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Documentary

I Am Down With The Up Series

“Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” It’s impossible to talk about the Up series without beginning with this Jesuit maxim. It was 1964, Cassius Clay was the heavyweight champion of boxing, Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from Soviet power, and a still wet-behind-the-ears Michael Apted (later, director of Coal Miner’s Daughter and Gorillas in the Mist, among others) interviewed fourteen 7-year-olds from England for a Granada Television documentary. The premise was simple. The results were anything, but. Take fourteen children from all social backgrounds, visit them at the age of seven, and […]

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Drama

House: Osama The Astronaut Gets A Lifesaving Boob Job

Or House: Kumar With No Harold Goes to Princeton-Plainsboro Or House: I Hear Cameron, Chase and Foreman. With My Eyes. Forgive me for a quick minute while I try to land that whole thing about hearing with one’s eyes — the primary complaint of Patient du Jour for Season 4, episode 2. Cause I’m really stuck on that sucker. And whether or not I’m actually continually aware that sound enters through the sides of my head alone. And how, since PdJ actually seems to be having a particularly visual acid trip more so than any auditory issues, she decided she […]

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Drama

Tuesday Night’s All Right For Fightin’ — “Cane” Recap/Review

Posted by Sarah “To protect my family I will do anything, and that is both my blessing and my curse …” — Alex Vega, in what I assume is the new opening sequence of Cane It’s another gorgeous, sunny day in Florida, and Alex Vega is up before his alarm, looking worried. The guy’s got a lot on his mind: His father-in-law passed over his oldest natural son to make him CEO of the family business, and he just had someone bumped off for crimes past. Eventually his alarm goes off and he gets out of bed, showers, and puts […]

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Drama

House: He’s A Loner, Cuddy. A Rebel.

As the official, card-carrying, biggest fan of House, like, ever, I’ve come to a couple conclusions. One, it’s a darned good thing I’ve never been hospitalized for anything more confounding than childbirth. Because if my own medical team were forced to break into my home in search of what ails me, about all they’d discover — courtesy of 3 cats, a zillion-year-old house and five other family members who can mess a hell of a lot faster than I can clean — is that I should have been dead a long time ago. And two, after last Tuesday’s hilarious, heartbreaking […]

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Sports

MLB Playoffs On TBS

The MLB playoffs start today, and for the first time, TBS will have exclusive coverage of the Division Series. TBS also has coverage of the National League Championship Series, alternating between NLCS and ALCS with FOX for the next seven years. I’m curious to gauge public sentiment on how the TBS exclusive deal is going to mess with TV viewers who don’t have cable. There’s no over-the-air coverage of games on TBS, even for teams’ local markets. So imagine you’re a Cubs fan (hurts, I know) and they’re in the NLCS. You don’t have cable TV, so you’re going to […]

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Comedy

Countdown To Extinction: A “Cavemen” Recap

Last night saw the premiere of Cavemen, one of the most talked about new shows of the fall season. Sure, most of that talk has been people saying things such as, “Can you believe they actually made a show out of those stupid GEICO commercials?” or “I think Cavemen is really going to suck.” But we’ve decided to give it a chance anyway. Like The Onion once did with John Leguizamo’s abysmal sketch show House of Buggin’, we’re going to provide weekly recaps of Cavemen until it gets canceled … which could happen by the time you’re done reading this. […]

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Documentary

Orangutans: The New Meerkats?

After the sad and shocking death of poor Flower on Meerkat Manor last week, I just can’t take the heartache any more! I need to find a new “animal soap,” and I just may have it with Orangutan Island, premiering November 2 on Animal Planet and airing Fridays (filling in the void left when MM goes on hiatus; the season finale of MM serves as a lead-in to the new series on the 2nd). Taking place in Borneo, Orangutan Island follows a group of 35 of the title apes who have been orphaned and live on a river island sanctuary. […]

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Comedy

Commitment Phobia.

I have a love/hate relationship with fall television. On one hand, I get brand new episodes of my favorite shows, such as The Office and How I Met Your Mother. But then there are the new shows. Come on. You know what I mean. The new shows begin courting you. They show you promise, they seem interesting, and you begin sharing all of your free television time with them. And then, just as suddenly as they entered your life, they vanish. No explanations. No letter. They break up with you and don’t even have the common courtesy to do so […]

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Documentary

The War: “A World Without War”

Ken Burns’ The War comes to an end tonight, and, unfortunately, the episode title — “A World Without War” — does not refer to the literal fact that our world has gone on without conflict. Rather, it references America coming to the exhilarating realization that four long years of living in a war climate — either in actual combat, or making sacrifices on the homefront — are over. After being in a “war” mindset for so long, it might take a little readjustment, but it is certainly a worthwhile and joyous one. Right at the beginning, the episode realizes that […]