Image Credit: HBO
There’s a lot on TV tonight — the Golden Globes, new episodes of The Good Wife and Downton Abbey, the season premiere of Girls — but let me urge you to try and catch the second-season premiere of HBO’s Enlightened. This half-hour co-created by co-stars Laura Dern and Mike White is extraordinarily good: funny and moving and constantly surprising. READ FULL STORY »
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As was made thumpingly obvious in its super-sized premiere, how much you enjoy Downton Abbey‘s third season is, more than ever for this series, predicated on just how much of an Anglophile you are. You have to be willing to go pretty thick into the weediness of British property rights and privilege, and to realize that as much as we have great affection for the Crawleys, they — like real people we love and put up with, such as family members — have their blind spots, their objectionable beliefs, their frustrating set ways. For instance, we don’t have to turn a deaf ear to anything as (to most of this family’s way of thinking) crassly complex as the struggle for Irish independence in order maintain the illusion of the Crawleys as a clan to care about. Me, I was amused as always, and was also perfectly content to feel irritation periodically mixing with my enjoyment of these toffee-nosed twits, these occasionally creepy-Crawleys. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Comedy Central
Last night on The Colbert Report, the host, fed up with the power of Michelle Obama to have already secured the upcoming season of Downton Abbey, exacted a kind of revenge of the polity. He got Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s permission to have the cast of Downton Abbey enact scenes from the upcoming season of Bad. READ FULL STORY »
Jimmy Kimmel presided over a mostly very funny, fairly briskly paced, and quite surprising Emmy broadcast on Sunday night. It just goes to show what a great year it was for dramas that Breaking Bad could lose in so many key categories and I’m still happy… because Homeland‘s sweep of best drama, actor, actress, and what seemed like 42 other Emmys was heartily well-deserved. And the cat-nap I took during the back-to-back, too-long acceptance speeches by Jessica Lange and Tom Berenger helped sustain my viewing energy. READ FULL STORY »
The Television Critics Association awards were announced on Saturday night. The nation’s TV critics gave awards to Louie for best comedy, Breaking Bad for best drama; the “Program of the Year” award went to Game of Thrones. The event was hosted by Bad‘s Bryan Cranston. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC
The Emmy nominations are being decided even as I write this. Members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences must hand in their ballots by June 28; the nominations will be announced on July 19. Why don’t we help out these folks and suggest worthy candidates?
That’s the thinking behind the long, carefully reasoned, highly passionate, sometimes stubbornly flukey list that follows. As EW’s TV critic, I tend to have some opinions not shared by the majority of official Emmy voters. I also suspect, however, that you, the EW.com reader, share some of my passions — such as Fringe, Girls, and Community — that the Academy is unlikely to nominate. Which is one reason to agitate for them, right? READ FULL STORY »
Sherlock returned for a second season Sunday night on PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery!, and offered its take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” by giving you a chance to match wits with the Master in… cracking the password to Irene Adler’s smartphone. READ FULL STORY »
Sherlock returns tonight for a second season on PBS’ Masterpiece. Before the first series premiered, I had been dubious: A modern Sherlock Holmes, adapting to new technology with a Watson who blogged the Great Detective exploits? That seemed dubious. READ FULL STORY »
The Golden Globe nominees in the best miniseries and TV-movie categories come down to two choices with two possible spoilers. Most of the awards will go to either the first season of Downton Abbey (that TV series smuggled into this country as a miniseries) or HBO’s Mildred Pierce. READ FULL STORY »
