This week in the print edition of TIME, I review what was pretty easily my favorite new series of the fall, Showtime’s Homeland, starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis and debuting Sunday night. It’s subscription-required, as …
The Morning After: New Beginning for Endings
There is a case to be made that most sitcoms should have only enough of a premise to get put on the air by a network. Then the show can ditch whatever it was ostensibly “about” at the pitch meeting and simply be about: Here is a …
TV Tonight: Suburgatory
There are a lot of things that critics look when reviewing pilots: premise, plot, dialogue, chemistry between actors, directing and so on. To me the most important is an intangible that’s hard to put a finger on, but without …
The Morning After: Who’s That Guy? It’s–
Having gotten all cranky yesterday over the second episode of 2 Broke Girls, let me offer a little balance here: the second episode of New Girl, “Kryptonite,” was really, encouragingly funny.
There’s been an industrial tank …
Can’t Complain: Andy Rooney to Step Down from 60 Minutes
Don’t you hate when a fixture of the past several decades of your life comes to an end, reminding you of your own inexorable process of aging? That will happen this Sunday, when 60 Minutes’ Andy Rooney, the proud original H8R, will announce that he is ending his regular commentaries at the end of 60 Minutes.
Rooney, who began doing “A …
First Look: HBO’s Luck
Among the things I didn’t get around to blogging about yesterday: Before the season premiere of Boardwalk Empire, HBO screened a trailer for horseracing drama Luck, which debuts in January. (They also aired an even briefer tease for season 2 of Game of Thrones, with no footage, just a recitation of the Red Priests’ line “The night is …
A Second Look At: 2 Broke Girls
When I previewed the pilot of 2 Broke Girls, I noted that it was essentially two sitcoms that seemed to be fighting for space. One was an odd-couple insult comedy, surprisingly crude for network primetime and crowded with ethnic stereotypes, not-especially-funny zingers and wacky situations (a horse in the backyard!). The other was an …
Judicial Disrobing? Nancy Grace Denies DWTS Wardrobe Malfunction
The goddess Justice is traditionally depicted in art with one breast bared. So avenging HLN legal-show host Nancy Grace might have gone with the “artistic effect” line of spin after a vigorous performance last night on Dancing …
The Morning After: Atrocious or Bodacious Cretaceous?
Last night we finally saw the two-hour premiere of Terra Nova, which, whatever I thought of it, will stun me if it is not the highest-rated drama debut of the fall season. I won’t bother restating my blog restatement of my …
The Morning After: Successful Landing?
It’s a print-magazine-deadline morning for me once again, so I’m not going to have time for a while to catch up with last night’s season debut of The Good Wife and I may or may not get around to posting. That’s where The Morning …
Boardwalk Empire Watch: In the Names of the Fathers
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, turn off that Chaplin picture and watch last night’s season premiere of Boardwalk Empire.
Boardwalk Empire‘s first season resolved a longstanding question of paternity: who was Jimmy’s …
‘Breaking Bad’ Watch: Pulling the Rug Out
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, turn off Three Days of the Condor and watch last night’s Breaking Bad.
In my write-up of last week’s Breaking Bad, I looked at how Walt’s talk with Walt Jr. pointed up a cruel irony: …
TV Tonight: Fringe
A quick reminder that tonight is the return of Fringe, which more or less fully embraced the weirdness of its battle-between-the-mirror-universes story last season and lived to tell the tale. There’s not much I can say about …