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Syllabi for 10 Real College Pop-Culture Classes We’d Love to Take

By Alison Herman on

We’ve all heard of Physics for Poets and Rocks for Jocks, but a few college classes skip the pretense of hard science altogether and get straight to the fun stuff. While these courses may not get you into medical school, they’ll leave you well-prepared for any cocktail party conversation, as long as you go to the kind of cocktail party where guests talk about Harry Potter and Joss Whedon. We’ve compiled the most compelling classes on TV, music, and even video games that colleges have to offer, including a selection of readings so you can hit the books without doing the whole midterm-and-paper… Read More

Television

How to Celebrate Thanksgiving Like Your Favorite TV Characters

By Chloe Pantazi on

Thanksgiving is for sitting around the table with family and friends, expressing gratitude for things most of us take for granted every other day of the year. But above all, Thanksgiving’s a time for TV, where tempers run as high as oven temperatures. Charred turkey, sibling rivalry, yam-slamming, and sticking a turkey on one’s head; without these key ingredients, no TV Thanksgiving would be complete. Here’s a list of what you’ll need to make your own TV Thanksgiving, at home. … Read More

Television

9 Signs a Teen TV Show Has Exceeded Its Expiration Date

By Judy Berman on

Glee, whose fourth season premieres tonight, is at a crossroads. At this point, the once-revolutionary musical comedy-drama has alienated most of the critics (and, judging by its falling ratings, some of the viewers) who once rallied around its quirky storylines and underdog characters. Perhaps that’s why, during May’s upfronts, creator Ryan Murphy announced that the show will be a bit different this year, splitting its focus to both remain at William McKinley High and follow some newly graduated characters to performing arts school in New York. Whatever the cause behind the change turns out to be, the show is clearly experiencing some growing pains. So, while we hope Glee will get it together in Season 4, we think it’s only fair to provide viewers with a (spoiler-filled) guide to spotting a teen TV show that has exceeded its expiration date. … Read More

Television

TV’s Greatest High School Nerd Transformations

By Michelle Rafferty on

With the recent Bunheads finale, the fast-approaching end of Awkward’s second season, and a promising Inbetweeners reboot, we confess we’ve gotten caught up in a lot of teen angst these past few weeks. So since we’re in the state of mind, we decided to look at some of the great high school series in television history and their nerd spawn. Like the teenage protagonists of the aforementioned shows, these characters all started out uncool, insecure, and/or sartorially challenged. And then of course, they grew up. You can click through for some before and after shots we dug up, and hope you’ll let us know about any great geek transformations we might have missed. And now, we’ll be making our way back to the couch for more adolescent love triangles, camera phone farce, and woefully instructive tales of sex.  … Read More

Television

A Collection of Great Art Made by TV Characters

By Michelle Rafferty on

We’ve done a fair amount of coverage on the burgeoning field of TV pop art in recent years, but we haven’t yet looked at the art directly from these fictional universes. From Jesse Pinkman’s Kanga-man and James Franco’s inexplicable self-portraits as “Franco” to Lily Aldrin’s nudes of both Marshall and Barney, we’ve rounded up the TV character art that has shocked, delighted, confused, and left us downright heartbroken. Have some professional criticism? Were Jesse Pinkman’s “lines” as great as Jane said they were? Is there a piece we didn’t include (and that you may or may not have facsimiled for your own wall)? Please share in the comments!  … Read More

Television

10 Unforgettable TV Summers We Never Got to See

By Michelle Rafferty on

At some point every Saved by the Bell fan has to decide where their allegiance lies: Are they Malibu Sands or Hawaiian Style? It’s one of those pop culture debates that’s the most fun to have because both summers had no bearing on anything (in Bayside or life), and those who would seriously argue otherwise probably belong in the same category as fans giving poor Mark-Paul Gosselaar a hard time for conceding the series was “not a great show.” At the same time, we have to give SBTB credit for exploring summer vacation — a storyline TV shows have historically bypassed — even if one of the major plot points in both runs was Slater’s abs.

It’s probably a good thing the summers of our favorite characters were never made into full-length films à la Hawaiian Style, because, as the law of television time-jump dictates, nothing of real consequence happens during this season (unless of course you’re watching HBO). Still, there are those characters whose lives we can’t but help wish we’d seen more of over break, and so, we came up with a list. We hope you’ll add the summers you always longed to see (and that may or may not have driven you to write pages of fanfic under an undisclosed pen name) in the comments, because at the risk of sounding like your mom on the first day of camp, we always love hearing from you. … Read More

Television

10 Famous TV Showrunners’ Biggest Regrets

By Michelle Rafferty on

With all the vainglory and self-promotion festering on the Twitter frontier, we gotta say it’s refreshing when people use their 140 characters for humble purposes (notwithstanding the fact that the existence of a singular selfless tweet has yet to be confirmed). A fine example of this would be last weekend’s cavalcade of TV showrunner remorse, incited by Damon Lindelof’s, “The weather in LA this week has been as consistent as the third season of LOST.” Bill Lawrence stepped up next, tweeting, “Many, many episodes of Scrubs sucked balls” and “Cougar Town’s first six eps made me sad.” Then Shonda Rhimes came forth, confessing that Seasons 4 and 5 of Grey’s Anatomy make her “want to hide in a dark cave and maybe change my name.” Which actually had us feeling bad as one can for famous rich people, and then scouring for other confessionals like these. Click through to see what we found, and please join in to add your favorite showrunner regrets in the comments! … Read More

Pop Culture

Ranking Pop Culture’s Imaginary Boyfriends and Girlfriends

By Jennifer Lewis on

Have you ever had a fake boyfriend or girlfriend? Y’know, someone who spontaneously sends you flowers, chocolates, letters, and all that lovey-dovey stuff, but actually doesn’t exist? If you’ve had one, don’t feel too embarrassed. After all, everyone from Jan Brady to Napoleon Dynamite has succumbed to the odd urge to fabricate a relationship as to impress those around them. After the jump, we’ve gathered nine imaginary boyfriends and girlfriends from pop culture and rated ‘em from worst to best. So, if you’re in the market for a new, exciting fake romance, click through to see what we’d consider somewhat acceptable. … Read More

Television

10 Incredibly Awkward TV Sex Scenes

By Michelle Rafferty on

Sex on television can be fairly unrealistic. For instance, it’s not possible for someone as cute as Zooey Deschanel to bomb with someone as equally cute as Justin Long (see New Girl episode #8). That said, the bottom line rings true: sex isn’t always pretty. Time and time again we learn that scented candles and starfish lingerie straps prove useless in diffusing the awkwardness of human intimacy. Which is why this Valentine’s Day we’re cutting through the hoopla and spotlighting some of the biggest romantic misfires in television history (no pun intended). And since we’re not total curmudgeons, we’d like to point out that, sometimes, bad sex is beautiful. It can blossom into true love, bring a couple closer together, or even save a friendship. Just click through and see for yourself. And be sure to add your own favorite awkward couplings in the comments! … Read More

Television

TV’s Greatest Alternate Reality Episodes

By Michelle Rafferty on

What if Buffy never came to Sunnydale? Or Ryan Atwood, Newport Beach? Or even Clark Kent, Earth? The “What if?” question has become a staple television plot device, usually executed in the form of an “alternate reality” episode somewhere between the middle and end of a popular series. So it’s about right that Grey’s Anatomy, now halfway through its eighth season, has decided to take a stab at the question: what if Meredith’s mom never had Alzheimer’s? Here’s what we’ve gathered from tonight’s much-hyped previews: Meredith wears pink cardigans, Cristina has bangs, and Derek is now known as “McDreary.” We can’t wait to see what fun, wacky ways the alternate versions of the Seattle Grace staff collide. In the meantime, we invite you to click through our roundup of TV’s best “What if?” episodes and add your favorites in the comments. … Read More