Wanda Sykes Show: Working Hard, Hardly Working

Both Battleground and Lilyhammer get mixed reviews, as streaming services branch out

(NEWSER) - Online streaming sites Hulu and Netflix both launched original series this week, as both services take baby steps toward competing with regular television, reports Gigaom . A look at each:

• Hulu's Battleground is the more conventional of the two, a 13-episode comedy about a Senate campaign in Wisconsin that started today, with a new 22-minute episode airing each Tuesday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has solid praise for Battleground, saying it is "a smart, well-written comedy series you might find on a premium cable network." The AP is less kind, however, calling it "a light, watered-down knockoff of The Office," while the New York Daily News comes down somewhere in-between.

NBC musical dazzles critics... mostly

(NEWSER) - If you watched the Super Bowl, you just might have heard of Smash, NBC's new drama about the making of a Broadway musical. It premiered last night, and critics are (mostly) giving it a standing ovation:

• The buzz has gotten so intense that the conversation isn't even about whether it'll be good. "Good? Darling, it's great!" gushes Mary McNamara of the LA Times . The creators have "managed to capture the grand and sweeping gesture that is musical theater and inject it with the immediate intimacy of television," an impressive, unprecedented feat.

Police believe the 75-year-old committed suicide

(NEWSER) - Soul Train creator and longtime host Don Cornelius was found dead this morning in his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home, in what police are calling an apparent suicide. Law enforcement sources say the 75-year-old died from a single gunshot wound to the head, which they believe was self-inflicted. Cornelius' Soul Train holds the title of the "longest-running first-run nationally syndicated show in television history," reports the Los Angeles Times . Its 35-year run began in 1971, and in 2010 Cornelius told the paper that he was working on a sort of biographical movie about the show. More»

His list: Things he needs to tell the American people

(NEWSER) - Mitt Romney is now in a dead heat with Newt Gingrich. In a bid to perhaps claw his way back into the No. 1 slot solo, he made his second appearance of the year on the Late Show last night, and shared the "Top 10 Things Mitt Romney Would Like to Say to the American People." OK, American People—here are some of the very important pieces of information Romney would like to make sure you know:

• "Isn't it time for a president who looks like a 1970s game show host?"

Network execs want to clear all choices after Bachmann incident

(NEWSER) - Bad news for those of you who were highly amused by Questlove's choice of walk-on song for Michele Bachmann: It won't be happening again. The Late Night With Jimmy Fallon drummer tells Rolling Stone he was informed the very next morning that he must now clear every song with three NBC executives. "It was a real bummer," adds Fallon. "We don’t want to censor anyone, but … I don’t know. Maybe Questlove is a Romney guy." More»