A while ago, there was a controversy in people-who-write-about-TV circles when David Simon, creator of The Wire, complained in a New York Times interview about certain post-Wire coverage that he thought trivialized the show’s …
The General Election Kicks Off, With a Slow Jam and a Quick Pivot
One of them spoke on cable news and one on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. One reminded America of its entrepreneurial roots and one jammed on stage with The Roots. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both took the spotlight last night, the former to launch his general-election message in a primary-victory speech and the latter to pitch his …
Girls Watch: The Group
After the comedy’s pilot, “Vagina Panic” was a funnier, more structured episode, about sex and the idea that none of us is as special as we’d like to think we are.
Game of Thrones Watch: Smoke Monster
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, see if your friends with HBO will let you inside their walled gate, and watch last night’s Game of Thrones.
“The high road’s very pretty, but I doubt you can march your army on …
TV Weekend: Veep
Selina Meyer was a big deal, once. She was an influential senator. She was on the covers of national magazines, including the one whose website you’re reading right now. She ran for President, won the New Hampshire primary and …
The Morning After: In Dreamatoriums Begin Responsibilities
I loved last night’s Community, but I’m really posting here not to review it but to poll Tuned Inland as to what you thought of it. Community’s very-high-concept episodes (e.g., the various pop-culture parodies) tend to polarize …
The Morning After: Life’s a B—-
Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 is bad. I don’t mean that as a statement of quality, but as a statement of character, or at least of attitude. And as a compliment. The new ABC sitcom, about June (Dreama Walker), a naif new …
White Roses: The Bachelor Sued for Racial Discrimination
Has ABC’s long-running reality-romance hit been picking dates from a little white book? That’s the charge being made by two men who filed a suit Wednesday in Nashville against ABC’s The Bachelor (and The Bachelorette) for racial …
Dick Clark, America’s Party Chaperone, Dies at Age 82
The sentence “Dick Clark died today” seems like a contradiction in terms. If there was someone who was supposed to be forever young, untouched by time, it was him: if not immortal, then at least amortal. He was a contradiction: one of TV’s longest-serving colossi, best known for shows that celebrated eternal youth (American Bandstand) …
From Tony Soprano to Hannah Horvath: What Does a TV Show “Want” You to Think of Its Characters?
The ratings are in, and it’s official: more people have written blog posts, reviews and op-ed columns about HBO’s Girls than watched it. Well, not exactly, but praise, buzz and publicity aside, the twentysomethings-in-the-city comedy got under a million viewers for its first airing Sunday night.
I love the show, which to me combines …
Introducing the TIME 100, TV Edition
This morning TIME publishes its annual TIME 100 issue, listing a hundred of the world’s most influential people in politics, science, public service, business, blah blah blah—and most important, of course, television. Some of …
Ann Romney, and Her Running Mate Mitt, Meet Diane Sawyer
There was a lot of attention over the weekend to the remarks Mitt Romney made at a fundraiser in which he let slip some details about which government programs he might cut to fund his tax-cut plans. But at least an equally revealing comment was an insight into his media strategy as the general election begins: Fox News, he told his …
The Morning After: Back to Square One?
I’m back from vacation, which you may have surmised from the fact that, well, I’m posting things on this blog. As usual, that means a lot of catching up, so I’ll turn over this Morning After post to invite your thoughts on an …