<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Tom Shales</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/style/columns/shalestom?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><description>Tom Shales</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[The Hazy Future of Sitcoms]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9493-2005Apr22.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9493-2005Apr22.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["Everybody Loves Raymond" is the last great sitcom of its sitcom generation, the flag bearer for a style of domestic sitcom that not everybody loves anymore.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Locusts': CBS Puts Viewers in Swarms' Way]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10764-2005Apr22.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10764-2005Apr22.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  "Locusts" is this month's winner of the "T.G.T.B.K." award. That's "They've Got to Be Kidding," a little something special for films that are a little something special themselves  --  but only in their alternately grin-and-groan ridiculousness.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Seen From Every Possible Angle]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2595-2005Apr19.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2595-2005Apr19.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Alerted by the traditional puff of white smoke from a Vatican chimney, the electronic media sprang into action Tuesday.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Revelations': It's a Long Way To Armageddon]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48351-2005Apr12.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48351-2005Apr12.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[NBC has unleashed the armies of the night in a six-game tournament against the armies of the day.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[All Eyes on Rome]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38395-2005Apr8.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38395-2005Apr8.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Any attempt to argue that television is the instrument of the devil  --  sometimes a fairly easy case to make  --  would have been a futile uphill battle Friday.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Whoopi  Takes the Long Way Back Home]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38863-2005Apr8.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38863-2005Apr8.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Whoopi Goldberg's new "Back to Broadway" special isn't just for people who like Whoopi Goldberg. No, it's for people who love Whoopi Goldberg  --  love her almost as much as life itself.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Swashbuckling Life of Errol Flynn]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26668-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26668-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Turner Classic Movies pays jaunty and justifiable tribute to Flynn this month with a splendid 32-film festival.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sorrow, Via Satellite]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22430-2005Apr3.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22430-2005Apr3.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Satellites can transmit spiritual values as well as electronic signals; it's just that they don't often get the chance. Yesterday, they did. The communications satellites that lay a kind of benign siege to the Earth as they laze around space were kept busy spreading news of the death of a pope, and circulating images that brought him to life.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Grey's Anatomy': No Heart, No Brain]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Mar25.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Mar25.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["Grey's Anatomy," the new medical series, is only nominally new  --  the vaguely familiar saga of ambitious young interns earning their stripes at a big fat Seattle hospital.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Office': NBC's Duplicate of Brit Hit]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61846-2005Mar23.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61846-2005Mar23.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Largely faithful in tone to the BBC series, BC's "Office" fails to score a direct hit, settling instead for an amusing approximation.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cue the Shark Music and Prepare to Be Scared]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48632-2005Mar18.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48632-2005Mar18.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  What could make an aging, even ailing, television critic arise from his sick bed  --  indeed, a bed not just sick but infected  --  and crawl couchward to screen a television show? It would have to be some bold new departure in video storytelling, surely, or perhaps a tasteful new British serial adapted from a quaint old 19th-century novel?]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Saving Milly': An Aloof Treatment Of a Family's Loss]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28630-2005Mar11.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28630-2005Mar11.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  No doubt Morton Kondracke poured his heart into "Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease," a book about the long, lingering illness and eventual tragic death of his wife, Millicent. But as translated into a CBS movie, "Saving Milly," the story becomes strangely dry and emotionless, even when the symptoms worsen and the heroine struggles bravely to survive  --  standard cues, in this kind of film, for the audience to haul out the hankies.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Leaving By the High Road]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18755-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18755-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Dan Rather will make his last appearance Wednesday night as anchor of "The CBS Evening News," 24 years to the day since his first telecast as anchor.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Fat Actress': Jolly-Unsaturated]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12720-2005Mar6.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12720-2005Mar6.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Kirstie Alley bravely suffers innumerable indignities in her new Showtimes series, "Fat Actress," but it's not much fun to suffer them with her.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Junior Lightweight]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12427-2005Mar6.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12427-2005Mar6.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["The Contender" offers a chance for viewers to give their yawn muscles a really rigorous workout.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Deadwood': Still Shooting From the Hip]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8858-2005Mar4.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8858-2005Mar4.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Wests don't get much wilder than David Milch's, as the return of his "Deadwood" to an otherwise rather barren HBO schedule makes invigoratingly clear.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Case for Cloning]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2837-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2837-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[After previewing the first three episodes, it's safe to say that the new "Law & Order" proudly upholds the franchise.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Holding E! In Contempt]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64534-2005Mar1.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64534-2005Mar1.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["The Michael Jackson Trial," a reenactment of the day's proceedings on the E! Entertainment Network, has a sticky irresistibility, like a glazed doughnut that's gone all gooey.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rock, Well . . . Didn't]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59174-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59174-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Tom Shales says this year's Academy Awards will likely be the first, and last, to be hosted by Chris Rock.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[On CBS, A Happy Return]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42722-2005Feb21.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42722-2005Feb21.html?nav=rss_style/columns/shalestom</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 7:50:44 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["The 'One Day at a Time' Reunion Special" is unusual in that the traumatic backstage woes of one of the show's stars are addressed in a fairly straightforward if abbreviated way.]]></description><author> Tom Shales</author></item></channel></rss>
