Jay Leno in prime time: death knell for quality network TV?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how corporate entertainment might change if the economy tanks much more than it already has — and that seems likely to happen — and how we consumers of both corporate and independent entertainment might change the way we consume it. (More on that in another post.) Of all … more…

Television Under the Swastika (review)

The Nazi Channel When you think “early television,” you think Ernie Kovacs and The Twilight Zone and Edward R. Murrow and I Love Lucy and quiz scandals and Rockefeller Center and the NBC peacock and doctors endorsing cigarettes. Turns out, though, that the 1950s were not the beginning of TV as a mass medium: that … more…

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (review)

Snarky and sweet at the same time and loaded with cameos of celebs having a great time, it’s even set in the old Muppet Theater, like the show was, with the star on the door of Miss Piggy’s dressing room and Statler and Waldorf heckling from the balcony and everything. I felt 8 years old again.