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Drama

Swingtown: Heatwave

By Elaine B There’s one magical thing about oppressive summer heat. When you’re too hot to move and too sweaty to think about anything beyond showers, life slows down and you get introspective. This is an episode featuring plenty of sweat and deep thoughts and deceptions (most of them anyway) revealed. The heat certainly gets to Trina, who pulls out her collection of her old photographs, finds a particularly nice one of Tom and, feeling lonesome, calls him in Tokyo. Unfortunately, he’s not there so Bobbie the stewardess answers his phone. From the background noise, Trina knows that Tom’s room […]

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TCA

Who’s Running This Show?

Posted by RabbitEars During the always interesting and high-energy ABC Show Runners panel this afternoon at TCA (a very popular and successful panel begun last year), several of the network’s driving forces behind its top shows were on hand to divulge (or not) secrets to the upcoming season. On the panel were Greg Berlanti, executive producer and co-creator of Eli Stone, and executive producer of Brothers & Sisters and Dirty Sexy Money; Marc Cherry, creator and executive producer of Desperate Housewives; Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, executive producers of Lost; Silvio Horta, executive producer of Ugly Betty; and Shonda Rhimes, […]

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TV News & Program Updates

It’s Emmy time. Do you know where “The Wire” noms are?

Posted by SH The Emmys continue blazing down their path to irrelevance by again missing their final chance to honor one of the best shows television has ever produced. That’s 0 for 5, people, with no more chances to get it right, since “The Wire” finished its five-year run this spring. Scoring a lone nomination for writing, that brings the HBO crime drama’s grand total over its life span to 2. By contrast, “Boston Legal” — which long has followed a Shatner-dropping-trou, Spader-giving-impassioned-closing-argument cycle — received 7, including one for best drama series. In fact, James Spader has won more […]

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Magazine Archive

Mad Men Creator Matthew Weiner Is Shoveling Out The Dirt On Season 2

It still seems impossible. When TV’s hottest show, The Sopranos, finally left the air, the suspicion was that nothing could follow it, that anything its creative team might come up with would inevitably fall short. And then along came Mad Men. Sopranos executive producer Matthew Weiner’s hard-drinking take on the world of advertising executives in early ’60s Manhattan got people talking from the outset with its modern look, its brazenly un-PC swagger and, possibly most of all, the laughable amount of onscreen smoking in each episode. But it’s the texture and complexity of the characters and their emotional entanglements that […]

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TV News & Program Updates

Raimi Back in Syndication

Posted by RabbitEars Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) and the team that helped him make the syndicated hits Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess is back in the national syndication game, this time producing a series based on Terry Goodkind’s fantasy bestseller Wizard’s First Rule. As with the other two series, this one features the rugged and beautiful New Zealand landscape as its filming backdrop in the story of a woodsman who discovers his own magical powers and must use them to stop a tyrant from unleashing an ancient evil. Wizard’s First Rule has been cleared to air in 95% […]

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TCA

Family’s Affairs

Posted by RabbitEars ABC Family held its TCA presentation this morning, with a few notable announcements: * The Secret Life of the American Teenager, an immediate hit for the network after premiering just two weeks ago (it debuted to the network’s highest original series telecast ever), has already been renewed for thirteen additional episodes. One of these new episodes will air in September, while the remaining 12 will hit the airwaves in January. * Greek returns for another season Aug. 26. As it returns, spring break is over, and the gang returns to campus to complete their school year. * […]

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Reality TV

So You Think You Can Dance? Think Again

Posted by RabbitEars I guess I’m not like a lot of people in this country in that I have no delusions about my abilities in various endeavors requiring physical creative talent, most notably singing and dancing. Frankly, I have none in those categories. This has saved me much humiliation in the form of futile auditions for the likes of American Idol and Dancing With the Stars. Not so with many other people, who do overestimate their talents and throw themselves to the wolves (or the Cowells; same difference) in an effort to get famous, and seem genuinely shocked when faced […]

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TCA

Ashton and Company Come Knockin’

Posted by RabbitEars ABC is somewhat on its way to becoming known as the “anti-FOX” when it comes to reality shows, with many of its programs being fairly family-friendly and not in the business of embarrassing or psychologically scarring anyone for ratings purposes. Likewise with their new series Opportunity Knocks, premiering Sept. 23. In the show, host J.D. Roth (who, according to his bio, you can blame for “being directly involved in and responsible for over 2,000 episodes of reality/game television” either through creating, producing or hosting them, including Beauty and the Geek, The Pick Up Artist and Age of […]

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Reality TV

"Hurl!" Here: Balls Of Hurl

Posted by Ryan The Washington Post calls it “one more sign of the decline of Western civilization” and “for people who found Fear Factor much too nuanced and intellectually complex.” Damn straight I’m watching it. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to Hurl! G4, the network for prepubescent boys and 30-year-olds who still think like prepubescent boys, starts off the series with the episode “Balls of Hurl.” Tonight’s episode features five contestants eating loads of mac ‘n’ cheese, and then getting strapped in for a dizzying roll inside big cage Balls of Hurl. Let’s meet the contestants. As you’d expect, they’re all […]

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Reality TV

Bravo For Project Runway As Season 5 Begins

by WindUpDoll It’s that time again, kids. Didn’t that year go fast? Oh, yeah, it has only been about 4 months since the last ‘season’ of Project Runway ended. But because of the Bravo/Lifetime/Weinstein drama, we have to have yet ANOTHER season of Project Runway this year. Not that I’m complaining, ’cause I’m not. I love the show; but there is such a thing as overkill. And I’ll reserve my judgment about the decision to move to Lifetime until we start to see the next season. But I’ll tell you one thing, if Lifetime tones down the gay, I’ll be […]