A friend writes: NBC was on at the convenience store this morning. How long has Ellie Kemper been a Today show regular and is it at this point (please PLEASE) understood as a limited time only deal? She’s way too talented to vanish into morning television a la Mariette Hartley or something. I didn’t recognize [...]
In the Oscars aftermath, a friend writes: Still hoping to find a web or press contributor someplace that touches more on the monumental weirdness of the Gaga / ‘Sound of Music’ mash-up. The movie musical itself was somehow almost kitsch from the beginning (not its own fault really either, the 60′s had changed the whole [...]
CNBC has quietly canceled “Money Talks,” the one-season reality show that followed the sports book operations of an ex-con in Las Vegas. The prime time show had low ratings from its start, but it also had some vociferous critics, including some who called his claims of 70 percent success bogus, and others, like me, whose [...]
A friend writes: How did you think ‘Boardwalk’ ‘s finale rated on the satisfaction scale? More intellectually resonant than emotionally, maybe. But extra points for being self-reflexive to a fault with the whole ‘cable series are always about anti-heroes’ business. The whole season’s worth of flashbacks can be read as leading up to the moment [...]
A friend writes: I think I like ‘Mulaney’ better than I’m supposed to. I always felt not enough sitcoms really learned from ‘Seinfeld’ ‘s example, or maybe that all the ones that were sort of in its mold missed the important “No hugs, no lessons” rule. The only one I can think of that actually [...]
So I wrote about Danny Kaye the other day, or at least a story about a guy who does a one-man Danny Kaye show, for the Washington Post. Then I got a letter from a guy who didn’t like Danny Kaye so much. I read the article on Danny Kaye in the Sunday Style section. I understand [...]
A friend writes, of a “Fargo” episode a few weeks back: How did Lorne Malvo cause the car wreck by storm of fish?’ Since it seems to fall in line with the other biblical plagues he for a fact visits on Oliver Platt’s character, locusts, water into blood. The next one in Exodus is a [...]