Ryan Seacrest
After 30 million votes, the results for American Idol's Motown week are in. Ryan Seacrest warns that that the evening's revelations may shock some viewers, but is that all hype? Let's find out...
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This week's episode of The Vampire Diaries was probably the most epic of the season. Damon and his new girlfriend Andie arrange a dinner party for Elijah so that they can kill him during dessert, while Stefan confesses to Elena that he used to be a rabid murderer. So was the plot successful? Keep reading to find out.
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It's solo time on American Idol, and thank goodness after that mostly disastrous group round.
One hundred contestants are left, stewing over their fate in a holding room, while the judges deliberate. They haven't been moved into those rooms where they're cut en masse because...it's time to rewind to the beginning of the day! Ryan Seacrest explains that, per usual, contestants will take the stage alone with an option of being backed by the band, being accompanied by their own instrument or singing a cappella.
How'd they do? Let's get down to business:
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Chicago Code
What a week for fans of crime dramas that try to raise the bar. Two winners premiering this week are set in USA's midsection — one rural, one urban (which I'm thinking you might have heard about on Super Bowl Sunday) — and they're so good it makes you wonder why Law & Order never took its act to the heartland.
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We'll be discussing the second season of FX's spectacularly entertaining Justified (returns Wednesday, 10/9c) later this week. Inspired by an Elmore Leonard character, this Kentucky-fried caper sneaks up on you, its laid-back attitude punctuated by shocks of grisly mayhem.
By contrast, Fox's muscular new The Chicago Code — from The Shield's Shawn Ryan — grabs you by the collar as it plunges headlong into a treacherous labyrinth of big-city corruption...
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Kanye West, Glee
Television made us rethink what we thought to be true this week. The Event told us that dead people were alive. The Good Wife reintroduced a sex scandal we long thought over. Mad Men's Joan crushed our dreams of seeing her couple up with Roger Sterling. Glee's Chris Colfer reimagined the Beatles. And an artful performance by Kanye West allowed us to reconsider Saturday Night Live as a venue for progressive musical happenings. Welcome to Top Moments: Up Is Down Edition.
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Tom Selleck, Michael C. Hall
To many, and for good reason, Friday is seen as a TV graveyard, a burying ground for shows with low expectations. But the networks aren't giving up on the night just yet. CBS, with its more traditional and very loyal (and yes, more mature) audience, can still do some business with its scripted series. And it can still remember what happened when a little sleeper called CSI broke out on Fridays, soon to change the face of the network....
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Steve Buscemi
Have the Roaring '20s ever roared with such vibrant, violent, extravagantly entertaining life as in HBO's Boardwalk Empire? This instantly captivating period piece feels thrillingly modern as it captures with remarkable detail a chaotic time of invention and re-invention, of social progress and prosperity upstaged by the gaudy corruption and jazzy debauchery of the Prohibition era.
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Boardwalk brilliantly marries Martin Scorsese's virtuosic cinematic eye to Terence Winter's (The Sopranos) panoramic mastery of rich character and eventful story. They romanticize Atlantic City as the Rome of a bootleg empire, where gangsters converge from Chicago and New York to traffic in illegal hooch (among other vices)...
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Justified
FX's Justified is my favorite new show of the spring. And based on its premiere's big ratings, others obviously dig Raylan Givens' brand of gun-toting justice. A few reasons why the show (Tuesdays at 10/9c) is worth your time:
FX shoots to kill with Justified
1. Elmore Leonard Inspired It
Hollywood's love affair with the prolific Leonard has ranged from excellent adaptations (Get Shorty, Jackie Brown) to bad (TV's Karen Sisco and Shorty sequel Be Cool). Justified borrowed all the best Leonard elements (cool characters and muscular dialogue) for its pilot...
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Evan Lysacek
Evan Lysacek's journey to men's figure skating gold included more than a little jesting — and even outright criticism — from defending Olympic champ Evgeni Plushenko.
Plushenko jokingly stepped to the top spot on the medal platform before allowing Lysacek — the first American to win gold in men's figure skating since Brian Boitano in 1988 — to claim his rightful place.
"I was positive I had won," Plushenko told ESPN. "But...
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