Rob Owen stories, Page 28

In this episode of the “Pittsburgh Pop” podcast, host Tim Benz and TV Talk columnist Rob Owen discuss Pittsburgh pop culture news of the moment, including a change to the anchor lineup on KDKA-TV’s morning newscast. Benz and Owen talk what’s new in fall TV, including Fox’s “Monarch,” the upcoming...

While some streaming services have tried to make inroads in the documentary realm, the genre also remains a mainstay on PBS stations, including Pittsburgh’s WQED-TV. Here are some fall programming highlights: ARTS “Great Performances: Black Lucy and the Bard” (9 p.m. Sept. 16): Exploration of William Shakespeare and his muses....

As broadcast television shrinks in importance to media conglomerates — see: reports of NBC dumping its 10 p.m. hour of programming, possibly next fall —ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and The CW all play it safe with familiar titles/genres and fewer new fall series overall. Here’s what’s new on the commercial...

While other high schoolers played sports or planned the yearbook, current University of Pittsburgh junior Isabel Lam and her best friend Clare Della Valle started a club devoted to menstrual equity. The friends, who grew up in Clarks Summit, Pa., northwest of Scranton, founded a local chapter of national organization...

The two most-anticipated fall cable and/or streaming series have already premiered – HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series, “House of the Dragon,” and Amazon Prime Video’s prequel, “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” – but there are more programs on the way, including at least three vampire shows: “The...

The long-gestating “Lord of the Rings” prequel series “The Rings of Power” finally arrives on streaming service Amazon Prime Video at 9 p.m. Sept. 1 surrounded by question marks. Can this series become Prime Video’s “Game of Thrones?” Will “Rings of Power” live up to Peter Jackson’s 2001-03 “LOTR” movie...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: The series premiere of ABC’s “The Rookie” showed the lead character, John Nolan (Nathan Fillion), walk into a bank robbery in progress in Foxburg, Pa.,...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Whenever a great TV series ends, I always wonder what the creators will do next. For “The Americans” team of Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, the answer is Hulu’s “The Patient,” a tension-filled, character-driven psychological...

After ordering dinner at a restaurant last month, my 12-year-old son declared it was time to play “What’s Missing,” a game where everyone closes their eyes except the one person at the table who gets to take something from the table and hide it underneath. Then everyone else opens their...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Why did Amanda Renner from CBS Sports show up working the local KDKA-TV telecast of the Steelers’ first preseason NFL game Aug. 13? Nothing —...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Although “Game of Thrones” spin-off “House of the Dragon” (9 p.m. Sunday on HBO and HBO Max) is technically a prequel set 172 years before the first “GOT” series, structurally its first episode is more...

Credit Marvel with attempting a half-hour comedy series for Disney+, but “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” proves too timid about leaning into humor. The first episode, now streaming, proves a particularly dull introduction that wastes most of its running time on a training montage as Bruce Banner/Smart-Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) trains his...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Any idea why Comcast/Xfinity suddenly dropped MeTV, Charge and Antenna TV without notice (channels 204, 207, 208)? They have something listed as Slate Channel now,...

If you’ve been a fan of writer/director Greg Garcia’s past series — “My Name is Earl” (2005-09, NBC), “Raising Hope” (2010-14, Fox), “The Guest Book” (2017-18, TBS) — and his shows’ mix of sophomoric humor and character-driven comedy with a messy surface but heart underneath, you’re likely to get a...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. When Investigation Discovery’s “Homicide Hunter” ended its nine-season run three years ago, star/host Joe Kenda said the series wrapped because he ran out of cases and those that remained were too simple or too gruesome....

Amazon Prime Video’s “A League of Their Own,” filmed mostly in Western Pennsylvania and streaming Friday, is definitely the best series spin-off of the 1992 Geena Davis-Madonna-Tom Hanks movie. The previous iteration, a forgettable 1993 CBS sitcom, was pretty bad. Where the original film explored sexism with a passing reference...