Articles by Lori Acken

About Lori Acken
Lori just hasn't been the same since "thirtysomething" and "Northern Exposure" went off the air.
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Food TV

Chuck Takes Off: Chuck Hughes is a hot commodity on Cooking Channel

September 30, 2011 Lori Acken

By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA Chuck Hughes still can’t believe what’s happened to him. Specifically — fame. The 34-year-old, tattooed star of Cooking Channel’s popular Chuck’s Day Off — and star-struck competitor on Food Network’s upcoming “Super Chef” version of The Next Iron Chef (premiering Oct. 30) — would love to call his meteoric rise from Montreal restaurateur to food TV favorite a dream come true. But “honest truth” — a favorite Hughes expression — he can’t. “It’s way more than that,” Hughes exclaims in a charming French-Canadian-with-a-dash-of-Brooklyn accent, “because I never dreamt this big! I’m a normal guy! I cut carrots […]

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Reality TV

“Dance Moms” episode 11: bad dad, Abby mad!

September 30, 2011 Lori Acken

  Are you getting melancholy about next week’s season finale, Dance Mom nation? Or has news of a second season warmed your heart? In any case, I’m pretty sure last night’s episode set us up for some of what we’ll see in Season 2. Namely a big pile of Maddie drama. We begin in beautiful Lake Tahoe, site of the much anticipated Nationals, where the girls frolic (i.e. bend themselves in thirds backward)  in the sunshine and fresh mountain air — and Abby Lee is suddenly sporting an on-purpose hairdo and department store make-up in her “confessionals.” Also pearls. We […]

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Talk Show

The Kardashians commandeer Kathie Lee’s “Today” co-hosting duties Oct. 3 – 7

September 28, 2011 Lori Acken

If you think her usual cohost is a handful, wait till you see what Hoda Kotb is up against next week. Instead of keeping up with Kathie Lee Gifford, Kotb will be keeping up with the Kardashians — literally — as a different member of the clan joins her each day to helm Today‘s loosey-goosey 4th hour. Kardashian Week kicks off Monday with Mrs. Lamar Odom, Khloe Kardashian, hanging out with Hoda. On Tuesday, the man of the household, Bruce Jenner, gets to spend an hour in the company of a woman whose first name does not begin with K. […]

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Magazine Archive

Lifetime will bring back the “Dance Moms” for Season 2

September 27, 2011 Lori Acken

With its Oct. 5 Season 1 finale just a few weeks away, Dance Moms fans, fanatics and curious spectators have been wondering hard if the show that made the Toddlers & Tiaras crowd look a whole lot less crazy would be back for another season of switch kicks and screaming matches. Happy news, ladies and gents! We performed well enough in our audience group number to be awarded a 13-episode second season of Lifetime’s fastest growing show. • Read Channel Guide‘s exclusive interview with Dance Mom Christi Lukasiak!

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Reality TV

Nat Geo’s “Rocket City Rednecks” is backwoods brilliant

September 26, 2011 Lori Acken

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy once lamented that whenever anybody heard his down-home Southern accent, they’d automatically deduct 100 IQ points. Nat Geo’s new reality series Rocket City Rednecks, premiering Wednesday at 9pm, sets out to prove that tendency wrong, following second-generation Alabama rocket scientist Travis Taylor — who looks like actor Thomas Jane and sounds like Larry the Cable Guy — and his whiskey-loving band of buds and relatives as they combine their scientific know-how with good ol’ backwoods fun, sometimes creating genuinely useful stuff, sometimes not. Why is the show as addictively tasty as a platter full of Southern-fried chicken? What […]

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Drama

Oxygen announces auditions for “The Glee Project” Season 2

September 26, 2011 Lori Acken

From Oxygen Network: Oxygen will begin its nationwide casting search for the next season of The Glee Project, kicking things off today with an online search. Information can be obtained at thegleeproject.oxygen.com, where already over 87,000 fans and hopefuls have signed up to learn more about the casting process. Beginning in November, Oxygen will launch a multiple city open casting call tour including New York, Chicago and Nashville. This announcement comes on the heels of a highly successful first season of The Glee Project which became a critically acclaimed ratings hit for the network.

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Reality TV

Tonight on “Downsized”: Laura Bruce faces the reality of her MS

September 20, 2011 Lori Acken

On tonight’s all-new episode of WE tv’s Downsized, Laura participates in a charity run in support of people living with MS — the disease with which she was diagnosed six years before. But the sight of people driven into wheelchairs by multiple sclerosis forces the already stressed-out mom to face what the advance of the disease could do to her and how it will affect her family — and inspires her family to rally in support of her. Watch “Run For Your Life” tonight at 9pm ET/8pm CT on WE tv.

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Magazine Archive

Jeanne Tripplehorn talks about the making of Lifetime’s breast cancer anthology “Five”

September 19, 2011 Lori Acken

On Oct. 10, Lifetime will unveil the newest effort in its 17-year-old “Stop Breast Cancer for Life” initiative — one that may be, according to the network’s president and GM Nancy Dubuc, “the most important film we’ve ever done.” Simply titled Five, the anthology features, yes, five emotional, frequently funny and complexly interwoven short films about women dealing not only with the physical effects of breast cancer and their ensuing treatments, but also a part of the diagnosis often left undiscussed — how such a deeply personal disease affects their sense of self, how they relate to others and how […]