Downton Abbey
What's this?!? There is some accounting for taste?!? Downton Abbey's Season 2 premiere averaged 4.2 million viewers.
Nielsen data on Tuesday showed that the Emmy-winning series' return Sunday night doubled the average PBS prime-time rating, and marked an 18 percent jump over the show's first-season average — which made PBS ecstatic.
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Donton Abbey
Just as Season 2 of Downton Abbey reaches its conclusion in the U.K., Britain's ITV announced Thursday that it has commissioned a third season of eight episodes.
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Sesame Street
Sesame Street's upcoming 42nd season promises a gaggle of celebrity guests who'll frolic with children and puppets — as well as some skits based on pop-culture references.
Speaking of those, Glee (in a skit called "G"), Deadliest Catch ("The Heaviest Catch"), the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark ("SpiderMonster the Musical") and cooking competitions...
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Dan Stevens and Michelle Dockery
When Downton Abbey returns for its second season on Jan. 8, 2012 on PBS, the action will pick up two years after that fated garden party in which the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) announced that England was at war with Germany.
During Sunday's preview of the hit British series, executive producer Gareth Neame confirmed that the action in the seven-episode second season will take place over two years, just like the first season. "The new series is a similar sort of span," he says. "We start in 1916. The war will come to a conclusion within this series, and the final episodes is the time after the war."
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Mister Rogers
PBS is returning to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood a decade after the series ended with a new animated spin-off.
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood will feature original Mister Rogers characters who still live in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, but have since grown up and now have children of their own, PBS announced Sunday at PBS' fall TV preview session. Daniel Tiger, the 4-year-old son of the original Tiger, will be the new series' star.
Watch videos from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ran on PBS from...
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Tina Fey
Tina Fey mercilessly mocked Sarah Palin while accepting the Mark Twain Award for comedy, but viewers who watched the ceremony on PBS didn't hear any of it.
When the 30 Rock star accepted the award last week in Washington, she gave a shout-out to "conservative women" like Sarah Palin, who Fey famously impersonated on Saturday Night Live. "Politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women — except, of course those who will...
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Bert and Ernie
Has Sesame Street become more gay-friendly?
In recent months, the long-running children's program has seen openly gay stars Wanda Sykes and Neil Patrick Harris on the show, spoofed the gay-friendly True Blood, and featured a will.i.am performance of "What I Am," a tune about accepting who you really are, which triggered Internet speculation about its message.
Watch clips from Sesame Street
That followed a June 11 tweet from Bert — who, along with roommate Ernie, has long been suspected by fans to be gay — that read: "Ever notice how similar my hair is to Mr. T's? The only difference ...
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Barry Bonds
The star of Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning — besides baseball itself — is Barry Bonds.
"He had to be," Burns says.
While Babe Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer and Hank Aaron on a diet no one ever questioned, Bonds is suspected to have set baseball's all-time home-run record on steroids. So Bonds looms large throughout the four hours of Burns' follow-up to his Emmy-winning 1994 documentary series Baseball.
Burns and partner Lynn Novick — whose credits include the masterful The Civil War and Jazz — expansively cover the last 16 years of the sport, including...
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Katy Perry
Sesame Street producer Carol-Lynne Parente said she had no idea a clip from the show featuring Katy Perry in a low-cut shirt would draw so much criticism, and defended the pop singer's appearance.
"We would never produce anything we thought was inappropriate. We were surprised not only by the amount of feedback, but how...
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