Thirtysomething Hits DVD— But Is It Still Good?

Star turns from Romano, Braugher, Bakula buoy new TNT dramedy

(NEWSER) - The male midlife crisis is hardly a groundbreaking subject, but Men of a Certain Age doesn’t need novelty to augment the poignant and hilarious truth it deals in. The new TNT series “proves a powerful yet mercifully amusing experience—bittersweet, poignant, and wise," Tom Shales writes. "It's not just a series, but something of a tonic.” And the performances by its leads are fantastic. More»

NBC sitcom is refreshed in second season, but lacks viewers

(NEWSER) - Television critics far and wide, including Jonah Weiner, are coaxing viewers to tune in to Parks and Recreation, the underdog of NBC’s Thursday night comedy block. It “has gone from an erratically funny nonevent to astonishingly good,” Weiner writes in Slate , and if you watched during the “dispiritingly traditional” first season, it’s time to give the show another try—because if “NBC pulls the plug, it will be a familiar bummer: a great show that died young.” More»

Courteney Cox's new show has everyone watching—but why? Masochism?

(NEWSER) - Cougar Town is our nation’s newest guilty pleasure—“‘guilty’ in this case meaning ‘it makes you want to stick your head in the oven’ and ‘pleasure’ referring to the feeling humans get from having their fingernails ripped off one by one,” writes Heather Havrilesky for Salon. Tina Fey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus have given us female characters "who greet the perils of middle age with self-deprecating humor"; so why do we cheer on a show where 40-year-old women have the brains of 7th-graders? More»

These tropes are so overused, they're not funny anymore

(NEWSER) - If you're tired of hearing sitcom characters joke that they just threw up in their mouths or ironically comment, "That went well," after something decidedly didn't, you're not alone. On Vulture , Margaret Lyons lists 10 overused TV situations and lines she'd be happy to never hear again:

• "And by [thing], I of course mean [opposite of thing]." Lyons would say, "Chandler Bing called and he wants his ironic detachment back," except that joke is "even more overdone."
• "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?" Sure, it is plausible that in real life, a person might be caught gossiping. "But no one has ever actually, authentically said, 'She's standing right behind me, isn't she?'"

Billy Crystal brings the same old stuff

(NEWSER) - Last night's Oscars, like its Best Picture, was a throwback to a different time in film history. And though the show may have topped last year's Anne Hathaway-James Franco fiasco, it was boring and tired throughout:

• "The whole night looked like an AARP pep rally," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times . "For a town that prides itself on tinsel and titillation, the night was pretty tame." "It all looked very familiar," but that "is perhaps necessary when so few of the nominated films are."