By Kathryn Ware

Our tribute to the 35th anniversary of the debut of Maude continues.
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Season 1, Episode 10
Episode Title: Maude’s Dilemma (Part 2)
Original airdate: 21 November 1972
Plot: The episode begins with a voiceover welcoming us back to Part 2 of “Maude’s Dilemma.” It’s the day after and Maude has just woken up from a restless night of baby-filled nightmares. What’s more, she has a nasty cold on top of her morning sickness.
Over a couple of cups of black coffee, daughter Carol reiterates that Maude shouldn’t feel guilty or afraid to consider not having the baby. (“. . . for you to have a baby at your age [47] could be very risky!”) Maude tells Carol that after a lot of soul searching, she’s decided to have the baby. She’s convinced she knows her husband and this is what Walter really wants. Not that they’ve actually talked about it. No, given this very important decision, Walter and Maude instead have had a series of vague “I want what you want” conversations.

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Posted on November 26, 2007

By Kathryn Ware

Our tribute to the 35th anniversary of the debut of Maude continues.
*
Season 1, Episode 9
Episode Title: Maude’s Dilemma (Part 1)
Original airdate: 14 November 1972
Plot: This is it, the controversial episode Maude is most famous for, the segment generally referred to as “Maude’s abortion.” Just eight episodes into the first season, Maude’s creators pushed the envelope of acceptable TV entertainment to the extreme, so much so that advertisers balked and some local CBS affiliates refused to air the two-part episode. Thirty-five years later, it’s impossible to imagine a network sitcom using abortion as a featured storyline.

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Posted on November 20, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I didn’t sleep well last night. Here’s what I kept flipping between.
1. The Devil’s Advocate.
I love this movie.
KEANU: Why the law, dad?
PACINO: Because it puts us into everything.
I’m not terribly fond of Keanu Reeves’ performance (has he ever been good except unknowingly perfect as Johnny Utah in Point Break?), but Al Pacino as John Milton, a.k.a., the devil, is mesmerizing. While the theology is confusing, Pacino’s oration in the final scene (“I’m a fan of man! . . . God is an absentee landlord! Worship that? Never!”) is spectacular.
2. Jerry Maguire.
I detest this movie. On about 50 different levels.

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Posted on November 19, 2007

By Julia Gray

The Real Housewives of Orange County has returned for another season loaded with pregnant questions for diehard viewers like me who can’t get enough of this show despite its validation of society’s sick fascination with the rich. That’s because the show serves an alternative validating value: Repeated viewings verify the fact that the rest of us might not be as beautiful and wealthy as the “housewives” featured here, but we get weekly proof that we’re much smarter, cooler and better people than these self-absorbed half-wits with horrendous taste.
These women, in fact, have nothing to offer society except to show how not to wear your hair over 40 and that bragging about how much money you have is klassy.
But sometimes it’s fun to scratch the surface and get more surface. Let’s take a look.

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Posted on November 13, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I don’t know which was more depressing, watching the hopelessly far-gone alcoholic on Intervention hiding huge bottles of discount mouth wash all over her house while babbling nonsensically to her poor husband and children, or Chris Matthews actually officially projecting Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee based on all the information available to Hardball despite the fact that a single vote has yet to be cast in a single primary. Earliest Projection Ever.
Not that I don’t have compassion for one of the subjects of my TV viewing last night: The drunk.

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Posted on November 6, 2007