Results tagged “frontline”

As we said a couple weeks ago, we went to France for a couple weeks where we didn't watch much French TV because, well, there really wasn't anything worth watching other than the French Open and Manchester United vs. Barcelona. Now our uneducated opinion has supporting proof: in 2008 only 13 of the top 100 scripted TV shows in France were actually French. American-produced TV programs took the biggest slice at 57. Who says we don't export anything?

Congrats to Bravo for it's best April ever in terms of viewership. Strange to us that "The Real Housewives of New York City", "The Millionaire Matchmaker" , and "Make Me A Supermodel" can fuel that kind of growth during these times but evidently a lot of people we know are watching these shows without copping to it.

The TV Junkie Plan: "Deadliest Catch", "Out of the Wild", "Modern Toss", Letterman, Fallon.

We know it's a couple days away but we couldn't help talk up this Thursday night's NBC lineup: "The Office" will be back with 2 brand new episodes at 8pm and 9pm with the series premiere of Amy Poehler's highly anticipated "Parks and Recreation" sandwiched in between the two at 8:30pm. Check out the website of Pawnee, Indiana, the location of "Parks and Recreation" and of course the video snippets.

We love comedians Jim Gaffigan and Jamie Kaler so therefore we just kind of have to like TBS' "My Boys" which has its season premiere tonight. While the show isn't any less funny than any of the big network shows, Jim Gaffigan's bits are the highlight of every episode - we wish TBS would build a show around him as the lead, c'mon already.

Last week NPR did a segment on tonight's "Nova" which even sounded cool - check out the photos, the video footage will be even more amazing, if not terrifying, as we have more proof of climate change (PBS @ 8pm).

Today AMC launched the beginning of a series of webisodes for its excellent series, "Breaking Bad", in advance of its new season starting on March 8th.

More post-Super Bowl hype: Nielsen says 95 million watched, NBC says 148 million watched, and Tuscon Comcast subscribers got 30 seconds of porn during the Super Bowl (that's so wrong in so many ways, if you're going to prank me with porn, you'd better provide more than 30 seconds of it).

There was no way to avoid President Barack Obama's inauguration today if you were anywhere on the 'net, radio, or television - well, maybe if you were watching the Game Show Network you might've missed it. Most media organizations jumped into this inauguration with both feet which was encouraging. Hulu and Facebook streams were reportedly failing, along with several others. Twitter seemed to do OK after doubling capacity in preparation for the day.

We love Tina Fey's parody of Alaska Governor Sarah "Jessica" (because she's so stylish) Palin but evidently even she doesn't know the next time she will apear on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" to parody the Vice Presidential candidate. As of today, yeah it's Tuesday, Fey and NBC stated that they didn't know if Fey-Palin would be on either (or both?) "Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursdays" or the regularly scheduled "Saturday Night Live". As Public Enemy said: please oh please oh please, just give me one more hit.

Tonight a double-travesty is occurring: the broadcast of both "Wipeout" and "I Survived A Japanese Game Show". Both of these shows take a good idea (for immature jerks like myself), Spike TV's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" aka "MXE", and turn it into garbage. "MXE" is an overdubbed (by members of LA's comedy troupe the Groundlings) and hilarious replaying of episodes of Japanese gameshow, "Takeshi's Castle" while "Wipeout" and "I Survived A Japanese Gameshow" are lame parodies of the pretty lame original "Takeshi's Castle", how come the networks just don't get this difference? How can we have respect for the people that said "OK" to drop the millions to fund this crap?

If you saw my SNL post yesterday, you know I'm all high on live TV (always have been), and lookie, lo-and-behold, we're going to start getting live ads on TV: the Hollywood Reporter says that Jimmy Kimmel (featured below tonight) will start running at least one live ad per episode starting in May. Garmin ran a live ad on Leno a year ago and the "effectiveness and awareness" levels exceeded standard (dead?) ads enough for Garmin and other companies to line up to begin running the live ads regularly.

Did anyone watch "Top Gear" last night on BBCA? They had a fantastic contest of who could cross London the fastest: a bicycle, a several hundred horsepower boat, public transportation, or a Mercedes SUV. The bike won! Followed closely by the boat and then public transportation with the SUV dead last by more than a quarter hour after public transport. Since LA doesn't have many viable waterways it looks like it's time to sideline cars and invest in bike lanes and public transportation exclusively.

Is HBO really in trouble? (Speaking of HBO, check out this great movie from 1983 about the creation of the HBO Theater opening sequence). Business Week asks if the premium channel is in trouble now that "The Sopranos" are gone (also "The Wire", "deadwood", "Rome", etc.) with nothing on the horizon to step up. The fact is that Showtime, FX, and even AMC are coming up with more compelling shows as of this last year than the flagship of premium, HBO. It's going to take more than "Entourage" to keep HBO going and "Tell Me You Love Me", "John of Cincinatti", and "In Treatment" were or are duds.

Here on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War with over 4,000 American dead and tens of thousands of Americans wounded PBS' Frontline launches its two-part special "Bush's War". Of course conservative pundits will accuse PBS of being the citadel of the liberal media but Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or any of their ilk could never come up with a documented timeline of evidence that illustrate what a completely disgusting mess we're in. The "Bush's War" website will include an annotated master chronology with over 100 video clips and images supporting the 4 hour program.

A few months ago LAist interviewed writer/creator/director Marshall Herskovitz about his web series Quarterlife, and lo and behold, the series debuts on NBC tonight! MySpace, which showcased Quarterlife has a new show of the hidden-camera comedy variety debuting this week as well, "Special Delivery", which will have episodes twice weekly. From these new media developments we turn to television's ancient past on today, Jackie Gleason's birthday, JackieGleason.com has been launched with rare stills and clips of "The Great One" - a true TV pioneer.

Am not so sure how I feel about last night's Frontline (PBS/KCET) which was an analysis of the Haditha "incident" where 24 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, were not massacred - they were just killed in their pajamas. I guess it's a matter of semantics, when is shooting 2 year olds at point blank not a massacre? I don't think the Marines or PBS itself did a good job of proving that this incident fell outside of that definition.

OK so the PBS examination of the Haditha massacre is going to be pretty heavy duty tonight, there's a couple options for lighter fare, and of course the season finale of Nip/Tuck will be the pornographic prime time finish.

If you care for "Just For Laughs", "According To Jim" and all things Tuesday ABC, they're new. We have a premiere tonight on Bravo, our new source of reality TV. This time they're launching Millionaire Matchmaker featuring Patti Stranger (right) who performs the very public service of hooking up desperate, misunderstood, and underprivileged millionaires with compatible mates - Patti, I hope someday a grateful society brings you the honors you deserve.

So The Colber(t) Repor(t) and The Daily Show are back and while Colbert, Stewart, Kimmel, and Conan are all nimble on their feet, and very funny and engaging, it's amazing how the success of all these shows really comes down to the writing. It's great to have them all back on the air and it does provide us all with some late night alternatives, but I hope NBC, ABC, and Viacom come to their senses and end this. The ball is in their court.

I watched Saving Grace last night because there was nothing else on and I was sorry I did it. Holly Hunter I love you but there should be a better show than this for you - it's morphed into Touched By An Angel with touches of profanity. It looks like there's a lot of stuff tonight (below) but it's actually pretty sparse. I'll have some DVD reviews up soon since that's what I'm really watching,...

7:15pm It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World TCM - Every comedian alive was put in this '63 classic. Watch it, without commercial interruption, as this gang of motley fools head across SoCal towards a slapstick finish in Santa Monica and Venice. TV Junkie Pick-O-The-Night. 8:00pm A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving ABC - One of the weaker Charlie Brown specials, but nostalgia is strong. 8:00pm Kontroll IFC - Cool indie flick from Hungary about a psychopath...

The much anticipated Damages finale is tonight - since the series was so very good I'm already thinking beyond the finale and more about which players will remain for a second season. Ted Danson's Frobisher is so delightfully evil the airwaves will be much the poorer in his absence, if in this season marks his departure. 8:00pm Five Days HBO - Part 4 of 5. The only new drama programming on at 8pm tonight other...

Don't forget to check out my interview with Glenn Close if you haven't yet. Damages is the pick of the night of course, but there's some other gems out there. 8:00pm Matt Lauer Reports NBC - I'm not a huge fan of Matt Lauer or NBC news reporting but it should be interesting to see him grill Senator Larry Craig about his wide stance. 9:00pm Frontline: Cheney's Law PBS/KCET - A look at the Cheney...

A Word or 56+/-: I guess Tuesday's are Ida Lupinow filmfests on TCM - why, god why? How about a Terry Thomas filmfest for effssake? If you want to watch new stuff tonight you'll have to head over to PBS. And hey, Colbert has a "surprise guest that rhymes with Steagle" tonight. Bugsy Siegel? Tonight - Tuesday - June 12th, 2007 Dodgers @ Jays (KCAL, 4:00 p.m.) Astros @ Angels (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.)...

A Word or 76: CBS lineup tonight is wiped out by the CMAs and unless you are up for a Sir Laurence Olivier marathon on TCM then there's no movies on. I'm getting kind of sick of the parade of authors on late night TV, particularly Comedy Central - who the eff has time to read when there's so much bad TV? Speaking of bad TV, we're down to the final 3 on both...

A Word or 10: I hope Jon Stewart rips Tenet a new one tonight. Tonight - Tuesday - May 8, 2007 Indians @ Angels (KCAL, 7:00 p.m.) NCIS/The Unit (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) Murder victim found in taxi, Jenny discovers a "secret"/The team is having past mission infractions investigated Dateline NBC (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) NBC exploits families looking for loved ones Gilmore Girls/Veronica Mars (the CW, 8-10:00 p.m.) Rory's graduation party/Verionica investigates the disappearance of...

A Word or 49: Iggy Pop redeems Jimmy Kimmel tonight. For petessake when is the stupid 'house' gimmick ever gonna end on House? (new one tonight) I'm rockin' the slot with the Shield tonight though - now that Vic seems to be in the clear perhaps we're just back to some stellar violence. Today - Tuesday - April 24th, 2007 Rita Hayworth Marathon (TCM, 5- p.m.) Starting with Pal Joey, then Salome, etc. Check...

A Word or 73: LA, get ready for your dirty underbelly to be nauseatingly exploited as the sixth season of The Shield gets underway tonight. There's a bit more room on the dial after, thank god, the following shows got the ax last week: The Wedding Bells (Fox) which was truly awful, Six Degrees (ABC) another bad one, 7th Heaven (the CW) which I don't even know about and The Black Donnellys which was...

Tonight - Tuesday - February 27th, 2007 Wuthering Heights (TCM, 7:00 p.m.) Get Bronteed with the original '39 film. NCIS/The Unit (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) Pull on the Depends for 2 hours of non-stop CBS action. Dateline NBC/Law & Order: Criminal Intent/Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC, 8-11:00 p.m.) Perverted Justice/Poisoned journalist/A rape in Philadelphia Gilmore Girls (the CW, 8:00 p.m.) Rory gets offered an interview with the New York Times. Primetime (ABC, 9:00...