Are "True Blood's" sassy black characters offensive?
Newsweek's Joshua Alston says he has trouble watching the HBO series because of the portrayal of Tara and Lafayette. "Tara and Lafayette take turns filling the role of the sassy black person who says what the audience would be thinking if the audience's thoughts were quippier," he explains. He points out that "neither Tara nor Lafayette seems to exist outside of their relationships to the white characters. They are the racial equivalent of the wise, gay sidekick who has plenty of love advice for his female friend, but no apparent love life of his own." PLUS: Meet "True Blood's" Christian conservative.

AMC's 23 Emmy noms lead all basic cable networks
The "Mad Men"/"Breaking Bad" channel eclipsed other cable networks known for their dramas, including TNT, FX and USA.

Did Bethenny Frankel steal her new show name from a Web site?
The owner of SkinnyAndTheCity.com was shocked to hear about the "Real Housewives" star's reported new Bravo show, titled "Skinny and the City."

Phil Keoghan happy to be nominated
"The Amazing Race" host got the news while renovating his home, in his underwear. "Obviously it's a lot better to be part of it than not, you know. I could be home still scraping my wall, right? In my underpants," he says.

Jimmy Fallon: Hip-hop's savior?
With The Roots as his band, Fallon's "Late Night" has become responsible for "the reintroduction of rap music to network television," says Ben Westhoff. "The show has been able to pull everyone from Ludacris, N.E.R.D. and Rick Ross to Beastie Boys, Mos Def and Wale. You might see the more famous of these artists once in a while on Letterman, Conan, or Kimmel but you certainly don't see them sandwiched in with such regularity–and between such A-list indie rock acts as Grizzly Bear and Dinosaur Jr. at that."
Fallon is Robert Pattinson // "7th Floor West": An appreciation

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