Archive: January 2010 (21-30 of 52)

Jan 22 2010 10:10 AM ET

'Burn Notice' came back blazing last night

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Categories: Burn Notice, Dramas, Misc., TV Last Night, TV Recap, TV Review

Burn Notice is back, and in an episode written by creator Matt Nix, the show was full of the Michael Weston spay-craft trickery and amusing voiceover narration that makes this series distinctive and snappy.

The client plot involved an “insurance scammer” for whom Michael adopted a good old boy accent and “precision driving” skills — i.e., Michael bashing bad guys gleefully. It’s a minor pleasure, sure, but I haven’t enjoyed a TV car chase as good as this one in a long time.

The night’s draw was supposed to be guest star Tyne Daly in a stunt-casting mini-Cagney & Lacey reunion. The plot called for Sharon Gless’ Madeline to get some info our heroes needed from Daly’s grouchy City Records office employee. These two can apparently slip back into their nice ‘n’ loose conversational style with ease, and were charming in their brief scenes.

Still, I mean it as praise to the show itself to say that their reunion it was overshadowed by a plot so good, it didn’t need the stunt-casting. The second half of the season has now set in motion what looks like one of the best Michael-got-burned subplots thus far (and you know how we’ve been burned by those in the past). This one, involving an unseen character named Gilroy (you’ll meet him next week), had the benefit of throwing off the great Michael Weston himself. He’s not sure what Gilroy is up to, but he knows he’s the next step in getting free of his burn notice.

I was pretty much completely charmed. How about you?

Follow me on Twitter @kentucker

Jan 22 2010 08:37 AM ET

Late night is Coco-crazy: All the Conan, Letterman, Leno, Kimmel jokes

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Categories: Conan O'Brien, Controversy, David Letterman, Fights, Jay Leno, Talk Shows, Television, The Tonight Show, TV Last Night

Jay Leno continued his amazing gall last night in attempting to make the coup that NBC and he have engineered to reclaim The Tonight Show from Conan O’Brien seem like an act of heroism.

Confirming reports that he’ll return to hosting The Tonight Show as of Mar. 1, he said, “I have chosen to stay on the Titanic.” But that “joke” implies that someone else chose not to stay at NBC, when everyone except Leno seems to know that Conan was pushed off the Titanic. I mean, NBC.

Depending on how you watched it, Leno either wussed out or showed the serene swagger of a victorious survivor. Unlike the night before, when he was busy hauling David Letterman’s wife into a joke.

First, last night’s Best Late-Night Taped Bit goes to Jimmy Kimmel, who did a wonderful Ken Burns’ Civil War parody of the subject, complete with a mock-historian analyzing how General Jeff Zucker had “authorized an attack on his own forces” — cut to old tintype showing Jay slaying Conan:

A close second was David Letterman, who ran a “Jay Leno File,” documenting Leno’s history of transgressions, including the possible murder of James Stewart. Dave remains delightfully ruthless and gloriously tasteless.

As for Conan himself, his penultimate show was uneven. Having Robin Williams on to run around using the f-word and act as though he was peeing on NBC, or Ben Stiller popping out to make some unfunny jokes about the ecological unsoundness of building “a $50 million studio you only use for seven months,” or inviting Pee-wee Herman in to explain the NBC settlement with various toys was okay, but beyond the notion that Conan’s lawyer is Optimus Prime, it wasn’t all that hilarious.

It was an odd night in late-night. Aside from Stiller’s stillborn funniness, there was also Harrison Ford on Letterman, going off a bit on people who sought his autograph as “autograph merchants,” accusing a boy who’d accosted him outside the Late Show studio as actually being “a 45 year-old man in a boy suit.” Weird…

It took Conan himself to provide his own most clever gag, bringing out what he claimed was Derby-winning horse Mine The Bird in a “mink Snuggie” for a bit O’Brien said was “not so much funny as crazy expensive”:

Finally, Letterman addressed some criticism he’s received (not here) for what he called “the inequity in my attacks,” saying many folks feel he’s done more Leno jokes than Conan jokes. “The thing is, I have known Jay forever,” said Letterman. “And it’s just more fun to tell jokes about Jay.”

Everything’s revving up for tonight’s final Conan Tonight Show. Will you be watching? What did you think of last night’s talk-show coverage by the talk-show hosts?

Follow me on Twitter @kentucker

For more on late-night:

NBC execs on Jay Leno’s return to ‘The Tonight Show’

Jan 19 2010 09:44 AM ET

'Life Unexpected' last night: It's no 'Gilmore Girls,' but...

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Categories: Dramas, Television, TV Last Night, TV Review

It’s apparently obligatory in every review of Life Unexpected to compare it to Gilmore Girls. Here’s mine: Life Unexpected doesn’t have even 10% of the verbal wit that make Gilmore reruns endlessly re-watchable. Yes, Life Unexpected is indeed a charming new show, all the more refreshing for its smiles and unaffected grimaces on the CW, a network usually populated by cool, poker-faced teens and twentysomethings on everything from Gossip Girl to Vampire Diaries. But let’s not overrate this little coughing-furball kitty-cat of a show before it grows a bit.

Last night’s premiere episode set up the premise with brisk efficiency. Lux (Britt Robertson) is indeed convincing as the most mature person among the little triangle she forms with her mother, Cate (Shiri Appleby, who has the ability to make Cate seem irritated and dense simultaneously) and father, Baze (Kristoffer Polaha, who renders Baze more commitment-immature than all the guys in The Hangover rolled into one).

LU creator Liz Tigelaar has worked on Brothers and Sisters and What About Brian, so she knows a thing or two about using jokes and soap opera to stretch a comedy-drama. Next week, you’ll see more of what Lux has been doing while she hatched her (failed) plan to become legally emancipated, and that second episode is both more clever and filled with more complex emotions than the premiere.

Which bodes well for the future of Life Unexpected, right? Now if only I believed Kerr Smith’s Ryan  would really be as cool with this situation. Let’s see: He works with Cate at the radio station, they’ve just gotten engaged, and now he has to deal with a smart-alecky potential-stepdaughter and her beer-pong-loving birth-father? Ryan’s either a saint or a sap, but I trust he’ll become some more intriguing mixture of the two as the series proceeds.

What about you? Did you watch Life Unexpected last night? What did you think?

Jan 17 2010 08:21 AM ET

'Saturday Night Live' recap: Sigourney Weaver and the Laser Cats, doing their best

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Categories: CNN, Conan O'Brien, Controversy, David Letterman, Golden Globe Awards, Jay Leno, Movies, Politics, Saturday Night Live, Sci-Fi, Television, The Tonight Show, TV Last Night, TV Recap, TV Review

How could anyone not root for Sigourney Weaver as she hosted Saturday Night Live again (for the first time since 1986)? She’s terrific in almost any movie, Avatar included; she’s got theater and improv skills that more than qualify her for SNL duty. Sure enough, this was one of the better editions of SNL this season, if only for its frequent go-for-broke attitude. (Does anyone love Jason Sudeikis in those ESPN Classic sketches as much as I do?)

The show began promisingly, with the first pretty-funny cold-open in a while. Fred Armisen as Larry King interviewed late-night hosts Jay Leno (played by a briefly-returning Darrell Hammond), Conan O’Brien (Bill Hader), and David Letterman (Jason Sudeikis, all twitchy pencil-throwing and muttered “Hee-hee-hee!”s). The amusement derived less from the late-night guys than Armisen’s way of capturing King’s out-of-it patter, complete with irrelevant references to Joey Bishop and his non-mastery of the internet.

The week’s real-life events were so numerous, Seth Meyers had to cram “Weekend Update” with quick jokes about Sarah Palin joining Fox News, the political bestseller Game Change, Mark McGwire’s steroid READ FULL STORY »

Jan 16 2010 09:49 AM ET

Friday night massacre: Late-night jokes, and why the anti-Conan, pro-Jay backlash won't work

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Categories: Conan O'Brien, Controversy, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Talk Shows, Television, The Tonight Show

Last night, Jay Leno trotted out his unique new mixture of self-pity and aggression to close out this week on The Jay Leno Show.

“There’s a new show premiering on Fox called Human Target,” he said. “I thought it was about me.” And: “I’m getting beaten up in the press; you know things are bad when Tiger Woods calls to offer PR advice.”

And then: “Even David Letterman is taking shots at me. Which is weird, because usually he just takes shots at interns.”

Two points: the anti-Conan, pro-Jay backlash that Dick Ebersol tried to start yesterday in The New York Times is both inevitable (we live in a media time when people go “counter-intuitive” to stir up controversy, Web traffic, and make last-ditch efforts) and it won’t work.

Ebersol called Conan O’Brien “an astounding failure” and “chicken-hearted and gutless” for making jokes about Leno earlier in the week.

Now, consider the source. Ebersol is the NBC exec who recently announced with peculiar pride that his network will “lose money” on its broadcast of the winter Olympics. On its face, this is rather admirable: NBC may well spend more money giving you an extravagant look at the Olympics, and they’ll trade profit for esteem and media heat in that area. But…then why is it not okay to lose a little money, probably in the short term, to help build Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show into the ratings powerhouse Leno’s version was?

Ebersol uses the classic boss logic: If he likes something and it’s losing money, it’s a loss taken in the short term to improve the long-term value of the brand. But if he doesn’t like something and it’s losing money, his message is, we live in a capitalist society and everything needs to show a profit or die.

As I said, consider the source. Dick Ebersol is the kind of flamboyant exec with strong opinions about things — some of which, including comedy, he knows little about. This is the guy who, when he took over Saturday Night Live in the early ’80s, thought that then-SNL-writer Larry David was talentless.

Dick Ebersol is the guy about whom it is said by a source in Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller’s superb history Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, “Every time somebody in the world lies, Dick gets a royalty.”

That’s the guy leading the Conan-is-a-failure charge. Good luck, Jay defenders.

Bottom line: As many of you have written in your comments, this whole controversy is not a grand tragedy. This is sandbox-fighting among men, every one of whom is rich and will fare quite well, no matter what the outcome.

But this also one of the rare moments when things have gotten a little bit out of control, and that’s great — too much network TV is scripted down to the second, and so when Kimmel insults Jay on Jay’s own show, or Letterman depicts Leno as a grave-robber, that’s the kind of chaos and emotion and calculation we see all too rarely on TV these days.

Word has it that an agreement between NBC and O’Brien may be announced as early as this weekend. Too bad; this has been great television.

What do you think of Ebersol’s “astounding failure” comment? About Jay’s latest jokes?

Follow me on Twitter @kentucker

For more:

Exclusive: Source in Conan negotiations says deal ‘possible’ by the weekend

Jan 14 2010 10:27 AM ET

Teddy Pendergrass: Remember the voice

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Categories: Misc.

As EW has reported, Teddy Pendergrass has died at age 59.

Living and working in the Philadelphia area, I had the good fortune to interview Pendergrass a couple of times, and his knowledge of the history of Philly soul in particular and all the byways of rhythm & blues, gospel, and soul music was extraordinary — transfixing to hear.

One of the last of the classic singers in the “love man” style that includes Otis Redding, Al Green, and Peabo Bryson, Pendergrass had a burly voice of enormous delicacy. He still had it here, during an Apollo Hall of Fame TV concert from 1993:

Thanks to David Mills’ great Undercover Black Man blog for reminding me of this performance. And let’s all remember Teddy.

Jan 14 2010 08:24 AM ET

Who is TV's biggest Conan O'Brien supporter? Who's the lamest?

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Categories: Conan O'Brien, Controversy, Craig Ferguson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Talk Shows, Television, The Tonight Show, TV Last Night

“You can do anything you want in life, unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too.” So sayeth Conan O’Brien last night, speaking to his soon-to-be-lost flock.

Conan’s biggest supporter? That would be David Letterman. Letterman showed a segment called “Jay Leno: The Early Years,” with random found-footage of what he claimed was Jay “sabotaging [his] school’s production of Peter Pan.”

Letterman excoriated “the pinheads, the nitwits, the twits, the knuckle-draggers, and the mouth-breathers” who run NBC. And he did a list of the Top Ten messages left on NBC exec Jeff Zucker’s answering machine that included, “Hi, it’s Jay. All in all, I think it’s going pretty well.”

My friend and colleague Mark Harris suggested to me that it was Leno’s joke early in the week that “I didn’t sleep with my staff for nothing” — all the more piercing for being such an off-topic, out-of-left-field, gratuitous gag — that has helped stoke Letterman’s renewed, glowing flame of fury at the late-night situation. That could very well be. But I also think Letterman READ FULL STORY »

Jan 14 2010 01:01 AM ET

Golden Globes TV predictions: Try and beat me, I dare ya!

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Categories: Dramas, Golden Globe Awards, Sitcoms, Television

Okay, here’s the challenge: Below are the nominees for this Sunday’s Golden Globe awards in the TV categories. I’ll tell you who I think will win (should win is another matter — you can find my choices for that here). Feel free to pick your own will-winners in the Comments section below and we’ll reconvene to see who’s the best forecaster. Good luck; my track-record for predicting Globe TV winners is superb. (Actually, I think I’m just “very good,” but who’s looking it up?) Predict away!

1. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

a. BIG LOVE

b. DEXTER

c. HOUSE

d. MAD MEN WILL WIN The classiest quality basic-cable series is as close as it gets to a sure-shot to win its third consecutive Globe in this category. It helps that its season finale, with the dramatic dismantling of the Sterling Cooper ad agency, was so exciting, and fresh in voters’ minds.

e. TRUE BLOOD

2. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

a. GLENN CLOSE, DAMAGES

b. JANUARY JONES, MAD MEN WILL WIN January Jones had to portray a chilly Betty as wife, mother, and cheating spouse without becoming unsympathetic in Mad Men. She pulled it off with grace.

c. JULIANNA MARGULIES, THE GOOD WIFE

d. ANNA PAQUIN, TRUE BLOOD

e. KYRA SEDGWICK, THE CLOSER

3. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

a. SIMON BAKER, THE MENTALIST

b. MICHAEL C. HALL, DEXTER

c. JON HAMM, MAD MEN

d. HUGH LAURIE, HOUSE WILL WIN House’s Hugh Laurie had a stand-out season, with his Gregory House coming back after an intense rehab session: solo anguish is catnip to voters.

e. BILL PAXTON, BIG LOVE

4. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

a. 30 ROCK

b. ENTOURAGE

c. GLEE WILL WIN The season’s most innovative new show, and one of the rare times a Globe could be given to a series that meets both of this category’s description: it’s a comedy and a musical.

d. MODERN FAMILY

e. THE OFFICE

5. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

a. TONI COLLETTE, UNITED STATES OF TARA

b. COURTENEY COX, COUGAR TOWN WILL WIN Courtney Cox’s comic comeback in Cougar Town could easily charm voters into a deserved Globe. She plays her role’s broad-comedy without seeming foolish or desperate.

c. EDIE FALCO, NURSE JACKIE

d. TINA FEY, 30 ROCK

e. LEA MICHELE, GLEE

6. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

a. ALEC BALDWIN, 30 ROCK WILL WIN Alec Baldwin is peerless at comic ruthlessness in 30 Rock, and his Jack Donaghy is probably America’s most beloved corporate suit as well as a voter fave.

b. STEVE CARELL, THE OFFICE

c. DAVID DUCHOVNY, CALIFORNICATION

d. THOMAS JANE, HUNG

e. MATTHEW MORRISON, GLEE

7. BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

b. GREY GARDENS WILL WIN HBO always dominates the tv-movie races, and this adapted story of the eccentric Beales, mother and daughter, is the production that’ll be hard to beat this year.

c. INTO THE STORM

d. LITTLE DORRIT

e. TAKING CHANCE

8. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. JOAN ALLEN, GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

b. DREW BARRYMORE, GREY GARDENS

c. JESSICA LANGE, GREY GARDENS WILL WIN As Mama Edie Beale, Lange faces close competition with her co-star, Drew Barrymore, but I’ll bet Lange’s magisterial acting wins the Globe.

d. ANNA PAQUIN, THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA SENDLER

e. SIGOURNEY WEAVER, PRAYERS FOR BOBBY

9. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. KEVIN BACON, TAKING CHANCE

b. KENNETH BRANAGH, WALLANDER: ONE STEP BEHIND

c. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, ENDGAME

d. BRENDAN GLEESON, INTO THE STORM WILL WIN Gleeson as a thundering Winston Churchill, in an HBO production? Engrave the Globe with his name right now.

e. JEREMY IRONS, GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

10. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. JANE ADAMS, HUNG

b. ROSE BYRNE, DAMAGES

c. JANE LYNCH, GLEE WILL WIN Lynch has so many stand-out monologues as Sue the gym teacher that whatever was submitted for Globes consideration probably had them rolling in their little foreign aisles.

d. JANET McTEER, INTO THE STORM

e. CHLOË SEVIGNY, BIG LOVE

11. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. MICHAEL EMERSON, LOST

b. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

c. WILLIAM HURT, DAMAGES

d. JOHN LITHGOW, DEXTER WILL WIN Lithgow is a Globe favorite dating back to his Third Rock From The Sun days and they’ll want to reward his turn to dead-serious villainy here.

e. JEREMY PIVEN, ENTOURAGE

So: Who do you think will win?

See the Golden Globes 2010 Winners List

More: Dave Karger: Beat my Golden Globe predictions!

Jan 13 2010 04:30 PM ET

'Southland' on TNT: Re-experiencing a terrific new series

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Categories: Dramas, Southland, Television, TV Last Night

Last night we had an unusual opportunity to re-experience a new series. Southland began its run on TNT; the cable network is re-airing the NBC episodes. The pilot last night had six minutes of new material that lengthened a few scenes for added character details and atmospheric texture.

I found that, having seen all seven of Southland‘s episodes on NBC, it was a complete pleasure watching the pilot again, to see where all the seeds were planted for upcoming plot developments. The way Ben McKenzie’s rookie character is initally so polite and deferential that his fellow cops think he must be from Canada. The way C. Thomas Howell’s Billy is such a fascinating d—wad right from the start. The way Regina King’s Det. Adams maintains a mask of objectivity while zeroing in on the sources of the terrible crimes she witnesses or tries to prevent.

Most of all, I noticed how creator Ann Biderman and her writers and directors shaped the show to slowly reveal surprising details about many regular characters, and laid the foundation for what was clearly meant to be a drama in the tradition of Hill Street Blues and ER — that is, fine NBC dramas. Before NBC squandered that tradition and cancelled it.

Starting Mar. 2, TNT will begin airing six new episodes.

Will you be watching?

Jan 13 2010 09:56 AM ET

'Better Off Ted' and American Girl dolls parody: Does it get much better?

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Categories: Better Off Ted, Sitcoms, TV Last Night

Many terrific moments on last night’s typical stupid-ABC-decision-to-burn-off-two-more-episodes-of-Better-Off-Ted:

• Ted telling Phil and Lem, “You guys have more brains than a zombie Thanksgiving”

• Veronica telling Ted that he’s too honest, that taking “the high road leads to Pansytown”

• Phil saying to Lem, with admiration for Ted’s acumen, “We just got teducated“

But for me, nothing topped the brief, wonderful moment when rivals Ted and Pete compared notes on their daughters’ “Pioneer Girl” dolls, describing perfectly the American Girl dolls phenomenon:

Can any parent (or child) not relate?

Meanwhile, at the Television Critics Association currently convening in L.A., ABC execs say they haven’t decided on Ted’s future yet. Hey, I think (the already-renewed) The Middle and Cougar Town are just fine, but compared to Ted? ABC needs to get teducated…

UPDATE: Looking to help save Ted? Check out this site: http://www.savebetteroffted.com/

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