> NBC’s WHITNEY hasn’t really had much of a midseason break, but tonight marked its move from a cushy home on Thursday night, where it aired behind the network’s only hit, The Office, to the much more challenging job of opening Wednesday nights and clearing the way for new sitcom Are You There, Chelsea?  So […]

> The upcoming MEN IN BLACK 3 centers around a time-travel theme, and with co-star Josh Brolin as host, much of this week’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE seemed to be saluting the movie with sketches that could have been written anywhere between a year and a decade ago.   Thus, after an MIB3 gag monologue that made […]

          GUYS WITH KIDS:  Wednesday 8:30PM on NBC   WHAT IT’S SAYING:  Everyone loves Judd Apatow movies, right?  Irreverent guys who hang out together and give each other crap?   Because this is totally Apatow-esque–with cute babies! WHAT IT’S REALLY SAYING:  The last show that tried to imitate Judd Apatow was Work […]

> The Tony Awards aren’t quite like any other televised awards show.  They’re happily, unapologetically insular (and so are the ratings–thank god for CBS, where “young” audience is a relative term), and there’s hardly ever anything like an upset; this year the closest was probably Mark Rylance winning Best Actor In a Play for Jerusalem […]

  When football teams have a late game on Sunday and then have to play in the next Thursday night game, they sometimes blame a loss on the short week and limited practice.  Lorne Michaels and the SNL writing staff may want to rehearse those kinds of excuses after an underwhelming Thursday installment of the […]

> Even diminished from the powerhouse it once was, GREY’S ANATOMY is the foundation of ABC’s drama schedule, and its return to the air after a nearly 2 month absence should lift the network’s Thursday considerably. WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  Things were grim when we last visited Seattle Grace.  Cristina (Sandra Oh) had, unknowingly, operated […]

  ASCENSION:  Mon-Wed 9PM on Syfy In the post-Battlestar Galactica era, Syfy has barely even seemed to be trying.  It’s rather sad:  at a point when nearly every network–even CBS!–has at least one substantial piece of inventory in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, Syfy has been filling its air with tame programmers like Eureka and Haven, or […]

  Well, the studio audience seemed to be having a great time at SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE tonight.  There were more squeals than laughs to be had, what with Justin Bieber in the house as both host and musical guest.  The show was very careful never to force Bieber out of his comfort zone, and while […]