The Oprah Winfrey Show to End in Sept. 2011
Daytime television authority Oprah Winfrey announced today that her talk show will end after 25 years of running, marking Sept. 9, 2011 the final episode date.... read more
What Will James Franco's General Hospital Experiment, Which Begins Today, Mean for His Career?
James Franco’s stint on General Hospital begins today. The marketing fanfare has been pretty epic, but the show’s core audience is not likely to expand despite the A-list presence, a fact that has led to the inevitable barbs “Well, at least no one will see him trying to ruin his career.”... read more
30 Rock Review: "Sun Tea" (episode 4.6)
The most tiresome thing about this season of 30 Rock has been the entire Dealbreakers plotline. There’s a lot of other gripes people have had, some well-founded, some not so much, but for my money the Dealbreakers thing has generally slowed things down and turned a somewhat funny joke into a running gag that lost its steam some time ago. It’s sadly a bit like what SNL will do by taking whatever success it accidentally stumbles upon and reusing it again and again until even hearing about it makes you cringe. Dealbreakers had become like that for me, and the... read more
Community Review: "Environmental Science" (Episode 1.10)
It seems like Community is becoming simultaneously less and more formulaic as the series goes on, which is an interesting phenomenon. If anything, it seems like episodes are ripping through sit-com clichés at a faster than believable pace, each episode more reliant than the last upon tired old stories that we’ve been watching on TV since we were born. The episode’s structures are impeccably fitted to a traditional three-act structure and it’s hard not to predict where the entire episode is headed after merely what appears in its cold open.... read more
Jason Lee Develops Adult Swim Show, Directs Beatles Movie, Stars in TNT Pilot
Jason Lee has been busy since NBC’s cancellation of his show My Name is Earl last spring.... read more
Aaron Sorkin Returns to TV, But Will He Triumph Again?
Aaron Sorkin, famed writer and creator of The West Wing, is returning to television with a new series.... read more
NBC Launches United Plates of America, Hands Out Restaurant Chain
NBC is calling on Top Chef production company Magical Elves to start up yet another cooking competition series, this one not so run-of-the-mill, boasting the same bullet-sweating competitions as well as a pungent flavor of capitalism. The winner of this contest will be awarded not one eatery of his or her own variety, but an entire restaurant chain.... read more
Bob Saget to Host A&E Reality Series
Television network A&E announced that it is giving Bob Saget his own reality series, tentatively titled Bob Saget’s Strange Days.... read more
ABC's V on Hiatus Until 2010
ABC’s rebooted and dolled-up sci-fi drama V debuted to an impressive audience of 14.3 million viewers on Nov. 3, and despite the criticisms about mediocre writing and humdrum story lines, it still kept 10.7 million viewers for its second week—not half bad for a show still in its infancy. Still, these numbers aren’t enough to make the network rethink the series’ preemptive hiatus, one that’s been planned from the beginning. After next week’s fourth episode, V‘s alien visitors won’t be returning to primetime until March 2010.... read more
Joss Whedon Animates Season Eight of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Joss Whedon’s recent projects have had mixed results. Last year’s stellar Dr. Horrible won an Emmy, but news arrived last week that Whedon’s cult favorite, the beleaguered Dollhouse, will be cancelled, airing its final episodes this January. (For a tongue-in-cheek suggestion as to why Fox cancelled the series, check out this video from College Humor.)... read more
New Orleans Gets Wired: David Simon Turns His Sights on the Big Easy
On a late spring day in the early 1990s, a Baltimore Sun reporter named David Simon wandered into the now-defunct Funky Butt jazz club on North Rampart Street in New Orleans, where Bo Dollis & the Wild Magnolias were burning through a scorching set of percussive funk. “From the outside, it was like some kind of Tex Avery cartoon,” Simon says, “where the house is dancing and the window shutters are popping out to the beat.”... read more
Badly Drawn Boy Readies TV-Movie Soundtrack
Damon Gough, AKA: Badly Drawn Boy, is confirmed to compose the music for an upcoming U.K. made-for-TV film.... read more
House Review: "Teamwork" (Episode 6.8)
The transitional period for House continues. Licking his wounds after Cuddy rejected him, revealing that she is dating his old frenemy Lucas (from season 5), House attempts to assemble, or reassemble, his team with mixed results.... read more
NBC Goes Green in Prime Time...Again
Starting yesterday, NBC made its biggest push to date in its three-year long commitment to the Green is Universal initiative. The network is bringing the green theme into five of its prime time shows, right in the middle of November sweeps.... read more
David Lloyd: 1934-2009
Television writer David Lloyd, highly regarded for his comedic work on Frasier, Cheers and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, died early last week of prostate cancer, the Los Angeles Times reports. He was 75.... read more
The Office Review: "Murder" (Episode 6.09)
The Office’s eighth episode, “Murder,” was a great way to dust off last week’s disastrous double date lunch between Michael, Jim, Pam and Pam’s mother, who is tactlessly dumped on her own birthday. Michael swiftly jumps from that role as the temperamental child to this episode’s all-knowing father figure whose mysterious ways pan out in the end. It’s tough to say whether he’s really growing up these days. There’s no telling what he’ll do between now and the end of the season, or even next episode.... read more
30 Rock Review: "The Problem Solvers" (Episode 4.5)
Last night’s episode of 30 Rock was the best one so far in the season. Ok, who am I kidding, it was the best. I’m not going to pretend I’m not still a little disappointed in it, though, but it’s just because the show was so close to greatness and we all know it’s done it before and can do it again. 30 Rock is like a mistress I’m going through hard times with at the moment. She continues to give me enough to keep coming back, but I know she’s delivered better in the past and that she’s just... read more
Community Review: "Debate 109" (Episode 1.9)
Just a couple of episodes ago, I was pontificating about whether Community would up the self-reflexiveness that it’s started to show or stick with its more typical tone. “Debate 109” answers that question quite nicely, with a vehement yes that for once is a good thing. Self-reflexiveness is a tricky tool. On the one hand, it can lead to jokes otherwise inaccessible and on occasion create some awesome situations. Venture Bros. comes to mind here, given that the entire show is aware of its own ridiculousness but that’s in some ways part of its essential premise. On the other hand,... read more
"Shit My Dad Says" Creator Justin Halpern Talks Book Deal, TV Show
In the wake of news that Twitter phenom @shitmydadsays is being picked up for a CBS TV deal... read more
This Is It Not Quite It: Jackson Reality Show Coming to A&E
The posthumous Michael Jackson promotion train keeps on rolling, and in its next incarnation, the Jackson-hungry public will learn the troubles and travails of the Jacksons who are still around. Starting Dec. 13 at 9 p.m., cable fixture A&E will air The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty, a six-episode reality miniseries showing viewers how the King of Pop’s death has affected his family, namely his brothers Jermaine, Jackie, Tito and Marlon.... read more
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