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Sex and Violence
I have always intended to write in this space about new TV shows as well as old ones. Since my blog debuted, though, the networks (and even the cable channels) have stymied that plan by offering up...
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The New Classics
Even though the decade doesn’t really end for another year (don’t get me started on the subject of the Year Zero), everyone is playing favorites this month, and I can’t resist joining in. Typically,...
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Taboos
Update, 7/19/10: As if to underscore my point, the New York Times today has a report on an abortion-related episode of The Family Guy (yet another show I don’t watch) that both Fox and Adult Swim...
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Infringement
It’s that time of year again. Time to max out the DVD recorder with the new fall shows, and then try frantically to sample all of them before (a) nobody’s talking about them any more, and therefore...
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The Last Day
The surprising thing about the final cycle of 24 is just how low-key it was. Evidently no one felt a need to top what had come before. Given the vastness of the global and personal carnage wrought...
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The Summer Man
The fourth season of Mad Men was the series’ finest thus far. The narrative strands that took the show into areas of tonal inconsistency – Peggy’s surprise pregnancy; Don’s Carnivale-worthy childhood...
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Notes on Southland
The low-rated ensemble police drama Southland became a cause célèbre a few years ago, when it got canceled by an impatient NBC and then unexpectedly rescued by TNT (a basic cable station that...
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Sloppy Seconds
For a variety of reasons – most of which I won’t go into, but one is that work on my book has reached a stage that requires some advanced procrastination skills – I’ve been revisiting some current...
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Lie to Me
Lie to Me has a gimmick that’s irresistible. Fox’s vague marketing for the show might’ve convinced you that it was either just another procedural or, worse, one of those supernatural crime-solver...
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The Modest Pleasures of Leverage
Leverage is the kind of modern show that people who don’t like modern television tend to like. It’s old-fashioned: formulaic, familiar, minimally serialized. It’s a genre show – a weekly caper,...
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