Play ball! Or, seeing that TV hardly rolls over for the World Series any more, should we be saying, "Play hardball?" The showdown between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers begins tonight (Fox, 7:30/et) from Busch Stadium in St. Louis. No matter how many innings the games go, it probably won't seem as long as some of these recent two-hour episodes of The X Factor.
That takes care of sports enthusiasts, but there's plenty else going on. Some highlights:
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Crime procedurals on TV are a dime a dozen (though often much more profitable), but BBC America's Luther is one in a million. Making Criminal Minds look like a romp in Disneyland, this twisted walk on the dark side earned an Emmy nomination this year for its powerful star, Idris Elba (The Wire), for good reason. Few things are juicier than letting an actor wallow in the most damaged corners of the soul.
And right away, as Luther returns for a second season (10/9c) comprised of two two-part thrillers airing over four weeks, we can see that John Luther's notoriety as London's most volatile and unstable detective is intact. Still grieving the death of his ex-wife (at the hands of a former colleague), Luther returns ...
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Talking to Idris Elba can be disorienting. No matter how often he references his acclaimed roles as Baltimore drug lord Stringer Bell on The Wire ("That part spoiled me and catapulted me onto the radar," he says) or Dunder Mifflin big boss Charles Miner on The Office ("I can't believe I got paid to have so much fun"), it doesn't jibe with the East London inflection coming out of his mouth. Can this be the same actor?
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Jamie Foxx has joined Quentin Tarantino's upcoming film Django Unchained.
The Oscar winner will play the titular character, a freed slave who tries to rescue his long-lost love, Broomhilda, from a plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), with the help of a German ...
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When Cathy (Laura Linney) found out she had melanoma on The Big C last season, she kicked her husband out of the house, bought a convertible and wasn't afraid to tell anyone how she really felt.
What she didn't do was tell her family and friends about her life-altering diagnosis (save for her disgruntled neighbor, Marlene, who later committed suicide).
Months later, Cathy's cancer is out in the open — for the most part — and now that she has been forced to face her disease, she's also ready to...
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