After a long night of confirming it all in encyclopedias and scholarly journals, I'm emotionally prepared to discuss all that I learned during this week's episode of Project Runway. Chalk and slates ready. 1) There is a color in existence named "blue." It is right here on page 377. 2) Macy's likes to design some of their clothes in "blue." Check Movieline for further updates. 3) "Blue" is an edgy enough color that it can have its own challenge. It is uncontrollable. You can't put "blue" in a box. "Blue" is your past and your fear. And lastly, 4) The producers of Project Runway are hitting the cyanide-flavored crackpipe now, because this is easily the stupidest, most ass-chafingly awful challenge in the history of the show. Come on, let's work through the horrid blue yonder together.
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David Letterman took to the air last night to share details of the latest extortion plot against him, an alleged $2 million scheme by a fellow CBS employee to bury details of Letterman's sexual dalliances with women on the Late Show staff. It was both a preemptive PR coup and the groundwork for what will no doubt be another torrent of abuse from the American right, but first and foremost, it was riveting television. More details, along with video of the segment (while it lasts), after the jump.
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Private Practice, the much-maligned spin-off of Grey's Anatomy, is not the best drama on television. It's not even the best show featuring professionally pissed-off doctors. (I'll still give that to House.) But following the show's winning ratings on Thursday evening, the show warrants defense against skeptics (a group that used to include me) who think NBC vaunts the night's best programming. The threefold argument unfurls after the jump.
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Last week, sometime before his triathlon-related injury, Conan delivered one of the Tonight Show's better opening monologue jokes -- a finely crafted two-liner that just happened to take aim at the city of Newark, New Jersey.
After Newark's Mayor Cory Booker heard about the barb, he shrewdly recognized his own opportunity for a smaller-scale Palin-Letterman feud, set up his video camera, responded, and then uploaded said video to his established YouTube account (CoryBookerdotcom). To see the back and forth that followed, included the latest video posted this afternoon, follow us after the jump.
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Maybe it's the generous Grey's Anatomy lead-in or just that Mer-Der fans can't in good conscience turn their backs on Addison after she lost her man and foolishly forfeited her billing at Seattle Grace, but somehow Private Practice's modest fan base has carried the spin-off into its third season, beginning tonight. With Katherine Heigl and Ellen Pompeo taking time off this Grey's go-round though, maybe this fall would be a perfect opportunity to reward loyal fans with another Grey's-Private crossover.
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Edrants.com spliced together all the brand-name references slipped into recent episodes of The Jay Leno Show, Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. This isn't just Jay riding an elevator with a guy in a Snapple costume, but a seemingly endless barrage of paid-for jokes nested within other plugs and run-on "sketches" like a grilling of the Wendy's mascot (The Office's Kate Flannery). In the case of Leno, fine, it's gross but seemingly in line with everything else going on over there -- but when Conan slipped in a seemingly off-the-cuff reference to a Subway sub during a recent interview, we'd suddenly felt violated by a meaty footlong. All three videos are after the jump.
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Instead of taking back the fired Jon Gosselin and just calling the show Kids & Kate Plus Ingrate, TLC has suspended shooting on Jon & Kate Plus Eight and released a statement about Jon Gosselin's recent attempt to shut down the show's production in the wake of his firing. The network planned on filming the show without Gosselin as Kate Plus Eight and chronicling Kate Gosselin as a single mother, and there's no telling what this bad press will do to Gosselin's Ed Hardy hoodie line that was set to finally establish "vomit-print" at as unassailable fashion statement. TLC's statement after the jump.
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Premiere season is drawing to a close, and we've already charted the successes of the violent spin-off, ABC's new family-friendly comedy block, the near extinction of the black sitcom and Sunday's Seth MacFarlane Power Line-Up. With only a few more series openers between us and a new season of 30 Rock, let's take a look at how this fall's premieres are stacking up and compare them to last season's best.
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Twenty-one years ago on Late Night with David Letterman, Sandra Bernhard ran through her "jokes" too quickly, scrapped for material, and dragged her friend out onstage. That woman was Madonna, a noted cultural trailblazer and fellow proponent of belted jean shorts. As Letterman and the pop phenomenon exchanged barbs about her role in David Mamet's Speed the Plow, neither likely guessed that the future would hold at least seven more episodes of Madonna-Letterman badinage. Their most recent "encounter" (as Madonna put it) occurred on last night's Late Show. Let's revisit the video chronology of Madonna's most memorable moments with Dave, and we'll even spare you the times she was promoting a children's book.
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Look, we know that you know The Hills is fake -- and yet, like professional wrestling, it continues to compel! That's why Movieline is proud to announce The Hills Reality Check. Instead of recapping each episode like we actually believe in Spencer's malfeasance or think the Justin Bobby love triangle is anything but producer-staged, we'll hand out two awards each week: one to the episode's most clearly faked moment, and the other to whatever stray bit of unexpected reality finds its way into this increasingly overwritten show. So, what two moments hit the Real/Fake jackpot during last night's premiere?
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All NBC hits cast curses on their actors, dammit. Just ask Eric McCormack, who aside from his season-long TNT dud Trust Me, has had to fill his post-Will & Grace TV work schedule with Monk guest appearances and an A&E miniseries. Finally though, McCormack has landed a gritty role in tonight's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit to really showcase his dramatic range and prove once and for all that he can play more than a happy-go-lucky gay lawyer.
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Nearly every television journalist reviewing The Middle, starring Patricia Heaton, has compared the sitcom with its ABC lead-in tonight, Hank, starring Kelsey Grammer. It is no secret that the two headliners co-starred in a short-lived series awhile back called Back To You and the reviews are quick to make puns about how The Middle tops Hank and Kelsey Grammer will be returning Back To the unemployment line when his latest sub-Frasier sitcom foray is canceled mid-season (more on that later). But at Movieline, you get the truth, and the reality is that while Heaton's sitcom easily trumps her lead-in, The Middle is comfort food. It's a Stouffer's frozen entree in gently upgraded packaging, so as not to scare away the middle American family who relies on it for sustenance after a long day of work.
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The revamped Melrose Place may be dogged with low ratings, but its producers are wasting no time hiring Heather Locklear to reprise her character Amanda Woodward from the original series. Last night Movieline caught up with show regular Shaun Sipos, who plays the blond, dark David Breck, to hypothesize about Amanda's entrance into the show, and where his brooding character will go next.
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After finally leaving her Friends character Phoebe Buffay behind a few years ago, Lisa Kudrow headed to premium cable for a new show, The Comeback, that would tweak those long years of sitcom experience. A vicious satire of television and stardom, The Comeback followed the behind-the-scenes shenanigans at a network sitcom starring a past-her-prime actress (Kudrow).
OK, here's the fun part! Guess how many words of that synopsis I have to change to tell you about a new Matt LeBlanc project announced today?
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With dozens of new sitcoms premiering on major networks this fall, only two center on African-American families. Both programs, Brothers and The Cleveland Show, were picked up by Fox, and The Cleveland Show is voiced by mostly white actors. So how can it be that in an era when our country's cultural balance is shifting faster than ever underneath the joint leadership of our first African-American president and American Idol's soul judge Randy Jackson, black sitcoms are rapidly approaching extinction? And more importantly, who is responsible for their demise?
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