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the onion
Virginia Heffernan Finally Right, Onion News Network Loud and Shrill
Brave Virginia Heffernan launched a brazen attack against The Onion in yesterday's New York Times Magazine, slamming the faux-news organization's year-old Onion News Network. Chagrined, one of the Network's biggest supporters fired back with the following volley: More » -
the internet
"The MySpace of My Youth"
Is this generation of teens the first to grow up completely online? Hardly. Highbrow TV critic Virginia Heffernan was a MySpace teen before Myspace teens even existed, she reveals in this week's NYT mag. The year was 1983. The nascent online world: "primitive computer network" XCaliber. More » -
you wouldn't understand
Friday Night Lights and the Stupid People Who Don't Like It
Virginia Heffernan (and supposedly other people) lives in constant dread that her beloved Friday Night Lights will be canceled. It's her favorite show but draws only half the viewers of many other, dumber shows. Heffernan, the our favorite breathless TV critic, mournfully parses the situation in the Times Magazine, and it's sort of like when your articulate but totally misguided friend explains why nobody's into her fiance. She chalks up the show's flop to the unwavering artistic integrity of its creators and a lack of sophistication that leads laypeople to reject high art, just like when Shakespeare wrote the totally under-appreciated first season and a half of Hamlet. Hey, remember the time Heffernan compared lonelygirl15 to Jane Austen? We sure do. [New York Times] -
Virginia Heffernan's Internet-watching New York Times blog "Screens" has become "The Medium" and is sort of about the same thing but maybe not entirely? It is not about the show where that Arquette lady is a psychic and solves crimes with her mind. [The Medium]
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When Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan wrote that "'K-Ville' opens with a silly in- medias-res chase sequence—meant, presumably, to grab you by the lapels—which turns out to be a dream," she had no idea how in medias res she really was: "A television review yesterday about 'K-Ville,' which had its premiere on Fox last night, critiqued the wrong episode. It was about next week's show, not last night's premiere." [NYT]
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Times TV-watcher Virginia Heffernan reviews VH1's new reality series 'Douche School': "[I]t's no wonder that Mystery has a reputation for getting results, turning schlubs into ladies' men. (Neil Strauss, a former reporter and critic for The New York Times, chronicled Mystery's methods and adventures in his best seller "The Game." He was also won over to the technique, and used it to seduce women himself.)" [NYT]
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Virginia Heffernan will pick up her blog, Screens, and move it from the New York Times to the... New York Times magazine, where she'll also do a column about "home entertainment." From the Times memo: "Virginia Heffernan plays a role at The Times not unlike that of Russell Owen, the correspondent who nearly 80 years ago traveled literally to the end of the earth to cover Richard Byrd's pioneering expedition to the South Pole. Except that Virginia does the bulk of her exploring from Brooklyn, in front of her computer...." Heh.
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upfronts and personal
Time For Jeff Zucker's Annual Apology For 'Joey'
Each year, one of our only fave aspects of the upfronts—those fancy endless presentations where network executives and the occasional star prostrate themselves in front of advertisers and announce next season's schedule—is Virginia Heffernan's liveblogging of the events for the Times. More » -
new york times
Words In Ink On Dry Pulp Explain Internet
Pity poor Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times, tasked with explaining the phenomenon of teen social networking sites in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.The word loner has shown up regularly in the news media's descriptions of Mr. Cho, and it seems to have struck a chord with users of Facebook, for whom would-be friends—other users who respond to electronic overtures, often reciprocally—sometimes seem more numerous than strangers. (To those familiar with older connotations of the word "friend," a Facebook or MySpace friend might be better described as a "correspondent.")
Say what you will about the Times, at least they understand the needs of their geriatric print readership. Stephen Holden, writing an appreciation of Kitty Carlisle Hart, gets off easy: You don't need to provide a lot of context for the folks who had tea and crumpets with the late grande dame. More » -
virginia heffernan
Coming Soon To Must-See TV: Jennifer 8. Lee Is Enough
Last week we took note of Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan's close reading of The King of Queens. It turns out we weren't the only ones:[I]f you review that longest-running live-action sitcom, and you praise it, the creator with the super-wholesome reputation might even reveal his unsavory secret when he calls to say he thinks he named the couple of "The King of Queens" — Heffernan — when he saw your name in a magazine.
This is where we'd make the joke about Emily Litella having been inspired by Alessandra Stanley, but we're pretty sure most of you are too young to remember who that is. So we're just gonna go with Clyde Haberman as the spark behind the Jerry Stiller character on Queens. More »
virginia heffernan
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Thu Dec 4
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