Counter Programming
Jon Lafayette, the longtime, perceptive TV scribe for such publications as Television Week, Cable World and Advertising Age, is back in the game, blogging for Multichannel.com on anything and everything TV related. Reach him at jon.lafayette@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter: @jlafayette.
ESPN's Fantasy Film is More Silly Than Reality
ESPN is in the middle of a series of documentaries looking at events and issues in sports that have arisen over the networks 30-year history. Most have been fascinating. A new documentary, Silly Little Game, makes its debut Tuesday and it illustrates the difficulty in illustrating fantasy sports—games played on paper by people studying statistics, arguing about trades at tables in restauran ...... Read More
Comments (0)Treme Brings New Life to New Orleans and HBO
Lovers of “quality” television, and especially fans of The Wire, have been eagerly awaiting Treme, the new HBO series from Wire creator David Simon. It’s here at last, with its premiere Sunday night and I’m very happy. Set three months after Hurricane Katrina, the series is blunt about the damage, destruction and death that visited the Crescent City. But more importantl ...... Read More
Comments (0)Searching for Runaways on A&E
Joe Mazzilli emerges as a new super hero in A&E’s new series Runaway Squad, which has its debut Monday. Mazzilli, a former New York City detective, once headed up the pimp squad, busting guys who pushed young women into prostitution. The experience stuck with him and now, as a private investigator, he helps families search for their missing children on a pro bono basis. On the premiere, ...... Read More
Comments (1)A&E Offers Hunted's Perspective in Fugitive Chronicles
Continuing on its path away from its roots as an arts channel to one specializing in what its slogan calls “Real Life. Drama,” A&E Thursday launches Fugitive Chronicles. The series takes a look at some of the nation’s most dangerous fugitive hunts. What makes it unique is that the story is partly told from the perspective of the bad guy, the escaped criminal on the run fro ...... Read More
Comments (0)Too Much Kirstie Not a Good Thing
You may have seen Kirstie Alley on David Letterman. Or on the Today show. That means there are two problems: Too much Kirstie on TV. And too much Kirstie. Ms. Alley, who put herself on display in the Showtime show Fat Actress a few years back, has regained weight. Her response: she’s appearing in a reality show on A&E called Kirstie Alley’s Big Life in which she expects to lose t ...... Read More
Comments (0)Oylphant is Big Gun in FX's New Justified
FX’s new original series, Justified, introduces us to Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshal, prone to wearing a cowboy hat and giving bad guys 24-hours to get out of town, then shooting them dead when they don’t believe lawmen who issue such warnings still exist in modern times. In the show’s pilot, which airs Tuesday night, Givens loses his cushy position in Miami after one very publ ...... Read More
Comments (0)Difficult Tales Told By Reporter on HBO
The film Reporter documents several tragedies at once. The first is a story of genocides occurring now with little attention. Secondarily, there is the issue why it is so difficult to get humans, and particularly Americans, interested in stopping starvation and death. And the third is the declining power and influence of the mainstream media to find tragic stories and inform the public. In the cen ...... Read More
Comments (1)Will HBO's Make It Make It?
HBO has a new series, How to Make It in America, that I see being compared to Entourage. Like Entourage, How to Make It is about a group of young men trying to build a career in a high profile industry. It’s also got some of the people who created Entourage, including executive producer Mark Wahlberg, involved. But most of the comparisons haven’t been flattering. In How to Make It, B ...... Read More
Comments (2)How to Make TV, the NFL Way
Did you think the Super Bowl was exciting? Are you sorry football season is over? TruTV is hoping your hunger for anything to do with the NFL will translate into viewership for its new series NFL Full Contact. Unfortunately, while many people are fascinated with how television is made, watching guys talk on headsets and walkie talkies for an hour just isn’t as exciting as the blocking, tack ...... Read More
Comments (0)Vick's Confession Won't Satisfy All
The latest fallen celebrity to seek redemption via reality television is Michael Vick, the NFL quarterback whose brilliant career was lacerated by his conviction for being involved in a dog fighting operation. One-time superstar is the subject of a 10-part series on BET called The Michael Vick Project, which had its debut Wednesday. There are those who find what Vick did to defenseless animals is ...... Read More
Comments (1)Do Good Intentions Get Buried on MTV?
I got an Email the other day from a publicist who wanted me to know about an unusual way MTV was promoting one of its new series, The Buried Life. The promotion involved taking over a storefront at 43d Street and Fifth Av. in New York. Passersby will be able to watch videos from the show and to answer the series’ central question: “What do you want to do before you die.” The E ...... Read More
Comments (0)Close Makes Another Season of Damages Worth Watching
Are you looking forward to another season of Damages? The FX series, with its twist and turns is sometimes hard to follow, but fine performances by Glenn Close and crew have always made the effort to stick with its serialized plot rewarding. Season Three of Damages, which begins Monday night, seems to be based on the recent headlines surrounding the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that cost rich folks ...... Read More
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