The political comics of America owe a heartfelt “thank you” to Mitt Romney for his “47%” bungle that became public this week.  (So do the Democrats, but that’s another story.)  Jon Stewart has been going to town on it all week, and tonight’s inaugural SNL WEEKEND UPDATE THURSDAY of the season used it as […]

  Coming off its acclaimed, Emmy-winning production of Grease, FOX had the holiday live TV musical market cornered this year, NBC having opted out of its planned Bye Bye Birdie in favor of a Spring 2018 Jesus Christ Superstar.  FOX zigged a bit from past practices, choosing the recent (and short-lived) Broadway musical adaptation of […]

  Lorne Michaels has never been happy when primetime overruns push the start time of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and he must like it even less in the DVR era, when many people on the East Coast will miss the last 27 minutes of tonight’s episode forever.  But that’s the cost of airing college football on […]

  For an election season SNL, tonight’s episode was oddly lightweight–possibly because the show had exhausted its political material for the week in Thursday’s Update special.  Aside from Weekend Update, the only trace of presidential politics tonight came in two fairly blah, one-note pre-taped fake commercials, one about the thickheadedness of voters who haven’t yet made up […]

    THE NEW NORMAL:  Tuesdays 9:30PM on NBC   WHAT IT’S SAYING:  A new kind of family sitcom:  gay couple, surrogate mother, her daughter–and her bitchy, bigoted (but, you know, funny) grandmother.  Grandma’s practically Sue Sylvester!  And what a coincidence, Sue’s creator Ryan Murphy is behind this too.

    CHICAGO FIRE:  WEDNESDAY 10PM on NBC WHAT IT’S SAYING:  Backdraft, not Rescue Me.  Big fires, sweeping, heroic music, a stalwart band of brothers (and the occasional sister) uniting despite their personal strife to save the people of Chicago. WHAT IT’S REALLY SAYING:  Even though it’s from Dick Wolf, not a pure Law & […]

> The Academy limits the number of movie ads that can be aired on the Oscar telecast (until recent years, they didn’t allow any), so as not to make the night look like the awards are shilling for the studios.  (God forbid!)  It’s not clear whether that’s the reason only 2 movie promos made it […]

    LAST RESORT:  Thursdays 8PM on ABC   WHAT IT’S SAYING:  Crimson Tide, with Andre Braugher as Gene Hackman and Scott Speedman as Denzel Washington.  Nuclear stakes.  A lot of grim-faced guys underwater and in Washington, drawing lines in the sand.. WHAT IT’S REALLY SAYING:  This is the lead-in to Grey’s Anatomy?  That’s a […]