Spoilers for the season finale of Breaking Bad coming up:
The story of Breaking Bad has been the story of Walter White crossing thresholds. It’s been a journey with him down a descending corridor leading further into his …
Television
Ratings: He Shoots… He Just Misses!
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Last night, in the what-I’m-told-was-exciting final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs (um, spoiler alert, I guess), the Chicago Blackhawks won in overtime to capture the title for the first time in half a century. But the exciting finish was not quite enough to take the night’s ratings …
Journalistic Disgrace 2.0
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When the story broke about Washington journalist Helen Thomas getting into trouble for saying Israeli Jews should “go home” to countries like Germany and Poland, I thought about Mike Wallace. My first year at the University of Michigan, there was a controversy over his being asked to …
Nike Discovers the Flash-Sideways
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Nike has launched a new ad—at three-plus minutes, a mega-ad—for the World Cup, and it’s a doozy. Directed by Alexander Rodriguez Alejandro González Iñárritu, the hyper, kinetic, hyperkinetic commercial, “Write the Future,” follows several international footballers through the …
Breaking Bad Watch: One of Us
Spoilers for Breaking Bad coming up:
One of the most fascinating dynamics on The Wire was the juxtaposition in season 3 of Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale and their approaches to running the drug business. Avon was old-school …
The Bids on Newsweek, and the Future of Media Ownership
The initial bids came in yesterday in the first round of the Washington Post company’s sale of Newsweek. I’ve held off saying much of anything about the magazine’s sale, because (1) I don’t want it to seem like Schadenfreude (as a working-today-but-tomorrow-who-knows journalist, I feel none) and (2) the last matter on which anyone is …
Lost Audience Not Record Setting, But Watched Ads Really Hard
When I wrote my print TIME feature on the end of Lost, one section I had to drop for space had to do with how much money ABC was asking for ads in the finale—reportedly $900,000 a pop—even though Lost was not close to the highest-rated program on TV. That fact points to something that has potential to shape the business, and thus …
Breaking Bad Watch: Working at the Car Wash
Brief spoilers for last night’s Breaking Bad coming up after the jump:
Breaking Bad Watch: Buzzkill
It is one of those cruel tricks of the calendar that the most unusual and very possibly best episode of Breaking Bad so far—and this following on a string of possibly-best-episodes—should come on the night of Lost’s finale. …
Turner Upfront: Conan, Plus Some TV Channels
From the perspective of Turner Networks executives, the reason to be at their upfront presentation this morning (which previewed the schedules of TBS and TNT), was “reach.” Even though this is traditionally the week that the big broadcast networks present their schedules, they argued, their cable networks reached enough viewers …
Breaking Bad Watch: Learning from the Master
Spoilers for last night’s Breaking Bad coming up after the jump:
Last night’s episode of Breaking Bad was anchored by three remarkable monologues, by Walt, Jesse and Skyler. Each was styled as a confession of sorts: one true, one containing a lie, and one false, but revealing an uncomfortable truth in the process.
Breaking Bad Watch: Green Light
SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for last night’s Breaking Bad follow.
Now we wait. As last week’s episode, “One Minute,” blew up the storyline of the vengeful cousins and threw Walter’s family into crisis, it left us, with him, to go …
The Morning After: Glee-I-Y Edition
Between a late night last night, catchup posts this morning, and a visit to the Boardwalk Empire set this afternoon (I know: poor me!), I’m not going to have time to catch up on last night’s Glee, so you can do it for me. After the first three episodes of the spring season, I have a few issues, but the big ones can be summed up as: …