State of the Union: Obama delivers a 'let's get to work' speech

The excitement with which journalists and political pundits anticipated Tuesday's State of the Union address was so unexpectedly poignant it...

Critic's Notebook: A democratic solution to the Golden Globes

There is nothing more democratic in this country than network television. Regardless of taste, artistic merit or critical response, the...

For Hollywood, it was a tough 2010

To paraphrase Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert, "Hollywood, we have a problem."

Comcast-NBC deal gets OK from FCC, Justice Department

The federal government approved Comcast Corp.'s bid to take control of NBC Universal, creating a new media behemoth that puts under one roof...

'James Ellroy's L.A.: City of Demons' takes light look at grim L.A. crime

Clad in a blue plaid suit and bow tie, his bald pate nearly scraping the ceiling, whippet-thin crime novelist James Ellroy is launching into...

The reality is that we love mean judges

— Do you have to be bad to be a good TV talent show judge? Up until now, that's been the thinking behind "American Idol," home of...

Piers Morgan promises to stir things up on CNN

—"Piers Makes Enemy of Madonna." That's the newspaper headline that's pinned above Piers Morgan's desk, as if it were an inspirational...

Television review: 'Pioneers of Television'

Television has been around so long now — more than 60 years in the commercial form we know today — that to many of its viewers...

Television review: 'Skins' on MTV features lots of teen sex and drug use

From the beginning, which is to say Charles Dickens, stories revolving around the lives of children and adolescents often shared a similar...

Bates does justice to 'Harry's Law'

The wonderful Kathy Bates, lately seen around NBC in a recurring role on "The Office," settles into an office of her own Monday as the...

Golden Globes: Host Ricky Gervais was just too nasty.

The opposite of dull and deferential is not snotty and abusive.

Golden Globes: Winner Katey Sagal is 'shocked' but prepared

Mommie-Not-So-Dearest triumphed over "The Good Wife."

Critic's Notebook: Television's wider, sharper, distorted view

I watch TV on a 20-year-old, 21-inch Panasonic television set with a single RF input into which I run a DVD player, a VHS machine and a...

Young doctors try to heal patients, themselves in 'Off the Map'

From Seattle to Santa Monica to South America; if only Shonda Rhimes were as experimental with genre and theme as she is with geography....

NBC wins the key 18-49 demographic, but is still second to CBS in total viewers

Football gave NBC one last big push in the ratings last week, as the networks begin looking forward to midseason and a new crop of winter...

Midseason Television preview: 'The Sunset Limited'

If Cormac McCarthy has a mantra, it's ask questions first, shoot later. His bloody, rifle-toting, border-crossing novels such as "No...

Kathy Bates tries her wings as a legal eagle on 'Harry's Law'

After decades in Hollywood, Kathy Bates still believes it's a great place — if you're looking for somewhere to fire your shotgun.

Just what TV cries out for: Two slices of Onion

The Onion, the satirical website, declares itself "America's Finest News Source," but such grandiosity may not be all that inaccurate: It'...