But seriously, stop reading.

Last night’s episode of Lost was titled "?," which if nothing else is truth in

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Tuesday’s overnight Nielsens are in, and it turns out that four times as many people would rather hear Taylor Hicks bleat his lungs out with a torturous version of Elvis’ "In the Ghetto" than watch people cough their lungs out while suffering the torturous symptoms of avian flu. ABC’s exploitative made-for-TV movie Fatal Contact: Bird

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If you’re like most people, when you think "comedy" you think one thing: an interminable, bloody military occupation deteriorating into civil war. At least that appears to be the hope of two cable channels, which are separately developing comedies about the war in Iraq–yes, the current, in-the-news,

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In a disappointment to TV watchers across the nation, David Blaine failed to drown last night. Inside the water-filled sphere that he’d spent the last week submerged in, the magician-shaman-huckster  held his breath for 7 minutes and 8 seconds, nearly 2 minutes shy of the world record of 8:58, but [gasp] better than your current blogger

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Spoiler alert: If you haven’t watched last night’s Lost yet, you’re looking at the wrong set of pixels.

It’s been a long time since there was a good "Holy Crap!" moment on Lost, but the show made up for Lost time with three holy-craptastic moments in gunshot-quick succession–coinciding, of course, with the beginning of May sweeps.

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