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Dead Tree Alert: What's Right With Reality TV
In the print edition of TIME this week, I’m marking the 10th anniversary of Survivor (I’ll have a couple thoughts on the season premiere later) with a critical essay on what a decade—or a generation, going back to The Real World—of reality TV has done for us, and to us: “In 1992, reality TV was a novelty. In 2000, it was a fad. In …
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The Chuck Crisis of '10: A National Dialogue
This has been one of those weeks that I’ve been glad I don’t blog regularly about Chuck. It’s nothing against the show; I like it fine, though I don’t lurve it the way some folks do, and I don’t have a deep enough interest to sustain a weekly analysis. I haven’t enjoyed this season quite as much as season 2, for reasons I’ll get to in …
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Modern Family Watch: The Talented Mr. Bixby
Spoilers for last night’s Modern Family coming up after the jump:
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Jay Leno Slips Out the Back Door
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The Jay Leno Show ended last night with an absolute minimum of fanfare—fittingly and deliberately, since NBC’s hope is to pretend that it, and Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show, never happened. Come March 1, the idea is, we’ll all stretch and yawn, memories of Olympic figure skating ice-dancing in …
Top 10 MTV Moments
For everyone who remembers when MTV used to play music videos, the news that the cable channel had removed the phrase “Music Television” from its logo only made its long metamorphosis into a reality-tv channel official. TIME …
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New Top Chef Masters: New Dishes and Leftovers
Bravo announced a premiere date (April 7) and the new contestants for season 2 of Top Chef Masters. Among the 22 contestants, will be several chefs getting do-overs after having appeared in season 1, including Wylie Dufresne, the molecular gastronomist whose molecules came unglued in a tough challenge, despite having come in as a …
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Idol Watch: Give 'Em Ellen
Ellen DeGeneres kicked off her American Idol career last night with the Hollywood round of the auditions. Was she an entertaining hire? Absolutely. Unsurprisingly, for someone who’s been on camera for decades, she was immediately confident and able to mix it up with the contestants and, to a lesser extent, the other judges. While …
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Lostwatch: Zombie Island
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, take a quick taxi ride and watch last night’s Lost.
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NBC: There Was Never a Conan O'Brien
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Tonight, there will likely not be a dry eye in the house, as America says goodbye to Jay Leno. Again. This time for three whole weeks.
After The Jay Leno Show ends tonight, Jay will head back to the Tonight show beginning March 1. And what can you do in the meantime, while Tonight is on hiatus …
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HIMYM Watch: It's Wabbit Season! It's Duck Season!
Spoilers for last night’s How I Met Your Mother coming up after the jump:
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Undercover Boss: Biggest Thing Since Dolly?
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Somewhere in the CBS press release about Undercover Boss’s boffo debut ratings was the claim that this was the biggest debut for any new TV series since the Dolly show in 1987. If you’re like me, you’re thinking, Wow! And also: What the hell was the Dolly show?
I was not watching a …
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Undercover Boss Is Phony and Manipulative. But Don't Hold That Against It.
Along with last night’s mammoth Super Bowl ratings came the news that 38.6 million people watched the debut of CBS’s new reality show Undercover Boss, in which executives work incognito within their own companies. Did those people see an entertaining, emotional work that celebrated American workers? Or a manipulative, cheesy piece of …