All TV

A blog from the Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall

I'm feeling pretty good about my job right now, and it's not because I'm heading out to sunny California for the next 10 days to cover the Television Critics Association midseason press tour. Sure, Los Angeles is warmer this time of year than Newark, but what really has me jazzed is that - for the first time in what seems like a long time - TV seems interesting again. Continue reading "Sepinwall on TV: Press tour/mid-season TV preview" »

It took nearly two hours into the new season of FX's "Damages" for me to remember why I don't like it.

The show, like its main character -- amoral lawyer Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) -- can be intoxicating at times, all shiny surfaces and steely control. The cast, led by Emmy winner Close, is, for the most part, top notch. Few TV shows filmed in New York have ever made the city look like such an architectural marvel. And the series' mystery format and interlocking timelines makes it easy to simply sit on the edge of the couch and wait for what happens next.

But just as working for Patty is ultimately a bad career move because she's going to turn on you in the end, "Damages" is a show that inevitably reveals itself to be less fulfilling than it seems at first glance.

Continue reading "Sepinwall on TV: 'Damages' season two review" »

Since a lot of you were gone for some or all of the stretch from Christmas Eve until now, I thought I'd do a quick run-down of all the posts from the last week and a half: Continue reading "While you were out..." »

"Come on," Dr. John "JD" Dorian (Zach Braff) admonishes his colleagues late in tomorrow night's "Scrubs" season premiere, "I know it's tempting to just mail it in, but there's still a lot of people who rely on us week to week. I think we owe it to them to be as inspired as we were in our first few years." Continue reading "Sepinwall on TV: 'Scrubs' on ABC review" »

The BBC yesterday announced the identity of the man who will take over the lead on "Doctor Who" for the new incarnation's fifth season, and it's... a 26-year-old named Matt Smith. Continue reading "And the new Doctor Who is... this guy?" »

Yesterday's "Battlestar Galactica" discussion made me realize that I never found the right opportunity to transcribe and post an interview I did with the show's developer, Ronald D. Moore, back at the last press tour in July. With the final batch of episodes debuting two weeks from tonight (and with the next press tour starting on Wednesday), it's now or never. We start off discussing the upcoming "Caprica" prequel series, and that segues into a discussion of the final season of "Galactica." There are no spoilers, unless you count a segment where Moore says whether or not certain mysteries will be answered. Continue reading "Battlestar Galactica: Ron Moore talks about the final season" »

I'm trying really hard not to be some smug jerk who does these posts just to go "Nyah nyah!" about me seeing special things in advance, but I also know that some people like hearing in advance what I thought of something, even in the broadest terms. (It's why I do those summer pilot non-reviews, why I wrote about "The Shield" a couple of weeks before the final season premiere, etc.)

So I will simply say this: I watched the "Battlestar Galactica" premiere last night, and it is brilliant, and it is devastating, and I can't wait to talk about it with all of you on January 16. And if you're fiending for "BSG" and haven't yet watched the "Face of the Enemy" webisodes, you should get started with that.

Quick thoughts on Tuesday night's "Leverage" coming up just as soon as I do things by the book... Continue reading "Leverage, "The Bank Shot Job": I mis-counted the men!" »

I may have mentioned a time or 17 that my every waking hour these days is consumed with watching DVD screeners of shows that are premiering next month, and/or shows that will be paneled at the upcoming mid-season TV critics press tour. And, as I was swapping e-mails with Mo Ryan about our respective thoughts on Showtime's "United States of Tara" (Mo disliked it, I was hot-and-cold to it), she sent back a note that I think nicely captures my feelings about this screener marathon, and my hopes for the new year: Continue reading "I've got a good feeling about 2009" »

I don't have Time-Warner Cable, but for those of you who do, prepare to go Stewart-less, and MTV-less, and entirely Viacom-less tonight at midnight if Time-Warner and Viacom can't reach an agreement on a new deal. My daughter and I were watching "Backyardigans" this morning and had to suffer through an extended crawl warning parents (and, in my daughter's case, precocious early readers) that they were about to lose Dora, Diego and all their other Nickelodeon friends because the people at Time-Warner were being stupid-heads. (Or words to that effect.) Given the number of different constituencies served by the Viacom channels, and the number of major markets served by Time-Warner (including Stewart's home turf in NYC), this could get ugly.

I don't watch a lot of food-related shows, even though I almost never regret the occasions when I sit down for an episode of "Top Chef," or "No Reservations" or "Feasting on Asphalt." I guess my love of fictional narrative TV overwhelms my love of food and the cranky people who make and/or eat it.

But during this slow period, I've been watching a lot of Travel Channel's "Man V. Food," in which a guy named Adam Richman tours comfort food joints around the country to find out how they make their delicious (and, admittedly, artery-clogging) signature dishes.

Continue reading "Me want food!" »

Before we head into 2009, it's time to look back at some of the memorable and influential TV people who died in the last year. As always, there are too many people to hope this list will be complete, so to help make room for as many as possible, I'm deliberately leaving out people who dabbled in TV but were far better known for their work elsewhere, like Bobby Murcer, Heath Ledger (briefly starred in Fox's "Roar"), Michael Crichton (created "ER") and even Eartha Kitt (one of those who played Catwoman on the '60s "Batman").

In no particular order:

Continue reading "Sepinwall on TV: TV people we lost in 2008" »