The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
June 5, 2012
Freak Show & Tell: Robot Babies, Weeping Armpits, and Insane Mothers-in-Law
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That’s where I come in! Here’s an unflinching look back at TV’s Week in Freak Shows. Pregnant in Heels (Bravo) Who Is This Now? Paula […]
Read moreThe Top 10 Songs in … CHRISTIAN ROCK!
1. Newsboys, “God’s Not Dead (Like a Lion)” Newsboys are a Christian pop rock band from Mooloolaba, Australia. I find that “Mooloolaba” makes a great substitute for any other exclamation. Mooloolaba! The Newsboys’ keyboardist is named Jeff Frankenstein, which sounds awfully glam. The band was originally called The News, but changed their name in the […]
Read moreThe Empire Strikes Back Makes a Surprisingly Good Telenovela
The (original) Star Wars trilogy has been fairly described as a space opera, what with the shocking reveals of various characters’ parentage, sudden reversals of romantic fortune, and surprise dismemberments. So when you think about it, there’s not such a long way to go from the source material to this fan-made reimagining of The Empire […]
Read moreJune 4, 2012
MTV to Turn Scream Into a TV Series
When Scream 4 opened last spring, it was less a film than a referendum … and audiences voted no. The film grossed just $40 million, seemingly dooming the franchise. Fortunately for Ghostface and Sydney and Gale and Dewey and whoever else survived Scream 4 — I saw it opening night, and I can’t remember much […]
Read moreGoodbye, Andy: SNL’s Digital Short Auteur Heads to That Big Happy Madison Production in the Sky
The writing was on the wall, but like invisible ink, you can’t really read the writing until it’s illuminated under the special black-light glow of a publicist’s confirmation. And so we learned, on Friday, that Andy Samberg was officially on Lazy Saturday Night Leave, moving on to the Sandlier pastures of the upcoming Adam Sandler […]
Read moreGame of Thrones Season 2, Episode 10: ‘Valar Morghulis’
“This war has just begun. It will last for years.” The words emerged from Melisandre like so much secondhand smoke, but they could well be coming from the HBO executive boardroom. As year two of this grand, multivolume experiment in adaptation and decapitation comes to a rousing close, it’s clear that the network would be […]
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Mad Men Power Rankings: Episode 512, ‘Commissions and Fees’
[Production note: Holy. Shit.] [Last week’s Rankings can be found here.] 1. Don Draper (last week: 3) You’re happy with 50 percent. You’re on top and you don’t have enough. You’re happy because you’re successful. For now. But what is happiness? It’s the moment before you need more happiness. It’s the moment laughing in the […]
Read moreR.I.P., Richard Dawson
If the question is, “Name a TV personality whose easy charm and wry demeanor made him an emblematic game-show host of the format’s ’70s golden age,” the no. 1 answer would have to be Richard Dawson, the Match Game panelist, Family Feud host, and all-around home-sick-from-school-watching-daytime-TV staple, who died Saturday of complications from esophageal cancer […]
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Mad Men: Guilt and Aftermath
“The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to make me doubt if even I were in life.” — Henry James, The Turn of the Screw Mad Men, like sports finals, can be unbearably tense. The dread is magnetic, pulling you in closer to the screen while you beg for […]
Read moreMTV Viewers Love the Twilight Franchise (But Also: New Footage From The Dark Knight Rises!)
Soooooo? How’d we all do in our MTV Movie Awards pools? Guys, I really thought teenagers would be more enamored of The Artist! That’s $500 I’ll never see again.
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