At mid-season, TV viewers expect new shows to trickle in slowly.
They don’t expect a cascade like this: Thursday (Feb. 6) has three debuts and a season-opener.
Two shows are worth watching and “Katy Keene” (shown hereP) is worth noting. Let’s view all four, from best to worst: Read more…
This is always a dilemma on Super Bowl Sunday: Should we stay and watch the game or go out to a “gentleman’s club” instead?
This time, fortunately, we could sort of do both.
At halftime of the Super Bowl, two nice ladies came out and performed. There was some pole dancing and some bellydancing; the cameras had a lot of well-planned booty shots. Read more…
Please pardon a brief detour: This item is mostly for people in the Lansing, Mich., area.
Then again, it’s also for anyone who likes Linda Ronstadt (shown here) … which is a lot of people.
Last month, I had a story about the terrific Ronstadt documentary, when it aired on CNN. Now it’s showing at the Studio C in Okemos, as part of the indie film series. Read more…
There are plenty of people, it seems, with no great stake in the Super Bowl
.For various reasons – sanity or sobriety or sheer orneriness – they don’t carer whether it’s a Chief or a 49er who dumps Gatorade on his coach
.They want to watch TV on Sunday … which isn’t easy. With the game on Fox, the other commercial broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, even CW) are all ducking into rerunsw. So are Showtime and Starz. Still, that leaves some solid alternatives that includes: Read more…
It’s happened twice now in eight years.
The Grammy people were ready for the usual fun and flash and spectacle. Then, at the last moment, there was a stunning death.
In 2012 it was Whitney Houston, who had some of her greatest moments at the Grammys
This year it was Kobe Bryant (shown here), who had his greatest moments at the Staples Center, where the ceremony is held.Both times, the Grammy people responded beautifully. Both times, they had the right person hosting. Read more…
History tends to remember a few rebels and reformers
.They’re authors and politicians, mostly. But then there’s the guy – now semi-forgotten – who was once the world’s most famous chemist
.That’s Harvey Wiley (shown here with his young “poison squad”), subject of a fascinating PBS profile Tuesday. He was an early target in the war against science. He also was also a reason why we know (sometimes) what we’re eating. Read more…
Ken Ehrlich has his last Grammy telecast Sunday, after 40 splendid years.
Before that, let’s flash back to a key bit. It was “the big one,” Ehrlich wrote, “the one that is generally credited with starting the phrase ‘Grammy moment.'”
That phrase isn’t just hype, you know. It reflects decades of innovative mash-ups, from Elton and Eminem to this year (8-11 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26), with epic numbers built around one song from Lil Nas X and another — ranging from singer Camila Cabell to rapper Common and dancer Misty Copeland (shown here) — built around a song from the “Fame” movie. Read more…
Let’s make this clear again — a no-host awards show is an awful idea
.Music shows can get away with it sometimes; the Oscars did because they had a musical start. But mostly, it’s a dreary notion … as proven by the Emmys, most of the Oscares and more.
These shows soon deteriorate into droning speeches, thanking agents and such. With rare exceptions — one at tonight’s Screen Actors Guild was Alex Borstein (shown here in her “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” role) — this becomes dull; it needs a clever host to spark things. Read more…
PASADENA, Cal. – As Hillary Clinton prepares for a film-festival surge, she has a thought about the Democratic primaries:
Choose someone who will win in November.
“Vote for the person who is most likely to win,” she said this morning. “And not just the popular vote.
”That last part brought a laugh from the people who were questioning her, the Television Critics Association. Clinton won the popular vote by three million voters … but lost to Donald Trump in the electoral vote. Read more…
PASADENA, Cal. – You can say what you want about the British.
You can mock their food, their politics, their odd insistence that “football” is a game in which no one catches, tackles or scores
.But let’s agree on this: These people make good dramas, smart mysteries and (shown here) superb nature films.
At the current Television Critics Association sessions, we’ve seen proof of that. One streaming service (Acorn) ranges from the steely drama of “Blood” to the giddy mysteries of “Agatha Raisin.” Another (Britbox) ranges from the sharp “Vera” mysteries to Martin Freeman’s complex “Confession.”
But we’ve also seen more proof of just how good the BBC Natural History Unit is. Read more…
