Tuned InTuned In
It may be Harry Potter day in the rest of the entertainment world, but here at Tuned In, it’s Breaking Bad weekend. The new issue of TIME carries my feature on the return of the AMC drama, including a set visit I made to Albuquerque last spring. (And no offense to the citizens of ABQ, but I am very glad not to have to spell …
Tuned InUncategorized
I’ve had my issues with Glee this past season, and written about them here, but one thing I have to give it credit for. The producers said from early on that they planned to have the high schoolers graduate on time—real time, not TV-teen-show-time—and it looks like they’re sticking by it, popularity or no. Producer Ryan Murphy …
Tuned InTelevision
The Emmy Awards are a big ocean liner that turns very slowly, and this year’s nominations, announced this morning, were no exception: a lot of familiar faces and a few new (or old but underrecognized) entries. So there were a slew of nominations for Mad Men, Modern Family and [Insert Name of HBO’s Big Movie/Miniseries of the Year …
Tuned InTuned In
Together with Damages, one more landmark cable drama returns this evening: Rescue Me, in which Denis Leary and Peter Tolan have confronted the aftermath of 9/11 with black comedy and/or comedic drama since 2004. I have mixed feelings about the series: for a couple of seasons it was a searing, fearless examination of loss and …
Tuned InUncategorized
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clis_h36aiM]
Damages returns for a fourth season on DirecTV last night tonight. I’ve previewed some of the new season, guest-starring John Goodman as a defense contractor embroiled in scandal, but the show has become a little like legal 24 for me: lots of talent and strong performances, but it has …
Tuned InUncategorized
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlY15RjXRMY]
During last night’s All-Star game—I believe the baseball team won—Fox ran its latest preview of fall singing contest The X Factor, which made a couple of things clear. First, from the amount of on-screen placement, it seems more as if this show should be called The X Pepsi …
Tuned InTuned In
You may have heard a sound yesterday, as if millions of voices cried out at once and examined their entertainment budgets. Netflix yesterday announced that it was splitting its base plan—$9.99 a month for unlimited streaming plus one DVD rental at a time—in two: $7.99 for one or the other, effectively hiking the price nearly six …
Tuned InRemembrance
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-QS9g2IEvw]
At the height of his TV-writing career, Sherwood Schwartz probably did not particularly anticipate being eulogized by TV critics. Schwartz, who died today at age 94, was the creator of Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, two sitcoms that were practically critical shorthand for …
Tuned InNews Media
The News of the World phone-hacking scandal in Great Britain is getting juicier and more astonishing. The long-runner paper was summarily killed by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in an apparent damage-control attempt; the legal investigation is widening; and the list of the paper’s purported snooping targets has widened to include crime …
Tuned InUncategorized
Note: George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series on which HBO’s Game of Thrones is based, is out in stores today. I received a review copy several weeks ago. TIME’s book critic Lev Grossman has already reviewed it. But since I’ve been covering the HBO series, and writing about GRRM’s …
Tuned InUncategorized
I’ve been busy today closing a feature on Breaking Bad (which will be in TIME Friday) and writing a review of George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons (which will post here tomorrow morning). So I have been a bad, bad blogger today. You deserve better than that, so here are some pictures of Lego Star Wars minifigures.
Cartoon Network,
…
Tuned InTuned In
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avV1z6Vs_ao]
TNT has ordered ten episodes of a remake of Dallas, to start airing next year. Why?
I should issue the standard disclaimers. It’s all in the execution; I loved the Battlestar Galactica reboot; I hope to eat my words, &c. But Dallas seems to be less in need of remaking than even the …
Tuned InUncategorized
Spoiler alert: in this season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a lot of people get really mad at Larry David.
All right, the spoiler alert is probably not necessary. When David and Jerry Seinfeld created Seinfeld, their mantra “No hugging, no learning” was a reaction against the good-hearted, sentimental sitcoms of the Cosby era. For the past …
