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Can Season 6 of ‘House Of Cards’ Keep Pace With Political Reality?
Note: Spoilers abound for the upcoming and past seasons of House of Cards. I wish I could say definitively that the #MeToo-fueled elimination of star Kevin Spacey from Netflix’s House of Cards raised...
View ArticleAfter Wondering Why Blackface is Racist, Megyn Kelly Is Now Wondering Where...
This piece was inspired by an episode of The Cooler, KQED’s weekly pop culture podcast. Give it a listen! https://od1.kqed.org/anon.kqed/radio/thecooler/2018/10/ASMR.mp3 Earlier this week, Megyn Kelly...
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‘Poldark’ Season 4 Episode 5 Recap: No Tears Left To Cry
In the previous episode of Poldark, the show obliterated our emotions by killing off Baby Sara. That watching experience looked a little something like this: You’d think the writers would dial it down...
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‘Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj’ is Raising the Bar for Political Comedy
I never really thought about Dunk Fatigue until I saw Hasan Minhaj, on his new Netflix show Patriot Act, masterfully working around it. What is Dunk Fatigue? Well, let us take as a baseline that public...
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Young Muslim Writers are Creating New Shows to Fight Old Stereotypes
On the last day of taping for a new 10-part Web series called East of La Brea, the cameras are set up at a local mosque for a scene about a 20-something black Muslim woman who’s praying. Suddenly her...
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‘Poldark’ Season 4 Episode 6 Recap: Mo Money Mo Problems
In the previous episode of Poldark, a candlestick, a spooked horse, a few trees and karma joined forces to murder Gross Goblin (*blasts Etta James’ “At Last”*). In a single episode, the experience of...
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No, Athletes Will Not ‘Shut Up And Dribble’—And They Never Have
The new documentary series Shut Up and Dribble, which premiered the first of its three parts this weekend on Showtime, is a response to commentator Laura Ingraham’s dismissive February 2018 sneer in...
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‘Poldark’ Season 4 Episode 7 Recap: London Calling
In the previous episode of Poldark, Elizabeth and Morwenna both realized they were carrying demonic embryos. Will they pose for an OMG-we’re-both-preggers-at-the-same-time photoshoot like Khloe...
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On ‘SNL,’ Lil Wayne and Future Address Consent
It took an elaborate satire for two of hip-hop’s biggest acts to address the elephant in the room of rap. Saturday night on SNL, musical guest Lil Wayne performed two songs from his recently released...
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In Another Chilling Adventure, ‘Sabrina’ is Getting Sued by Satanists
Just months after a statue of Baphomet grabbed national headlines while briefly appearing outside the Arkansas State Capitol, the winged, goat-headed creature has stepped back into the spotlight—this...
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‘Poldark’ Season 4 Finale Recap: Kiss Off
In the previous episode of Poldark, Ross murdered Demelza’s wannabe date rapist by shooting him in the groin. My calves are still aching from all the dancing I did on his grave. Will the Poldark...
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We’ve Lost Stephen Hillenburg, But SpongeBob SquarePants Memes Will Live Forever
Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, died yesterday at the age of 57, after a battle with ALS. Fans have been honoring and mourning him on social media all morning, which feels...
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‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Season 2: Still Marvelous, Even Smarter
It’s been over a year since Amazon dropped the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, its comedy series about a 1950s well-to-do Upper West Side housewife-turned-standup-comic navigating the...
View ArticleThe Fraggles and Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Are Coming to Bay Area Theaters
If you’re a Jim Henson fan who misses the glorious puppetry of the 1980s, get ready to dance your cares away (clap, clap) because a 1984 holiday episode of Fraggle Rock, titled “The Bells of Fraggle...
View Article‘Downton Abbey’ Is Back! Watch the First Movie Trailer
It’s been 1013 days (that’s 87,523,200 seconds!) since Downton Abbey left our TV screens. Because life must go on, we moved on, filling the PBS-approved-Britsh-import-sized hole in our hearts with...
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NPR’s Favorite TV Shows Of 2018
Hundreds and hundreds of series air every year. They are good and they are lousy; they are new and they are old. There’s too much television for a comprehensive ranking, so Glen Weldon, Linda Holmes...
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‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Makes You Choose Your Own Adventure
Netflix is hungry, and it’s got its eye on a juicy slice of interactivity. The streaming service started its originals business with prestige dramas and comedies. But its appetite increases, and now it...
View ArticleThe Best New Year’s Eve Episodes For Your Hangover
If the festive season is Sodom and Gomorrah, New Year’s Day is the fire and brimstone that comes to cleanse us of our sins. It’s a day to get our heads straight before work starts again, a day of quiet...
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Critics Get Vocal After Netflix Drops Hasan Minhaj Episode in Saudi Arabia
Last fall, the world watched as Saudi Arabia’s official story about the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi changed, and changed again. A series of contradictory claims and denials came...
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Introducing ‘The Masked Singer,’ Featuring TV’s Hottest Peacock-Hippo Battle
If you’ve always wondered what a sing-off between the Phillie Phanatic and Goofy from Disneyland would look like, The Masked Singer is about as close as you’re going to get. It premiered on Fox on...
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