Click here to visit the new home of AOLTV!

Hot on HuffPost TV:

See More Stories
EDITION: U.S.
CA Canada US United States UK United Kingdom
Powered by i.TV
May 25, 2013

the guardian

Brit Tries To Figure Out American TV

by Bob Sassone, posted Mar 8th 2010 4:02PM

Americone DreamAs we watch television, we sometimes forget that the things we see on American shows might seem odd or make no sense to viewers in other countries. I don't think that's true for 98% of the stuff we have (most things are universal), but I bet there are some differences in cultures or some things that just aren't completely understood or believed.

Anna Pickard of The Guardian set out to find out if some very American scenarios we see on TV all the time actually are true. Do police officers eat donuts all the time? Do women eat ice cream right out of the container when they break up with someone? Do people actually walk down the street carrying groceries in a paper bag?

Read More

Is Top Gear about to run out of road?

by Danny Gallagher, posted Dec 24th 2009 3:50PM

Top Gear is one of those shows that feels like it could go on forever. It's been on for a long time, yet still manages to retain a rare youthful exuberance that makes it feel fresh and forever young. It's the Dick Clark of the British television world.

But nothing lasts forever and producer Andy Wilman told The Guardian that Top Gear, like all great shows, is headed towards a finale.

And there is no bigger critic of the show than Wilman. He said they were "too rushed and too knackered to get everything right" and were just wanting to get to the end of the latest season running in the UK. He even described the presents as caricatures of themselves with "Jezza (Jeremy Clarkson) the walking nuclear bomb, Richard (Hammond) the daft Norman Wisdom, and James (May) the bumbling professor."

Does this put you off of the new season coming to the States in January? It sure does for me.

Read More

New TV on DVD releases this week

by Bob Sassone, posted Oct 26th 2009 6:00PM

The GuardianHere are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Why didn't somebody tell me that they were going to release The Guardian on DVD? I really liked that show. I don't know if the show is being released because Simon Baker and The Mentalist are a hit or if it has been in the works long before that, but it's a nice surprise.

  • The Barbara Stanwyck Show - Vol. 1
  • Battlestar Galactica - The Plan
  • CBS News Sunday Morning - On The Road with Charles Kuralt: Set 1
  • The Diary of Anne Frank - Miniseries

Read More

Harlan Ellison suing Paramount over Star Trek stuff

by Bob Sassone, posted Mar 16th 2009 5:03PM

Star Trek ornamentHarlan Ellison is a great writer and also one guy you don't want to piss off.

He wrote the classic Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever" (often called by best episode of the original series by fans and non-fans alike), and now he's suing CBS-Paramount over what they have done with the story since he got paid for writing it in 1967. He got paid for the script and got residuals, but in the years after the episode aired the studio has not only published a sequel trilogy with Pocket Books based on the episode, they even had a "Guardian of Forever" talking Hallmark Christmas ornament that said Ellison's lines from his script, so he wants his money.

Read More

Rookie sensation: The Mentalist tops the Nielsens

by Allison Waldman, posted Dec 10th 2008 6:02PM

The MentalistIn sports parlance, every now and then a rookie sensation comes along and is an instant success. Like Robert Redford in The Natural, only it's fact and not fiction. In TV parlance, Simon Baker -- who kind of looks like younger Redford (think The Sting and The Way We Were) -- has pulled off a rookie success that makes him look like pure gold.

The latest weekly Nielsen ratings are in and The Mentalist is number one, just slightly ahead of NCIS, with 18.8 million viewers. Simon Baker has a certifiable, solid and probably long-term hit series on his hands, and you know the powers that be at CBS have to be dancing in the corridors at the Black Rock.

Read More

Supernatural: Jus In Bello

by Brett Love, posted Feb 22nd 2008 8:37AM

Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles of Supernatural
(S03E12) There's no way that Kripke and the team over at Supernatural HQ could have foreseen the strike, only completing 12 episodes, and an extended break after episode 12. Had they been able to do that though, it's hard to imagine a better send off as we head into the break than what we saw in "Jus In Bello." The return of Henricksen and the introduction of Lilith made for a great mid (3/4) season intermission.
%Gallery-8324%

Read More

This UK critic likes the American version of The Office

by Bob Sassone, posted May 20th 2007 3:09PM

Dwight SchruteI finally watched the original, British version of The Office, and it's quite good. I still like the American version more though. That has nothing to do with the quality of the British version, really, it has more to do with the pace, the rhythm, the American-ized problems that the show focuses on, and the cast. Though I do think it's just funnier too.

This UK critic agrees. Though he thinks the Ricky Gervais original is a masterpiece and that some of the darker nuances have been lost in the American version, he thinks it's more entertaining and hasn't had that feeling that it had to burn out after a dozen episodes. He loves the fact that after three seasons it's still "remarkably fresh," and likes that Michael Scott is a different sort of annoying boss than David Brent and appreciates the real drama in the Jim/Pam relationship.

Read More

    Follow Us

    TV Squad Hot Topics

    From Our Partners