Inside EW

Ken Tucker

Editor-at-Large, Entertainment Weekly and EW.com

Ken Tucker watches a whole lotta TV (that's why he calls his blog Ken Tucker's Watching TV) whenever he's not reading books and listening to music (his music reviews can be heard weekly on NPR). His TV passions range from Fringe to Parks and Recreation, from Breaking Bad to Modern Family.

About Ken

Recent articles by Ken Tucker

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Ken Tucker's TV Jimmy Kimmel and President Obama at the White House Correspondents' Dinner: Jokes about Mitt, Hillary, and dogs, dogs, dogs
by Ken Tucker | Apr 29, 2012 09:04 AM

"What's the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom?" asked President Obama during last night's annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, doing a variation on...

Ken Tucker's TV New GOP ad slams Obama as 'celebrity President'; Dems slam Romney as 'Mad Men' fan: VIDEO
by Ken Tucker | Apr 27, 2012 10:55 AM

Just as I predicted, fans of Mitt Romney took one look at President Barack Obama's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon appearance and quickly cobbled together...

Ken Tucker's TV Barack Obama on 'Jimmy Fallon' review: The President slow-jammed the news. Did he upstage Mitt Romney's victory night?
by Ken Tucker | Apr 25, 2012 01:45 AM

President Barack Obama slid smoothly onto Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Tuesday night to slow-jam some news to the late-night host's youthful audience.  "A better America...

Ken Tucker's TV Whatever happened to 'The Killing'? A 'hot' show has gone cold
by Ken Tucker | Apr 23, 2012 12:14 PM

Remember the first season of The Killing, when lots of people you knew were watching and talking about it every week? How great we thought...

Ken Tucker's TV 'Veep' premiere review: Julia Louis-Dreyfus was great, but did you actually laugh much?
by Ken Tucker | Apr 22, 2012 10:37 PM

Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives such a commanding performance in Veep, which premiered Sunday night on HBO, that the opening half-hour sped by so quickly and so...

Ken Tucker's TV 'Fringe' review: 'Letters of Transit,' agents of change
by Ken Tucker | Apr 20, 2012 10:15 PM

Fringe continued its poetic enterprise this week by leaping into a future overrun by Observers, where Walter was ambered, and the most Byronic of Lost...

Ken Tucker's TV A Dick Clark appreciation: The deceptively laid-back, conservative revolutionary
by Ken Tucker | Apr 18, 2012 04:50 PM

Dick Clark's on-camera image -- that of the relaxed, welcoming presence, whether as host of American Bandstand, the Pyramid game-shows, or Dick Clark's New Year's...

Shelf Life Poetry you need to read: 'Bright Brave Phenomena' by Amanda Nadelberg
by Ken Tucker | Apr 17, 2012 02:10 PM

Amanda Nadelberg’s poems in her new collection Bright Brave Phenomena (Coffee House Press) are jumping, funny, romantic, and frequently lyrical. She repeats words within a...

Ken Tucker's TV 'Smash' review: Uma Thurman dug deep, but was it deep enough?
by Ken Tucker | Apr 16, 2012 11:26 PM

After last week's hour-long tease of Uma Thurman's Smash guest-star appearance -- which proved to amount to a cameo more brief than the friendship of...

Ken Tucker's TV Does HBO have a problem with 'Girls'?
by Ken Tucker | Apr 16, 2012 03:36 PM

Girls premiered on Sunday night, and looking over the comments running beneath my highly positive review of it, I noticed that a lot of...

Ken Tucker's TV 'Girls' premiere review: Exhilarating, fresh comedy, or a Debbie Downer?
by Ken Tucker | Apr 15, 2012 11:08 PM

There is no joy in Girls-ville. It's a testament to how well Girls, the new HBO creation by writer-director-star Lena Dunham that premiered Sunday night,...

Shelf Life 'The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard': Redefining a 'major' and 'minor' artist
by Ken Tucker | Apr 13, 2012 11:21 AM

Joe Brainard (1941-1994) was a marvelous artist – a painter whose work, including his collages and drawings, revealed a shrewdly intelligent man who was able...

MAGIC CITY Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Olga Kurylenko
TV Review Magic City
by Ken Tucker | Apr 13, 2012

If Mad Men and The Sopranos had never existed, would Magic City seem like a better show? I'm not sure, but it would certainly help.…

LISTEN, LADIES Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, Zosia Mamet in Girls
TV Review Girls
by Ken Tucker | Apr 13, 2012

Few things in television are more exciting than encountering someone who's figured out a way to put an entire worldview, a fully formed sensibility, on…

Shelf Life Poetry you need to read: 'Alien vs. Predator': A review
by Ken Tucker | Apr 10, 2012 05:00 PM

If, starting with its title, Michael Robbins’ debut poetry collection Alien vs. Predator seems like a book custom-designed for the Entertainment Weekly audience – its...

'SLIP' AND SLIDE Lending her guitar-playing prowess on 'Slipstream' helps make it one of Raitt's greatest albums in the last three decades
Music Review Slipstream
by Ken Tucker | Apr 04, 2012

The singer's best album since 1975's underrated Home Plate is a mix of rock, blues, folk, and funk she might associate with her old pals…

Ken Tucker's TV 'The Killing' season premiere: A brief VIDEO review
by Ken Tucker | Apr 01, 2012 10:07 PM

The Killing returned on Sunday night with a premiere that reminded you why (a) you really like this show or (b) you're really over this...

'KILLING' TIME Joel Kinnaman and Mireille Enos in The Killing
TV Review The Killing
by Ken Tucker | Mar 30, 2012

The sad drip-drip-drip of rainfall, gloomy rooms pierced by feeble shafts of lamplight, voices kept mostly to hushed tones — welcome back to the exciting…

The Music Mix Bruce Springsteen concert review: Dedicates 'American Skin' to Trayvon Martin, collapses into triumph
by Ken Tucker | Mar 29, 2012 01:06 PM

Bruce Springsteen played the first of two nights in Philadelphia on Wednesday. If the news headline is that he pointedly directed his audience to hear...

Ken Tucker's TV 'Smash' review: Staging a 'Coup.' Badly. How badly? 'Toxic garbage,' she said.
by Ken Tucker | Mar 26, 2012 11:52 PM

"The Coup," the first episode of Smash since its second-season renewal was announced, and the first since The New York Times reported that Smash show-runner Theresa...