Category: TV Reviews

For a show that started off being awful (its first two seasons always promised more than they ever delivered), The Killing’s third season sure is an improvement. I’ll admit that I was skeptical that the season could maintain its early momentum and keep from sputtering out into an aimless stream of red herrings. However, the…

Perhaps “return” is the wrong word, but several shows that were cancelled during the regular TV season are now having their “leftover” episodes burned off. Do the new episodes make me wish they weren’t gone too soon? Not exactly… 666 Park Avenue…Before it Got Yanked: This was a so-so show at best. The two main…

Netflix’s newest original series is also a triumph. Just after I got the bad taste of Hemlock Grove out of my mouth (more on that travesty down the road) I gave this occasionally indulgent, potentially alienating series a real shot and I found that each episode got better, deeper, funnier, and more touching. It starts…

I was a passionate defender of HBO’s much maligned drama The Newsroom last year, and I’m sure I will be again now that the new reviews are in and they aren’t any better than last year. Of course, the key difference between now and then is that this single episode didn’t grab me the way…

FX unveiled their new series The Bridge tonight and although it’s never fair to judge a serialized drama on the basis of its pilot episode alone, I feel ambivalent about this show already. It’s really too early to tell if it’ll deliver or not, but two big things gave me pause in the pilot episode….

Christopher Guest’s gentile, no-great-shakes comedy series ended its first season last night on HBO and I’d say the first eight episodes of this show were a mixed affair. It’s no secret that Christopher Guest comedies are more for subtle chuckles than belly laughs, and his first ongoing TV show is no different. Of course, his…

3 season finales and a season premiere…   Mad Men…The show ended its sixth season with more of a reflective door slam (firing) than a bang (death, as some rumored). It wasn’t as elegantly existential as last year’s finale (the one that finished with “You Only Live Twice” playing over Don being asked if he…

The first season of NBC’s unexpectedly excellent adaptation of the Hannibal Lecter character winds to a close tonight. And for the many, many people who aren’t watching this series (I haven’t gotten a single person into it…so far), you’re really missing out. The series is closest to the Manhunter movie (the very first Hannibal Lecter…

I’d say 90 percent of people I meet have never even heard of Showtime’s The Borgias (a.k.a. The Tudors with a Pope instead of King Henry). Those people probably won’t be interested to hear about it now that Showtime has cancelled the series and refused to give it the two-hour TV movie they had been…

Two new cable series (IFC’s “Maron,” Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer”) showcasing two reasonably well-known standup talents (Marc Maron and, you guessed it, Amy Schumer). Two shows enter, only one can be named victorious… Maron What’s Going For It: This contest really comes down to your personal taste in the tone of a series. Maron…

Two frustrating dramas that perhaps only I watch returned recently while Game of Thrones came off one of their most shocking episodes to date. The Killing…I was as frustrated as it gets with this show’s terrible second season. I was so down on it that I was seriously happy when AMC cancelled the show…only to…

Tonight is the Super Bowl of gay television as it was not only the series finale of NBC’s Smash, but the premiere of this above-average TV movie about Liberace. HBO continued their winning streak of biopics for unconventional icons (Al Pacino in You Don’t Know Jack and The Phil Spector Story) with this film, which…