MISS AMERICANA (Netflix – January 31):  There are certainly areas of Taylor Swift’s life that are carefully elided in MISS AMERICANA (her actor boyfriend’s face and name are absent, for example, and there’s no mention of Cats), and Lana Wilson’s documentary culminates in an inspirational push that is very much on-message with Swift’s latest […]

  ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST – Sundays 10PM on NBC (starting February 16) In a broadcast network landscape musty with procedurals and the mildest possible sitcoms, NBC deserves credit for commissioning Austin Winsberg’s ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST, an original musical fantasy (the collected works of Dennis Potter and ABC’s short-lived Eli Stone aside).  It’s a genuine attempt […]

  “I understand why you’re confused,” said the figure who wasn’t Elliot Alderson’s therapist Krista (Gloria Reuben) to the figure who wasn’t Elliot (Rami Malek) toward the end of the finale of Sam Esmail’s series MR ROBOT.  And, well, yeah. This year, we’ve had reason to be reminded how tough endings are to achieve in […]

  Damon Lindelof is fascinated by the elements of storytelling, sometimes to the detriment of the story itself.  It was fitting that a motif of WATCHMEN, both in its Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons 1987 graphic novel version and in Lindelof’s HBO sequel/spin-off, was the construction of watches, because this new version could feel like a fantastically […]

  MADAM SECRETARY quietly had one of the most interesting paths of recent broadcast network dramas.  Airing of all places on CBS, it was a frankly political series that began its run in 2014 and ended 5 years later, bridging two entirely different eras of real-life US politics.  The show’s own center-left policies on social […]

  There was a trainwreck quality to the final season of Showtime’s THE AFFAIR, although it managed to gather itself with some grace for tonight’s series finale, which ended with a remarkably happy conclusion for a show that was mostly built on shifting perspectives of interpersonal misery. The Affair probably shouldn’t have returned for a […]

  WATCHMEN:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The Damon Lindelof/HBO WATCHMEN provides a new wrinkle to the world of IP exploitation.  It’s not an adaptation of the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel (a la Zack Snyder’s all-too-reverent 2009 film) or even a reboot, but a newly conceived work that’s more like a spin-off or a […]

  In its second season, HBO’s SUCCESSION found an exquisite middle ground between Dallas and Shakespeare.  The show is still a somewhat rareified taste–it’s routinely been the lowest-rated show in the network’s current Sunday line-up–but as evidenced by its surprise writing Emmy a few weeks ago, its quality is recognized. The Season 2 finale, written […]