To Be Competent Or Not To Be Competent: NBC’s Loveable Comedy Losers Take On Fox’s Intrepid Investigators

It’s the first huge night of the new fall season, with season premieres of several returning shows and the bow of a notable newbie. Hope you’ve got a quad-tuner DVR, because there’s a lot to see tonight. All times listed below are Eastern and Pacific, so if you’re like me and don’t actually trip the [...]

THE WIRE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS Recognized by WGA

The Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East today announced nominations for outstanding achievement in television, radio, news, promotional writing, and graphic animation during the 2008 season. Obviously, we only care about television. And we’re excited, because finally someone has given The Wire and Friday Night Lights their due. And [...]

Tuesday Night Showdown: Network Calcification

Although the fall development season was truncated by the writers’ strike, leading to fewer new shows this fall than in previous years, the networks in their infinite wisdom have decided to put three of their shiny new offerings up against one another. Interestingly, each of these new shows is a pretty good representation of the [...]

FRINGE “The Same Old Story”: Oof, You’ve Got That Right

Was the second episode of Fringe better than the pilot? Well…I guess so. The writing for Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop wasn’t nearly so abysmal, allowing for the show’s one really interesting relationship (between Peter and his mad scientist father [John Noble]) to take on some added depth and poignancy. Although she didn’t have as much [...]

FRINGE: So, Pacey is Scully…

I’ve been burned by J.J. Abrams before. The pilot of Alias was a hoot, but the series fell into the realm of the ludicrous by the end of the first season. The pilot of Lost was so much fun I spent my flight the next day imagining who would help me stitch up our fellow [...]

Guide to September 2008 Series Premieres

September is nearly upon us and that can mean only one thing–the busiest month of the year for new television programming. Well, it’s not quite as busy as usual thanks to the writers strike, but we’ve still got a good number of new shows debuting in the coming weeks. So many, in fact, that’s it’s [...]

Bacon Bits: GOSSIP GIRL, PUSHING DAISIES and More

- Can’t wait for the Gossip Girl premiere? The CW has posted the first five minutes on YouTube.
- ABC is sexing up Dirty Sexy Money and dumbing down Pushing Daisies. And NBC is upping the romance quotient on Chuck. This right here, this is how good television shows jump the shark.
- Speaking of jumping the [...]

Wrapping Up the Upfronts

Well, upfront week has come and gone and what do we have to show for it? An unusually short, not terribly exciting list of new shows premiering in the upcoming season. And a bunch of network-penned blurbs meant to get us tingly with anticipation of said new shows. Are you feeling tingly? Yeah, me neither.
In [...]

Fox Banks on Abrams’ FRINGE for Fall

Fox obviously thinks that Fringe is going to be the next Lost, and they may not be wrong. The sci-fi thriller from Lost creator J.J. Abrams is one of only two new shows on the network’s fall schedule–the other being a half-hour comedy tentatively titled Do Not Disturb and starring Jerry O’Connell. Yeah, I don’t [...]