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United States of Tara: Season 2 trailer

And here is a look at Season Two of United States of Tara which returns in the US in March.

All the alters, “T”, “Alice” and “Buck” are here… but where is “Gimme?”

Toni Collette won both the Emmy and Golden Globe for this series, but was pipped by Tina Fey at the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards.

Toni Collette wins Golden Globe

Toni Collette has won a Golden Globe award as Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical for United States of Tara.

“The first time I came here 15 years ago I was on the loo and missed my whole category!” she said.

Collette was the sole Aussie to win, with both Simon Baker and Rose Byrne missing out.

Ricky Gervais opened the show by reminding everyone he created The Office, not Steve Carrell and chose to plug it.

“I’m …

TV Tonight Awards 2009: The year of Shaun Micallef

The votes are in.

Readers have spoken on their best and worst television for 2009 in the third annual TV Tonight Awards.

The winners: Shaun Micallef, MasterChef and Packed to the Rafters.

Over 1000 surveys were completed this year, and there were some definite trends. Some choices were clear decisions, others were tight races.

Several “winners” were also “losers” elsewhere, showing a divided audience, and a number of populist shows proved their mettle by staying ahead of underdogs.

Shaun Micallef won both Favourite Male and Most Underrated Performer, while Talkin’ ‘Bout Your …

67th Golden Globes: nominees

Rose Byrne, Simon Baker and Toni Collette were all nominated today in the Golden Globe Awards.

Their three television performances in Damages, The Mentalist and United States of Tara were the only Australian nominations in the film and television accolades chosen by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Baker and Collette are both up for Lead Actor / Actress trophies while Byrne is recognised in the Supporting Actress category.

Leading the TV nominations this year is newcomer Glee on four nods. 30 Rock, Big Love, Damages, Dexter, Mad Men, Grey Gardens, Into the Storm and …

AFI Awards: East West 101 named top drama

East West 101 has been named Best Television Drama series at the 2009 AFI Awards, one of three awards bestowed on the SBS drama series.

The Knapman / Wyld series also took out Best Direction for Peter Andrikidis and Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama for Susie Porter.

Underbelly also went home with three awards for Best Screenplay, Best Lead Actor for Roy Billing and Best Guest or Supporting Actor in a Television Drama awarded to Damian de Montemas.

The night was a triumph for director Peter Andrikidis, who directed on East …

The hits on iView

Four Corners, United States of Tara, Good Game, Doctor Who, The Chaser’s War on Everything and Media Watch are the most popular titles on the ABC’s iView platform.

The online catch-up service has been operating since July 2008.

Since April this year there have been 6.2 million views of programs with an annual monthly average of 610,000 visits, up by 140% compared to last year.

It averages 206,000 visitors per month, up by 60% compared to last year.

In October 2009, ABC iView recorded its highest ever number of visitors and visits. 286,000 visitors and …

Hung

This year we’ve seen several US cable series that are short run, quality pieces that remind us all the good stuff is not coming out of network television. United States of Tara, Nurse Jackie, and although it’s longer, True Blood.

Hung is about to join their ranks.

The HBO series depicts Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), a down and out Detroit high school basketball coach, divorced from his wife, trying to keep his family of two kids together and not doing a very good job of it.

It opens with metaphorical images of a decaying …

In defence of Two and a Half Men

It seems even in America there are those who just don’t get Two and a Half Men. Despite the fact it is the country’s #1 comedy, it is frowned upon by many critics and “TV snobs.”

In Australia it’s not much different. The show continues to pull a surprisingly big audience, despite Nine’s best attempts to run it into the ground. Yet it’s hard to find much love for it amongst reviewers (I’d certainly fall into that grouping too).

Save for Chuck Lorre’s output, the traditional 3-cam live-audience show is bit of a …

A tight Race for Wednesday

There wasn’t a lot of space in between four shows last night at 9:30pm. John Safran’s Race Relations was fourth at 705,000 but not a long way behind the timeslot winner, Nine’s Criminal Investigation Australia on 797,000.

But by comparison it was well down on the premiere of United States of Tara which took 1.27m in August in the same slot. With so much pre-show outrage today there seems to be little.

Yesterday ABC’s Director of Television Kim Dalton wrote an editorial on The Punch which defended the decision to run the …

Face the factuals. Seven rules the week.

After five straight losses, an aggressive Seven Network showed it wins on consistent programming and not events or boosts from digital shares. It dominated the week’s top shows, as its factuals continue to underpin the network’s schedule. Seven took 14 of the week’s Top 15 shows.

Seven won the week with 29.0% over Nine’s 26.5% and TEN’s 21.8%. The ABC had 17.1% and SBS 5.5%.

Seven also won two key demos 18-49 and 25-54 while TEN won 16-39.

GO! had 2.4%, ABC2 1.2%, ONE 1.6% and SBS TWO 0.4%.

Seven won Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, …

Eamon Sullivan sizzles while MasterChef simmers

Celebrity MasterChef didn’t enjoy a big surge last night, even without Hey Hey the Reunion.

The reality show took 1.18m viewers, suggesting viewers preferred the emotional arc of ‘real people’ in the first series. Last night’s cook-off was won by swimmer Eamon Sullivan who looks like being the one to beat so far. He sent Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and actor Simon Westaway back to their pantries.

Meanwhile Three Rivers had a disappointing debut of 499,000, dropping a sizeable amount of its NCIS: LA lead in of 1.07m. The crime show …

Radha Mitchell lands US series

Australia’s Radha Mitchell has landed the lead role in a US crime series for the A&E Network.

In The Quickening, she will play Maggie Bird, an LAPD homicide detective assigned to a desk job after it is discovered that she suffers from a bipolar disorder. Her character faces the dilemma of having to choose between her medication and her profession. She’s a brilliant detective, so long as she doesn’t take the medicine that regulates her bipolar disorder (Tara meets Monk anyone?).

“Her illness makes her brilliant as a detective but makes her …

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