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Television

Hoop nightmare

Len Bias’s death was more than just a basketball tragedy.
It wasn’t quite the world-shattering, where-were-you-when moment as the space shuttle Challenger exploding into cottony plumes earlier that year. But I still remember my naive and dazed disbelief upon hearing that basketball star Len Bias had died of a cocaine overdose on June 19, 1986

By MIKE MILIARD | October 28, 2009

Interview: Ken Burns

On his latest PBS documentary, The National Parks
After watching The National Parks: America's Best Idea , it would be easy to conclude that it all could have been said a lot faster. Ken Burns disagrees — but he's not just being defensive.

By CLIF GARBODEN | September 25, 2009

Photos: The National Parks: America's Best Idea

Images from Ken Burns's latest documentary
Scenes from The National Parks: America's Best Idea , a six-part, 12-hour film by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, George Masa.

By PHOENIX STAFF | September 24, 2009

Holy landscape!

Ken Burns worships America's spiritual resource
At its core, Ken Burns's PBS 12-hour epic The National Parks: America's Best Idea (nightly on WGBH Channel 2 at 8 pm, from September 27 through October 2) is a selective, initiative by initiative, advocate by advocate, chronicle of the evolution of the National Parks system and the changing roles protected lands have played in American culture since Congress validated Yosemite in 1864.

By CLIF GARBODEN | September 24, 2009

Fallon Upward

Local Laughs
Boston is thoroughly dominating NBC's fall line-up.

By MIKE MILIARD | September 16, 2009

Interview: Jason Schwartzman

On trying another identity in Bored to Death
"Three seconds into reading one of Raymond Chandler's books, I want a whiskey and a cigarette."

By RYAN STEWART | September 15, 2009

Big sleepy

Bored to Death brings a stoner PI to HBO
If television is indeed a reflection of society, then to judge from what's on the screen these days, we're all surrounded by people leading seedy double lives.

By RYAN STEWART | September 16, 2009

Interview: Glenn Howerton

On hitting the road with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
"This is our sick twisted fantasy life."

By CHRIS FARAONE | September 08, 2009

Interview: Paula Deen

Storming the Bean
"I'm just looking so forward to coming up there. And having lobster. In some butter. Did I mention I like butter?"

By SHAULA CLARK | August 26, 2009

West coasting

Is Project Runway walking in circles?
As I watched this season's 16 Project Runway hopefuls squinting into the setting sun during their champagne reception atop the Title Guarantee Building in Los Angeles, it was hard not to view the scene as a sad little metaphor for the state of the show. What's supposed to feel like the beginning of something new sure looks a lot more like the end of something old.

By MICHAEL BRODEUR | August 26, 2009

Our Don Drapers, Ourselves

The Mad Men mystique
This Sunday is the premiere of the third season of Mad Men (AMC, 10 pm), the Emmy-winning show that made fans of good television have to figure out where AMC was on their basic-cable schedules.

By GUSTAVO TURNER | August 12, 2009

Mr. Peepers in Mumbai

Can Chris Kattan be a Bollywood Hero?
Here's something Chris Kattan probably rarely hears in real life: "In Night at the Roxbury, you were awesome!" Such, however, is the encomium proffered by two young Indian fans toward the beginning of IFC's somewhat random but not altogether terrible new mini-series Bollywood Hero .

By MIKE MILIARD | August 05, 2009

Madcap laffs

The Mighty Boosh comes to DVD
Come with us now, on a journey through time and space to the world of the Mighty Boosh.

By MIKE MILIARD | July 15, 2009

Boys' life

Hung and Entourage measure success
The premise for HBO's new half-hour comedy Hung (Sundays at 10 pm) is so over-the-top as to be cringe-worthy: high school basketball coach Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), divorced and broke, starts whoring himself to ladies on the basis of his giant schlong. I know: ugh.

By JON GARELICK | July 14, 2009