Playlist 8-15-14
A whole lot of summer songs, of course, before it's all over, with two songs each from the Beach Boys and Belle & Sebastian. There was some Baseball (Project), too.…
Friday TV: Fake Shark, Robin Tributes
Discovery Channel's Shark Week has demolished any credibility it might have once had by moving to fake documentaries that are just this side of "Sharknado." With the idea that any…
Thursday TV: Three Summer TV Finales
Summer is drawing to an end, at least on TV, where three distinctly different shows hold their season finales. In the eighth season finale for "Last Comic Standing" (NBC, 9…
Wednesday TV: Sean Bean in ‘Legends’
Ned Stark lives again in "Legends" (TNT, 9 p.m.), a new undercover series starring Sean Bean. Famously beheaded in "Game of Thrones." Bean has a gun to his head within…
Who’s Worse: Kiss or NYC Singles?
They continue to unload new summer reality shows like watermelons from a disabled farm truck. Two new ones debuted Tuesday, with Kiss starting an arena football team for AMC and…
Tuesday TV: A Slew of New Reality Shows
If the band Kiss put a fraction as much thought into their songs as they have in branding, merchandising and more merchandising, they might have been more worthy of its…
Robin Williams, 1951-2014
The initial reporting following the shocking death of Robin Williams Monday at 63 concentrated on the usual touchstones of "Mork & Mindy" and "Good Will Hunting" but generally ignored his…
Monday TV: Disapproving ‘Approval Matrix’
The adaptation of New York magazine's reliable and smart back page feature into a TV show is just the kind of thing that would land it in the middlebrow/despicable field.…
Sunday TV: Teen Choice, Shark Week
The 2014 "Teen Choice Awards" (Fox, 8 p.m) has already had more slime than Nickelodeon's Kid Choice Awards. In fact, the spectacular water main break at the UCLA campus caused…
Letter from The Beach
Some still advertise the beach as the place to "get it away from it all." It is to laugh. Certainly, it's a time I look forward to each summer. But…