Thirtysomething Hits DVD— But Is It Still Good?

Even so, you might appreciate the nostalgia: critics

(NEWSER) - Beavis and Butt-head are back—but two decades later, MTV’s pair of dimwits is no longer critiquing just music videos. They have now added reality shows, movies, and viral videos to their repertoire. But do we still need them?

• Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe : Back in the early 1990s, Beavis and Butt-head was perfect for the time. Kids were starting to become “media-savvy”—AKA, “growing cynical and ironic”—and the show “perfectly captured that punchy tone.” But nowadays, reality shows will be the first to mock their own ridiculousness, and most audience members are already laughing at them. “Plus, we still have South Park” for our necessary dose of snark. The new Beavis and Butt-head, therefore, “works just OK” and “isn’t as essential as it once was."

Critics not gushing, but they're mostly pleased with premiere

(NEWSER) - Charlie Sheen’s character “exploded like a balloon full of meat,” another character explained last night as Two and a Half Men premiered and finally killed him off. Meanwhile, Ashton Kutcher also debuted as Walden Schmidt. What the critics are saying:

• Turns out Schmidt is “sweet, unsarcastic but—here we stay true to the show's gawping bawdiness—possessed of an astounding anatomical endowment that he soon puts to use,” writes Tom Gliatto in People . “The instant verdict: Kutcher was not at all bad. He was quite likable."
• “Fear not,” fans, declares Fox News . “Even without Charlie Sheen, your favorite show isn’t changing much." Like Sheen’s character, Schmidt is a womanizer—albeit an accidental one—and “the show’s producers barely changed gears. … With Kutcher loosely playing himself as a savant ladies’ man, it’s likely that Charlie Harper—or Sheen—won’t be missed."

Critics: New drama is heavy on sex and drugs, little else

(NEWSER) - MTV debuted its new series Skins last night, an American version of a British teen drama rife with sex and drugs. Not everybody's a fan:

• Richard Lawson, Gawker : It goes even further than the Brit version in pushing the idea that teens are "messy jumbles of extremes with very little shading in between, lacking in kindness, decorum, and any sense of responsibility or consequence. It's a pretty bleak and unfair characterization. Teenagers are dumb, yes, but they're not monsters (not all of them at least). I wish television and movies would stop trying to tell us they are."

Critics not impressed with Ricky Gervais' antics

(NEWSER) - Hollywood’s celebrities certainly were not happy with Ricky Gervais’s hosting gig at last night’s Golden Globes—but how did the critics feel about it? Read on:

• "Are we at war with England? If not, then why have we been subjected to two years of Gervais hosting the Golden Globe Awards," asks Hank Stuever in the Washington Post. Gervais proved he wasn't right for the gig last year, and this year’s “lame jokes” made Stuever wish the audience would “rise up and pummel” the host.

As Playboy clubs are relaunched, show about clubs arrives

(NEWSER) - Playboy is coming to primetime. NBC ordered the pilot of the imaginatively-titled Playboy, a one-hour drama about the Playboy bunnies working in a Chicago Playboy club in the 1960s. There were once 22 Playboy clubs around the world, but all closed by 1991, Variety notes. The show arrives just as they may be experiencing a comeback, with new locations in Las Vegas and Macau. Also in TV-related Playboy news: Read about how the Playboy channel is reinventing itself by trying to appeal to women. More»