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By Rachel Bennett
Television Editor & Columnist

Every Friday, Rachel recaps the week’s major TV-related news, announcements and gossip!

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TOP STORIES

• Kevin Hart and Justin Timberlake are set to host NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Hart will take the stage March 2, the next new episode, whereas Timberlake will host and perform March 9.

• FX has renewed its drama The Americans for a second season. Let’s just hope Keri Russell doesn’t cut her hair and doom it all to hell.

• Welcome to the 21st century, Nielsen! The company says that beginning in the fall, it will begin taking into account online streaming when computing ratings.

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By Carson Blackwelder
Television Contributor

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Some of the most popular shows on TV are obsessed with violence — but the catch is that almost all of these shows are on cable rather than broadcast television.

This fall, AMC’s The Walking Dead dominated the ratings, besting even ABC’s Modern Family and NBC’s The Voice by becoming TV’s highest-rated scripted program in the key adult demo.

The Walking Dead doesn’t hide the fact that it’s one of the most gruesome series on TV, and cable is full of similar programs providing scares, thrills and reasons to cover your eyes on a weekly basis. HBO’s Game of Thrones, AMC’s Breaking Bad and FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum are just some recent examples.

Although cable is capable of pulling off such gore, the question remains, can the trend successfully transfer over to broadcast (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW)?

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By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor

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As much as we all like to take a pure approach to movies and the awards season as a whole, looking at film only as an art form to be rewarded solely on its merit, the Oscars are a business. It’s mostly a matter of things being black and white. But we get shades of grey in the connection that exists (or maybe doesn’t) between the Oscars and the box office.

Long has been the contention that Oscars winners, especially Best Picture winners, need to be big moneymakers to actually take home the gold. Two out of the last three films crowned with the prize, though, have been among the very lowest grossers of all time. The Artist and The Hurt Locker beat out bigger bucks, with the latter especially noteworthy for triumphing over the highest grossing film of all time in Avatar.

While this could become the norm, it used to be a rarity (just look at how many people are still shocked that Annie Hall beat out Star Wars in 1978), and it’s currently cited as an example of how the tastes of the Academy and the mainstream public have never been less in sync. The Academy has even acknowledged its desire to cater to the average moviegoer’s likes through the expansion of Best Picture, albeit to mixed success. Is this necessarily a bad thing, and what does it mean for this year?

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By Carson Blackwelder
Television Contributor

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It’s September, and you know what that means: It’s time to meet new shows in addition to reuniting with your returning favorites.

Each year, networks decide what shows to keep, move around and cancel, leaving open spots for a gaggle of new series. This month, many of the pilots for these shows will make their small screen debut. It may be overwhelming to be faced with 20 new shows this fall, so I’ll explain which programs did and didn’t make the cut for my DVR queue.

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By Rachel Bennett
Television Editor & Columnist

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Fall TV is upon us, and although the focus is primarily on the new series of the season, many of your favorites are also returning. There are also numerous shows you’ve probably been meaning to check out over the summer, whether you keep seeing them on your Twitter feed or hearing about them in the office, but you just haven’t had the chance to tune in. Luckily, there’s still time to catch up, so here are the top 10 shows you need to see before fall — with spoiler alerts included for those major developments you might have missed.

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Every Friday, Rachel Bennett recaps the week’s major TV-related news, announcements, and gossip!

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•To alleviate concerns that the Arrested Development movie and fourth season (to air on Netflix) were myths, Jason Bateman tweeted a picture from the set.

•Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has booked Robert Pattinson for his first interview since it was revealed that his Twilight co-star and girlfriend Kristen Stewart had an affair. Will Jon Stewart go there?

•Comedian and NBC late-night host Jimmy Fallon has passed on hosting the 2013 Oscars, which will air on ABC. (NBC’s Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michael has also passed on producing the show.)

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By Scott Mendelson

As expected, The Hunger Games topped the box-office for a second straight weekend, and its relatively strong hold suggests that it may be a bit mightier than a conventional Twilight/Harry Potter sequel. With $61 million in weekend two (the eighth-biggest non-opening weekend ever, ahead of all the respective Harry Potter and Twilight films), the film dropped 60% and ended day ten with a whopping $251 million. That’s the biggest 10-day total for a non-sequel ever, and the fifth-biggest ever. It came in above the $240 million ten-day total of Spider-Man 3, and it is that film which its performance most resembles. Spider-Man 3 opened with $151 million in May of 2007 before dropping 61% for a $58 million weekend. Spidey took a drop on weekend two despite having no new releases to compete against because it wasn’t exclaimed critically-acclaimed among the fanbase. The Hunger Games had two big releases this weekend, plus the loss of its IMAX screens which represented about 7% of its theaters and 10% of its gross last weekend. No other mega-opener on this level that benefited from IMAX has had to deal with the immediate loss of those premium screens, so it bares mention when comparing it to the respective second weekends of The Dark Knight ($75 million off a $158 million debut) or Alice In Wonderland ($62 million off a $116 million debut). Spider-Man 3 ended its domestic run with $336 million, and its ten day total represented 71% of the gross. Giving The Hunger Games a similar pattern would give this franchise-starter a final domestic cume of $353 million. We’ll see how it weathers the 3D reissue of Titanic next weekend. Oh, and it’s up to $365 million worldwide, all on a mere $90 million budget.

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By Molly Sullivan

The Kids’ Choice Awards on Saturday night will be filled with some of the biggest stars in the world, including many members of the Twilight and Hunger Games casts.

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By Beck/Smith

Sad to hear that Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli are breaking up after 11 years of marriage. Rumors about what’s behind the split of the couple have been all over the internet, but we can’t help remembering Jennie expressing some of her frustrations in this column last year. She told us she was looking forward to the end of the “Twilight” movies, saying, “I can’t even remember what life is like with a husband. I will be very happy.”

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By Ryan Bushey

For films, this year has been eventful. The traditional system has been filled with risks for 2011. Brave gambits have been taken by both performer and director’s alike.  Iconoclastic directors tested their crafts in unfamiliar genres like Martin Scorsese’s family friendly Hugo while veterans like Terrence Malik return to the fold to deliver divisive stories. Beloved franchises (Harry Potter) went out with a bang capturing their audience’s imagination forever while old ones (The Muppets) were revived gaining a special place in our hearts. Certain members of the illustrious A-list like the Twilight crew strived to establish themselves in other films apart from their franchises. Filmmakers made bets on what would make their films standout such as Michael Hazanavicius’s silent ode to old Hollywood.

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