In a glass mansion on a hill overlooking the ocean, Frank Semyon lies in bed staring at a pair of water stains on the ceiling. They unnerve him like omens, these rusty blooms of rot. They are tiny twin maelstroms, sucking him into a void he’s been trying to escape his entire life, drowning him with ancient questions. What is real? Is life a dream? Did he die long ago and now haunts a realm of dead-end desire like a hungry ghost?
truTV has ordered its first full-length scripted comedy, Those Who Can’t, the network announced in a press release Tuesday. Those Who Can’t follows three dysfunctional high school teachers played by Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl and Ben Roy, also known as comedy trio The Grawlix and the creators of the show. Maria Thayer stars as librarian Abbey Logan, who eventually joins in on the teachers’ antics despite being skeptical at first. Ten episodes of the half-hour comedy are set to premiere in early 2016.
This fall, books and literary references have been popping up all over television. Why is the vast wasteland becoming a home to the likes of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land? *The John Larroquette Show Larroquette’s John Hemingway (!) collects original manuscripts, including that of Gravity’s Rainbow. An episode last season involved Dexter’s claiming he knows the reclusive Thomas Pynchon. *Seinfeld Pendant Publishing, where Elaine worked as an editor, went belly-up. On this season’s premiere, Elaine dons a scarf and glasses and goes gunning for Jackie O’s old editing job at Doubleday.
Mary Tyler Moore, who became a TV icon by playing the consummately cute wife (on The Dick Van Dyke Show) and the plucky single gal (on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), died Wednesday, January 25. She was 80. “Today, beloved icon, Mary Tyler Moore, passed away at the age of 80 in the company of friends and her loving husband of over 33 years, Dr. S. Robert Levine,” Mara Buxbaum, Moore’s longtime representative, said in a statement.
THURSDAY MAY 8 >> SUDDENLY SUSAN (NBC): Eighties throwbacks Donald Trump, Mr. T, and Judd Nelson play poker for the magazine. SUNDAY MAY 11 >> KING OF THE HILL (FOX): Hank and Peggy discover their socially retarded son practicing kissing on Luanne’s styling head. WEDNESDAY MAY 14 >> COACH (ABC): Hayden weighs other offers in the series finale. >> THE NAKED TRUTH (NBC): Tea Leoni’s real-life squeeze, David Duchovny, is the focus of a tabloid sex scandal.
"Long Term Parking." For fans of The Sopranos, the banal airport sign remains a haunting callback more than a decade after the episode of the same name originally aired. In the fifth season's 12th episode, viewers witnessed the tragic end to Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo) in a gripping sequence, logical yet shocking, that generated maximum suspense and heartbreak. Adriana had long stuck by her addict fiancé Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) out of some uncertain mixture of love, loyalty, and mob life materialism.
Calling all Twihards Deana Newcomb/Summit Lovers, losers, lions, lambs: We made it. The first Twilight movie is now officially 10 years old. Catherine Hardwicke’s introductory entry in the film series adapting Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally popular vampire YA romance novels hit theaters (and launched Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson to outrageous new levels of superstardom) on Nov. 21, 2008. Now, a decade later, EW can confirm that the film has withstood the test of time — and then some!
Anthony Mackie has played a superhero, but now he'll be a survivor. On Friday morning, Peacock released the first teaser for their forthcoming series Twisted Metal, an adaptation of the classic PlayStation video game series of the same name. Mackie stars as John Doe, "a motor-mouthed outsider" who has a chance at a better life, but only if he can deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once the United States of America.
He may be the self-appointed King of Pop (the moniker is right there in the HIStory CD booklet), but Michael Jackson isn’t the only one wearing the crown. Boylan’s Original Birch Beer, born a-bubbling in 1891, also calls itself the King of Pop, and, according to company president Ronald Fiorina, has done so since the 1970s. It was past president Frank Fiorina — Ron’s grandfather — who came up with the slogan, which appears on the neck of every bottle of the company’s Original Birch Beer (it manufactures two other varieties as well).
It all starts (and ends) with a seemingly innocent pair of sweatpants. Alan and Lyndsey returned home from what I’m sure was a tantalizing date, but Lyndsey symbolically put the kibosh on all bedroom misdeeds by strolling in in her laundry day’s best. Which, in all honestly, I was pretty ecstatic about. It saved me from further exposure to the image of Jon Cryer posing in his underpanties. Anyway, “BURP!” Lyndsey was feeling sick from dinner and didn’t want to have sex.