Best Television Shows

Archive for December, 2009

Rumors had been circulating this week, but now Comedy Central has officially decided not to renew The Jeff Dunham Show:

Achmed the Dead Terrorist has been all but buried on Comedy Central. Press representatives for the channel said on Tuesday that its hit series featuring that contentious puppet — not to mention Jeff Dunham, the man with a hand up his back — will not be picked up for a second season, confirming a report that appeared in The Hollywood Reporter…

The decision comes as a bit of a surprise given that “Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas Special,” a performance shown on Comedy Central in 2008, is that channel’s most-viewed broadcast ever, drawing 6.6 million viewers, and that the premiere of “The Jeff Dunham Show” was watched by 5.3 million viewers.

As much as I’d like to express unbridled triumph on behalf of human taste that this cancellation occurred, I’m still hesitant to get excited; on one hand, I know you shouldn’t stare a gift horse in the mouth — my 19th century prospector uncle always told be that — but on the other hand, terrible things will always exist and be really popular, and complaining about them is never worth the energy it always seems to require, so I’m not gonna throw a party or anything.

My New Year’s Party, on the other hand, will proceed as scheduled.

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• USA has a Burn Notice marathon all night.
• HBO has a True Blood marathon all night.
• AMC has a Three Stooges marathon all night.
• Syfy has a Twilight Zone marathon all night.
• TCM has Thin Man movies all night.
• Spike has TNA Wrestling all night.
• At 8, PBS has a new Live From Lincoln Center.
• BBC has a new Graham Norton Show at 8.
• At 8:30, Disney HD has four new episodes of Naruto: Shippuden.
• At 10, ABC has Dick Clark’s Primetime New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2010 (until 11, then comes back at 11:30).
• NBC has New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly (until 11, then comes back at 11:30).
• FOX News has Glenn Beck: Countdown to New Year’s at 10, followed by an All-American New Year’s and the Red Eye New Year’s Eve Special.
• At 11, FOX has Billboard’s New Year’s Eve Live.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

Continue reading What’s On Tonight: Live From Lincoln Center, New Year’s Eve shows, Marathons

Filed under: Late Night, Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free

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More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the best comedy shows of the decade.

Life is depressing. Wake up. Maybe eat some breakfast. Take a shower. Go to work. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Fortunately for us slobs, the glory of television has afforded us numerous opportunities over the years to break up the monotony, kick back, relax, and most importantly, laugh.

Clichéd as it sounds, it really is the best medicine, because even though you overslept your alarm, your boss was a jerk, and you stepped in gum while waiting for the subway, going home and seeing Peter Griffin fart, Michael Scott talk like a fool, and Barney Stinson hit on some broad always makes it all better.

So take a load off, kick off your shoes, and undo your belt to allow for maximum belly jiggling while chortling — here are TV Squad’s picks for the best comedies of the past decade.

Continue reading Best TV of the ’00s: Comedy

Filed under: OpEd, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free

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I’m not going to go into the best and worst things that happened in the world of soaps in 2009, but I have do some thoughts I’d like to share. So before we drop the ball and turn the calendar to 2010, a few highs — and lows — from daytime this past year.

1. Disappointing daytime. How could any soap fan not be upset about the fate of Guiding Light and As the World Turns in 2009? Guiding Light departed daytime after 72 years, going out not with a bang, but definitely a whisper. The show was a shadow of its former self, relegated to on-the-fly shooting with camcorders and lights that were likely bought at Home Depot. CBS then made the pain of GL’s exit more painful but announcing that As the World Turns would be ending in 2010.

Continue reading Looking back at the soaps in 2009

Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Daytime, Celebrities, Cancellations, Ratings, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free

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Remember Greg Grunberg? He plays telepathic cop Matt Parkman on Heroes and has appeared in a variety of J.J. Abrams programming. He was even the pilot of Oceanic 815 which crashed on the series pilot of Lost (I wonder why he didn’t make it to the Star Trek movie?). Well, on top of the rest of his resumè you can add application developer. He created an iPhone and iPod Touch application to obtain mobile coupons called Yowza!!!

As someone who also holds more than one job, I can certainly respect anybody who can successfully do so, particularly if that person is a working actor who probably doesn’t need the extra money (or does he?). Looking over the app, it’s pretty well done. I can say this with some authority since I’m an application developer as well. There are at least two coupons that could easily come in handy in my day-to-day dealings. Since it’s a freebie, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, the download is recommended.

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You can probably guess that Fox News dominated the ratings in 2009. In fact, thirteen of their shows made it to the top fifteen of the year. The other seven spots of the top 20 are made up of various MSNBC and CNN shows, with only Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Larry King Live cracking the top fifteen.

After the jump, the top fifteen (and here’s the whole list).

Continue reading Guess which network had thirteen of the top fifteen cable news shows in 2009?

Filed under: News, Programming, Ratings, Reality-Free

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The new season – the 23rd! – of MTV’s The Real World debuts tonight at 10. I used to watch this show religiously, but that was a long, long time ago. I missed the first season for some reason, but I really loved seasons 2 and 3 (L.A. and San Francisco). It was actually compelling TV back then, before media-savvy young people went on the show just to get their 15 minutes of reality fame. So I probably won’t watch the D.C. season.

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Filed under: Other Reality Shows, TV Squad Polls

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You’ve been waiting for this your whole life, and it has finally happened: someone has mashed together the opening narration and music from The A-Team with scenes from the Star Wars movies. I love stuff like this. I want someone to put the theme to The Simpsons on to scenes from The Wire.

[via Boing Boing]

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Video, Web, Reality-Free

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More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about a very aught-like phenomenon: the cult of celebrity.

There is no clearer metaphor for the concept of being a celebrity than the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You work hard to chase your dream and achieve a career for yourself by making your name known to the masses of the universe.

Then when you’ve grabbed that star and become a regular fixture in the flash bulb of the press’ cameras, how does the public honor your tireless toil and efforts? They throw you down on a sidewalk and walk all over you.

In the Aughts, however, a new celebrity oozed out of the primordial muck. A celebrity that still suffered the slings and arrows of the tabloid press and a complete loss of the right to privacy, but achieved their stardom by simply cutting out all that pesky hard work and tireless effort nonsense. These are the celebrities who became famous by simply because they were famous.

Continue reading Best TV of the ’00s: Celebrities

Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Late Night, American Idol, Celebrities, Judges, TV Squad Lists, Celebreality, Jay Leno

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The late night shows are in repeats this week. Last night Jimmy Kimmel showed an episode from a couple of weeks ago (a practice that I hate) with a segment that I thought was worth posting: The Phantom of the Oprah.

It’s pretty funny, even if the “Phantom of the Oprah” joke was made on Wings about 15 years ago.

[Watch clips and episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live and other shows at SlashControl.]

Filed under: Late Night, Video, Watercooler Talk, Talk Show, Reality-Free

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