Ann Coulter: 'Retard' Jokes = Good. Cancer Jokes = Bad

Great news, aspiring pundits, comedians, and pundit-comedians: Ann Coulter is here to teach you about what is and isn't offensive in political comedy. You don't even have to go to some musty old theater, because the master is dishing out lessons for free on Twitter.

After Monday's presidential debate, Coulter referred to President Obama as "the retard" in a tweet.

She was widely criticized by people lacking her finely calibrated gift for sniffing out what is and isn't acceptable to say. She demonstrated that gift Tuesday, when she called out Obama for saying Mitt Romney has "stage 3 Romneysia."

Since cancer is the only thing on earth that happens in stages, Coulter deduced that the president was making light of cancer and people dying from it.

"Obama: 'Stage 3 Romneysia' - because cancer references are HILARIOUS," she tweeted. "If he's 'the smartest guy in the room' it must be one retarded room."

To be clear: Coulter was being sarcastic, and doesn't think cancer jokes are hilarious at all.

Retard jokes, though? Never get old.

Mick Hucknall BBC talent show rejected in favour of 'The Voice' UK

Mick Hucknall has revealed that he attempted to launch his own TV talent show on the BBC.

The Simply Red singer claims that his concept to find the next "musical icon" was rejected in favour of The Voice UK last year.

Hucknall hoped to find creative artists who could be turned into global superstars in a format that was said to be different from The Voice and The X Factor.

"I approached the BBC about a year ago with the idea of a programme," he told the Daily Express. "I said I wanted to find the next David Bowie, the next Freddie Mercury, the next Lennon and McCartney but they rejected it and went for The Voice instead, which to me was another version of The X Factor because it's not about creative artists."

He added: "I would call on them to devise a programme to find the next Elton or the next Mick Hucknall.

"The BBC are the people to do it because they represent British culture; they should be looking to find the next musical icon."

'The Voice' Going Live for 3 Nights on Election Week

"The Voice" is getting into the election spirit.

NBC's hit singing competition is upping its broadcasts for election week, airing three live shows surrounding election day, the network said Monday.

In addition to its regularly scheduled airing Monday, Nov. 5 from 8 to 10 p.m., "The Voice" will run the Wednesday following election day from 8 to 10, with another episode Thursday, Nov. 8 at 8.

NBC will not air "The Voice" on that Tuesday as it normally would, because apparently there's something else going on that night that the network feels it should cover instead.

Melissa George talks 'Hunted' series two plans: 'It's set in Berlin'

Melissa George has spoken about a potential second series of her spy thriller Hunted.

The drama - created by Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files) - is currently airing on BBC One in the UK and on Cinemax in the US.

"[Frank has] given me a pretty good idea [of where series two would go]," George told IGN.

"It's all going to be about Sam's journey, finding out and putting the pieces together. She won't be the nanny anymore."

The actress - who plays Sam Hunter - added that a second series of Hunted would be set in Berlin.

"Next year it's in Berlin, and there's a whole link to Hourglass, which is the covenant group that killed her mother," said George. "So there will be a lot of accents and things like that."

The Australian star previously stated that her Hunted role "could potentially be long-term", adding that she may be playing Sam "for the next five years".

Ashley Walters teases 'Doctor Who' guest appearance

Ashley Walters has offered details of his Doctor Who guest appearance.

The So Solid Crew rapper-turned-actor first revealed that he is appearing in a 2013 Doctor Who episode in September, admitting the he got in trouble for tweeting images of the shoot.

Walters has now revealed to Radio Times that his Doctor Who instalment - said to be called 'Journey to the Centre of the Tardis' - centres on an exploration of The Doctor's blue box.

"In our episode, it'll be the first time people get to see so much of the Tardis," he hinted.

Walters went on to praise Doctor Who star Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, who plays the Time Lord's new companion.

"You can't beat being in Doctor Who - it's something I've grown up with my whole life and working with Matt Smith was amazing," the star revealed. "He's a really, really good actor and just being a part of that huge BBC franchise was an incredible thing.

"And Jenna-Louise Coleman is really good at what she does - it seems like she's enjoying her job and I loved working with her."

Coleman makes her official debut as The Doctor's companion in the Christmas special, which will air later this year in the UK and the US.

Can we have a chat about spoilers?

Now that the dust has settled on this year's big blockbuster releases, and the likes of Doctor Who has come to an end for a while, it seems a bit of a good opportunity to discuss what constitutes an acceptable spoiler.

We try and err very much on the side of caution when putting together material for the site, and we're aware that we've come in for some criticism over spoiler-free reviews that are basically our opinion of an episode, and little more than that. This is a firm policy decision we took: we take spoiler-free as literally as we can, at most trying not to mention things that happen past the first credits, unless they're heavily in the public domain. The consequence of that, for us, is that some of our reviews aren't always the most detailed you'll read – although in our defence, they're an honest appraisal of what we've seen.

If you read beyond this point, please be aware that we're going to discuss both Doctor Who series seven, The Sixth Sense and The Dark Knight Rises. If you don't want any of those spoiled, then it's best to click on something else right about now.

Which of these, then - and we ask this with genuine interest in the answer - do you class as something that would spoil The Dark Knight Rises (and these are all examples we saw around the time of the review):

There's a big twist at the end
There's not much Batman in it
"There's more to Joseph Gordon Levitt's character than meets the eye"

Then, here's the question for Doctor Who series seven, specifically regarding the big surprise in Asylum Of The Daleks:

The Doctor visits Skaro (that bit was pre-credits)
Steven Moffat asked everyone at the press launch to keep a massive surprise a secret
The plot takes the story to a planet where the Daleks have gone mad, and the Doctor needs to save them

We ask these questions simply because we're trying to work out exactly where to draw the line. If something, in your view, is labelled spoiler-free, how much of it is fair game to reveal? Do you want to know whether something is good or bad, or do you want more detail than that?

Then, where is the statute of limitations for spoilers? There's an excellent piece over at The Shiznit on this. It talks about when Alan Sugar, in a Radio Times piece, spoiled a big moment in A Beautiful Mind. The Shiznit's views, as always, are well worth a read.

It does beg the question, though: at what stage are we allowed to say there's a big twist in something like The Sixth Sense, even if we don't say what the ending is? The film was released back in 1999 after all. The vast majority of people who read this site will know very well what happened in that particular film - but out of fairness to those who don't, how far should we go, beyond a standard spoiler warning, to keep things under wraps?

Misfits series 4 episode 1 spoiler-free review

The series four Misfits opener reveals a darker show, but still one that fans know and love. Here's a spoiler-free review...

Before getting into this series four opener, I want to acknowledge how monumental a task the Misfits team had on their hands this year. Series three was hampered by one missing cast member in Robert Sheehan, but here there were three, and it must have seemed nigh-on impossible to sort out the mess during the writing stage. As we know, Simon (Iwan Rheon) and Alisha (Antonia Thomas) both departed in last year’s series closer, and news arrived earlier this year that Lauren Socha wouldn't be returning in the role of Kelly.

Most people are also aware that the show is welcoming three new cast members to fill the gap, with Jess (Karla Crome) and Finn (Nathan McMullen) joining Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) and Rudy (Joseph Gilgun) on community service for series four, before the introduction of new character Alex (Matt Stokoe). Based solely on this episode, it’s incredibly hard to judge how well they’ll fit into the regular groove of the show, as this opener does its very best to split perspective fairly equally. Curtis, Rudy and Seth are here as our familiar faces, but Jess and Finn are given enough screen-time to introduce themselves. They’re not major revelations, but there’s an interesting tease in the final moments that intrigues me for what’s to come from at least one of them.

I’ll say next that this is an exceedingly strange episode, and the writers should be praised for not taking the easiest route to a rebooted format. I say the three regulars (though it’s unclear how much Seth will be around this year) are providing our familiar faces, but they’re not quite as we knew them. The show in general seems much, much darker than it’s ever been, even after the episode’s resolution, and the departure of both the show’s love story and main female presence has made an unexpectedly major impact on the tone. Kelly’s absence is explained briefly, but you get the impression that the writers are more interested in getting on with their new start than going over old ground.

That said, the episode doesn’t really set us up for things to come as much as last year’s premiere did, and the rest of the series is still a big unknown when the credits start rolling. It’s an episodic adventure that doesn’t seem as if it will have a huge residual impact plot-wise, but is probably a good indication of where the writers want to take the show. If I’m being honest, that’s a little worrying, since the rising darkness in each character carried over from last year left me kind of unsettled. There is a lot to love about the episode, and I’m eager not to write the series off without considering all of the different elements being brought in, but I’m concerned the light-hearted tone of early Misfits might be left behind.

The show has leaned more towards comedy in the past, with lots of thriller and action conventions thrown in and mixed up, and the overtly humorous episodes often come out as season-bests. There were obviously some laughs in this opener, but there were some over-used jokes from previous series that felt a little tedious and forced. Rudy, for example, is at his irritating best, and those who didn’t like him last year won’t be changing their minds based on this. The story of this episode, and the things that happen in it, are at times thoroughly unpleasant, and humour from an unpleasant person will almost always come across as a bit distasteful.

The whole episode seems designed to unseat long-time fans and I must, again, give credit to the writers for not making it easy for themselves. Viewers probably wouldn’t have been ecstatic with a by-the-numbers or predictable opener, but I reckon we would have understood considering the difficult stage the series was left in. That said, if anyone decides to dip into this episode uninitiated, I’d wager they’ll be a bit confused and more than a little horrified. Playing like an experimental gangster flick, things get quite nasty, and no amount of laboured masturbation jokes can counterbalance the unnerved feeling some of it leaves you with.

None of this means it’d a bad first outing, of course, and it’s the inherent strangeness that somehow makes it undeniably, unmistakingly, Misfits. No one fell in love with the show for its cosy predictability, and so I’m glad they’ve managed to change things up once again without losing sight of what made it so special in the first place. I didn’t love this episode, and found most of it hard to get my head around, but the job of moulding a new ensemble cast has been done all over again with as much grace and confidence as can be expected. It aims to intrigue, rather than excite, but, crucially, remains the same Misfits fans know and love.