Feb 22 2012 11:00 PM ET

Arizona Republican debate review: Trying to stop the Santorum surge

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , ,
Rick-Santorum_240.jpg

Image Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

For much of the time during Wednesday night’s CNN Republican debate, the candidates did their best to try and put the surging Rick Santorum on the defensive. Ron Paul called Santorum a “fake” when it comes to “being fiscally conservative,” and came down hard on Santorum having voted for the No Child Left Behind act. Mitt Romney provided a Santorum attack-sound-bite that sounded prepared in advance: “While I was fighting to save the Olympics, you were fighting to save the ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’” READ FULL STORY »

Feb 21 2012 11:10 PM ET

'Parenthood' review: Crosby and Jasmine, Adam and Crosby, Julia and that baby: What happened here?!

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , , ,
parenthood_320.jpg

Image Credit: Trae Patton/NBC

Talk about loading up an episode with character epiphanies: As it hurtles to a season ending, Parenthood piled on twists, revelations, and betrayals this week. So, right off the bat: Crosby and Jasmine? In a tent? Together with Jabbar? I kept looking around for that irritating cellist, lugging her instrument into the tent to spoon with Crosby… READ FULL STORY »

Feb 21 2012 07:21 AM ET

The return of 'The Colbert Report': 'Are you ready to get these bastards?'

by
Filed under: News, TV and tagged: , , , , , , ,

Stephen Colbert returned to The Colbert Report last night after a week away, listing some of the rumors he — “the hub around which the Republic turns” — heard about his absence. They included that he was canceled by the FCC at the request of the Federal Election Commission because he was about to announce his candidacy, and that his show was canceled because he offended the Catholic church when he compared the Pope’s “hat” to a giant prophylactic.But then he added, “Oh, one more thing. Evidently, having 11 children makes you tough as nails,” a reference to his 91-year-old mother, Lorna Colbert, who is reportedly ill. (Colbert is the youngest of 11.) READ FULL STORY »

Feb 19 2012 11:07 PM ET

'Downton Abbey' season finale review: God bless us, one and all!

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , ,

The second season of Downton Abbey came to a somewhat merry, certainly satisfying conclusion on Sunday night by wrapping up some subplots and leaving others dangling, tantalizingly. Abbey is, at bottom, a work of pastiche. Creator-writer Julian Fellowes is using literary models that have worked for a long time, freshening them with his vivid characterization and (most of the time) crisply precise dialogue. What Fellowes has done so cannily is to render the servant-master relationship in two distinct modes: His models are Charles Dickens melodrama downstairs, and Anthony Powell archness upstairs. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 19 2012 10:48 PM ET

'The Walking Dead' review: 'He won't stop'

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , , , , ,

There was one shot in last week’s episode of The Walking Dead that suggested to me the series was on its way to improvement. It was a quick moment, when dead zombie bodies had been piled into a truck. Director Clark Johnson chose to film it from a slight distance. As the vehicle rumbled along, a stray arm fell off the truck, and Laurie Holden’s Andrea hopped off to toss it back into the pile. A small gesture, to be sure, but so perfectly gross, yet, in the logic set up by the series, in keeping with the casual way this character and others now deal with the walkers. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 16 2012 02:34 PM ET

Bill O'Reilly: Whitney Houston 'killed herself,' Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg are 'creeps'

by
Filed under: News, TV and tagged: , , , , , ,

Bill O’Reilly termed Whitney Houston’s death a suicide (he said she “killed herself” through “decades” of drug use) and said that entertainers such as Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg are “creeps” who contribute to the profits of “Mexican cartels” every time they buy “a marijuana cigarette.” READ FULL STORY »

Feb 15 2012 11:20 PM ET

Elisabeth Shue joined 'CSI': A 'Seeing Red' review

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , ,

The plot on Wednesday night’s CSI was irrelevant; the crimes committed could have been ones we’ve seen a thousand times before. What mattered this night was the impression Elisabeth Shue made in her first appearance in joining the series. She was awfully good. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 13 2012 11:50 PM ET

Confessions of a former 'The Voice' skeptic

by
Filed under: Music, TV and tagged: , , , ,

When it premiered last year, all I saw in The Voice was the cheesy glitz — the swivel chairs; the tiresome song choices of the contestants; the overweening egoism of Christina Aguilera. As the season went on, I kept dipping in and out of it (more than I can say I’ve ever done for any season of American Idol), and the first element of The Voice that won me over was Blake Shelton, whose easygoing charm was refreshingly free of coyness, irony, and self-absorption. And — oh, right — I started listening to the voices of the contestants chosen by Aguilera, Shelton, Cee Lo Green, and Adam Levine. Quite a few of them exhibited something rare as well: They were, for the most part, free of the ornate mannerisms and studied calculation that Idol enshrined as the winning standard for TV singing competitions. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 13 2012 09:01 PM ET

Watching 'House' knowing it's going to be razed: A review

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , ,

Last week it was announced that after eight seasons Hugh Laurie’s pill-popping brilliant misanthrope Dr. Gregory House would be voluntarily limping off to syndicated and cable rerun nirvana. (A nirvana, I must add, that the grump did his best to never achieve during this character’s lifetime. After all, a happy House was always the least appealing House.) And so this week’s House was the first one we could watch with that knowledge, and, inevitably, it changes how you’ll experience the rest of the season. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 13 2012 06:15 PM ET

'Smash': Measuring its success, and its importance to NBC

by
Filed under: TV and tagged: , , , ,

Smash returns for its second week this evening, the eager wagging tail behind the big-dog success The Voice. Tonight’s episode, titled “The Callback,” pits Megan Hilty’s Ivy and Katharine McPhee’s Karen against each other for the role of Marilyn Monroe, and I think — I hope — you’ll be impressed with the way Smash deals so forthrightly, and so quickly, in confronting the competition that a lesser series might leave slack for weeks to come.

Here are a few thoughts about Smash, in my weekly video review:

Twitter: @kentucker

Advertisement

TV Recaps

Powered by WordPress.com VIP