Television

Marriage Sells: The State of the Union May Not Be So Dire

January 6, 2011
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Marriage Sells: The State of the Union May Not Be So Dire

By Mike D’Virgilio I’m not a big fan of reality TV, unless of course it’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” Can’t get enough of that (that’s to tweak you lefty Palin haters and you righty elitist Palin haters). But my daughter seems to have a thing for “The Bachelor,” and since she’s home from college on break it’s being recorded on the DVR. Really annoys me. She offered, being the well raised-kid she is, to turn it off as I fixed dinner last night, knowing it annoys me. But I let her keep it on so I could revel in my annoyedness and implicit superiority to the ditzy broads and handsome vacuous guy on the show. But something struck me. Here are a bunch of attractive women doing whatever they can to lasso the attractive guy, and get hitched. I guess how it works is that they spend the show interacting in some way—I just saw them talking on a bench—and at the end the guy gives roses to the ones he will let stay and the others are out. Finally at the end just one gets the rose and Mr. And Mrs. Right get married. But I had thought marriage was

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ABC’s Smart Sci-Fi Series ‘V’ Returns

January 4, 2011
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ABC’s Smart Sci-Fi Series ‘V’ Returns

After a long hiatus, ABC’s sci-fi drama series V returns to the network’s regular lineup tonight at 8 EST. It’s a show well worth watching. Based rather loosely on a 1980s limited-run series from NBC, V tells the story of the coming of a large group of extraterrestrials to the earth and the world’s reaction to them. In the twelve episodes of season 1, the aliens presented themselves to the world as interested only in making things better for mankind, offering us new technologies and healing abilities. The aliens are all physically attractive, and the great majority look like humans in their twenties and thirties. That, of course, was just their public face; in reality, it soon became clear, they are ugly and reptilian under their human skins and have an agenda to exploit humanity in some way, either as slaves or as food or both, or perhaps some even worse and more horrible fashion. And a small group of people have divined this agenda and set up a small, loose, but dedicated resistance organization. Central to the narrative is the resistance against an intrusive government that claims to be for nothing but the good of humanity but is in

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Is Hollywood Unusually Prone to Coincidences? And Why Won’t ‘True Grit’ Be Getting Much Respect in Europe?

December 30, 2010
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Is Hollywood Unusually Prone to Coincidences? And Why Won’t ‘True Grit’ Be Getting Much Respect in Europe?

On WND, Erik Rush doesn’t think the wholesale promotion of minority actors to command positions on highly-rated TV shows is just a coincidence: An interesting phenomenon has recently come to light … suggesting that at least one faction in Hollywood is attempting to directly influence public opinion as regards President Obama. If this is true, it goes far beyond simply carrying the water for those with whom they are ideologically kindred, as described in Negrophilia. . . . . In order to to counter the perception of ineptitude that has come about associated with Obama and his lack of leadership skills, an effort seems to have been made to portray blacks in high places as competent leaders in dramatic roles. To be fair, some of these occurrences took place prior to Obama actually taking office, but a good case could be made that it was the intent of these organizations to prepare the American public for the leadership of a black individual via positive portrayals of black leaders. I would contend that America needed no such preparation, but that’s another issue. The stronger argument exists in these concerned parties making their efforts in the face of Obama’s subsequent plummeting popularity.

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TCM Andy Hardy Festival

December 14, 2010
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I don’t know why they’re showing them in reverse chronological order, but a good deed is a good deed: Turner Classic Movies is doing a public service by showing MGM’s charming and often insightful Andy Hardy movies Thursday, December 16.

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The Best Damn Private Eye on Television

December 14, 2010
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The Best Damn Private Eye on Television

By Kevin Burton Smith No, CBS’ The Good Wife is not a private-eye show. One of the 2009-10 television season’s most acclaimed new dramas, it’s really more of a legal thriller, closer in format to, say, LA Law. Created by husband-and-wife-team Michelle and Robert King, The Good Wife stars Julianna Margulies (formerly of ER) as Alicia Florric, the feisty, principled wife of Peter, a prominent state’s attorney (Chris Noth), and the mother of two, who stands by her man when he’s arrested and sent to the slammer amidst charges of corruption and a sex scandal. Humiliated, middle-aged, and the focus of unwanted media scrutiny, Alicia has the steely resolve to take the high road as she throws herself back into the workforce as a single mom/junior defense attorney at a high-priced Chicago law firm; her determination is almost inspiring. And it’s that dramatic and unexpected moral underpinning that helps raise this show high above most TV legal potboilers. The real charm of the show, though, lies in its twisty, turny tumble of hidden agendas, lies, and conspiracies. Just when you have a character, a plot, a motive pinned down, the writers yank the rug out. Everyone, it seems, has something

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On Balance, TNT’s ‘The Closer’ Is . . . Well-Balanced

December 6, 2010
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On Balance, TNT’s ‘The Closer’ Is . . . Well-Balanced

I’m looking forward to the resumption of new episodes of TNT’s crime drama The Closer tonight. That may come as a surprise to some readers, and even to the show’s producers. I raised a storm of anger a few weeks ago when I wrote a very pointed criticism of the show’s midseason cliffhanger episode, in which I argued that the motive given for the central character’s intended mass killing was both unconvincing and politically tendentious. I’ll admit that I used incendiary phrasing in the piece, and unnecessarily. I wish I hadn’t. The use of vivid language is aesthetically pleasing and can convey ideas with great dramatic force, but it can also suggest an emotional reaction that is not intended. I wish I had kept the language more neutral and objective, as that was my real reaction to the episode: I had merely wished it to be better. In using such tart language, I ended up distracting attention from two main points I wanted to make. One was that I am in general a great admirer of The Closer, and have been since the show’s inception. (Even though I stated this explicitly in the piece, my interlocutors here and elsewhere failed

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Leslie Nielsen’s Comic Skill Reflected Dramatic Abilities

November 29, 2010
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Leslie Nielsen’s Comic Skill Reflected Dramatic Abilities

Leslie Nielsen never made it anywhere near the top as a dramatic leading man, but as the world knows, he eventually found his niche as a brilliant comic actor in films such as Airplane!, Spy Hard, All I Want for Christmas, An American Carol, the Naked Gun series, Wrongfully Accused, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, and the fondly remembered comedy-police show Police Squad (canceled after only six episodes). Nielsen gave a strong performance in the thoughtful 1956 science-fiction film Forbidden Planet (an update of Shakespeare’s The Tempest) and the crime film Ransom (which starred Glenn Ford) that same year, plus the 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, in which he plays the captain of the ill-fated ocean liner of the film’s title. Eight years later he would find his metier as Dr. Alan Rumack, in Airplane! Nielsen’s brilliance at comedy is directly attributable to his skill at dramatic acting: he conveyed every moment with deadpan seriousness, making the comic distance between his characters’ actions and their inflated self-image as great as possible. In addition, his stolid persona effectively conveyed his characters’ continual desire to do the right thing (and hopes of becoming a hero), making them at least somewhat sympathetic

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‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ Sets TLC Premiere Audience Record

November 16, 2010
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The Learning Channel reports that Sarah Palin’s Alaska drew some 4.96 million viewers for its premiere episode this past Sunday night, a record show-opening for the for the popular cable channel.

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‘Psych,’ ‘Burn Notice’ Return

November 9, 2010
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‘Psych,’ ‘Burn Notice’ Return

Two of the best shows on television—the USA Network mystery-comedy Psych and espionage-actioner Burn Notice—return this week with the first of a few new episodes. USA will show three new episodes of Psych on Wednesdays at 10 EST the rest of this month, and there are two episodes of Burn Notice scheduled for Thursdays at 10. USA will precede the premiere episodes this week with a marathon of all episodes from each show’s season so far, on the day of the premiere—Wednesday for Psych, Thursday for Burn Notice. Burn Notice has settled into a comfortable but highly entertaining pattern, with continually twisty plots featuring the central characters’ efforts to help others while attempting to extricate protagonist Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) from his government-imposed exile. A master former CIA agent, Westen has been “burned” by the agency and forced to live outside the law without any prospects of a relatively normal life until he can clear his name. It’s an interesting and highly creative update of the classic 1960s TV series The Fugitive, as that description indicates, but it doesn’t strike the viewer as at all derivative or  old-fashioned. On the contrary, creator-producer Matt Nix and his team adeptly incorporate contemporary

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Olbermann Suspended from MSNBC Show for Campaign Contributions

November 6, 2010
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Olbermann Suspended from MSNBC Show for Campaign Contributions

MSNBC has announced the indefinite suspension, without pay, of evening talk-show host Keith Olbermann. Olbermann, a feisty, intensely partisan, often unhinged talker whose fiercely aggressive attacks on individuals and policies to the right of President Obama and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought him both admiration and contempt, admitted to having given the maximum amount to three Democratic candidates for Congress. MSNBC policy forbids open political activity such as campaign contributions. Rival FOX News does not prohibit its opinion-show hosts from making campaign contributions, and Olbermann had been intensely critical of News Corp. political donations this year, using his MSNBC show to accuse FOX news of being “the Republican news channel.” More on this story from The Wall Street Journal here. Update, Nov. 8: MSNBC has reinstated Olbermann to his show beginning Tuesday, after he issued a public letter of apology to his fans, in which he criticized NBC for having the policy and “inconsistently” applying it. He thanked viewers for their support.

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Is Broadcast TV Doomed? Some Think So

October 28, 2010
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Is Broadcast TV Doomed? Some Think So

The era of big television series that much of the nation watched together—which lasted for more than three decades— is officially over, according to blip.tv CEO Mike Hudack, writing at newteevee.com: Internet video is growing at a significant pace. It has not yet taken a chunk out of the broadcast and cable audiences, but the trend is there. Shows on the web are infinitely more targeted than the shows broadcast and cable companies deliver. There are shows for old Jews who like jokes. There are shows for every type of video game geek. There are shows for every audience you can imagine. There is, in fact, a web show made just for you (although you probably haven’t found it yet). There will be “hit” shows on the web that have a profound influence on our culture. But they will not be the size of network television hits, or even cable television hits. The business model for broadcast television, however, requires mass audiences, because of the very nature of the way broadcast TV uses spectrum; put simply, broadcast TV distribution is too expensive to waste on niche programming. Thus, Hudack argues, the TV broadcast networks will soon die off or be

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Sherlock: A Study In Pink

October 25, 2010
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Sherlock: A Study In Pink

I was prepared to dislike the new BBC series Sherlock, broadcast on PBS, but to my surprise I quite liked it.

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