[Televisionary]

Just what are you watching before bed? Do you tune in to watch a 10 p.m. drama? A late-night talk show? Or reality television? At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TiVo’s Top 20 Shows Watched Before Bed: Jimmy Fallon, Lost Girl , and More," in which I examine data obtained from TiVo about the top 20 shows that people watch before they go to bed, from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Revenge to Chopped and NCIS: LA . It’s no secret that many Americans turn on the television as part of a nighttime ritual before bed. But what is surprising is just what they’re watching before their heads hit their respective pillows. According to data provided by TiVo to The Daily Beast, the top program watched at bedtime was NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, while TBS’s Conan was the most-watched cable show before bed. “Perhaps it’s not surprising that many late-night talk shows are watched before bed,” Tara Maitra, TiVo’s general manager of content and media sales...

While the pilot was a hit with critics, few have been happy with NBC’s Smash since. How could things have gone so wrong, so quickly? Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature , in which I offer my take on NBC's Smash , which started out with such promise but has turned into a head-scratching mess of a show. (Also, said story is being advertised on the site as, "A Jace Lacob rant." Ha!) What has happened to Smash? Despite a pilot episode that was praised by critics, Smash went from must-see TV to stumbling, face first, into the orchestra pit in a matter of weeks. While the show will be back next season after a renewal last week, the show’s creator, Theresa Rebeck, won’t be returning. That has to be a boon, given how uneven Smash has been. For every well-done and lavish musical number, there have been countless appalling elements each week. One of the concerns about Smash going in was that it would be too insular: that its depiction of the rush to...

Over at The Daily Beast, I talk with Anjelica Huston about her husband’s death, her formidable character on Smash , and the “cult of murder” on television today. You can read my latest feature, entitled " Smash 's Scene Stealer," here. It is impossible to miss Anjelica Huston when she walks into a room. In this case, the room was the bar at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, California, a few hours before Huston was set to take the stage before a ballroom of television critics at the TCA Winter Press Tour to answer questions for her new show, the Broadway-set drama Smash , which premieres Monday on NBC. With her raven Cleopatra cut, an armful of gently clanging bracelets, and her impressive height, Huston is unlikely to get lost in a crowd, but her considerable talents as an actress render that an impossibility. As she slinked into a club chair on a gray January morning, she exuded a sense of serenity and warmth that is deeply at odds with the troubled characters she ...

Fifty years after her death, the mention of Marilyn Monroe conjures up familiar imagery: that whispery voice, the platinum hair, her vulnerability. From Michelle Williams’s recent embodiment to yet another reissue of Monroe’s last photo shoot, she’s still inescapable, and always exerting a gravitational pull on popular imagination. In this week's issue of Newsweek, you can read my latest feature, " Smash 's Big Broadway Bet," which looks at NBC's musical-drama Smash , launching February 6th, through the prism of both Marilyn Monroe's cultural impact and the stakes that the show faces ahead. Will this end up being The West Wing with music or Cop Rock ? I talk to creator/executive producer Theresa Rebeck, Anjelica Huston, and NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt. On The Daily Beast, the piece gets a companion story in "11 Secrets of Smash ," in which I take a look at several questions surrounding the show including: What would the Showti...

With the return of Justified, Downton Abbey , and Shameless , and the launch of Touch, Luck , and others, I take a look at what’s coming to your TV this winter over at The Daily Beast, in my latest feature, "What to Watch on TV This Winter." (To get right to my thoughts on the 18 shows included and bypass the intro, you can click here .) January brings some fresh opportunities for the broadcast and cable networks to try and lure you back with new and returning programming. Among the highlights: costume drama fiends will be lined up for the Jan. 8 return of British drama Downton Abbey; FX’s Justified returns for a third season of Kentucky shootouts on Jan. 17; HBO’s cult comedy Eastbound and Down returns on Feb. 19; auteurs David Milch and Michael Mann unite for HBO’s Luck, launching Jan. 29; and Kiefer Sutherland returns to television with Fox’s Touch, which will get a preview broadcast on Jan. 25. (It officially premieres on March 19.) Absolutely Fabulous, the outrageou...