POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - There are good ideas, and there are bad ideas—but it ain’t that simple. If a bad idea manages to slip by everyone and somehow winds up making a pile of money, it then becomes a good idea. If a good idea fails to catch on and doesn’t...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Like a lot of 10-year-olds, I’ve got my own personal favorites on the Cartoon Network, arguably the weirdest and most subversive channel on cable. Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (on unfortunate “hiatus” and relegated to the wee hours) and...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Just a year ago, Tom Cavanagh was a quirky side-character named Doug on NBC’s Providence, a charming fellow who thought he was a dog. Despite a deepening character relationship with desperately man-hungry Joanie (Paula Cale, the one without the...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - The WB’s got problems, and not just the ones stemming from the media’s woefully unstandardized capitalization policies on “The” in the network’s title—without the capital “T,” the whole concept just falls...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Gone in 60 Seconds (Buena Vista, PG-13) Retired car thief Memphis Raines (Nicholas Cage) must swipe 50 exotic rides in 24 hours to save his little brother (Giovanni Ribisi) from getting even more uglied-up by a bad-ass crime boss. Killer car chases, volume-enhanced...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - When and why did Britain become the go-to destination for American television programming ideas? Just like England’s fickle music charts, it’s a here-today-gone-later-today proposition with Yankee versions of hit Brit shows—is anyone...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - All I ask of a TV show is that it actually has something, anything, to do with its title. Most of the action on ER is set in an emergency room. The Practice is about a law practice. It takes an hour to watch 60 minutes. Ally McBeal gives ample (but not...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Think the only TV planning you have to consider this month involves the Super Bowl and, blech, Survivor? As if. The Sci-Fi Channel, uneven as a cheese wedge when it comes to original programming, is sandwiching its returning Muppets-in-space hit Farscape...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Autumn In New York (MGM, R) A rich playboy (Richard Gere) finally falls in love with a younger woman (Winona Ryder). Fortunately for him she has a bad heart, so Gramps will be free to resume boinking babes 50 years younger than him in no time. Ex-president...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Snide Allusion to the Television Critics Association No. 56: Being a “pretend” television writer may not bring all the perks afforded to “real” TV critics, but I’ve got this going for me: exclusive network preview tapes of...