Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

Blindspot: Jaimie Alexander’s tattoos are a treasure map in new NBC thriller

September 10, 2015 Lori Acken

Blindspot Premieres: Sept. 21 Airs: Mondays at 10pm Who’s In It? Jaimie Alexander, Sullivan Stapleton, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Audrey Esparza, Ukweli Roach, Ashley Johnson Stargate’s Martin Gero and uber-producer Greg Berlanti (Arrow, Brothers & Sisters) created this fascinating, action-packed new NBC thriller that stars Thor’s Jaimie Alexander as a beautiful, badass amnesiac who is discovered zipped into a duffel bag in Times Square, naked and covered neck to ankles in fresh tattoos. The biggest one? FBI agent Kurt Weller’s (Sullivan Stapleton, Strike Back) name shoulder to shoulder across her back. While Weller and his colleagues scramble to unravel the complex message emblazoned […]

FABLife: Tyra Banks assembles a lifestyle dream team to make you fabulous

September 10, 2015 Lori Acken

Tyra Banks was in the midst of a successful run hosting and executive producing her daytime talker The Tyra Banks Show, helming the wildly successful America’s Next Top Model and dabbling in other TV ventures when she realized everything was going so right … and felt terrifically wrong. “At that time in my career, I was probably the most successful, lucrative and relevant — everything in my life — and the most unhappy,” Banks admits. The model and entrepreneur opted to focus her energies on business school and taking Top Model worldwide — until her former Tyra colleague Lisa Hackner, […]

Neil Patrick Harris talks “the big grab-bag of random awesomeness” that is Best Time Ever on NBC

September 4, 2015 Lori Acken

Neil Patrick Harris is back on series television and he plans on giving viewers the Best Time Ever. And maybe a boost to their back accounts, too. Based on the long-running British variety show Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris is a (mostly) live, happy hodgepodge of music, pranks, game-show elements and more — with Harris as the self-described P.T. Barnum at the center. “I want to create a show that I can gain the audience’s trust and have them put down their remote control, sit back and just watch,” Harris tells us. “Let me change the […]

A Chef’s Life Season 3: Vivian Howard talks success, struggle … and the Avett Brothers!

September 2, 2015 Lori Acken

Vivian Howard, whose Emmy-winning PBS show A Chef’s Life enters its third season this fall, is in the midst of her first Television Critics Association Press Tour, doling out freshly made parfaits to — and taking questions from — sugar-buzzed reporters at an afternoon reception. Afterward, Howard relaxes in the PBS green room to talk frankly about success and struggle and what she believes is the real meaning of “farm-to-table” dining. And — less frankly — about The Avett Brothers, who perform the show’s theme song and drop by to say hi this season. A Chef’s Life Season 3 finds the fresh-faced North Carolina native juggling […]

Fear The Walking Dead: What you need to know about AMC’s “The Walking Dead” companion series

August 21, 2015 Lori Acken

You know it’s been, er, eating at you, fans of The Walking Dead. Exactly what went down during those weeks between when a wounded Rick Grimes conked out in his hospital bed and when he came to, surrounded by the only living guy surrounded by some pretty gnarly-looking (and gnarly-tempered) undead? AMC’s new Dead companion series, Fear the Walking Dead — from the same folks who brought you the original — is ready to shed some light on that dark time. Only this time, the action heads west to L.A. “We wanted to explore that four- or five-week time frame where […]

Dance Moms Season 5 finale recap: Would you like seconds?

August 11, 2015 Lori Acken

OK, so I didn’t quite get to last week’s recap either. Press tour — the near-fatal summer (and winter) camp for television critics. It’s kinda the same thing every day and you’re lucky to make it out alive at the bitter end. Kind of like recapping a season of Dance Moms. OK, recapping of a season of Dance Moms is worse. At least they feed us and sometimes the drinks are free at TCA. But anyway, let’s wrap this sucker up, shall we? So Nationals week is here, so is Jeanette and her team from the Broadway Dance Academy — even […]

TCA: Who’s playing who in American Horror Story: Hotel?

August 7, 2015 Lori Acken

Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and their American Horror Story: Hotel cast appeared before reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour yesterday to talk the fifth season of FX’s most-watched program. The franchise — which has garnered 70 Emmy nominations for the network —will set its latest outing in a downtown L.A. Hotel. “We built it from the ground up, and it’s taken over half of the Fox lot. It’s something that I feel is our most magnificent set.” Falchuk added that this season feels a little less claustrophobic than others. “What’s fun about it is, while I feel like […]

TCA: The Grinder cast and creators talk fall’s funniest sitcom

August 7, 2015 Lori Acken

The cast and creators of Fox’s sure-bet comedy The Grinder — starring Fred Savage and Rob Lowe as sparring brothers, the former an attorney and the latter who just played one on TV — took questions from reporters yesterday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. The session was heavy on light-hearted quips about Lowe’s looks — including a bonus moment when the former teen heartthrob was asked if he and network mate John Stamos ever got together to “talk about their handsomeness.” Watching the proceedings unseen from the back of the room, Stamos called out, “Rob! Tell the truth — we’ve […]

TCA: Fox Studios’ Walden, Newman talk Empire, X-Files, Prison Break and more

August 6, 2015 Lori Acken

Dana Walden and Gary Newman, chairmen and CEOs of Fox Television Group, took the stage at the Television Critics Association press tour this morning to talk about their first year at the helm. Walden said they focused on creating a turnaround at the network without compromising the 20th Century Fox Studio and brand. Walden noted the success of the January launch, Empire, which was the most-watched show — cable or broadcast — of the midseason, luring an average of 17 million viewers per week, with 26-million per episode total. The network also garnered 59 Emmy nominations for Fox Studios — second […]

TCA: ABC Family’s Startup U star Tim Draper: “We teach future, not history”

August 5, 2015 Lori Acken

Third generation venture capital investor and Draper University founder Tim Draper appeared before the Television Critics Association this morning to talk about his new ABC Family reality series Startup U. Set on the university’s Silicon Valley campus — where, Draper says, his immersive program “transforms ordinary people into heroic entrepreneurs” — Startup U stars Draper, his former student turned program director Charlie Taibi, 26, Draper University entrepreneur in residence Sequoia Blodgett, 31, and ten students eager to become business legends. Draper told reporters that some 400 students from around the globe have gone through the program, launching 220 companies and scoring $22 […]