AT PRIMETIME EMMYS, MAD MEN GOES 0-17

On a night of shockers at the Emmy Awards, the biggest one may not have been that Mad Men was passed over for best dramatic series — it had won the trophy four previous years — but that the series didn’t win a single award. Those connected with the series, as well as the series […]

TV REVIEWS: KATIE

Katie Couric seemed to send out a message on her very first afternoon talk show: don’t expect any heavy lifting this time around. Although she once remarked that her tombstone ought to read “Perky No More,” Couric appeared to be as perky as she ever was on the Today show, no longer attempting to affect […]

NBC NEWS CHIEF BLASTS NY TIMES CRITIC

The New York Times has come to the defense of its TV critic, Alessandra Stanley, after her report on Ann Curry’s departure from the Today show was assailed by the president of NBC News as an example of sloppy journalism. Steve Capus told the Hollywood Reporter: “When a television critic writes a critique of a […]

SORKIN’S THE NEWSROOM A HIT IN DEBUT

Aaron Sorkin’s first TV series for pay TV, The Newsroom, starring Jeff Daniels, debuted to solid numbers on HBO Sunday night. In its first airing of the night, it averaged 2.1 million viewers, then added 600,000 more in a repeat. Yet to be counted are those who viewed the series on their DVRs or via […]

CRITICS: OSCARS AMOUNT TO TEDIUM TV

Film critics wasted no time banging out reviews of Sunday night’s Oscars, with several of them posting their assessments of the affair within minutes after the ceremonies concluded. Indeed, Daily Variety‘s Brian Lowry posted his (negative) review of Billy Crystal’s opening as if he were racing a legion of tweeters. Actually, many of the reviews […]

TV REVIEWS: THE GOLDEN GLOBES

In the end, the TV critics concluded, Sunday night’s Golden Globes telecast amounted to yet another letdown, not so much because of the choice of winners — best drama: The Descendants; best comedy or musical: The Artist — but because of the commonplace performance of host Ricky Gervais. All of the critics had sharpened their […]

CBS LAUNCHES NEW MORNING SHOW

CBS, which has never been a major competitor in the early-morning hours dominated by NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America is trying again. On Monday it raised its old banner CBS This Morning over what appeared to be two distinct talk shows — one at 7:00 a.m. featuring veteran PBS interviewer Charlie Rose that […]

OLBERMANN RETURNS — AS IF HE NEVER LEFT

The oft-fired/oft-hired Keith Olbermann, lastly with MSNBC, returned to the cameras Monday night on Al Gore’s cable channel Current TV — and television critics agreed that it was as if he had never been gone. “He is the same fast-talking, hard-charging, unapologetically self-righteous defender of his version of liberal ideology that he always was. Only […]

PELLEY MAKES LOW-KEY DEBUT ON CBS EVENING NEWS

Scott Pelley took over the anchor chair on the CBS Evening News Monday and relegated the story that most newspapers headlined and NBC led with — the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal — to No. 3 on his list of top stories, nine minutes into the newscast. “Good for Pelley and CBS News and their sense […]

TV REVIEWS: THE KENNEDYS

So what was all the fuss over The Kennedys all about? That’s what the critics of the eight-part miniseries debuting Sunday on ReelzChannel appear to be asking. Certainly, they say, the series has its faults — many of them, according to most — but nothing really to get all that riled up about. Why the […]

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