Tuned InTelevision
Office Watch: Kill! The! Balloon!
The Office is not a great show anymore, but last night’s cold open was a kind of sweet, sidelong way of looking at what a long history we have with it by now.
Articles from Contributor
Tuned InTelevision
Tuned InTelevision
Dead Tree Alert: Mad Men Is (Almost) Back!
Remember Mad Men?
If you’re reading a TV blog, I’m sure you do. But it’s been so long, I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t remember much. In my essay in the newest print TIME magazine (subscription required to read), I look at …
Tuned InTelevision
TV Tonight: Community-mentum?
I’m not going to tell you to watch Community tonight. Don’t take that to mean I don’t love the show. There have been plenty of encomiums, tributes and pleas written on the show’s behalf over the last three years, some of them by …
Tuned InTelevision
A Third Horse Dies, and HBO Cancels Luck
On Tuesday, HBO shut down production on Luck, after the third horse died in the set of the racetrack drama. Yesterday, with the controversy rising and under protest from PETA, HBO abruptly canceled the show, which it had already …
Tuned InTelevision
The Lagging Economic Indicator of TV Shows
Is the U.S. economy in a recovery? I am not the guy to ask. I’m not an economics or a business expert. I read the same jobs-report news that you do and I know we’ve had a couple good ones lately. But I don’t know if the jobs being created are very good, if anyone’s standard of living is increasing, or if it’s sustainable. I don’t know if …
Tuned InTelevision
Rush Limbaugh, Louis CK, and the Somebody-Else-Did-Something-Bad-Once-Too Argument
Here’s an easy way to tell when a political side realizes it’s on the bad end of a public controversy: rather than defend itself, or whichever of its allies is in trouble, it starts mentioning, loudly and frequently, examples of …
Tuned InTelevision
SXSW Watch: My Twitter-Crit Panel, or, A Lot of Words About 140 Characters
I have survived my first South By Southwest panel appearance. On my Sunday-morning panel, “Arts Criticism in 140 Characters or Less,” my fellow panelists and I used far more than 140 characters at a shot to explain how social …
Tuned InTelevision
Winter Is Returning: Game of Thrones Season 2 Hopes and Fears
I’m still at South by Southwest, so posting is going to be pretty light through Wednesday, but I wanted to point you to a roundtable I did with some fellow Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire fans about the upcoming season 2 …
Tuned InTelevision
SXSW Watch: The Transmedia of Top Chef
One of the TV buzzwords I’ve been hearing this year at South by Southwest is “transmedia.” Which, you may be surprised to find, is not a reference to RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s the new term of art for using various other media platforms to create entertainment associated with a show, and one of the more aggressive networks at it has been …
Tuned InTelevision
The Twidiot Box: How Do You Use Twitter With TV?
I’m en route to Austin, Tex., where on Sunday I’ll be speaking on a South by Southwest panel, Arts Criticism 140 Characters at a Time, about how Twitter and other social media have affected critics. My answer, in a word: immensely.
Tuned InTelevision
Programming Note: Tuned In Goes to SXSW
Two related notes: First, I’m going to the South By Southwest film/interactive festival for a few days starting Friday, so blogging may be light or nonexistent here through Tuesday, between travel and my navigating the massive event for the first time ever. Adjust your calendars accordingly.
Second: I’m going to South By Southwest! …
Tuned InTelevision
Was All-American Muslim Too Controversial, Too Boring, or Too Good to Survive?
All-American Muslim will not be back for a second season, The Detroit Free Press first reported yesterday and its network, TLC, confirmed. The report cited the show’s ratings, which dropped considerably from the show’s highly …
Tuned InTelevision
The Morning After: I Fought the Law
Quick spoilers for last night’s Justified below:
I don’t feel as if this season of Justified, so far, is coming together quite on the level that last year’s grand story of Mags Bennett did. Neal McDonough has been coolly …