November 2008

So 2008 might not go down as a great year. (Stupid economy!) But at least our TVs paid huge dividends with plenty of great entertainment. As we get close to closing the book on 2008, we pick the 29 best programs, people, networks, moments and more from the year in cable TV. 29. Guilt Trips The wide range of cable networks, like a good menu, has something for everyone — including that tantalizing dessert that you know you should stay away from, but sometimes just looks too good. So occasionally we may find ourselves straying away from the likes of […]

She’s tough as nails as Chief Resident Miranda Bailey on Grey’s Anatomy, but when we spoke, Chandra Wilson had the giggles like a schoolgirl. Lately, life is a wonderful parade — she’s enjoying her role as Dr. Bailey in the show’s fifth season, she’s elated about her family life with her husband and three children, and last month she helped raise a tidy sum of money for breast cancer research. So how is it she’s so good at playing somebody so miserable? This month, in the Hallmark Channel original film Accidental Friendship, she plays Yvonne, an embittered and homeless woman […]

Ever since he got the job, Diedrich Bader has relished getting up in the morning and telling himself — using the hushed, all-business voice he gives the character — “I’m Batman.” The comedic actor, known for his roles on The Drew Carey Show and in Office Space, has to rein in his tendency to go for the laugh as he trolls the comic-book universe of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which debuts Nov. 14 on Cartoon Network. Instead, he plays straightman to all the lushly animated mayhem surrounding him. In stark contrast to this summer’s dark, brooding blockbuster The […]

She comes across as happy, bubbly and carefree, but for a girl not yet 16, Miranda Cosgrove has a lot on her plate — and she’s already thinking about going for seconds. Once the younger sister on Nickelodeon’s Drake & Josh, Cosgrove got her own show last year, iCarly, and this month it looks like it’s going far: to the Land of the Rising Sun, in fact. The series’ first full-length movie, iCarly: iGo to Japan, finds the gang nominated to win a prestigious web award, but only if they can get to Japan to compete for it. Along the […]

In the weeks following the attacks of 9/11, both Britain and the U.S. passed sweeping new antiterrorism laws. In America, the target became largely non-citizen terrorists. In Britain, which has over a million Muslims, the laws also allow the detaining or house arrest of British citizens. Under their system, someone charged has the right to an attorney and court hearing but the government can re-arrest on the same charges as soon as the person is released. Rightfully so, British Muslims see these laws as aimed directly at them. Four years after 9/11, in the summer of 2005, a series of […]

Looking at the chart success of the new album, “Songs From the Sparkle Lounge,” it seems that there are still a lot of people out there listening to Def Leppard. Joe Elliott: It’s the best chart position, I’m told, since Adrenalize, which was in ’92. We’ve been very fortunate in that every album we’ve released has gone top 20 in the States, including the covers album [Yeah!]. … There’s always been a healthy following, which is good. I think it’s because we always try to put a bit of quality into what we’ve got — a bit of humor, a […]

Life rarely goes well for Kaitlin Olson’s character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. This season alone, the FX comedy has seen her being made to believe she was a cannibal, undergoing waterboarding by urinal and seeing her embarrassingly pathetic video diary become an Internet sensation. Offscreen, however, Olson couldn’t be happier. She’s in her fourth season playing Dee “Sweet Dee” Reynolds, and the show has been picked up for an additional 39 episodes beyond the current run, which ends Nov. 20. The outrageous sitcom — about a group of ne’er do-wells who run a dive bar in the City […]

“Former child star.” It’s almost impossible not to start thinking of words like “troubled,” “wayward” and “busted” when you hear that phrase, isn’t it? The roads out of Hollywood’s childhoods are littered with stories sad and tragic, of lives fractured or destroyed. But a number of once-young TV and movie darlings have gone on, in adolescence or soon afterward, to form bands that at least helped them transition out of their child-star perceptions, and at most gave them a chance to rub those perceptions in the dirt. Some of their careers have been short and some definitely hit the rough-and-tumble […]

How did you get hooked up with Taylor Swift for “CMT Crossroads”? Phil Collen: Honestly, I think it was partly to do with the fact that we had teamed with Tim McGraw [on the song “Nine Lives”]. I think that kind of raised a bit of the interest. I think the main thing — you know, we actually started reading about Taylor Swift, and we saw this thing where she said if she was ever going to anything like Crossroads, the band she’d love to do it with would be Def Leppard. Right there, that pretty much set it rolling, […]