Erik Reichenbach was a contestant on CBS' Survivor twice, first in Micronesia and the most recent season, in both instances coming in fifth out of twenty contestants, indicating pretty good game play on his part.

However, in the first outing at age 22 his exit was precipitated by what is...

About a month ago I wrote a piece blasting the Los Angeles Times for continuing the newspaper's steady slide in providing services, ranging from its discontinuation of printing stock news and publishing a magazine to its petty February 16, 2013 announcement that starting February 26 it would no...

In the aftermath of my review of the Oscars and that of many others who seemed to agree Seth MacFarlane's humor was often wanting, I thought I'd offer a postscript as to why for most people the John Wilkes Booth joke didn't work.

It had nothing to do...

This year's Oscars show on ABC wrapped after a bit over three and a half hours and there were a bunch of great moments, a bit of tedium and a lot of disappointment over the tasteless antics of host Seth MacFarlane.

Look, I'm not a prude, though I've ranted at...

In Saturday's Los Angeles Times' Calendar section on the TV listing page there was a note to readers that informed us that starting February 26 they will no longer show the TV schedule, directing us to search online for each day's programming. They also tell us that for a six-month...

Last night, I looked forward to watching Craig Ferguson's interview with Quentin Tarantino on CBS's The Late Late Show, because I mostly enjoy the quirky director and particularly liked his latest film Django Unchained.

Yes, his films are fraught with violence, but the dialogue exchanges and story twists are fascinating...

How is it that Republicans try to hold sway whether or not they win an election? It's as if they're not aware Barack Obama was reelected or just don't give a damn. They discount his victory, because it wasn't a landslide or as large as it was in 2008. But...

The furor over Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's prejudicial stance against gay and lesbian Americans should not go away and ought to cause the Chief Justice and his court colleagues to insist that he, at the very least, recuse himself from the upcoming cases regarding the Defense of Marriage Act...

The awful news of Jacintha Saldanha's apparent suicide is tragic in and of itself. However, to inflate the incident unrealistically, as if a harmless prank from two Australian radio disc jockeys was a causal effect to that terrible circumstance and in so doing possibly ruin their careers and/or...

Having watched the first three debates at 3 a.m. in Europe, it was a relief to witness the final one during my stopover in South Florida, only twenty minutes away from the Boca Raton debate site and at the more civilized time frame of nine p.m.

From the outset it...

From Paris, no coffee this time, but I did manage to stay up to watch the second presidential debate, beginning at 3 a.m. Unlike the first one watched in Amsterdam, the president was alert, prepared and seemed to leave Romney mystified at moments.

And although the CNN analysts, led by...

Just hours after flying into Paris from Prague, I drank loads of coffee to ensure my capacity to stay up to watch the entire vice presidential debate and some of the media aftermath.

This time I watched the affair on CNN, after previously covering the first presidential debate from Amsterdam,...

After arriving in Amsterdam dog-tired on a bus from Brussels due to an absurd 24-hour Belgian train strike, I steeled myself to stay up until 3 a.m. to begin watching the first presidential debate on CNBC. Forgive me not remembering the hosts, especially the woman, who made me think I'd...

At the Hudson Theatre tonight on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, I caught Lady Patriot, written and directed by Ted Lange. He's probably best known for his role as bartender Isaac Washington on ABC's long-running show The Love Boat, but in the decades since that program's adieu he's been heavily...

This season's version of Big Brother has descended in so many ways this summer. It has always been a group of mostly narcissistic hotheads and wannabes, who get their proverbial 15 minutes of fame and, for the most part, even if they win, are never heard from again.

But last...

I've never written about Big Brother before, having not considered it as noteworthy as shows like The Amazing Race and Survivor. But I have watched every season and it can be intriguing at times, with some contestants fascinating to watch with their inflated egos and overblown personalities.

There's no...

If Mitt Romney wanted to connect with his audience, he mostly succeeded, at least with the audience inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum. He was measured in tone, not really bombastic and full of pronouncements of love about his family and what he hopes for America.

He was warmer than...

All this nonsense about Barack Obama's citizenship, recently alluded to by Mitt Romney, who lamely insisted it was a joke, should have long ago been dismissed as untrue.

Not because he was born in Honolulu, which records submitted by Mr. Obama through long and short-form birth certificates and the assessment...

Last week I got my sample ballot for the upcoming California primary and opened the booklet to the page for the United States Senate candidates.

I was almost blinded by the array of twenty-four candidates listed randomly in one huge roster. It was not even alphabetical, but rather a helter...

The Academy Awards was a lot better than last year's offering and generally moved along pretty well. However, Billy Crystal's performance was mixed. Sometimes he was spot on and in other instances resorted to forced humor that missed its mark.

After Morgan Freeman's opening we saw Billy in an uninspiring...