The Sopranos-related stories
Posted Oct 9th 2009 10:57AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Interviews, Emmys, Reality-Free, Mad Men
It's hard to say that a show that's already won a small U-Haul's worth of Emmys and other awards can be having a breakout season, but that seems to be what's happening with
Mad Men during its third season. The buzz around the show has been as loud as we've heard since
The Sopranos went to black, and that's not a coincidence; the man who created the early-1960s world of Sterling Cooper, Matt Weiner, was a writer on the landmark HBO drama.
Weiner just completed shooting season three, and he took time out of his post-production process to sit down with me on Monday and talk about how the season has been going so far. I tried to get him to talk about what seems to be the show's inevitable roll towards the cataclysmic event of 1963, the Kennedy assassination, but Weiner was tight-lipped as usual. However, his observations on how he approaches events like that is an interesting read. Oh, and we also touch upon how he came up with the idea to run over a British ad exec's foot with a lawn mower, which is a good story by itself...
Continue reading Matthew Weiner of Mad Men: The TV Squad Interview
Posted Sep 29th 2009 11:11AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, TV Royalty, Programming, OpEd, Entourage, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, TV Squad Ten, True Blood
HBO has slowly become my favorite network over the past few years. I don't know if it's because the mainstream networks have turned to lots of reality programming or what, but HBO just seems to get better and better. Just about every show on the premium channel is feature film quality (if not better), and I've got some favorites listed below.
I know I'm missing a few biggies, like
Rome,
Deadwood,
Flight of the Conchords, and
Extras, but it's only because I either haven't watched these shows or have only watched a few episodes -- not enough to make an informed opinion. I'm sure they'll make my
Jane After Dark column at some point in the future. So I hope you'll tell me your favorites in the comments below.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: My favorite HBO shows
Posted Sep 1st 2009 3:28PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Breaking Bad, Reality-Free, Mad Men
This should come as no surprise to even the most casual of TV Squad readers.
Mad Men has been picked up for a fourth season, assuring that Matthew Weiner's engrossing and demanding tale of Don Draper and the people at Sterling Cooper will be played out for at least another year.
When a show like
Mad Men comes along, not unlike
The Sopranos in quality and pop culture appeal, the question usually isn't whether the network will stand behind it for the duration, but whether or not the creative team envisions a long run.
Continue reading Mad Men renewed for fourth season
Posted Aug 27th 2009 1:02PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: CSI, Nip/Tuck, Dexter, TV Squad Ten
A good show can keep you so entertained that you're willing to fight sleep to watch the rest of it. A great show physically keeps you awake.
It gets into your bloodstream and forces more adrenaline into your heart.
It turns the synapses in your brain into ferrets on espresso that dash back and forth between the lobes and fires your mind on all of its cylinders.
It is visual cocaine, which is much healthier than actual cocaine and doesn't require a frequent visitor punch card for an eyes, ears, nose and throat doctor.
These are the shows that assault all five of the senses or less depending on how good of a health plan you've got.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: Most visceral shows
Posted Aug 7th 2009 7:30PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Casting, Reality-Free
I watched the feature film
In the Loop the other day, a documentary-style comedy that looks behind the scenes of the British and U.S. governments.
James Gandolfini plays Lt. Gen. George Miller, and all I could think was, "Hey, there's Tony Soprano in a U.S. military uniform." I think his character may have even said something along the lines of, "I'll break your kneecaps if..."
I know James Gandolfini has done a lot of projects since
The Sopranos, but Tony Soprano is so cemented in my mind, I wonder if I'll ever see him as anything else. I have the same reaction when I see Steve Schirripa playing Leo on
The Secret Life of the American Teenager. "Hey, that's Bobby Baccalieri!"
Continue reading Will James Gandolfini ever be anything but Tony Soprano?
Posted Jul 22nd 2009 3:00PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Reality-Free
I'm not sure what "addicted to" really means. If I love a show and never miss an episode, does that mean I'm "addicted?" Or do I have to have some sort of sadness/emotional withdrawal if I miss an episode, or some sort of chemical reaction in my body that forces me to watch the show every week?
I'm not sure, but according to a
survey of 3000 TV fans by LOVEFiLM, the most addictive show is
24.
Continue reading What TV show are you addicted to the most?
Posted Jul 15th 2009 10:05AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Dexter, Ratings, Weeds, Reality-Free, True Blood
For a while there, it looked like Showtime, with buzzworthy shows like
Californication, Weeds and
Dexter, was dominating headlines and getting all kinds of praise. In response, their ratings were rising. Meanwhile, HBO had struggled to replace
The Sopranos,
Deadwood and
Rome when all three left the airwaves in 2006-07. New "big" shows like
John From Cincinnati and
Tell Me You Love Me failed to make waves with audiences.
Really, it was
Dexter that started swinging the ship toward Showtime, and in so doing, brought attention to the rest of their lineup. With HBO floundering, Showtime saw an opportunity and took full advantage, offering bold new entries. Apparently there's an audience that looks almost exclusively for premium cable original programming. And everything was going so well ... until HBO managed to snag a piece of America's current fixation on vampires.
Continue reading Poor Showtime: It looks like vampires are putting HBO back on top
Posted Jun 12th 2009 3:32PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
I don't mean of one particular show, I'm talking about the best episode of
any TV series? Not an easy thing to do. Just think of how many shows and how many episodes we've had in 60+ years. The new issue of
TV Guide is out, and while the full list of the 100 best episodes isn't online yet (
here are #'s 100-81), we do know
some episodes in the top ten (
TV Guide did a similar issue back in 1997).
The number one ep? "The Contest" from
Seinfeld. "Chuckles Bites The Dust" from
The Mary Tyler Moore Show and "Opie The Birdman" from
The Andy Griffith Show are up there too, as is the pilot episode of
Lost and the "College" episode of
The Sopranos. What's the first episode that comes to mind when you think of great TV?
Posted Apr 20th 2009 2:05PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Other Reality Shows, 24, Scrubs, The Shield, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, TV Squad Ten
The TV is a weird beast. Your show can have ridiculously high ratings, receive greater critical claim than the Mona Lisa and achieve a cult following not seen since the People's Temple, and the network can still pull the plug on you.
TV Land doesn't work like Reality Land, if the Reality Land is in fact reality and not some bizarre reality land where meat-hungry producers are the gods of fate. TV has a different equation for success.
Here are the ten telltale signs that your new show will spend eternity shining in the pantheon of the cosmos and the rest of its life on Best Buy's DVD shelves.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: Signs your show has made it
Posted Mar 30th 2009 12:25PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Reality-Free
Everyone loves lists, and everyone has an opinion, so it's not always nice or productive to point out that another person's list might be lacking in some way. Having said that, let's talk about how this list is lacking in some way.
It's a list of the
10 best series finales of all-time. I'll get right to the point:
Newhart should be on this list.
Continue reading What's missing from this list of the best series finales?
Posted Mar 25th 2009 2:10PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Video, Reality-Free
Question: Is
The Sopranos the best drama in the history of television, or is it
one of the best dramas in the history of television that often gets the top spot because it's fairly recent?
That's one of the questions to ponder as you read
AOL's Top 50 Dramas Of All-Time list.
The Sopranos comes in at number one.
It's not a bad list, actually. When you narrow down a TV show to a specific genre and go all the way up to 50, most of the shows we would all pick will show up on the list:
The X-Files,
Deadwood,
The Rockford Files,
Mad Men,
St. Elsewhere,
Columbo,
The Wire. Those are all classic dramas (and good ones) that you would expect to see.
One thing I didn't expect to see?
Friday Night Lights in the number 10 spot, ahead of
all the shows I just mentioned above.
Continue reading Here's a list of the top 50 dramas of all-time (OK, maybe 45) - VIDEO
Posted Feb 27th 2009 2:55PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Pushing Daisies, Reality-Free, TV Squad Ten
When TV shows have made the leap to the big screen, the results have not always been great, except when they keep the same cast and come up with a good story that builds on the series, like
Sex and the City and
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. The same is true of some TV movies that have built on a show's lingering appeal even after it's been canceled. James Garner came back for a couple of
Rockford Files movies, for instance, and
The Return of The Man from UNCLE with David McCallum and Robert Vaughn was excellent. Of course, it doesn't always work -- the Rhoda and Mary reunion was painful to watch -- but I'm still a fan of the follow-up TV movie.
Here's my ideas for ten TV shows I'd like to see as TV movies.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: Shows I'd like to see come back as a TV movie - VIDEOS
Posted Feb 19th 2009 11:04AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Saturday Night Live, Reality-Free, TV Squad Ten
There is no better way to get inside a character's head (without resorting to charging up some power cutting tools and laying down some newspaper) than writing in a dream sequence.
Some of them, however, try to explain too much or cover too much ground and end up becoming the kind of dreams that keeps our Paxil dosage high and GlaxoSmithKline's stock price higher.
These are those mindfreaks.
Continue reading Eight of TV's weirdest dreams - VIDEOS
Posted Feb 1st 2009 1:15PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, News, Programming, Animation, Adult Swim, Children, Game Show, Super Bowl
If you're like me (you have my deepest sympathy), you don't have a dog in this Sunday's hunt.
Thanks to the Arizona Cardinals' first appearance this weekend, my hometown team, the New Orleans Saints, will now be one of only five left in the NFL that have never made a Super Bowl appearance. Three if you don't count the expansion clubs.
So if you're a Cardinals fan and don't have the stomach to endure their slow, agonizing and inevitable defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, here are some alternative shows you can watch instead of the Super Bowl.
Continue reading Sick of the Super Bowl? Here's a sampler platter of what else you can watch
Posted Jan 1st 2009 10:33AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, TV Royalty, Programming, OpEd, Casting, Reality-Free
I'm crazy for HBO, and one of the shows I'm really looking forward to is Boardwalk Empire, a pilot executive produced by Martin Scorsese (who's also directing), Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, and Terence Winter (who's also penning the pilot).
Based on the Nelson Johnson book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, the project chronicles the 1920s origins of Atlantic City, New Jersey. From what I've read, it sounds like a mix of The Departed, The Sopranos and Goodfellas -- all favorites of mine. And the cast they've got lined up couldn't be better.
Steve Buscemi plays Nucky Johnson, a businessman who runs a liquor distribution ring at the beginning of Prohibition. Michael Pitt (pictured) is in negotiations to play Jimmy Darmody, a bright, young, ruthless WWI veteran who serves as a flunky for Nucky, but yearns for more power.
Continue reading Michael Pitt in talks for Boardwalk Empire
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