Mad Men has come back, and the slow-burn of the first two episodes is making me completely crazy — in a really great way. Project Runway returned as well, and I begrudgingly watched it, just to find out that it’s just as ridiculous as always. And Wil Wheaton got into a nerd-fight on Leverage. Not bad for the last week of August.

Mad Men returns

Mad Men is back, you guys. Yes, it’s been back for more than just a week, but I’m so stoked about having a new episode tonight. My life is finally complete. The funny part is that, even though fans have been eagerly awaiting the premiere to find out what’s going on with everyone, we really haven’t seen a whole lot yet. Peggy and Pete haven’t really interacted, Joan apparently married her rapey fiance, Roger apparently married Jane — whom we haven’t even seen yet. So much stuff hasn’t happened, but it’s still so exciting. There aren’t any good clips on the Internet, but amc.com has this cool behind-the-scenes video of episode 2, “Love Among the Ruins.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Mad Men, you guys. MAD MEN. Does it make my life sound completely pathetic if I say that tonight’s return is what I have been living for? I mean, yes, my child has still been clothed and fed, but come on … Don effin’ Draper is coming back! Tonight! What’s so great about this isn’t just that one of my favorite shows currently on television is coming back, but Jon Hamm, who plays the aforementioned Don Draper, has been charming his way across the talk shows this week. From Conan, to Jimmy Fallon, to Regis and Kelly, he’s been hitting them all — and staying awesome the whole time. So with that, I present to you this week’s column, completely devoted to Don Draper (AKA Jon Hamm). Read the rest of this entry »

This week in television was fine, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of new stuff that set my world on fire. Leverage was pretty funny, and Mad Men season 2 is on “On Demand”, which is pretty amazing, but nothing truly tickled me this week in the way that Anderson Cooper did, when he subbed for Regis for two days this week on Live! with Regis and Kelly.

It was so fantastic, that I’m devoting this week’s column to Cooper’s appearance on Live. These are three of my favorite moments during his all-too-brief tenure this week. In it, Anderson gets to the point with the Bachelorette, he talks about the child labor at Live, and Kelly shamelessly flirts with the newsman.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to be real with you guys for a minute. Outside of DVDs for my Virgin Diaries, I haven’t been watching a lot of TV lately. So maybe that explains why two of my clips this week never even aired on television, and the other two are from Jimmy Fallon. Look, I work with what I have, people. Regardless though, these clips are really funny, so enjoy!

Emmy Comedy Actress Roundtable

Okay, so this is kind of cheating since it technically wasn’t on TV, but this Hollywood Reporter roundtable, with current Emmy-nominated comedy actresses, is amazing. These women are obviously hilarious (except for Mary-Louise Parker, who just seems kind of scared), so there’s that. But more interesting to me are the tales of ageism in Hollywood. They all concur that TV is much more forgiving, but these women – who are all in their late 30s to late 40s – have a much harder time when they go out for film roles. Not only did Christina Applegate get passed over for a magazine cover because they don’t put women “over 35″ on, but both Sarah Silverman and Amy Poehler were asked to audition for the part of Jonah Hill’s mother. These ladies are all hot. We live in a crazy world, people.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s column is all about new shows. Well, kind of. The Tonight Show certainly isn’t new, but Conan O’Brien hosting it sure is. I take a look at that, examine jungle morality with Frangela, and decide if The Listener is worth watching.

Conan’s first day on the job

I’ve been super-excited about the prospect of Conan taking over for Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, though I have been worried that Conan’s antics may not mesh well with Jay’s established audience. After his first night, I have no idea whether or not he’s going to be successful in this new job, but I do know this: His opening was amazing.
Read the rest of this entry »

The week of Memorial Day and this week are pretty much vacation weeks as far as I’m concerned. Most of the shows have had their season finales, and the new summer shows haven’t started yet. There’s very little on, so I take a much-needed break from the tube. This also coincided with our Fios router crapping out, leaving us with no guide info or ability to use the DVR. As a result, I watched very little new television this week, but I was able to catch some good stuff on cable; mainly on TLC. Of course, “good” is a relative term, as you’ll see with my very first list item.

Things get awkward on the Jon & Kate Plus 8 premiere

Look, everybody’s talking about it. The season 5 premiere of Jon & Kate Plus 8 will probably go down in history as one of the most awkward hours of television ever assembled. The normal sniping and play-fighting between the titular married couple gave way to tense silences, words that weren’t spoken, and tears. The situation sucked, but it was compelling television, and more importantly to TLC, it garnered record ratings, meaning it definitely did not suck for the network.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since this column is dedicated to highlighting my favorite moments on television from the past week, why not bring it out of hiatus when everything is ending? Sounds like an awesome idea, right? In any case, this really was a great week in television. I found myself being blown away time and time again by season finales. Just Thursday night alone, with 30 Rock, The Office and Parks and Recreation could pretty much be a column onto itself. So let’s get started.

House is not okay on House

Maybe it’s because I missed the last couple of episodes leading up to the season finale, but wow. I did not see this ending coming. Sure, I thought it was a little weird that the love of a good woman was all it took to get House off of Vicodin, but what do I know about addiction? I pretty  much spent the last five minutes of this episode with my jaw on the floor.

Read the rest of this entry »