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 »
Remember all those talks we had about how much good TV was crammed into Sunday nights? Well, it’s all going to come to an end soon. In fact, after this weekend, no more Game of Thrones for a while. READ FULL STORY »
Sunday nights are getting more crowded with good, essential stuff every week: It’s time to start picking and choosing what you’ll watch in real time, what you’ll DVR for later viewing, and what you might just give up on because it’s just too much TV.
Mad Men. Game of Thrones. The Good Wife. The Killing. READ FULL STORY »
Nothing against Game of Thrones, but the new HBO programming I’m most looking forward to is the cable network’s upcoming half-hour show Girls. READ FULL STORY »
For pure Sunday night escapism, PBS’ Downton Abbey exceeds the previous champion of the Lord’s Day of Rest, HBO’s Game of Thrones. There was a grungy realism to Thrones‘ sword and sorcery epic; by contrast, Abbey is, to American eyes, nearly fantastical. All the politeness that prevails, even during World War I! Mr. Carson articulated this quality early on in the second-season premiere as the downstairs help polished the silver and prepared meals for the upstairs grandees: “Keeping up standards is the only way to show the Germans that they will not beat us in the end.” READ FULL STORY »
Here, as I do every year, I follow up my TV Top 10 with my picks for numbers 11 through 20. Some of you have said these are consolation prizes, but that’s not so. There’s so much good television, that for a few years, I was stuffing my Top 10 with entries that allowed for multiple shows (“Best Thursday-night sitcoms,” for instance, to let me to sneak three shows into one number) until that started to become unwieldy and ridiculous. (Besides, as a part-time music critic, I like the “Top 20” phrase, with its roots in old pop-music radio.) I had no problem this year coming up with a clean-cut Top 10; what follows are shows that grazed the list, missed it for reasons I’ll occasionally articulate below, and yet are nonetheless full of value.
11. Community So full of pop-culture allusions, it’s the one sitcom steeped in irony that isn’t smug about its own smarts. The series tried to dig a bit deeper emotionally this season, to warm some of the characters and perhaps increase its audience-outreach without betraying itself. Me, I could do with less Chang, more Britta, and a Jeff who doesn’t sometimes seem a charmingly quizzical bystander.
12. Parenthood This was the season that’s come the closest to juggling its big cast most deftly, providing nearly every character with a strong plotline. If it’s inevitable that Lauren Graham’s Sarah and Dax Shepard’s Crosby – the show’s most bumptious personalities – dominated the latter half of the season, I was glad to see strong showcases for Peter Krause, Monica Potter, and Bonnie Bedelia.
13. Prohibition Ken Burns and booze proved to be a smooth yet exciting combination. The year’s best TV documentary extended beyond the history of Prohibition to chronicle the era of women’s sufferage and the rise of gangsterism as well.
14. Modern Family The nation’s most popular sitcom had some growing pains this season: In an admirable attempt to try to widen and deepen its characters, it bumped into some sentimental moments that didn’t quite work emotionally. But that’s just a sign that MF is not becoming complacent, and its ensemble cast is a match for that of any drama on TV. READ FULL STORY »
The TV nominations for the Golden Globes were such a predictable mishmash of well-deserved semi-surprises, the usual suspects, and dismaying disappointments that, like the SAG nominations yesterday and the Emmy nominations perennially, it makes me wonder two things: Why do I — and you; we — get so het up about awards, and is America ever going to reward John Noble? READ FULL STORY »
Jon Hamm was named best actor in a drama and Modern Family’s Ty Burrell and Parks and Recreation‘s Nick Offerman tied for best actor in a comedy in the annual Television Critics Association awards ceremony held on Saturday night.
The full list is: READ FULL STORY »
