Email Author Robert Abele

2007 Stories by Robert Abele

• 2008’s best new TV shows: A Mad, Mad World

  published December 27, 2007

  The best television of the past year avoided rules and explored chaos and upheaval: shitty jobs, scary bosses, hungry lions forced to take down... More >>

• The Best of Youth

  published December 20, 2007

  Yuletide Youth, Hold the Sugar If you missed the gracefully complex six-hour Italian saga The Best of Youth when it enjoyed a... More >>

• Striking TV: DVD Sets for a Season Without Writers

  published December 13, 2007

  When new episodes of your favorite TV series run out, and they will, even if the studios and striking writers settle their differences soon,... More >>

• HBO's Don Rickles Doc; Hallmark's Pictures of Hollis Woods

  published November 29, 2007

  Chances are you, like me, were raised not to name-call. But if our moms knew we could make a brilliant career out of it, they might have been... More >>

• Nimrod Nation: Their Town

  published November 22, 2007

  There’s nothing urgent or shocking or baiting about the Sundance Channel’s eight-part documentary series Nimrod Nation, an... More >>

• My So-Called Life: Angst for the Memories

  published November 15, 2007

  When I pried open my new DVD box set of My So-Called Life: The Complete Series, one of my all-time favorite shows, I found an awesomely... More >>

• Frontline: On Our Watch

  published November 15, 2007

  On Our Watch, the devastating hour on Darfur that Frontline airs next week, is a first-rate primer on the ugliest side of... More >>

• The Blair Switch Project

  published November 8, 2007

  Since we’re in the thick of a candidate-mad season, it’s a good time for HBO to be airing the 2003 British film The Deal,... More >>

• Situational Illogic

  published November 1, 2007

  It’s not making waves anymore as water-cooler chatter, perhaps, but HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is still an awfully funny... More >>

• The Grocery Clerk's Rise

  published October 25, 2007

  If only our election seasons were as brisk as the first part of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, the latest Masterpiece Theater import... More >>

• Weepy Women, Macho Men

  published October 25, 2007

  Why was it so weird to see Ellen Degeneres weep over a transplanted puppy, then cancel two of her tapings because the whole thing was too much... More >>

• Cash and Carey

  published October 18, 2007

  Drew Carey started his hosting duties on The Price is Right Monday, taking over for Bob Barker after the rangy emcee retired with 35... More >>

• Christina Applegate Erases Bundy Past

  published October 11, 2007

  We should all rise from our ergonomic recliners and give a cheer for Christina Applegate, who has returned to the sitcom at last. It’s... More >>

• The Kids of 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights Are All Right

  published October 11, 2007

  A few of my favorite shows had their season premieres last week. Two of them, ratings stragglers Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock... More >>

• Pushing Daisies: Dead End Boy

  published September 27, 2007

  ABC’s Pushing Daisies is the most deliberately offbeat entry in the network fall sweepstakes. But it’s less Twin... More >>

• Who Cares Whodunit?

  published September 27, 2007

  The five-hour British miniseriesFive Days — a co-production of HBO and the BBC that starts its stateside run Tuesday, October 2... More >>

• Kevin Smith, McG and James Burrows Get in the Pilot Seat

  published September 20, 2007

  You’ve seen the promos all summer long. Now it’s here. It wants your eyeballs, your love, your dedication. It’s fall TV. So... More >>

• Mothers, Gangsters and the Usual Boobs at the Emmys

  published September 20, 2007

  If the Emmys go back to a round stage next year, it should at least revolve, maybe suddenly, jerkily, to give shocked — shocked! —... More >>

• Back to War

  published September 13, 2007

  For many docuphiles — particularly worshippers at the altar of grainy footage, dulcet-toned narrators and the slick packaging of... More >>

• K-Ville's Cops and Robber Barons

  published September 13, 2007

  Fox’s new cop show K-Ville, set in New Orleans post-Katrina (thus the “K”), can feel more like a hospital drama than a... More >>

• Tell Me You Love Me: The Thinking-Person’s Excuse for Graphic Nudity

  published September 6, 2007

  Graphic sex might draw you into watching HBO’s new drama series Tell Me You Love Me, but graphic sex is hardly the point. It... More >>

• Law and Disorder: Sin City Law

  published September 6, 2007

  French documentarians Denis Poncet and Jean-Xavier De Lestrade, who have shown a Wiseman-like knack for burrowing into the daily lives of law... More >>

• A Star Is Boring

  published August 30, 2007

  At least Star Jones didn’t come up with some embarrassing title for her new five-day-a-week Court TV yakker. It isn’t Twinkle... More >>

• Thomas Perry's Silence: Lost and Lost

  published August 30, 2007

  The nervy chill of a Perry novel is the transformation of our everyday world into a suddenly terrifying maze.If you had to — if you... More >>

• When Supergood Meets Superbad

  published August 23, 2007

  The extremes of teen angst were on display during last weekend’s pop-culture onslaught in the forms of Disney heartthrob Zac Efron and... More >>