This week, Sons of Anarchy addressed some of the aspects of the motorcycle-gang life that have most frequently prevented me from completely buying into this very good series. (And yes, I wrote “gang,” not “club,” the Sons’ preferred-or-we’ll-bash-your-skull-in term.) No coincidence: I thought this week’s SOA, titled “Hands,” was the best episode of a very strong season. READ FULL STORY »
The latest AMC project to come down a now-literal track is Hell on Wheels, which premiered Sunday night with a pilot episode that attempted once again to jump-start a revival of that fundamental but faded TV genre, the Western. Alas, this post-Civil War saga, about the railroading of America starring Anson Mount as a vengeful Confederate Man In Black, lacked narrative steam. READ FULL STORY »
The unholy trio of writer Neil Gaiman, Magnetic Fields genius Stephin Merritt, and Moby helped Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer bring “Science Fiction/Double Feature” to The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson last night. READ FULL STORY »
David Letterman did not pussyfoot around in making clear his feelings about the Occupy Wall Street protestors. “I love these people causin’ trouble,” he said on Monday night’s Late Show. “Increasingly, this is the way we get change in this country.” READ FULL STORY »
The second week of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist was a mess; assembling the hour must have driven the show’s editors crazy. The hour started out with a demonstration of parkour, the strenuous, French-derived, running-climbing-leaping exercise done by daredevils on city architecture. The idea was to give the contestants and viewers a kinetic image for the week’s task: create “a piece about motion.” The artists were divided into two teams, told to come up with a theme, and put together two competing group shows. READ FULL STORY »
It’s safe to say that Walter White’s most formidable obstacle in his pursuit of wealth for his family and, increasingly, his assertion of himself as the dynamic force in his own life, has been Gus Fring, the deceptively meek fast-food-chicken store owner, philanthropist, and drug lord played by Giancarlo Esposito with consummate meticulousness in the season of Breaking Bad that concluded on Sunday night. READ FULL STORY »
In a fall season whose biggest stories have been an expensive dinosaur show and the resurrection of the sitcom, one of the best new shows snuck onto our screens with all the stealth of the espionage world it depicts. Homeland, which premiered last night after Dexter on Showtime, is probably the most serious yet entertaining, subtle yet gut-level entertaining, sly yet not “cool” drama to premiere thus far. As a Showtime series, it’s not a splattery-splashy as Dexter, but… well, thank goodness. READ FULL STORY »
If possible, I like to see at least two episodes of a series before reviewing it; it’s always difficult to assess a show based solely on its pilot, which tends to have a bigger budget and must do a lot of work introducing the characters and setting up the premise before getting down to weekly business. And so I thought I’d follow up on week two of Person of Interest (which I lauded in EW’s Fall TV Preview) and Prime Suspect (which I chided as misguided in a What To Watch review), since their networks, CBS and NBC, had made available only one episode each at the time of my first reviews.
Quick summary: Person of Interest turned in a notably weaker second episode, while Prime Suspect surged in quality with an hour much stronger than its premiere. READ FULL STORY »
Watching the debut of New Girl, you may have been thinking, “I’ve heard these jokes before.” Oh, right: It was in the 21,875 commercials Fox offered in promoting the show, revealing punchline after punchline. Is there such a thing as too much promotion — specifically, promos that give away the best gags? Only the ratings will tell, but even if you hadn’t already downloaded it on iTunes or watched it on Hulu, I’ll bet a lot of you thought you’d seen much of this half hour well before it aired.
Not that Zooey Deschanel can or should be blamed for any of this. READ FULL STORY »
The second season of Louie had a number of moments that didn’t just amuse me; they made my heart swell with joy and, sometimes, sadness. As if to acknowledge these reactions in his viewers, Louis C.K. crafted a season finale on Thursday night that found his character hitting new highs… and lows. READ FULL STORY »
