Robert Lloyd

Question: The review copies you receive as a television critic do not have commercials. Do you think that gives you a different (and presumably more favorable) impression of the show than someone watching at home with frequent interruptions for ads? * Lloyd: It certainly gives you a different impression of the medium -- and anyone who watches public broadcasting or subscribes to a premium cable channel or has bought a favorite series on DVD knows that difference.

What is there to say about the Emmys that has not been said before? Rather than flip for writing up the obligatory pre-broadcast essay, Times TV critics Robert Lloyd and Mary McNamara had a conversation in which they aired their grievances, their preferences and gave praise where it was due. Robert: Well, Mary, the fall season is breaking and the Emmy Awards are upon us once again Sunday night. And once again I have failed to pay much attention to them; I understand that they're popular and fun and give newspaper writers something to write about; but they seem to me irrelevant to the art and crafts they celebrate.

I have only one comment regarding the new series "Hawaii" ("When the Scenery Chews the Actors," by Robert Lloyd, Sept. 1), particularly that ridiculous cast from central casting: "Book 'em, Dano." A. Filosa Los Angeles

In the beginning was the television set, and everything that was called television came through it from out of the air, antenna to antenna. Then the pictures began to arrive by cable and satellite, and that was television too. And then the Internet rolled in, with its viral clips and webisodes, and a growing number of new gadgets vied to do what your TV did - your telephone, your tablet, your Roku or your Xbox, each with its own new opportunity....

The tactics of police departments to catch and prosecute street races (Valley Editorials, Aug. 1) are all wrong. How about working with them? The police should set up drag strips, check their seat belts, tires and brakes. They would save the cities and counties hundreds of thousands of dollars and have a good time doing it. ROBERT LLOYD Sherman Oaks

LOVED the Elvis article ["The Night the Once and Future King Came Back," by Robert Lloyd, March 11]. I remember the impact it had on me at the age of 9 when we all gathered around the B&W set in 1968. I wanted to be Elvis! The whole neighborhood talked about it the next day as if they'd witnessed the Red Sea parting. Randy Simcox West Hills

AS an 81-year-old charter member of the fabled Mad magazine gang of idiots, I'd like to thank Robert Lloyd for his great story and unerring insights ["Born Under a Mad Sign," March 18]. He hit a four-bagger when he echoed a thesis of mine that began in 1958, when I wrote my first piece for the late, great Bill Gaines, and continued into the early '90's, when I put away my Mad duncecap and called it an era. Specifically, "Don't write down to the kids; let them rise up to you." Apparently Lloyd and millions of others rose gloriously to the occasion.

"TWO FAT LADIES" (Acorn Media DVD). This delightful cooking show, which ran in Britain from 1996 to 1998 and became popular on the Food Network, is at last served up on domestic DVD. Unlikely even at the time, unfashionably large stars Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson have still less to do with current TV cookery, with its urgency and noise, its rock-star chefs, their flare-ups and meltdowns. The modern show it most resembles is Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" (the British version)

"June 17, 1994" is Brett Morgen's tone-poem documentary about a day in the life of American sports and heroes of sport. It was the day that Arnold Palmer played his final, fraught round at a U.S. Open, the day the World Cup began in Chicago, that the New York Rangers got a ticker-tape parade for winning the Stanley Cup, that the Knicks and the Rockets played the fifth game of the NBA finals. Most famously, it was the day that, with former teammate Al Cowlings at the wheel, O.J. Simpson, charged with the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, took his slow ride around the freeways of Southern California in a white Ford Bronco, holding a gun to his head.

Ten good (and mostly new) things in TV this year. " Food Party" (IFC). Puppet-filled, cardboard-and-glitter surrealist cooking show (sort of) lasted only six episodes, about 10 minutes each, but was easily the most exciting thing I saw this year -- poetic, goofy, beautiful, strange. "Bored to Death" (HBO). Brooklyn lit-scene bromantic faux-noir stoner comedy about the attitude of doing right. "Parks & Recreation" (NBC). Institutional small-town comedy mocks its characters but not their aspirations or optimism.

"TWO FAT LADIES" (Acorn Media DVD). This delightful cooking show, which ran in Britain from 1996 to 1998 and became popular on the Food Network, is at last served up on domestic DVD. Unlikely even at the time, unfashionably large stars Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson have still less to do with current TV cookery, with its urgency and noise, its rock-star chefs, their flare-ups and meltdowns. The modern show it most resembles is Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" (the British version)

LOVED the Elvis article ["The Night the Once and Future King Came Back," by Robert Lloyd, March 11]. I remember the impact it had on me at the age of 9 when we all gathered around the B&W set in 1968. I wanted to be Elvis! The whole neighborhood talked about it the next day as if they'd witnessed the Red Sea parting. Randy Simcox West Hills

AS an 81-year-old charter member of the fabled Mad magazine gang of idiots, I'd like to thank Robert Lloyd for his great story and unerring insights ["Born Under a Mad Sign," March 18]. He hit a four-bagger when he echoed a thesis of mine that began in 1958, when I wrote my first piece for the late, great Bill Gaines, and continued into the early '90's, when I put away my Mad duncecap and called it an era. Specifically, "Don't write down to the kids; let them rise up to you." Apparently Lloyd and millions of others rose gloriously to the occasion.

Question: The review copies you receive as a television critic do not have commercials. Do you think that gives you a different (and presumably more favorable) impression of the show than someone watching at home with frequent interruptions for ads? * Lloyd: It certainly gives you a different impression of the medium -- and anyone who watches public broadcasting or subscribes to a premium cable channel or has bought a favorite series on DVD knows that difference.

I have only one comment regarding the new series "Hawaii" ("When the Scenery Chews the Actors," by Robert Lloyd, Sept. 1), particularly that ridiculous cast from central casting: "Book 'em, Dano." A. Filosa Los Angeles