This week in TV Stereotypes, Movieline features old-fashioned generalization about inner city gang members, perfect boyfriends and grumpy postal workers. Unlike in previous weeks though, one of these stereotypical characters was portrayed by an Oscar winner. Can you guess which one before proceeding?
In part one of her Ultimate Favorite Things, Das Oprah gave away candles, TVs, cruises, brownie tins full of "edges," lasagna, an enough free Netflix to keep the audience stocked on late-'90s Diane Keaton romcoms for years. But the most important part of Oprah's largesse are the ridiculous screenshots they provide us. Help us give these nine stills the proper context -- as if a half-smiling FedEx "elf" needs more context.
Oh, Twitter. Crib of gossip, wellspring of panic. That's what we get for reading Rich Sommer's disclosure a little while ago that not only is he not returning to work on Mad Men any time soon, he doesn't know if Mad Men itself is returning to work any time soon -- if ever. But just to be clear, that's not what he meant. Allow him to explain?
Shonda Rhimes hid a few important lessons in last night's Grey's Anatomy: For example, even if you Super Glue yourself to your girlfriend, love (and a frustrated surgeon wielding acetone) will still tear you apart. Also, just because you are a star surgeon does not mean that you know how to properly mix an Irish car bomb. Finally, no matter how much of a lesbian you think you are, you will never be able to resist sex from a man nicknamed McSteamy. So pop a few pain killers -- nothing to burst that stomach ulcer though -- and continue onto the pain readings from last night's episode, "Slow Night, So Long."
It was announced Thursday that Robert De Niro will host Saturday Night Live on Dec. 4, and SNL fans are already nervous considering his last two outings as host. (Admittedly, the guy does look like he's giving it his all.) But maybe the increasingly complacent Oscar-winner won't be that bad -- after all, SNL has seen far, far more challenged hosts than De Niro could ever be.
Maybe 30 Rock's fantastic episode last night, "College," doesn't really boil down to a single winning factor. You can credit the bizarre Jack Donaghy voiceover plot-line and Liz's new nicknames for herself (Bliz-bian, anyone?) with some of the achievement. But one towering decision helped elevate this episode to the level of show's best -- and I fear it won't be a consistent part of the rest of the season.
Community has gotten to the point where every critic on the Internet will bend over backward to give the show glowing praise. As Emily Nussbaum just wrote on Twitter, "I laughed at literally every line of that episode of Community. Exhaustingly excellent." Well, that's one way to put it. Another way would be to say that while funny, "Conspiracy Theories and Soft Defenses" was a pale imitation of an Arrested Development episode, with a B-story that might as well have been left to an online deleted scene. Annie might have had a gun, but Community fired some blanks last night.
After last week's surprisingly boring mythology-development episode of Fringe, "The Abducted" at least tried to liven things up with some sad alt-Broyles backstory. Too bad underneath all those revelatory, family-building moments, the episode made about a lick of sense. Read on for the breakdown!
Last night, Conan O'Brien was so spooked by an audience member in full-on Harry Potter costume that he 86-ed his own monologue to address the Hogwarts fanatic. Meanwhile, George W. Bush relived 9/11 on The Tonight Show, Jim Carrey sang to David Letterman, Anne Hathaway cast herself in Glee and Jimmy Kimmel revisited ConanGate...again.
As anyone who has ever spent eight hours watching consecutive episodes of Cops (don't judge) knows, there is a fine line between bad and brilliant television. Some television is horrible because abominable writing and overacting mesh so weirdly well, that a series becomes unintentionally hilarious; other times, ridiculous conceits, tragically unfunny hosts and drunken reality subjects accidentally yield entertainment. Sadly, TV scientists have yet to isolate a foolproof formula to replicated this "bad but brilliant" genre, but Movieline has identified five programs that qualify for the category.
Nigel Lythgoe is one of my favorite forces in reality television, but he announced a big mistake today: American Idol's glorious semifinal rounds are no longer. Instead, this season's live performances will begin with Top 12 week, and we'll also be forced to watch as contestants compete in "music video" competitions. Horrifying, indeed. Without the semifinals, Idol loses so much great drama, intimacy, and some of the best performances in the season. Without further ado, let's show Nigel Lythgoe how much he messed up and revisit Idol's most incredible (and sometimes cringe-worthy) semifinal moments.
The spirit of the late Mason Lockwood will loom large on The Vampire Diaries in early December when Law & Order: SVU's Michaela McManus shows up searching for her missing friend. In this exclusive first look image from the Dec. 9 episode (the show's midseason cliffhanger), Damon and Alaric grill the new girl, Jules, about her connection to Mason. Click ahead for the full image.
Here's your first look at the pecs-tacular (get it?!) key art for Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, the Starz prequel starring Aussie thesp Dustin Clare as Capua's first champion gladiator Gannicus. The miniseries is set to premiere on Friday, Jan. 21 at 10 p.m./ET.
Last night, Trey Parker and Matt Stone skillfully skewered the Food Network in a new South Park episode so outrageous that at one point Randy Marsh masturbated to an episode of Guy Fieri's Big Bite. It happened. Ahead, a more detailed recap of Randy's adventure into the seedy underbelly of food porn, and the body count from last night's installment, "Crème Fraiche."
You want Modern Family to emerge from a two-week break feeling effervesced, spritely, and gay, but instead we were treated to a limp, opaque, overwhelmingly heterosexual episode. Manny tried to cancel his birthday party after worrying he'd lost his childhood, Phil and Claire fought for road dominance in their complimentary-colored SUVs, and Mitchell tried to impress by Cameron by joining a dance mob whose jam was the sublime "Free Your Mind." But which family member was en vogue last night? Join us for the rankings.
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