TV Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Neither Of Those Are How You Spell "Columbus"
Chalk this one up as another example of Los Angeles local news having hockey problems if you must, but I figure the chyron operator was probably just thinking about quantifying the electrical charge of certain old-world monkeys, as we all do from time to time....
<i>Empire </i>Is A Great Show With A Badly Outdated Soundtrack
The third episode of Fox's wildly popular new hip-hop drama Empire featured Gladys Knight—given no introduction, or even a fictional name, though maybe she's supposed to be playing herself—singing at the funeral of a character killed off in the pilot after less than five minutes of screen time. Mo...
<i>Fresh Off The Boat </i>Is Huge For Rap Fans And Asian-Americans Alike
The pilot for the new ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat starts inside a department-store dressing room. It's 1995, and 11-year-old Eddie, the American-born son of Taiwanese immigrants, adjusts his silver ring, watch, and chain before fixing his fitted Orlando Magic cap—a look that his mom says is too ...
The NFL Wants Monday Playoff Games
NFL playoff expansion is coming, and probably within the next couple of years—there's too much money in it for it not to happen, once the league and the union can figure out how to split up the take. But more playoff teams means more games, and that means the weekends simply won't be big enough to c...
FCC Fines ESPN $280,000 For <i>Olympus Has Fallen</i> Spot
Olympus Has Fallen—the 2013 movie about a White House attack that wasn't White House Down—got some TV networks into trouble with its advertising. The FCC dished out hefty fines for one spot's use of the Emergency Alert System sound. You can hear it at the beginning, right before the "THIS IS NOT A...
Here's Martin Luther King Jr. Telling A Joke On <i>The Tonight Show</i>
OK, it's not a good joke, but the man was busy. It was Feb. 8, 1968, and Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were in the thick of planning the Poor People's Campaign, which would culminate in a tent city going up on the Mall in Washington. It was also just two mon...
<i>Broad City </i>Is A Fearless, Priceless Ode To Female Friendship
Broad City, the beloved Comedy Central show about two NYC-based best friends with a steady appetite for cruising dudes, getting stoned, and causing general mischief, kicks off its second season tonight, but it already feels like we've known these women (and they've known each other) forever. Ilana...
<i>Peaky Blinders </i>Is The Brutal British Gangster Saga For You
Right now, my wife is making it through both seasons of Peaky Blinders, the British TV show about warring 1920s gangs, for the second time. The big difference: This time, she's watching it with the subtitles on. She swears she'd missed entire plot threads the first time just through the sheer, dis...
ESPN Wants Nothing To Do With The Knicks
When the NBA released the national TV schedule in August, the Knicks appeared across ESPN, ABC, and TNT a total of 16 times, tied for ninth most in the league. The NBA has long catered to fans of large market teams—the LOLakers got 20 national TV games even though everybody knew they would be awful ...
Three People Complained To The FCC About Tom Brady's Cussing
When things don't go right for the Patriots, Tom Brady has a habit of swearing on the sideline, and networks have a habit of cutting to their cameras on the sideline to capture his anger. Jim Nantz will write it off as frustration or whatever. However, three people who sent complaints to the FCC don...
How CBS And The NFL Teamed Up To Screw <em>Wheel Of Fortune</em> And <em>Jeopardy!</em>
In January, CBS acquired the rights to air NFL Network's Thursday Night Football through the first half of the season. That slate turned out to be some of the shittiest professional football ever put on television, and it was a financial catastrophe for the Tiffany network. But prime-time nation...
Say Goodbye To <i>Sons Of Anarchy</i> And Its Lousy Soundtrack
One of the great benefits of watching pre-recorded television is that you can fast-forward through terrible theme songs, specifically "This Life," the atrocious roots-rock theme to the FX biker drama Sons of Anarchy. (There's an even worse Celt-ified version from the season partly set in Northern ...
Today's College Football Viewing Schedule
Here's what's on the slate today:...
Studio Alarm OBLITERATES Keith Olbermann's Train Of Thought
Olbermann? More like, Pardon the Interruption. OK, that was horrible....
Your NFL Week 4 Viewing Maps
The highlight of the 1:00 slate is, I suppose, Steve Smith and the Ravens hosting the Panthers. I don't know if it's that intriguing of a game, but I'm pretty sure I heard on ESPN this week that Steve Smith has promised to disembowel several of his ex-teammates on live television. So I'm looking for...
<em>Lost</em> Was The Best Before It Was The Worst
The end of Lost sucked. Holy fuck, did it suck. It was really, truly, completely the worst — a mushy, indefensible cop-out that failed to resolve many of the show's central mysteries and seemed to argue against reason in favor of a vaguely defined faith in … what, exactly? Did the writers themselve...