Whew. I'm just back from two weeks at the L.A. press tour, where TV critics heard all about the networks' fall plans for scripted shows. Which makes it all the more depressing to look through tonight's network listings and find . . . reality crap...

2008

Jul

TCA PRESS TOUR: 'THE SHIELD' FINALE ROCKS THE HOUSE; 'SONS OF ANARCHY' PLAYS THE ENCORE By Diane Werts

FX' newest drama is called Sons of Anarchy, but it might as well be called Son of The Shield. And if you look at the entirety of TV today, you're seeing Sons of The Shield...

2008

Jul

TCA: DENNIS HOPPER GOES 'CRASH' By Diane Werts

Here's how to make people pay attention to your ho-hum cable channel: Give them quality programming. FX did it with The Shield. TNT did it with The Closer. Now Starz has a series inspired by 2005's Oscar-winning best picture Crash...

2008

Jul

TCA PRESS TOUR: HBO'S 'TRUE BLOOD' By Diane Werts

So now we've had our first true network presentation here at this summer's Television Critics Association press tour. Oh, wait -- the presenter was HBO..

2008

Jul

TCA PRESS TOUR: ALL TV, ALL THE TIME By Diane Werts

One minute, you're hearing from the sublime cast and creator of AMC's deliciously smart drama Mad Men. The next -- literally -- it's Dave Attell talking about his remake of the hallucinatory '70s fave The Gong Show...

2008

Jul

WEIRD & WILD: 'CAR TALK' CARTOON? By Diane Werts

How much do we love NPR's Car Talk? We wish that public radio's weekly advice/amusement hour had its own channel, 24/7, so we could listen to Tom and Ray Magliozzi chortle whenever we need a laugh, too...

2008

Jul

HOT SPOT: 'BIG LOVE' IS BACK By Diane Werts

Now there's something to watch on Saturday nights through the summer. HBO is re-airing all of Big Love, starting with the polygamy drama-comedy hour's 2006 pilot (Saturday, July 5 at 8 p.m. ET, HBO2)...

2008

Jul

FLICK PICKS: BIG BAND MOVIES ON TCM By Diane Werts

Well, beat me daddy, eight to the bar -- Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Artie Shaw, Kay Kyser and Cab Calloway [pictured at left] are just a few of the varied big band leaders being showcased on Wednesday nights throughout July by Turner Classic Movies...

2008

Jun

FLICK PICKS: ROSALIND RUSSELL MONTH STARTS WITH 'HIS GIRL FRIDAY' By Diane Werts

It's great enough seeing a prime-time screening of the 1940 Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell screwball delight His Girl Friday. But this zippy newspaper tale/knockabout romance is only the first of 36 Russell films airing Wednesdays throughout July in TCM's Star of the Month salute...

2008

Jun

TRIBUTE: GEORGE CARLIN FOR KIDS By Diane Werts

While everybody's tributes to the influential comic who died last weekend mentioned his "seven dirty words" (including mine), most of us forgot about a different side of this "adult" performer...

Posts 411-420 of 441

41 42 43 44 45

Diane Werts

Associate Editor

Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

New From TVWW

Diane Werts

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption

1957: Julie Andrews Stars in 'Cinderella'