Smash: Season One

dvd of the week The second season of that other musical on TV starts Feb. 6, which should give you enough time to catch up by watching the first 15 episodes. Like Glee, Smash is amazingly uneven, occasionally sublime, but mostly fascinatingly bad. The story of the making of a Broadway musical about the life…

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Movie theater memories

Last week, after enduring 25 minutes (I timed it) of commercials, I saw one film; furthermore, a Coke and a tiny bag of popcorn cost more than the ticket. Leaving the mall’s 13-theater complex, I thought about what it was like before the malls mushroomed across the nation and destroyed the vibrant downtown area of…

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BBC’s news director, deputy ‘step aside’ in fallout over false sex abuse report

Second major crisis to hit the BBC within months LONDON (CNN) – Two British Broadcasting Corporation executives have “stepped aside” pending a review into the BBC‘s handling of allegations of sex abuse surrounding its late TV presenter Jimmy Savile, the media organization said Monday. The moves by the BBC‘s director and deputy director of news…

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Happy Endings

Season premiere, ABC, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 9 p.m. One of the funniest shows on TV, Happy Endings is basically an updated, more racially and sexually diverse version of Friends. While Chandler was originally supposed to come out but never did, after Matthew Perry refused to do it, one the main characters on Happy Endings started…

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New GLAAD study records highest percentage ever of LGBT series regulars on broadcast TV; ABC ranks highest

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) today released the annual Where We Are on TV report; a comprehensive review of scripted LGBT primetime characters in the upcoming 2012-2013 television season. After a decrease last year, the number of regular lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) characters on broadcast networks has risen to the highest ever…

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Nice to be home

I am visiting my hometown Portland (the real one!), Maine. In the coffee shop this morning I overheard, “A deeah run into muthah’s cah dowah when she was leavin the pahkin lot.” A perfectly clear report of a common occurrence. Had this been heard in San Diego, various “wits” would claim to need a translation….

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