Salon.com > PBS http://www.salon.com Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:20:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 James Brown’s 1984 interview on respect, conviction and Reagan http://www.salon.com/2013/05/28/james_browns_1984_interview_on_respect_conviction_and_reagan/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/28/james_browns_1984_interview_on_respect_conviction_and_reagan/#comments Tue, 28 May 2013 18:50:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13311061 PBS Digital Studios and David Gerlach's "Blank on Blank" series has released another never-before-heard interview, this one the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Speaking to ABC News Radio reporter Rocci Fisch, James expounds on blackness in America and his success. "Black is not a color; it's an attitude," said Brown. "It's an attitude of independence, respect and dignity."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/28/james_browns_1984_interview_on_respect_conviction_and_reagan/feed/ 0 Diddy cast as first black member in “Downton Abbey” parody http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/diddy_cast_as_first_black_member_in_downton_abbey_parody/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/diddy_cast_as_first_black_member_in_downton_abbey_parody/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 13:24:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13300324 Sean "Diddy" Combs surprised news outlets yesterday when the rapper announced that he's going to be a "series regular" on British period drama "Downton Abbey," which only weeks ago cast its first black character. It turns out that Diddy was referring his role in a Funny or Die parody of the show, called "Downton Diddy," which posits that there's been a black character in the series all along -- he's just being ignored:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/diddy_cast_as_first_black_member_in_downton_abbey_parody/feed/ 0 PBS announces “Downton Abbey” Season 4 premiere date http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/pbs_announces_downton_abbey_season_four_premiere_date/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/pbs_announces_downton_abbey_season_four_premiere_date/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 16:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13298201 PBS has announced that Season 4 of British period drama "Downton Abbey" will premiere on Jan. 5, 2014. The season will run for eight weeks, ending on Feb. 23.

Like the seasons before it, the fourth season will again lag the U.K.'s broadcast, which will run in the autumn of 2013 on ITV. Last season, this caused some controversy among fans, as spoilers and leaked videos hit the Internet before the U.S. broadcast -- the biggest upset being the death of Matthew Crawley in the season finale.

In February, PBS president Paula Kerger told Salon that despite the possibility of spoilers, a several-month lag in broadcasting still makes sense for the scrappy network:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/pbs_announces_downton_abbey_season_four_premiere_date/feed/ 3 New PBS programming includes mini-series on African Americans and JFK http://www.salon.com/2013/05/09/new_pbs_programming_includes_mini_series_on_african_americans_and_jfk/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/09/new_pbs_programming_includes_mini_series_on_african_americans_and_jfk/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 17:21:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13293940 LOS ANGELES (AP) -- PBS' fall schedule will examine President John F. Kennedy's life and his death 50 years ago through a modern lens, part of the network's increased emphasis on relevance, its programming chief said.

A variety of programs about Kennedy will air in the weeks leading up to the milestone anniversary of his Nov. 22, 1963, slaying in Dallas, including "JFK," a four-hour "American Experience" portrait of Kennedy, what he accomplished and what was left undone, PBS announced Thursday.

The science show "Nova" will look at how the forensics investigation into his death would have been handled today and "lay bare some of the problems with forensics at the time," said Beth Hoppe, PBS' new chief programming executive.

The history-oriented "Secrets of the Dead," with a narrative account of the president's shooting, and a look at Kennedy collectibles also will be part of the coverage, along with other specials being planned, PBS said.

Also set for public TV's lineup are specials on American heritage, including a family roots series, "Genealogy Roadshow," and two documentary programs with sweeping views of Hispanic and black history, "Latino Americans" and "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/09/new_pbs_programming_includes_mini_series_on_african_americans_and_jfk/feed/ 0 “The Bletchley Circle,” a feminist murder mystery http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/the_bletchley_circle_a_feminist_murder_mystery/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/the_bletchley_circle_a_feminist_murder_mystery/#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:28:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13282799 When it comes to TV, Sunday nights are already more overstuffed than a turducken. Between “Mad Men,” “Game of Thrones,” and “The Good Wife,” and with “Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad” and “Downton Abbey” waiting in the wings, it’s a DVR's busiest night of the week. You can now add PBS’s “The Bletchley Circle” to the list of worthwhile Sunday night programming, though this at least is one you can record to watch on some non-Sunday — no one is going to spoil it on Twitter — or track down after Don Draper has slunk his mopey, existentially despairing self through the ninthcircle of hell and into “Mad Men’s” off-season hiatus.

“The Bletchley Circle” is a refreshingly brief — three episode — miniseries from ITV; more precisely, it is a feminist, period, murder mystery miniseries from ITV. The first episode, which aired last week, began during World War II at Bletchley Park, the center of British code-breaking, with four women cracking a code about German troop movements. The series picks up in 1952, with those women — and everyone else who worked at Bletchley Park —  having signed the Official Secrets Act, forbidding them from disclosing their work during the war, a return to normalcy that has left some of them unfulfilled.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/the_bletchley_circle_a_feminist_murder_mystery/feed/ 10 Does “Downton Abbey” perpetuate gay stereotypes? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/downton_abbeys_gay_valet_subtly_subversive_or_walking_cliche_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/downton_abbeys_gay_valet_subtly_subversive_or_walking_cliche_partner/#comments Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13276512 IT WAS A SEASON OF SADNESS, a season of tsuris; the anti-Passover, I guess, as at the last minute the Angel of Death, that occasional writing partner of Julian Fellowes, stopped at Downton Abbey after all. Yes, Season Three of the most successful drama in PBS history ended with both a death and a birth, as Fellowes is a generous host. If you didn’t watch, you can read on without fear; here be no spoilers. I’ll just say that we were left with a Major Character dead on a country road, blood leaking from (gender unspecified’s) mouth. Season Four, which we won’t get for a year, will pick up six months after the Sadness. Maggie Smith, in the role of Maggie Smith, will once more in her Don-Rickles-with-a-title mode trot out the zingers, his Lordship will disapprove of something or other, and Lady Edith will defy the example set by her late sister Sybil that Girls With Ideas come to early ends. Shit may, as they say, happen at Downton, but Fellowes believes that just getting on with it is the best revenge, a worldview that helps him infallibly locate and dramatize the perfect balance between what needs to change, and what must never change, with the latter given the weight.
Los Angeles Review of Books

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/downton_abbeys_gay_valet_subtly_subversive_or_walking_cliche_partner/feed/ 7 “Makers”: How the feminist revolution was (partly) won http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/the_makers_how_the_feminist_revolution_was_won_%e2%80%94_and_lost/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/the_makers_how_the_feminist_revolution_was_won_%e2%80%94_and_lost/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:27:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13212817 Social movements are the stories of many, often only temporarily aligned, if that. And to tell one story means leaving things out. "Makers," the new documentary about the women's movement airing tonight on PBS, is noticeably aware of that, assiduously covering the bases of nearly every fissure that tore women apart in the last half-century: race, class, gender, sexuality, core political ideology, generational change.

But to tell it all would take more than a lifetime, so here are three hours that are an excellent place to start, especially for those not particularly inclined to start anywhere. (The next place to go is the documentary's website, an enormous archive of interviews, some of them with rare candor, from coal miner Barbara Burns to Hillary Clinton.)

The story begins where most everyone would expect it to, with "The Feminine Mystique," the ennui of white, educated suburban women, Betty Friedan launching it all. (Even as her homophobia and other severe limitations are called out, you have to feel for the deceased Friedan when the camera slowly pans from her, sitting exhaustedly at the edge of the table, to introduce a cigarette-laced, effortlessly charismatic Gloria Steinem at the other end of the table.) But it doesn't stop there: Black women -- particularly Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton -- give voice to the general inapplicability of the problems of the suburban, single-earner households to the longtime realities of their lives. Lesbians talk of being openly shut out of the movement for fear they would hurt its image. Phyllis Schlafly, a woman identified as a "homemaker/writer," and Fox News commentator Monica Crowley rep for right-wing women and their hostility to the f-word.

To "Makers'" credit, there are famous women here -- famous in the world at large, famous in the retellings of the women's movement -- but there are also women whose names we never heard or forgot, like Kathrine Switzer, the first woman who ran the Boston marathon (and was physically blocked by an official for her audacity), and Dusty Roads, a flight attendant who sued over discrimination. There is attention to cultural barriers and to legal and political ones, to violence and to resistance.

Watching the documentary, it suddenly seems starkly clear that the most profound unresolved conflict of women's progress is not all of the competing struggles of identity, although they obviously matter, but an ambivalence about traditional female roles and activities. That ambivalence lies at the heart of unresolved questions about motherhood, the pleasures or pains of domesticity and fashion, sexuality and "objectification," the persistence of "pink ghetto" jobs held by women -- whether they're being rejected, embraced or reclaimed. (Interestingly, the often-bitter battles over pornography and other forms of paid sex work, for example, are hardly mentioned, unless you count Madonna and the picketing of the Miss America pageant.) And too often, this ambivalence is dispatched with a pat assertion that feminism is about women making choices, so all choices are good. It's beyond the documentary's provenance to solve these disputes, but it provides plenty of fodder to examine them.

Madonna didn't sit for an interview, but there's an archival clip of her saying, "To the feminists, I would like to point out that they're missing a couple of things. Because I may be dressing like the typical bimbo or whatever, but I'm in charge, and isn't that what feminism is all about?" It functions as a book-end to the end of the documentary, which deals (with far less deftness, from this biased, 29-year-old observer's perspective) with whether young women are properly carrying on the mantle of the movement. Ms. co-founder Letty Cottin Pogrebin and her daughter Robin are presented as the archetype of semi-ungrateful younger women finding their mother's feminism to be incomplete. Of the younger Pogrebin's work-life conflict, narrator Meryl Streep intones, "Pogrebin quit her all-consuming television job. Instead, she worked shorter hours from home as a writer, relying more on her husband to support the family." Somehow, this problem, which is given a lot of airtime considering that just critique of the limits of Friedan, is posited as the problem of too much feminism, as opposed to not enough of it informing policies and norms.

Shortly afterward, Michelle Rhee and Marissa Mayer -- controversial figures in their own rights -- come out to essentially shrug off feminism, followed by Monica Crowley saying, "I think modern feminism has sort of come full circle, women are saying, I don't need a movement, I don't need female leaders to tell me what I want to get out of my life. I know what I like. To me that's the great victory of so-called feminism is we are now here to say I can reject the feminist movement or I can go out on TV and have a different opinion from the so-called feminist leaders, and that's OK." It is certainly "OK," in the sense that women have a range of experiences and ideas, and that is both good and not going anywhere. But the documentary itself makes crystal clear that women have never all agreed on what their lives should look like and what would constitute progress. Backlash was happening all around the pioneers; certainly, not every woman embraced feminism even in the 1970s. The only thing that's changed is that some of them are now getting paid more to say so.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/the_makers_how_the_feminist_revolution_was_won_%e2%80%94_and_lost/feed/ 4 Marlo Thomas: “It’s amazing the impact ‘Free to Be …’ had. Yet nobody followed it up. It’s gone bad” http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/marlo_thomas_its_amazing_the_impact_free_to_be_had_yet_nobody_followed_it_up_its_gone_bad/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/marlo_thomas_its_amazing_the_impact_free_to_be_had_yet_nobody_followed_it_up_its_gone_bad/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13179986 Before “Girls,” “New Girl” and “2 Broke Girls,” there was “That Girl.” First premiering in 1966, it was the first sitcom about a single woman who wanted a career — an unprecedented feminist concept for TV at the time —  pitched by its star, who just happened to be carrying a copy of "The Feminine Mystique" with her to the meeting.

Hers is only one story from the huge, multifaceted women’s movement chronicled in the new three-hour documentary “Makers: Women Who Make America,” airing Tuesday night on PBS, which profiles women on the front lines of the 50-year struggle for women’s rights. Marlo Thomas, who starred as Anne Marie, the title role of ”That Girl,” appears in each of the three hours of the documentary — Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem are the other two stars of the documentary.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/marlo_thomas_its_amazing_the_impact_free_to_be_had_yet_nobody_followed_it_up_its_gone_bad/feed/ 17 “Downton Abbey” recap: It’s not against the law to hope, is it? http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/downton_abbey_recap_it%e2%80%99s_not_against_the_law_to_hope_is_it/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/downton_abbey_recap_it%e2%80%99s_not_against_the_law_to_hope_is_it/#comments Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13195516 The two-hour “Downton Abbey” that just aired on PBS was broadcast in Great Britain as two separate episodes, the second of which was the season three finale. After that bucolic cricket match, audiences across the Atlantic had to wait two long months before seeing the Christmas special, which will air next week on PBS. I raise this matter of scheduling not to revel in the fact that we Americans don’t have to wait patiently for our next “Downton” fix, but to point out that “Downton Abbey” is now the kind of show that introduces its audience to a bratty, bright young thing engaged in foolish and clichéd nonsense in the season finale, rather than giving some more screen time to one of the dozens of underserved characters we already know and care about.

I’m as interested in gin parties as the next person — and why, if Julian Fellowes is so keen to show us roaring London, has he refused to let one of the Crawley girls have some fun? — but not when the person going to them is some random character dropped in from a crappy screenplay treatment of one of Evelyn Waugh’s lesser comedic novels. It’s the season finale! Lady Mary has not had a decent storyline since the very first episode of the season. She couldn’t have been making like a Mitford on the London social scene these past few months? Last week Daisy got offered a whole other career. What did she do about it? Who knows! Let’s check in on this Rose character instead!

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/downton_abbey_recap_it%e2%80%99s_not_against_the_law_to_hope_is_it/feed/ 35 Could “Downton” ever be spoiler-free? http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/could_downton_ever_be_spoiler_free/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/could_downton_ever_be_spoiler_free/#comments Tue, 05 Feb 2013 19:21:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13191528 While other networks were in reruns to avoid a collision with the Ravens, the 49ers and Beyoncé, PBS had yet another triumph on Super Bowl Sunday. "Downton Abbey," in its third season, averaged 6.6 million viewers Sunday night, up 69 percent from its performance the year before. And, as is typical for "Downton," it wasn't just older longtime "Masterpiece" lovers tuning in: A tweet the network sent out urging bored football fans to tune away from a blacked-out Superdome got over 3,500 retweets.

"Our social media guys were on the stick during the blackout," said Paula Kerger, the president of PBS. Comparing "humble little PBS" to other brands who used the New Orleans blackout to get brand awareness, she noted: "It was Oreo, Tide, and PBS!"

And yet questions exist about whether or not PBS is capitalizing as well as it might on newfound attention to its programming. At the center is the transatlantic broadcast lag of "Downton Abbey." The recent death of central character Lady Sybil was spoiled for some viewers by news reports and recaps from the U.K., where the character died on ITV last October; other viewers pirated the series long before its U.S. airing.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/could_downton_ever_be_spoiler_free/feed/ 11 The Mad Men of Silicon Valley http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/the_mad_men_of_silicon_valley/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/the_mad_men_of_silicon_valley/#comments Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:32:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13191412 "We're not that big on history," says veteran technology journalist Michael Malone near the close of "Silicon Valley," a documentary premiering tonight on PBS as part of the "American Experience" series. "We don't look back very much."

It's an odd thing to hear. If you have even a passing interest in the history of computing, you've likely run across some portion of the tale told in "Silicon Valley." How the "Traitorous Eight," a group of brilliant scientists frustrated by the erratic behavior of their boss, Nobel prize–winning physicist William Shockley, defected to start their own company and launch the silicon chip revolution is the foundation stone of Valley myth-making. Every book -- and there have been many -- that strives to recount the story of how the computer chip changed the world, or how Silicon Valley's venture capital-funded start-up culture, with all its love of risk and innovation, broke the old way of doing business in America returns, over and over again, to the brave young physicists and chemists who abandoned their corporate cocoon in 1957 and kicked off the future.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/the_mad_men_of_silicon_valley/feed/ 3 Sesame Street presents “Upside Downton Abbey” http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/sesame_street_presents_upside_downton_abbey/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/sesame_street_presents_upside_downton_abbey/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:52:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13188522 Sesame Street has been killing it on the Internet this week. Today the channel released "Upside Downton Abbey," an absurd spoof -- part wordplay, part parody -- of the Emmy Award–winning drama.

"Carson, might I have some tea?" asks the Dowager Countess, upside down. (Carson pours her tea):

Dowager Countess: Oh! Why is the tea not going in my cup?

Carson: Perhaps because you are upside down, ma'am.

Dowager Countess: Well of course we're upside down! This is Upside Downton Abbey!

And it continues:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/sesame_street_presents_upside_downton_abbey/feed/ 1 Michelle Rhee to actually be held accountable by press for once http://www.salon.com/2013/01/08/michelle_rhee_to_actually_be_held_accountable_by_press_for_once/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/08/michelle_rhee_to_actually_be_held_accountable_by_press_for_once/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:51:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13165330 Michelle Rhee is the subject of tonight's "Frontline" on PBS. Considering that Rhee, the former head of Washington, D.C.'s schools, is one of the most deified figures in contemporary American politics, you'd be forgiven for predicting another gauzy follow-up to "Waiting for Superman," the pro-"education reform" propaganda picture that made Rhee a national figure. But this interview with the episode's lead reporter, John Merrow (via Dana Goldstein), suggests a much more critical take than Rhee is used to. Because unlike so many other outlets, "Frontline" is going to report on all the cheating.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/08/michelle_rhee_to_actually_be_held_accountable_by_press_for_once/feed/ 68 Dan Stevens confirms rumors that he is leaving “Downton Abbey” http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/dan_stevens_confirms_rumors_that_he_is_leaving_downton_abbey/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/dan_stevens_confirms_rumors_that_he_is_leaving_downton_abbey/#comments Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13154885 Actor Dan Stevens, who rose to international fame for his role as Matthew Crawley in British period drama "Downton Abbey," has confirmed rumors that he will not be returning to the show's fourth season. Considering that the show's Season 3 Christmas special just aired in Britain, Stevens joked that “It is very strange to make it official especially since we are talking about it in the future perfect." He added, “I am not sure exactly what tense it is, but it is something very weird.” (Making it weirder still for Americans, as Season 3 premieres in the U.S. on Jan. 6.)

But in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Stevens admits that he made the decision before filming for the third season had even begun. “We were always optioned for three years,” he said. “And when that came up it was a very difficult decision. But it felt like a good time to take stock, to take a moment. From a personal point of view, I wanted a chance to do other things."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/dan_stevens_confirms_rumors_that_he_is_leaving_downton_abbey/feed/ 9 Why is the media rehabilitating John Lott? http://www.salon.com/2012/12/21/why_is_the_media_rehabilitating_john_lott/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/21/why_is_the_media_rehabilitating_john_lott/#comments Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:57:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13152013 In the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, one man has represented the pro-gun argument in the media perhaps more than anyone else: John Lott. Lott, an economist who first lent credence to the argument that the answer to gun violence is more guns, was a major presence in the gun control debate of the past two decades, before being sidelined by controversy. So his reappearance on TV news programs in the wake of the shooting is surprising.

Here’s what critics say about him. Lott held prestigious positions at Yale and the University of Chicago, where he published his groundbreaking book, "More Guns, Less Crime." In the early 2000s, his work fell into controversy for employing what some academic critics termed “junk science” and for various apparently fatal methodological flaws. Later, he was unable to prove the existence of a study central to his thesis. He was also caught using a fake “sockpuppet” persona to defend his work and attack his critics online. “In most circles, this goes down as fraud,” Donald Kennedy, the then-editor of the prestigious journal Science wrote in an editorial. Even Michelle Malkin said Lott had shown an “extensive willingness to deceive to protect and promote his work.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/21/why_is_the_media_rehabilitating_john_lott/feed/ 8 “The Iranian Americans”: Fleeing one kind of persecution for another http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/the_iranian_americans/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/the_iranian_americans/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:43:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13148715 Between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bravo's reality show "The Shahs of Sunset,"" and the lingering suspicions of a nuclear program, Iranians living in America may be in need of some good P.R. right about now.

So a few of the tens of thousands of Iranians who moved to America in the late 1970s pitched in to help finance the sunny new documentary "The Iranian Americans" premiering tonight on PBS. The value of such self-financed cultural puff pieces is questionable. It may make its community swell with pride, but its unflagging self-promotion may make it seem unreliable to outsiders.

Director Andrew Goldberg has some experience in this area, with such similar PBS documentaries as “The Jewish People: A Story of Survival” and “The Armenian Genocide: A Story of Survival.” “The Iranian Americans” switches between recollections of various Iranian-American success stories, from a two-time mayor of Beverly Hills to a vice-chair of Citicorp.

Still, aside from insights that could describe any number of close-knit ethnic groups – They love their big extended families! They love to eat! They want to hold on to their culture by keeping its language alive! – there are insights about Iranian-Americans that emerge almost between the lines.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/the_iranian_americans/feed/ 0 “Downton” does downtown New York http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/downton_does_downtown_new_york/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/downton_does_downtown_new_york/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:11:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13120397 The cast of Julian Fellowes' Emmy Award-winning "Downton Abbey" has arrived in New York in anticipation of the U.S. premiere of Season 3. The stars attended last night's New York Knicks game, which the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) described as "basketamazeballs :-)"

[embed_tweet id="277927262630842368"]

And this morning, they checked off another tourist to-do item when they rode the subway:

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New Yorkers should stay on the lookout for more sightings as the cast continues its NYC tour (try Rockefeller Center -- Bonneville, for one, loves Christmas in the city).

PBS will stream a live Q&A from New York with the cast at 8 p.m. on Dec. 12.

Season 3 of "Downton Abbey" premieres Jan. 6 on PBS.

 

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/downton_does_downtown_new_york/feed/ 0 Relive the first two seasons of “Downton Abbey” in five minutes http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/relive_the_first_two_seasons_of_downton_abbey_in_five_minutes/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/relive_the_first_two_seasons_of_downton_abbey_in_five_minutes/#comments Fri, 07 Dec 2012 02:05:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13117761 Gearing up for Season 3 of its Emmy Award-winning "Downton Abbey," PBS has released a five-minute recap of the first two seasons of the period drama -- complete with snark from the Dowager Countess:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/relive_the_first_two_seasons_of_downton_abbey_in_five_minutes/feed/ 5 PBS auto-tunes LeVar Burton http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/pbs_auto_tunes_levar_burton/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/pbs_auto_tunes_levar_burton/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:50:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13113402 PBS Digital Studios has added another hit to its "Icons Remixed" (aka 90s nostalgia) series: Reading Rainbow's "In Your Imagination." PBS's Linda Holmes writes, "I'm not sure I love it more than the Mr. Rogers video, but it's lovely."

The show went off the air in 2009, after 23 years, though host LeVar Burton recently launched an app for it.  Watch Burton sing about books, "one the best inventions ever":

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/pbs_auto_tunes_levar_burton/feed/ 0 Kevin Clash can’t destroy Elmo http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/kevin_clash_cant_destroy_elmo/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/kevin_clash_cant_destroy_elmo/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:35:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13104078 It's the most ignoble career flameout any "Sesame Street" star has ever had. In fact, amazingly, it's pretty much the only flameout in the beloved PBS series' four-decade history. On Tuesday, Kevin Clash, the voice and puppeteer of the furry red superstar known as Elmo, left the show.

Sesame Workshop released a statement saying:

Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world over reach their highest potential. Kevin Clash has helped us achieve that mission for 28 years, and none of us, especially Kevin, want anything to divert our attention from our focus on serving as a leading educational organization. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Kevin’s personal life has become a distraction that none of us want, and he has concluded that he can no longer be effective in his job and has resigned from Sesame Street. This is a sad day for Sesame Street.

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