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 […]
Since the TV cop show has come of age–a process that began back in the days of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, but has accelerated greatly in recent years–there have been repeated attempts to push the limits of the genre, to tell more novelistic stories that are as much about character and setting […]
The first season of Showtime’s EPISODES was hobbled by its own agenda, but in its much better Season 2, the series relaxed into a very solid sitcom. The show, written throughout by Must-See-TV veterans David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik (Klarik’s credits date back to Mad About You, and Crane was co-creator of an obscure […]
With its endless governmental and quasi-governmental conspiracies and its sci-fi technology, NIKITA has always flirted with sheer silliness, and in its Season 3 finale the show went all the way. Its ratings have also flirted with cancellation, and that came close to happening too: the series will barely be coming back, for an as-yet […]
Voting is going on right now for this year’s Emmy nominations, and LOUIE is on the ballot as a “comedy.” It’s not the only show to squeeze into a category where it may not truly belong–Orange Is the New Black and Shameless are “comedies” too, and the 8-episodes-and-done True Detective has decided that it’s […]
THE WALKING DEAD is in danger of becoming TV’s version of The Phantom Menace: a gigantic hit that no one really likes. The ratings, while still massive, were significantly down in Season 7, which premiered with the instantly-infamous episode that introduced villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who promptly clubbed two cast regulars to death […]
A recurring storyline in FX’s TRUST tracked the obsession of J. Paul Getty (Donald Sutherland) with the sumptuous Los Angeles museum that would bear his name, which was ultimately revealed to be a gigantic monument to its own pointlessness. Series creator Simon Beaufoy couldn’t have intended that as a mirror to his own show, […]
In recent years, Cameron Crowe has had trouble keeping his scripts coherent even when they only have to last 2 hours. It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that giving him 10 hours to play with was asking for trouble, and much of his Showtime series ROADIES has been unfocused and self-indulgent, a […]