Television

Unleash the dog show!
February 13, 2012
Forget Valentine’s Day. Tonight we celebrate our greatest, most enduring and generally least complicated love affair. That between people and dogs.
Cruise ship wreck ready for prime time
February 12, 2012
“Italian Cruise Ship Disaster: The Untold Stories” (6 p.m., National Geographic) offers the first, moment-by-moment documentary look at the seemingly preventable mishap, including extensive interviews with survivors who were having the time of their lives right up to the moment disaster struck.
Network fare is rehashed
February 11, 2012
NBC offers viewers a second glance at the pilot of “Smash” (9 p.m.). The show had a healthy audience last Monday, so look for the network to offer viewers plenty of chances to get hooked. It’s certainly spent enough (reported to be more than $25 million) promoting this extravaganza, so it behooves the network to give as many folks as possible the chance to see what all the fuss is about.
Netflix and Hulu air new scripted originals
February 10, 2012
Within just over a week, Netflix and Hulu are both debuting their first stabs at original scripted programming.
TV treads a narrow path
February 10, 2012
There’s ratings gold in them there gold shows! Two weeks back, “Bering Sea Gold” (10 p.m., Discovery) was the highest-rated series debut in that network’s history. And last week, its cable ratings got even higher, reaching more than 3.5 million total viewers. There was a time when that would have been considered a paltry network audience. But those were in the days before every show had to compete with hundreds of other choices.
Love, money … it’s Valentine’s
February 9, 2012
Valentine’s Day approaches, and with it, obligatory holiday episodes.
Back to future for CBS News
February 8, 2012
CBS News takes a page from the distant past and reintroduces the special “Person to Person” (7 p.m.) to a new generation.
‘River’ may pull you in
February 7, 2012
Tonight brings us the premiere of “The River” (8 p.m., ABC). It’s a stab at “Lost” by way of “Paranormal Activity” and “The Blair Witch Project.”
NBC puts on a really big show
February 6, 2012
There’s nothing particularly wrong with “Smash” (9 p.m., NBC), except that nothing about it feels quite right.
A few choices beyond the Super Bowl
February 5, 2012
Sequels tend to pile up when you’re not watching. I’m still not sure how many movies “Leprechaun” has spawned.
Do ’tweens still want to know ‘how to rock’?
February 4, 2012
The new tween musical-fantasy sitcom “How to Rock” (7:30 p.m., Nickelodeon) proves that some stories and themes never go out of style. Mean girls just need a nudge to become nice, and ugly ducklings just have to get past freshman year to become swans.
Sheen finds affirmation in his rebel roots
February 3, 2012
The celebrity genealogy series “Who Do You Think You Are?” (7 p.m., NBC) returns with a glance at a few of the gnarled branches in Martin Sheen’s family tree.
‘Union’ a curious dance of collaboration, rehabilitation
February 2, 2012
Directed by Cameron Crowe, the 2011 documentary “The Union” (8 p.m., HBO) chronicles the making of Elton John and Leon Russell’s collaborative album of the same name.
A woolly mystery long in the tooth
12:00 a.m., February 1, 2012 Updated 12:00 a.m.
Talk about a cold case! “NOVA” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings) presents “Ice Age Death Trap,” a tale of mass tragedy and forensic sleuthing spanning millennia. As on any “CSI” episode, we begin with a curious discovery. A construction worker in Colorado unearths something odd: a tooth so large it has to be held in two hands.
‘Key & Peele’ deals with race and little else
January 31, 2012
Way back in another century, President Bill Clinton was called “the first black president.” And it was Clinton who suggested that America needed to have a “conversation about race.” The new sketch comedy series “Key & Peele” (9:30 p.m., Comedy Central) presents a nonstop conversation about race, racism and biracial identity.

Previous | Next