Blog Posts by Tara Ariano

Last night, "The Daily Show" welcomed Leymah Gbowee, a recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work as a feminist and peace activist in her native Liberia. (It wasn't her first late-night comedy appearance — she guested on "The Colbert Report" in 2009 — but it was the first since being awarded the Peace Prize.) I already knew that Gbowee was an inspiring feminist hero, but what I didn't know until last night was that she could also have a second career as a comic, given the dry sense of humor she displayed. For instance: After recounting a story about evading arrest, after a demonstration, by threatening to strip off all her clothes, Gbowee comments that this is a form of protest Americans should consider. Host Jon Stewart cracks, "Here's the thing we did wrong: We took our clothes off first." Gbowee: "Well, you probably took your clothes off in the wrong location."

The rest of Gbowee's interview is online here.

Gimmickry suspended. (Lewis Jacobs/NBC)As news dribbled out this afternoon about NBC's plans for midseason, one bit of information seemed to escape the very people it would horrify the most, and by that I mean that bloggers didn't know that NBC was planning to leave "Community" off the mideason schedule. Fans may be sad about the news (which probably means the likelihood of a fourth season of "Community" is very low), but they can't possibly be surprised: As Alan Sepinwall put it in his report for HitFix.com, "Community" has been "on a kamikaze mission for a long time now," given its scheduling opposite ratings winners like "The Big Bang Theory" and "American Idol." And qualified un-fans (hi) might observe that, since the show's very strong first season, it has become a slave to its penchant for gimmicky meta-commentary and turned into less of an entertaining sitcom than a deconstruction of the idea of what a sitcom is. So if you're in the latter group, you should stay off Twitter for a while; the response there to this

It's practically impossible to watch "RuPaul's Drag Race" without wondering how the gentlemen transform themselves into gorgeous ladies, and suspecting them of possessing otherworldly, superhuman powers. So that may be why the crack Logo marketing team came up with this concept for the show's big Season 4 promo, which unveils the Drag Droid generator and shows how it works, or should I say, how it WERKS.

The Brinkleys might be on the move. (NBC)You know how you're watching NBC's lineup of Thursday-night sitcoms and they're all laugh track-free single-camera shows on which the humor comes from deep knowledge of the carefully drawn, specific, unique characters, and then "The Office" ends and "Whitney" comes on and you practically dislocate your wrist diving for the remote to change the channel? Well, so does NBC, which is why the network may be planning to swap "Whitney" for "Up All Night," the charming new-parents comedy that's currently struggling on Wednesday nights. There is the question of whether "Whitney" is too adult for an 8 PM time slot, but is it really that much dirtier than anything else that airs at 8? I mean, "How I Met Your Mother" generally doesn't seem much less pottymouthed than other network sitcoms. There's also a possibility that the struggling "Grimm" might move off Friday nights, but you don't care about "Grimm" and neither do I. [Deadline; UPDATE: Confirmed.]

Someone else is going to have to make them sweat. (John Parra/WireImage.com)Just one short season after joining "The Biggest Loser" as a trainer, tennis star Anna Kournikova has evidently realized that she is not fit to fill Jillian Michaels's supportive yet stylish sneakers and is leaving the NBC reality series. According to The Hollywood Reporter's Merle Ginsberg, Kournikova proved to be a poor replacement for Michaels, both in terms of motivating the show's contestants (which she apparently did badly) and getting along with the show's staff (which she...did not do).

Kournikova's departure leaves the show with a crucial role to fill, and — given that NBC runs the series pretty much year-round — very little time to fill it. So in order to expedite the process, we have a few pretty great suggestions for people the network should get in touch with right away.

LeBron James
Pros: He's in excellent shape; he's spent his entire career working with world-class coaches and has surely learned some lessons; it looks like he's going to have a few free months ahead of him.
Cons: His team of contestants couldn't necessarily be sure that he wouldn't ditch them in the middle of a workout.

Expect these two to be the subject of many cover stories. (Hulu)Sometimes, even when an event in the entertainment press can cause confusion. On such occasions, we may be moved to ask what could seem, at first, to be rhetorical, sarcastic queries, but are, in fact, Innocent Questions.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on the launch of a new magazine from American Media, purveyors of such indispensable titles as Star and OK!. Reality Weekly, which will get a 13-issue trial run starting in January, will be exactly what it sounds like: a weekly magazine covering nothing but the shows, stars, and ephemera of reality television, and the fact of this publication forces us to ask some Innocent Questions.

Nailed it. (Hulu)Granted, the "SNL" Sketch Predictor is based on a combination of informed guesswork and pure imagination. But I will still get way too excited when I happen to be right about anything in the show. Below, a celebration of me and the things I accurately predicted — plus a couple of things I should have known to expect.

What I Got Right!

1. and 2. That the show would open with a sketch about a Republican Presidential debate; and that the focus would be on Rick Perry (Bill Hader) performing horribly.

Yes, yes, Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, Dr. Anspaugh from "ER," sure, fine. Why is no one talking about the fact that Showtime's "House of Lies" — for which we have to wait until JANUARY, boo! — also co-stars Ben Schwartz?! That's Jean-Ralphio! Anyway, here's a new trailer for "House of Lies," which I think looks VERY good.

[Deadline]