All TV

A blog from the Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall

Spoilers for Wednesday night's "Sons of Anarchy" coming up just as soon as I pick up my menopause prescription... Continue reading "Sons of Anarchy, "AK-51": Don't mess with his old lady" »

Some brief thoughts on last night's special Thursday edition of "Saturday Night Live" coming up just as soon as I give up on being a Cubs fan... Continue reading "SNL: Thursday night live, take one" »

Spoilers for last night's "ER" and "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I take off these three-inch heels... Continue reading "ER & Grey's Anatomy: Evacauation situations" »

Spoilers for "The Office" coming up just as soon as I enjoy a Bloomin' Onion... Continue reading "The Office, "Business Ethics": Dumbledore Calrissian to the rescue!" »

We're in the home stretch for fall season premieres, and given how many of them are remakes of British series, it's a wonder that by now I'm not talking in a bad Cockney accent about how I need to go up the apples and pears to have a butcher around.

Tonight, we get two more: ABC's time-twisting cop show "Life on Mars" and CBS' science procedural "Eleventh Hour." Considering how bad most of the season's international imports have been so far, "Life On Mars" is surprisingly good (or, at least, surprisingly not bad), while "Eleventh Hour" has problems that have nothing to do with its country of origin.

Continue reading "Sepinwall on TV: 'Life on Mars' & 'Eleventh Hour' reviews" »

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode two, coming up just as soon as I enroll in one of Buddy Garrity's yoga classes... Continue reading "Friday Night Lights, "Tami Knows Best": I like my squab rare, dagnabit!" »

I don't have time to say much about tonight's big top-flavored "Pushing Daisies," save that I still don't understand Chuck's family tree, that Chi McBride is the man, that Rachael Harris was her usual brilliant deadpan self as the client, and that Olive's description of how the convent porridge tasted ("I could throw up in my mouth a little and not even know the difference") is immediately going into my database of pop culture quotes to be used in everyday conversation. Oh, and, like the subject line says, what sort of "contraptions" is Ned building?

What did everybody else think?

In these days of comedy political correctness, you can no longer make fun of people based on ethnicity, gender, age, and possibly even body type without getting attacked for being insensitive. That leaves only one unprotected, easy to mock group left: stupid people. Stupid people have no advocacy lobby, and even if they did, it would be manned by people too stupid to realize they were being made fun of in the first place. (Thank you; I'll be here all week. Try the veal.)

But having a laugh at the expense of the ignorant isn't as easy as it looks, as shown by three comedies with low-IQ central characters that premiere over the next two nights: NBC's "Kath & Kim" (tomorrow at 8:30), FX's "Testees" (tomorrow at 10:30) and season two of Comedy Central's "The Sarah Silverman Program" (tonight at 10:30). The latter two succeed intermittently, but "Kath & Kim" is among the most unpleasant viewing experiences of my lifetime.

Continue reading "Sepinwall on TV: 'Kath & Kim,' 'Testees' and 'The Sarah Silverman Program' reviews" »

Spoilers for "The Shield" coming up just as soon as I get my iron... Continue reading "The Shield, "Animal Control": Back to the beginning of the end" »

Quite the week for cable renewals, now with the news that TBS has ordered a third season of "My Boys." (This should once and for all, I hope, explain that the first two batches of episodes were part of one season and not two separate seasons. Man, I hate cable "seasons.")

Like season two, it'll be only 9 episodes, and is set to debut sometime in early '09. I wasn't that happy with most of last season, but I still like hanging out with these characters.

Spoilers for last night's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" coming up just as soon as I do a book report on "Ozma of Oz"... Continue reading "Terminator, "Goodbye to All That": Tag 'em and BAG 'em, gents" »

Spoilers for last night's "Heroes" coming up just as soon as I pick the John Foster Dulles desk... Continue reading "Heroes, "I Am Become Death": Atomic waffle man" »