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Today is my first day physically back in the TIME office, which means battling the Giant Pile of Mail. There were screeners much-awaited (HBO’s True Blood) and not-so-much-awaited (Fox’s Do Not Disturb). But the disc I immediately popped into the DVD player was one that had not been on my radar screen at all: Sundance’s Architecture …
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Adult Swim’s newest comedy, debuting Sunday night, may not necessarily be the best show of 2008. But it has probably already won the award for best title of 2008. Fat Guy Stuck in Internet, is, like Snakes on a Plane, the kind of it-is-what-it-is title that practically …
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In this week’s Time, I review Showtime’s high-priced escort comedy (the escort is high-priced, though I guess Showtime isn’t cheap either), Secret Diary of a Call Girl, about a London hooker (Billie Piper) whose real name is Hannah but whose trade name is “Belle.” Showtime has …
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USA network never sent me an advance screener of In Plain Sight, its new summer drama about U.S. marshal Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), who’s assigned to guard people in the witness-protection program. So like a Henry Hill hiding in the suburbs at the end of …
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I feel like I may have been the only TV critic who really liked Swingtown, or close to it anyway.
A running theme in several of the reviews was comparing it to fellow TV period piece Mad Men, unfavorably. (Alessandra Stanley’s review in the New York Times, weirdly, seemed …
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Yesterday I posted about having finally gotten a screener of CBS’s summer drama Swingtown, which I’d been anticipating since CBS screened a trailer a year ago at upfronts. I’ve watched it, and I have to report that I’m disappointed.
Disappointed because it’s good. Very good. Which means …
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I just received, but haven’t yet watched, the pilot screener for CBS’s Swingtown, which debuts June 5. The ensemble drama is about a group of married friends and their encounters with the rising era of sexual experimentation in suburban Chicago in 1976. “The title Swingtown,” says a letter from the producers, “describes the ever-shifting …
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On The CW, the debut of Farmer Wants a Wife, in which Matt, a 29-year-old Missouri country boy with a promising future as an underwear model, tries to find a match from among ten city women. On Fox News, Hillary Clinton makes her first appearance on The O’Reilly Factor.
Expect contrived drama, reinforcement of …
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Battling for control of your immortal soul tonight: the season debut of Deadliest Catch;* yet another Democratic debate, this time on ABC; and the premiere of TV Land’s The Big 4-0, in which subjects come to terms with the emotional baggage of turning 40. Chief among which is realizing that the only channel that wants you on a reality show …
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Two related items: Tonight, MTV premieres a show about teenagers who actually look like the teenagers who watch MTV, as opposed to teenagers who look like the cast of a TV soap. The Paper is a reality show about the staff of a Florida high-school newspaper, the first episode of which is not about boyfriends or sex or throwing a …
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Take 30 Rock and move it from an NBC writers’ room to a high-school faculty lounge, and you have, if not what ABC’s Miss Guided is, then at least what it’s trying to be. Played by Judy Greer (Arrested Development), guidance counselor Becky Freeley is, like Liz …
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There are certain shows that, as a TV critic, you simply want to ignore out of gratitude for the work the principals have done in the past. This includes, for instance, the sitcoms Jeffrey Tambor has made since Arrested Development. Likewise, Amy Sherman-Palladino gave us the winsome and …
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Note: A variation of this piece will run in the issue of TIME on newsstands next week. Since John Adams debuts Sunday, and I didn’t want to write a second different review from scratch, I’m sharing this extended version with …
