Squee! It’s…

Squee! It’s Andre Braugher on the two-hour season premiere of House tonight. If you’re mourning the overlooking of Generation Kill a bit today, you’re probably already familiar with Braugher’s Emmy-winning role in David Simon’s previous work (with Paul Attanasio and Tom Fontana, of course), Homicide: Life on the Street. If you’re not familiar with said [...]

HOUSE “Simple Explanation”: Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

It isn’t so much that House killed off a more interesting character and left much less interesting characters alive. And it isn’t very hard to sympathize with producers who had to figure out a way to write off an interesting character because the actor had bigger fish to fry (kind of nifty fish, at that). [...]

LIE TO ME: Rigid Repetition Like That Is Typical of a Lie

There are several indications that Lie to Me has a good chance at success. Proceduals do big business these days, and Lie to Me shares a lot of characteristics with Fox’s other big hit procedural, House. Both shows are fronted by talented, charismatic British actors whose characters are kept in line by high-cheekboned actresses who overenunciate just a [...]

The Ten Best Television Moments of 2008

I’m one of those grouches who generally doesn’t love New Year’s Eve, spending the evening grousing in a corner about another year slipping away into the ether. In a lot of ways, however, 2008 has been great enough to kick me out of that rut. This year, we saw whales in two different oceans and camped with [...]

30 ROCK, MAD MEN, CLOSER Top SAG Noms

This year’s Screen Actors Guild nominations, announced this morning, seem to look an awful lot like last year’s SAG nominations. There were only a few surprises, among them well-deserved nods for Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss and Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union. Also, oddly, this is the first year that House has been nominated for [...]

Golden Globe Television Nominees Offer Few Surprises

The 66th annual Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Although the televised ceremony (AKA the drinky Oscars) is generally a rip-roaring good time due to the mingling of film and television stars and the copious amounts of alcohol consumed by attendees, the awards themselves are invariably somewhat dubious, [...]

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 [...]

Emmys with a Side of Bacon

Susannah and I have been kicking back at the Emmys for a good long time now. We’ve wept. We’ve wailed. We’ve gnashed our teeth. Personally, I’ve worn sackcloth and ashes, but that’s just my general fashion aesthetic.
Part of the issue is that we can’t put our finger on what the problem is–something’s wrong (really, Academy–Entourage? [...]

Season Premiere Finds HOUSE Making Nice?

Or maybe he just should be. You’ll recall that in last season’s finale, our misanthropic House spent a two-part episode trying to piece together the mystery of which victim alongside him in a bus crash had a dangerous undiagnosed condition. While he put himself in danger to find the answer, he didn’t figure it out [...]

Handy Dandy Guide to Returning Fall Television 2008

Suffering from Olympics withdrawal? Burned out on election coverage? Not to fear, my friend, because the new fall television season is upon us. That’s right, all (well, some) of our beloved TV shows are coming back to us. Below is a list of premiere dates for all our favorite (and some not-so-favorite) returning series. And [...]