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Television

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

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

Interview: Russell T Davies

Davies on atheism, American TV, and five decades of Doctor Who
"I certainly knew from Queer as Folk that gay male stories attract a lot of women viewers."

By: ROB TURBOVSKY | July 24, 2009

Going Mental

Fox's new psych-doc drama
Fox's new drama Mental (Thursdays at 9 pm on Fox) is House with a thoroughly likable doctor at its center, but it won't have half the shelf life of its predecessor.

By: DAVID KRONKE | May 27, 2009

Engine notes

Top Gear hits heavy traffic
The big question with Top Gear, the popular British consumer-car show (in perpetual reruns on BBC America), is this: will it succeed in denting my colossal lack of curiosity about cars?

By: JAMES PARKER | May 05, 2009

Gag reel

Sit Down, Shut Up needs to take its own advice
The Devil's in the details in Fox's new animated series, Sit Down, Shut Up , but I wish he'd gotten more involved in the main elements as well — like stories.

By: DAVID KRONKE | April 14, 2009

Lost tribes found

'GBH puts a human face on history
Nobody likes a guilt trip. That's why filmmaker Ric Burns's 1995 Manifest Destiny documentary The Way West was such a drag.

By: CLIF GARBODEN | April 07, 2009

Review: MI-5

Breaking new ground with old tools
When in 2002 BBC1 launched Spooks , from independent producer Kudos Film and Television, it must have been something of a courageous act.

By: CLIF GARBODEN | March 31, 2009

Hard times

Life and debt in Dickens's Little Dorrit
When last year the BBC interrupted its broadcast of Little Dorrit — which hinges on the downfall of a Bernie Madoff–like figure — for a tawdry true-crime documentary, thousands of viewers complained: don't leave us hanging!

By: JUSTINE ELIAS | March 24, 2009

Botswana beauty

HBO does Alexander McCall Smith proud
As any fan of traditional mysteries knows, a good detective must pay attention to details. And Precious Ramotswe, the founder of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, finds that truer than most.

By: CLEA SIMON | March 16, 2009

Proud to jump the shark

Macho, loopy, and entertaining as hell, The Unit is prime Mamet
Who but David Mamet would have the macho audacity to name his TV show after the male genitalia?

By: JON GARELICK | February 25, 2009

Review: Honey West

Femme fantastic
I didn't see Honey West during its one-season, 1965-'66 prime-time run on CBS.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | February 17, 2009

Interview: Joss Whedon

Cult of personality
When I first reach Joss Whedon — the director, writer, and producer who is perhaps best known as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — at his office at Fox Studios in Los Angeles, it's about 9 am his time, and it sounds as if I'd caught him before his coffee had kicked in.

By: SHARON STEEL | February 09, 2009