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The Aloha TV Season: You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye
n Hawaii, "Aloha" means both hello and goodbye. Consider 2007-08 the Aloha TV Season, because just as we've welcomed our favorite shows back to the schedule, it's time to say farewell again... (more)
Friday, May 09, 2008|
TV'S ALL-TIME FUNNIEST ABC, 8 p.m. ET I doubt it, but I’ll watch anyway. The older I get, the more I confront the fact that the memories of most TV shows and magazines assembling “all-time” lists begin, for the most part, with the advent of ABC’s “T.G.I.F.” Yes, Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason will be represented here from the old days of black and white – but expect results to be weighted heavily towards the modern era. Peg Bundy? Sure! Gracie Allen? Who’s she? The wife on Home Improvement? (more) |
GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT Fox Movie Channel, 8 p.m. ET This Oscar-winning film, made in 1947 (two years after the end of WWII), stars Gregory Peck as a writer who sets out to experience and expose anti-Semitism by posing as a Jew. It’s a powerful film, released at the time when Peck was a very powerful force in cinema. (more) |
THIRTEEN Lifetime Movie Network, 8 p.m. ET Evan Rachel Wood, whom I’ll always think of first as the sweetly precocious daughter from Once and Again, began distancing herself from that role big time in this gritty 2003 drama, in which she plays a young teen introduced by a rebellious classmate (Nikki Reed) to the evils of… well, you name it. |
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MOONLIGHT CBS, 9 p.m. ET After all the emails I got regarding my blog about the CBS ad campaign for this series, I’m not about to let it go without mention. This is the penultimate show of the season – and we’ll know, by the time the following episode airs a week from tonight, whether it’s the season finale, or the finale, period. I’m betting, based on the series’ performance in its time slot and the passion of the fans, that it’ll return. |
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Sci Fi Channel, 10 p.m. ET This series and Lost are doing the same thing right now, and for pretty much the same reason. This is the final season for this series, so the writers – just like those for Lost, which know the end of their show is a finite number of episodes away – can begin thinking about, and clearing a path to, the endgame. In tonight’s show, Kara comes face to face with one of the regenerating Cylons, and learns a bit more about her own destiny. (more) |
NUMB3RS CBS, 10p.m. ET Tonight’s guests are Three 6 Mafia, the rap artists whose surprise win energized the Oscars a few years ago. The plot has something to do with the murder of a rapper, but I’m not sure where the mathematical formulas come in. Maybe you start with “99 Problems,” and go from there… (more) |
 If you've bought all the individual seasons of Seinfeld to this point, getting the stand-alone ninth-season set, to complete the collection, makes a lot more sense. What you'll be missing, basically: a beautiful, exclusive coffee-table Seinfeld book (it doesn't unfold into a coffee table, but it's still impressive), and the new jewel in the crown: a one-hour chat reuniting all four series stars with Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. |
Veteran TV critic Bill Brioux has written a book that's heavily reported, immensely informative, and almost embarrassingly entertaining. The premise of Truth and Rumors is as original as it is ambitious: The idea is to collect, in one book, all the persistent rumors surrounding television shows, stars and events, and separate the facts from the fictions. If the rumors don't make you drop you jaw, or laugh out loud, the answers will. |
 The idea of "Classics to Consider" is to suggest TV shows that have been out on DVD for a while, but may have escaped your notice - and are perfect to seek out for those "nothing-to-watch" rainy days (or, if you don't have cable, summers). In that spirit, the very first, and best, such buried treasure to offer here is Dennis Potter's 1986 BBC masterpiece, The Singing Detective. |
GEORGE LUCAS
The idea here is to present occasional conversations - some vintage, some brand new - with people associated with making, presenting or analyzing quality TV. Because the first season of ABC's ambitious The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was just released on DVD (as The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume One), it seemed like a good time to excavate my interview with series creator George Lucas, conducted on Sept. 4, 1992, when that show was on the air.
Q: Originally, this came out of an interactive concept that you had had with one of your companies?
A: It was an educational foundation. It came out of an educational project.
Q: I was wondering if you ever really did do anything with interactive multimedia yet?
A: The area that we're dealing with in the educational foundation is interactive learning systems, which obviously is interactive media. It's a more hybrid (high-bred?) thing than kind of what is commonly now becoming known as the entertainment medium. We've been working in this area for 10 years.
