It’s safe to say that Walter White’s most formidable obstacle in his pursuit of wealth for his family and, increasingly, his assertion of himself as the dynamic force in his own life, has been Gus Fring, the deceptively meek fast-food-chicken store owner, philanthropist, and drug lord played by Giancarlo Esposito with consummate meticulousness in the season of Breaking Bad that concluded on Sunday night. READ FULL STORY »
It’s rare that an awards show both rewards the people who really deserve those awards and is itself a rewarding show. But this year’s Emmy Awards was both. Led by spunky, clever host Jane Lynch, the Emmys were delightfully surprising — Margo Martindale! Kyle Chandler! Melissa McCarthy plus all the other Best Comedy Actress nominees onstage together! — and, in most ways, quite satisfactory. READ FULL STORY »
The Rev. Al Sharpton premiered PoliticsNation on MSNBC Monday evening with an hour of booming bombast and near-obliviousness, as he steam-rolled over his guests, interrupting them to ask long, halting questions. At one point he acted as though he was having an argument with his teleprompter and said with exasperation to a guest, “Well, let me just ask you my way: Is the Tea Party going to destroy the Republican Party?” Please, Al, can’t every question be asked your way? READ FULL STORY »
ABC News added a graphic to yesterday’s current-events show This Week when host Christiane Amanpour used the word “perspicacious” to describe Benjamin Franklin’s wisdom. Check out READ FULL STORY »
Jon Stewart, making what was billed as “his first appearance ever on a Sunday talk show,” told Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, he was “insane” if Wallace thinks his comedy has “an ideological, partisan agenda.” His Daily Show satire, Stewart said, “is about absurdity and corruption.” READ FULL STORY »
Some of my TV critic colleagues chided tonight’s CMT Music Awards show before it even aired, suggesting there are too many country-music awards shows. Cynics! Me, I can’t get enough of ‘em. They’re an easy way to keep up with what’s selling in the country industry, they toss up odd couplings (gosh, I didn’t know the least appealing-looking group in country music, Rascal Flatts, had done a duet with pop music’s designated cutie, Justin Bieber — glad I do now!), and in general these shows provide a safe haven for 1970s/’80s-style singer-songwriter-soft-rock in the current century. READ FULL STORY »
James Arness, a great Sequoia tree in the forest of TV Western heroes, has died; he was 88. Arness is immortal in TV history as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, the longest-running network drama in television history with the most episodes. (Gunsmoke‘s 635 episodes versus Law & Order’s 456; the two are tied with 20 seasons.) This feat would have been impossible without the presence of Arness, a 6-foot-7, quiet man who gave an air of serene authority to Matt Dillon. READ FULL STORY »
Rachel Maddow gave an interview in the British Guardian newspaper yesterday in which the MSNBC anchor said many interesting, often amusing things. “I’m not an autocutie,” she said, referring to the tendency of American TV news organizations to fill some anchor positions with women who have what The Guardian described as “the helmet of blond hair and rictus smile.”
She also drew this distinction between MSNBC and Fox News, regarding that false-equivalency comparison that continues to be drawn between the two channels:
“Of Fox News, she says simply, ‘When it starts to seem like you have popped into bed with a specific party, it makes it difficult for people to believe you are not doing someone else’s bidding for them.’ At MSNBC, on the other hand, ‘there are people here who are identified as liberals, but there is no political agenda.’”
But the part of the interview getting the most attention here is this bit: READ FULL STORY »
