Last night’s Rescue Me (small-ish spoilers follow) was the first I’d watched since the first mega-batch of season 5 screeners arrived from FX months ago, and I’m going to try to watch the remaining ones in something a little closer to real time to keep up with them for Tuned In. To say that an episode, or a season, of Rescue Me is …
Futurama Is Returning!
Is it really? Is the Space Pope reptilian? It is, and not just in the form of movie specials. Michael Ausiello reports that the sci-fi animated comedy is being picked up by Comedy Central for 26 new episodes.
First Family Guy, now this? Someone bring back Home Movies!
Corporate Press Release Theater: ABC's Fall Dates
ABC sounded the gun early on (most of) its fall premiere dates, which in past years broadcasters have waited until mid-summer to set. Nearly all of them fall in the last 10 days of September. I might have thought the network would give a later debut date for Flash Forward to set it apart, since ABC seems to be working hard to build buzz …
Ratings: Will Dave Catch Conan?
Conan O’Brien’s ratings fell throughout his debut week last week. That’s not unexpected: you would figure on a big tune-in out of curiosity, including a lot of viewers who are not regular late-night viewers. And while Conan’s ratings tailed off, they also showed signs of finding a level, as his ratings dropped by a lower percentage each …
The Morning After: Bam! Therapy
Am I enabling Jon & Kate Gosselin by continuing to write Morning After posts on their show? Am I performing a service by watching so that you don’t have to? I don’t know, but there is something fascinating about the resolute way that the show has decided to slog on through season 5—this is the family business, we will grit our teeth …
More on the Gehry Departure
When I posted yesterday about the news that Frank Gehry would be replaced as the architect for a new NBA arena in Brooklyn, I hesitated to characterize the new plan proposed by the firm Ellerbe Becket because I could only find one image, which I published with yesterday’s post. As pictures go, it wasn’t very informative, though from …
Nurse Jackie Watch: Now It Can Be Told
Spoilers for Showtime’s Nurse Jackie coming up after the jump:
Stephen Colbert Sheds His Hair for Freedom
Didn’t we spend all last week talking about something having to do with late-night TV? Some guy got a show and another guy left it but got another one? Their names were Cono and Lennon or something like that, right?
It’s hard to remember already, because back in the world of late-night TV, Stephen Colbert reminded us why what Comedy …
TV Tonight: Fire Another One Up
While I and most other critics have been focusing on tonight’s Showtime debut of Nurse Jackie, the network also premieres season 5 of Weeds, something I usually look forward to every summer. And not just because it means another cheesecake publicity photo of Mary-Louise Parker every year. That said, I’ll admit that season 4’s …
Goodbye to Gehry’s Arena
It was probably the least surprising news of last week, and not just because it had been rumored for a long time — Frank Gehry is no longer the architect for the new Nets arena planned for Brooklyn by the developer (and Nets owner) Bruce Ratner. The arena is the centerpiece of Ratner’s massive — too massive — $4.1 billion …
BREAKING: US TV Channel Covers World News!
If there’s one bright side to the increasingly dispiriting story about two American journalists being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea, it’s that it actually brings attention to TV journalists doing overseas reporting, which has increasingly been cut back by networks (and budget-slashing print outlets too). It also—if …
If the Journalism Business Fails, Who Pays for Journalism?
You can’t open a newspaper—or read a newsmagazine website—these days without seeing a report wondering if X, Y or Z “can save journalism.” Maybe that’s the wrong question.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that nothing saves journalism. “Journalism,” that is, as a profession and as currently constructed: a full-time job paid …
The Morning After: Center Stage
CBS telecast the Tony Awards last night. I leave it to people who actually follow theater more than I do to assess the wisdom of the award choices themselves. (Except one quibble: Pick one Billy Elliot, people! I demand a cutthroat runoff competition between those three kids!) But to the extent that reaching viewers with a moderate but …