HBO's Veep may have a veneer of frivolity, but it's part of HBO's larger move towards politically relevant material in 2012.
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TV
Is HBO Making a Turn Toward Relevance?
Half-time in America
I love the SuperBowl, but not for the reasons you’d expect. I usually don’t know who’s in it, don’t care who wins it, and don’t watch it. I do, however, love to use it in class when I teach TV Criticism because I’ve found the Super Bowl’s ads are useful texts with which to...
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The Brotherhood of NBC
When NBC aired its "Brotherhood of Man" promotion before the Super Bowl on Sunday, it provided a useful take on the network's biggest strength...and its potential weakness.
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Accessing the Cinematic Cloud
Recent comparisons to the early experience of using an ATM seem to offer quite a bit of potential for describing how we will be buying and watching movies and television shows in the near future.
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NBC’s SMASH: Not Exactly Smashing
As a fan of musical theater, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the premiere of SMASH, the new NBC drama about the behind-the-scenes adventures of a group of people attempting to open a new musical on Broadway. Though the show is set to premiere after the Super Bowl, NBC has already released the pilot for free...
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Specter of Legitimation: The Fading of NBC’s Thursday Legacy
While the actual “Must See TV” branding is all but gone, there remains a specter of legitimation surrounding the evening…at least in the eyes of NBC schedulers.
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Promoting an Uncertain Future: Showrunners (on Hiatus) on Twitter IV
With NBC's Community and ABC's Cougar Town on hiatus, their respective showrunners' Twitter accounts become key outlets for implicitly or explicitly encouraging fan involvement and/or activism.
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SOPA: Just Say NOPA
Whatever you’ve been doing on the internet in the last few weeks, chances are you ran across something about SOPA. And for good reason—SOPA might just be the most dangerous internet legislation the US government has ever considered.
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Lost and Found Doctor Who: Time-Travelling TV?
The tantalising return of two episodes of early Doctor Who deserves celebration. But perhaps the tempting notion of two cultures or past/present eras of TV deserves a measure of critique.
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Locked In on ESPN
As the lights rose on a recent late night edition of ESPN’s SportsCenter, anchors Stuart Scott and Scott van Pelt grinned disingenuously, like desperate salesmen sampling crumb cake before demanding we sign for all eight units. ESPN had just wrapped coverage of an utterly forgettable college basketball game that saw No. 5 North Carolina...
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In Thanks: To The Documentary Group for America In Primetime
The four part look at US television, America in Primetime, has been extraordinary, offered me new ideas, and left me reminded of the possibilities of the medium and with renewed thanks that I earn a living studying it.
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Situation Without Comedy
FOX's new animated sitcom Allen Gregory trades heavily in humiliation. Cynthia Chris examines the comedic resonance of this sort of situation in light of recent events.
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A Song of Ice and Trading Cards: Licensing HBO’s Game of Thrones
The licensing process for the HBO series highlights the challenge of balancing a level of control over the quality of products related to the series with efforts to both monetize and expand its audience.
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Out of Time
Each year, the anticipated fall premiere television season is followed by an equally exciting period: fall cancellation season. The failures of The Playboy Club and Pan Am raise the question of why we turn to period TV, especially post-Mad Men.
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Problematic Promotional Moments
What happens when the television production schedule leads to promotions which are out of date by the time they air?
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