The NBA Playoffs are taking off for TNT, with Game 1 of the Western Conference semi-finals averaging a 3.1 rating with Adults 18-49 at 9:43 pm Monday (the Los Angeles Lakers getting pounded by the Oklahoma City Thunder).  Three other early round games managed a 2.0 rating or higher.    At the other end of […]

  THE MYSTERIES OF LAURA:  Wednesday 8PM on NBC starting September 24 (premieres 10PM on September 17) – Change the Channel PLAYERS:  Star Debra Messing, and central co-stars Josh Lucas and Laz Alonso.  The Spanish TV series on which it’s based.  US series creator Jeff Rake, who’s worked on an assortment of shows over the past decade […]

        After last week’s tumultuous, spectacular battle of Blackpool, tonight’s Season 2 finale of GAME OF THRONES was, necessarily, somewhat lower-key.  It served more as a coda, and as a transition to Season 3 (considering that there was no attempt at closure in any of the stories, it’s a good thing that […]

  MACHINE GUN PREACHER:  Watch It At Home –  A True Story Rings False   MACHINE GUN PREACHER simply isn’t good enough for the story it wants to tell. And the story, a true one, is remarkable:  Sam Childers (played by Gerard Butler in the film) was a drug addict and violent criminal who found […]

    SHERLOCK HOLMES:  GAME OF SHADOWS:  Watch It At Home – Far Too Elementary   We have to come to terms with the fact that an entire generation may recognize the name Sherlock Holmes not as the template for brilliant amateur crime-solving, but as a moderately intelligent action-comedy hero who dresses up in funny […]

  Dancing With the Stars lost another step. ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS had its worst season premiere ever, down 0.8 from last fall and 0.2 from Spring 2014 to 2.4–and it’s only going to get worse, because the ABC station in Indianapolis carried a simulcast of the ESPN Monday Night Football game.  That will […]

    FRIENDS WITH KIDS:  Worth A Ticket – Sitcom, In A Good Way   We live in a pop culture where the recent Emmy Award nominees are so clearly superior to the films up for this past year’s Oscar that it’s not even worth arguing about. (Mad Men vs The Artist?  Game of Thrones […]

  This weekend, Denzel Washington is proving himself yet again one of the last truly reliable movie stars.  Just a week after Liam Neeson flopped with A Walk Among the Tombstones, preliminary numbers at Deadline have THE EQUALIZER (Columbia/Sony) at $12.5-13M on Friday (including $1.5M from Thursday night)–roughly the same amount ($12.7M) Tombstones made in […]