I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to notice the rather startling shift in tone and intensity of last night’s Caprica. All season long, the show has been trying to find a way to pull in bigger Battlestar Galactica-like ratings, even as some sci-fi pundits have mused that the show isn’t electric enough for their tastes. Now, full …
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The Morning After: Some Good News for a Change
I’m about to say something that may seem cynical, so first: Seeing the Chilean miners (still being evacuated as I type this) emerge from the rescue pod into the light has been moving, inspiring and a reminder of the power of live television news to deliver a story of raw human triumph.
OK, now the little-bit-cynical part: the news story …
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Glee Watch: It Takes Two
Spoilers for last night’s Glee following:
One criticism I’ve heard from non-fans of Glee is that the show is essentially American Idol with a script. And I could see how an episode with the title and theme “Duets” could reinforce this view. On its face, the episode’s structure was little more than an Idol challenge, “OK, …
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The Morning After: New York Marathon
Not a lot to say about last night’s How I Met Your Mother, which again offered relatively little on the promised larger-storylines-development for this season. Still, I enjoy the show’s little love letters to New York City like “Subway Wars”; the fact that they so blatantly look like they’re shot on a set in California only adds to …
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Campaign Ad Watch: Manchin Pops a Cap in Cap-and-Trade
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It is October 2010, and the Democratic governor of West Virginia, running for Senate, is demonstrating his bona fides to the citizens of his state with a campaign commercial in which he shoots a Senate bill.
And this guy thinks he had it …
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AMC Previews Walking Dead at NY Comic-Con
The zombie girls sitting next to me were pissed off. In pallid makeup with artful angry gashes on their cheeks, they like the rest of us had stood in line for an hour or more to get into the IGN Theater at the Javits Center to see 6 1/2 minutes of AMC’s The Walking Dead, and they could barely see the big screens. “This is …
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The Morning After: The Simpsons Get Banksy-fied
The Simpsons may not get people talking the next morning as regularly as it used to, but it showed that it still can, thanks to an opening couch gag by British graffiti artist Banksy, which grimly satirized the means by which pop culture gets (literally, physically) made and merchandized:
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It’s …
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Mad Men Watch: Behavioral Modification
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, sneak off into the woods with a friend and watch last night’s Mad Men.
Sincerity, as the joke goes, is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
Last night’s Mad Men, …
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Rubicon Watch: Let Me Take You on a Sea Cruise
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, check into a motel and watch last night’s Rubicon.
After ten deliberate, talk-heavy episodes, last week Rubicon gave us a taste of the kind of action and violence we expect from other terrorism-and-espionage shows. Now, in the penultimate episode of its season, Rubicon showed that it …
Tuned InTelevision
Boardwalk Empire Watch: The Master’s Tools
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, curl up next to a nice bookcase and watch last night’s Boardwalk Empire.
Fans of The Wire had to be waiting for Boardwalk Empire, with its sprawling storylines, to finally spotlight …
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Dead Tree Alert: School's In
In my TIME print-edition column this week (not yet available online), I take a look at pop culture and the public school crisis. Besides Davis Guggenheim’s excellent documentary Waiting for “Superman,” the column covers two Friday reality shows that take very different approaches to public school ills: NBC’s School Pride, which …
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The Office Watch: Razor Sharp
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Spoilers for last night’s The Office coming up:
So last night, my laptop seized up and died on me as I was watching, appropriately enough, the death-themed Community on DVR. (I am having the machine vaporized and sealed in a lava lamp.) It was a fairly strong episode—see especially the Abed …
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New Walking Dead Trailer: Wake Up, All You Zombies
I’ve seen the first two episodes of AMC’s new zombie thriller, The Walking Dead, but the network has placed an October 18 embargo on any “information,” so I’ve already said too much. (Tell you what! I’ll blink once for “Loved it” and twice for “Hated it.” There—did you see it?)
In the meantime, here’s a new …