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America's Next Top Model : season 13 , episode 6
"Dance With Me"
Now comes the point during the ANTM cycle/season when Tyra surveys the nine model heads in nine jars filled with life-sustaining fierce juice (aka vaseline, shhh, that's a secret) from her perch at the edge of the abyss ...
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Modern Family : season 1 , episode 3
"Come Fly With Me"
Some sitcoms work despite their premises. The faster the constraining "situation" is dropped, the better. But Modern Family is shaping up to be one of those rare comedies that actually derives unexpected humor from its premise. The show promises to ...
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So You Think You Can Dance : season 6 , episode 7
Las Vegas callbacks begin
And so, after five weeks of auditions, SYTYCD finally drags itself on to… well, more auditions. But this is Vegas Week, baby, which means no more joke auditions, fewer heartstring-tugging backstory montages, and, every now and then, a glimmer of ...
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Other Shows : season 1 , episode 1
Secret Girlfriend, "Episode 101"
[Secret Girlfriend debuts tonight on Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m. EST/9:30 p.m. CST]
What's the deal, Comedy Central? Are things really so bad that you desperately need this ratings-bating something-or-other?
Those without much time, here ... -
Sons of Anarchy : season 2 , episode 5
"Smite"
It's so great to be angry, isn't it? Somebody gets up in your face, starts slagging off, and it's like the fist in your hand forms itself, like the fingers are joined as a conscious entity separate ...
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30 For 30 : season 1 , episode 1
"Kings Ransom"
My good friend Luke is from Edmonton, Alberta, one of those cities that pops up out of nowhere when you’re driving across North America’s great northern expanses, tall buildings that would be dwarfed in most other metropolises standing ...
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Hell's Kitchen : season 6 , episode 13
“4 Chefs Compete”
Watching Dave talk to himself in the mirror at the outset of tonight’s Hell’s Kitchen episode transported me all the way back to Season One, when the scraggly Michael wandered the HK courtyard at night, psyching himself up ...
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So You Think You Can Dance : season 6 , episode 6
Auditions: Salt Lake City
During the final episodes of last season, I was singing the praises of SYTYCD to any skeptic would would pause to listen. Any one of the final six or so would have been a deserving winner. Week after week this ...
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The Big Bang Theory : season 3 , episode 3
"The Gothowitz Deviation"
When Leonard and Penny decided to finally embark on a relationship (or, more accurately, when The Big Bang Theory’s writers decided it was finally time to give the characters something non-Sheldon related to do), no matter how the storyline ...
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Other Shows : season 1 , episode 1
Sherri - "Pilot"
Lifetime’s Sherri is one of the strangest shows on TV right now. I mean, yeah, there are stranger, but Sherri seems to take place in the America that existed only in Barack Obama’s speech to the 2004 Democratic ...
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Lie To Me : season 2 , episode 2
“Truth Or Consequences”
This week’s Lie To Me is so ripped-from-today’s-headlines-ariffic that it even includes a photo of Roman Polanski during one of the transition-blitzes. In the main story, college football stud Cabe McNeil (played by Chadwick Boseman) stands accused of ...
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How I Met Your Mother : season 5 , episode 3
"Robin 101"
So how is the HIMYM crew going to get Barney into relationship mode, you ask? Straightforwardly, I answer. The premise for this week's episode is that in order to turn from a philandering cad into boyfriend material, Ted enrolls ...
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Heroes : season 4 , episode 4
"Acceptance"
Oh, there you are, Heroes. I was scared for a minute that I was seeing a different side of you, a side I didn't quite understand. You hadn't insulted me for a few weeks; actually, you seemed to ...
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Gossip Girl : season 3 , episode 4
"Dan De Fleurette"
A couple episodes back (not that the past counts much when talking about Gossip Girl), we established that the creative minds behind Gossip Girl aren't ones for slipping things under the surface. Watching tonight's episode, "Dan De Fleurette ...
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House : season 6 , episode 3
"The Tyrant"
James Earl Jones is the title character in this week's House episode, "The Tyrant." Unsurprisingly, he's also the Patient of the Week. He's still as captivating a screen presence as ever, even stuck in a hospital bed ...
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Entourage : season 6 , episode 12
Give A Little Bit
Forgive me for the lateness of this post, Entourage fans (and haters)—I was at the David Cross show here in Chicago, and it was damn hilarious. Surely more hilarious than this final episode of Entourage’s sixth season will ...
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The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, American Dad : season 21, 1, 8, 5 , episode 2, 2, 2, 2
"Bart Gets a Z"/"Da Daggone Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance"/"Family Goy"/"Moon Over Isla Island"
It’s the second week of Animation Domination, and most of the night’s shows are already coasting. Been hoping you might get to see a Simpsons episode that gives a tertiary character what seems like a promising storyline, then ...
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Mad Men : season 3 , episode 8
"Souvenir"
For two weeks Mad Men turned out episodes that dispensed major plot developments at a breakneck pace. (Well, breakneck for this show anyway.) This week brings a summer idyll focusing almost entirely on the private lives of two couples: Don ...
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Curb Your Enthusiasm : season 7 , episode 3
"The Reunion"
Seinfeld: "Explain to me again: Why isn't this lame?"
Larry: "We'll find a way to do it that won't be lame."
We've reached the first episode in the Seinfeld reunion story arc on this season of ...
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Dexter : season 4 , episode 2
"Remains to be Seen"
Dexter is rarely better than when it puts Dexter in the midst of a situation where he’s having to improvise a solution to escape imminent capture. One of the best episodes of the first season centered on this idea ...
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Bored To Death : season 1 , episode 3
"The Case Of The Missing Screenplay"
For a show about an unlicensed private detective, this third episode sure had little to do with unlicensed private detectiving. But I liked it. It was my favorite episode of the bunch, in fact, precisely because it did away with ...
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Saturday Night Live : season 35 , episode 2
"Ryan Reynolds/Lady Gaga"
Three and a half decades into its storied existence, an air of homemade, “let’s put on a show!” amateurishness clings to Saturday Night Live. One of the truest things anyone has ever said about Lorne Michaels’ venerable institution is ...
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Other Shows : season 1 , episode 1
Three Rivers - "Place Of Life"
Note: Three Rivers airs tonight at 9 p.m. eastern. This review discusses plot details in tonight's episode, including the outcome of one of the cases. Those would prefer to remain unspoiled should skip the fifth and sixth paragraphs ...
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Dollhouse : season 2 , episode 2
"Instinct"
Here was my first thought on “Instinct,” the second episode of this season and the Dollhouse debut for the writing team of Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas: “Uh oh.” Having abandoned the adventure-of-the-week format of the first five episodes of ...
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Other Shows : season 1 , episode 1
Stargate Universe - "Pilot"
Stargate Universe debuts tonight at 9 p.m. EDT on SyFy.
I have an almost boundless appetite for science fiction. If there’s a spaceship or a time machine show or something like that, I’ve probably at least sampled ...
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The Prisoner : season 1 , episode 8-9
"The General" / "A., B., and C."
"The General"
It had some swell action sequences and a cool concept, but sometimes I think the appeal of The Matrix can be boiled down to one simple line: "I know kung-fu." Finding out that everything you've ever seen ... -
Community : season 1 , episode 3
"Introduction to Film"
It’s taken all of three weeks, but even after this episode – probably the weakest the show has done yet – I’m starting to really fall for Community and fall hard. It’s been a long while since I’ve ...
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FlashForward : season 1 , episode 2
"White to Play"
FlashForward’s second episode opens with a nicely creepy image, then immediately undercuts said image with the revelation that it’s all a big gag. That’s perhaps a bit harsh of a way to classify it, but at the ...
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It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia : season 5 , episode 3
"The Great Recession"
Another pseudo-topical entrant from Sunny tonight: After introducing viewers to the cause of the economic downturn with the season five premiere, “The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis,” shit got even more real in episode three when the gang got their ...
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Project Runway : season 6 , episode 7
"The Sky Is The Limit"
Now that we're mercifully past the halfway point of this prolonged shrug pretending to be Project Runway, let's evaluate what we've got. In the good column, we've got Heidi and her pin-voice still pleasantly stabbing us ...
