television
SNL Sketch Skewers Unwavering Black Support for Obama

The most recent episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live included an extraordinarily pithy an...

television
NBC’s ‘Constantine’ Translates Occult Comic Book Series to TV

Just in time for Halloween, the NBC-TV gothic-action series Constantine arrived last week,...

television
NBC Commits to Full Season of ‘Mysteries of Laura, CBS Affirms Four Series

NBC-TV has given a full-season order for new mystery series The Mysteries of Laura. After...

music
Morse’s ‘Songs from November’ Is Classic Classic Rock

Neal Morse is one of the most important figures in progressive rock, even though he didn't...

music
The Greatness of Jack Bruce

Jack Bruce, best known as the bass guitarist, songwriter, and lead singer for the rock s...

television
Ax Falls on ‘Manhattan Love Story’; Will Anyone Notice?

The first domino has fallen: after plumbing horrifying MSNBC levels of ratings disaster,�...

commerce
The World-Changing Possibilities of Apple Pay and Other Electronic Payment Options

Advances in information technology have not only transformed the media and the nation's cu...

commerce
New CBS Streaming Service Reflects Rapidly Changing TV Market

Hot on the heels of the announcement of a new streaming service from cable channel HBO ...

mysteries
The Amazing Badness of ‘Scorpion’

The new CBS-TV crime-drama series Scorpion is a clear attempt to refresh the cop show g...

genres
‘Gracepoint’ a Worthy Remake of Ambitious British TV Crime Drama Series

My attitude toward genre fiction is that it's best when the creator is satisfied to make g...

culture101
A Book for October: Ellery Queen’s ‘The Egyptian Cross Mystery’

October is, of course, a good month to read horror fiction, given the obvious connection t...

commerce
HBO Streaming Announcement Is Good News for All Entertainment Consumers, Not Just HBO Watchers

Acting on plans reported here a month ago, entertainment channel HBO has decided to end it...

television
CW’s ‘The Flash’ Impresses with Unusual Avoidance of Gloom

The CW network has become something of a cottage industry for B-level (and C-level) superh...

books
Interview with (Fictional) Bestselling Mystery Writer Richard Castle

The ABC-TV series Castle (Mondays at 10 p.m. Eastern) features as co-protagonist a bestse...

movies
The New Ghostbusters: ‘Hilarious Women’

The good news is that a new Ghostbusters film is finally looking likely: writer-director P...

genres
Syndicated ‘The Pinkertons’ Western Drama Series Presents History (Surprisingly) Fairly

Set in the Great Plains region in the years immediately following the American Civil War/W...

mysteries
Lynch, Frost Return to ‘Twin Peaks’—Why It Might Just Work

It's been a "damn fine" year for admirers of the early-1990s ABC TV series Twin Peaks:...

music
Remembering Paul Revere and the Raiders

I enjoyed the music of Paul Revere and the Raiders when I was growing up. Their characteri...

culture101
A Good Month to Read Gothic/Horror Innovator and Master Edgar Allan Poe

If you're thinking about doing some gothic/horror reading this month, you can't go wrong b...

television
Funny, Smart ‘Last Man Standing’ Returns for Fourth Season

The ABC-TV sitcom Last Man Standing returns tonight for its fourth season on the alphabet...

mysteries
ABC’s ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ Gets Away with Contemporary Cliches

In choosing programming, ABC-TV tends toward what its managers must think of as a rather ...

fiction1
‘Monogram Murders’ Exemplifies Problems with Contemporary Crime Fiction

My web friend Enrique F. Bird is a longtime aficionado of mystery and detective fiction an...

comic-books-graphic-novels
FOX’s ‘Gotham’ Effectively Explores Origin Story Elements

Episode two of Gotham, broadcast last night on FOX-TV, established an interesting theme ...

comic-books-graphic-novels
FOX’s ‘Gotham’ Takes Promising New Angle on Batman Story

The many manifestations of the Batman character over the decades all have one thing in c...

religion
OK Muslims Cheer Beheading of Colleen Hufford

Immediately after a press conference by local authorities regarding two murders, one of wh...

movies
‘Olympus Has Fallen’ Sequel Finds Director

Olympus Has Fallen, an action film starring Gerard Butler, was one of two movies about inv...

journalism
Media’s Domestic-Abuse and NFL-Abuse Problems Observed

Writing in The American Spectator, columnist Jeffrey Lord makes an important point about...

religion
It Begins: Beheading in Oklahoma

AP reports: A man who had been fired from a food processing plant in an Oklahoma City s...

mysteries
Quality Improvement, Steady Ratings Boost NBC’s ‘Mysteries of Laura’

There's good news for those who watched and liked NBC's attempt at a USA Network-style m...

commerce
Misguided Attacks on Suburbia Undermine Essential Values, Affront Critical Voting Bloc

Writing in The Orange County Register, the distinguished urbanologist Joel Kotkin notes th...

fiction1
The Heroic (and Much-Needed) Values of Pulp Fiction

Most people, I am sure, think of pulp fiction as lurid, oversexed, ultraviolent, profanity...

mysteries
‘Mysteries of Laura’ Botches a Perfectly Good Formula

NBC is trying a fresh approach to drama in the new series The Mysteries of Laura (Wedne...

mysteries
‘Longmire’ and Boomers’ Marketing Power—Are Both Underappreciated?

Do the TV networks have too little respect for the market power of older Americans? So s...