Tagged: television

When M. Night Shyamalan's fantasy film The Last Airbender — panned by both critics and fans of the wildly popular TV series on which it was based — flopped majestically at the box office, it looked like the end of a valuable franchise.

But now, with The Legend of Korra, which premieres Saturday on Nickelodeon, the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender have been given a rare chance to rebuild a world that was taken away from them.

To be clear, this Avatar has nothing to do with blue people or James Cameron. Avatar: The Last Airbender was a highly rated animated kids' show on Nickelodeon that ran from 2005 to 2008.

On Thursday night, ABC's Scandal will step out as a rarity on TV: a show developed by one of the most powerful black women in TV, Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rimes, depicting a powerful black woman in Washington, D.C.: Olivia Pope, a top-flight crisis manager.

She's a "fixer" so impressive, she can negotiate down payments with the Ukrainian mob in a burst of rapid-fire dialogue. She is played by Kerry Washington, whom you might recognize from wife and girlfriend roles in films like The Fantastic Four and Ray.

Former Child Star Fatigue. Many of us have suffered it, given the drug problems, the meltdowns, the awful nude photos.

But then there's Fred Savage, who starred in the ABC show The Wonder Years from 1988 through 1993. Now he's a successful, slightly offbeat 35-five-year-old television producer and director. He works on wicked, slightly warped comedies including Party Down, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and as of today, Best Friends Forever. His first network sitcom premieres tonight on NBC.

"It kind of feeds and inspires and excites me in a way I never got as an actor," Savage says of life behind the camera.

Rapid growth in the U.S. Hispanic community has created another boom — in Hispanic media. In recent months, several major media players have announced plans to join the competition for the Hispanic television audience. There's a new Hispanic broadcast TV network coming, plus a host of new cable channels aimed at Latinos.

The numbers tell the story: According to the census, the U.S. Hispanic population jumped by more than 40 percent in the past decade. The nation's 50 million-plus Hispanics now make up 16 percent of the TV-viewing public.

And those numbers are expected to grow. Univision is already the nation's fourth-largest network. In some markets and time slots, it hits No. 1.