39 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/30/15 3:27am)
The school year is almost over, and spring TV is just heating up. In the limited amount of time we have left together, I figured I would write a totally arbitrary awards column, partly because there’s not really any new TV happening this week. What follows is a number of awards I’ve given to shows throughout the year: Awards named after my favorite examples from other shows. Look, the point of this exercise is not to reinvent the wheel—or the awards column—just to bestow awards to those I deem deserving.
(04/16/15 1:09am)
We’re back, baby. Last Sunday night, the great television experiment known to us mere mortals as “Game of Thrones” continued its meteoric ascent into our hearts and minds. Viewers have all been waiting for it, and when the first four episodes leaked online yesterday, thousands of our weaker brethren downloaded it. It’s easily the biggest thing to happen on television this year. As such, it is only fitting that I use the space provided to sing its praises (as well as make some make some minor complaints). Warning—spoilers from Sunday’s episode, and some mild book-reader nit-picking follows.
(04/09/15 1:56am)
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the moment we’ve—or at least I’ve—been waiting for all semester has finally almost arrived. The world is three days from the premiere of the fifth season of “Game of Thrones.” Because I am very excited, I thought it might be useful to go through what we may expect from this season and what I, an accursed book reader, want from what has the potential the best season yet.
(03/25/15 1:54am)
Seemingly every year that it’s been on the air, “Community” has been moved, cancelled or resurrected. In fact, it’s happened so often that we “Community” fans have even created a hashtag (#sixseasonsandamoive) to express our exasperation with the show’s fluctuating status, the latest example its resurrection at the hands of Yahoo Screen, which prompted thousands to young Americans to ask whether or not Yahoo was still a thing.
(03/20/15 5:25pm)
Will Forte’s new sitcom, “The Last Man on Earth,” focuses on the new, post-apocalyptic life of Phil Miller, the last living man on Earth, as he attempts to survive and thrive in his new surroundings. It’s also one of the best new shows on television this spring. Will Forte is a comedic mastermind, and unhinging him to do all of the things we would do if we were trapped in the world alone is solid gold. However, it’s not just Forte that makes the show great; everything from setting to script conspires and aspires to make “The Last Man on Earth” worthy of praise.
(03/12/15 1:52am)
Like most everything else, television is all about relationships. From “The Sopranos” to “Community,” all great shows use personal relationships as a fulcrum to lift up the rest of the plot around them. However, when shows (especially dramas) forgot about the world outside of a marriage or a friendship, when things turn inward just a little bit too much, your show starts to suck.
(03/05/15 1:30am)
Last week, “Parks and Recreation” capped off a glorious seven-season run with about as much pure joy and happiness as you can fit into an hour of network television. Storylines wrapped, Pawnee changed (once again) for the better and Mark Brendanawicz was once again nowhere to be found. In an era where TV comedies increasingly focus on the consequences of our screwups, “Parks and Recreation” coupled this with a love of the consequences of our good decisions, too. And in a world where many comedies center around the little engine that couldn’t, Leslie Knope and company were the little engine that did three times and had waffles after. From its inception as a sort of spin-off of “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation” immediately became one of the best sitcoms on TV (I even liked season one). It will be sorely missed.
(02/19/15 3:56am)
“The Walking Dead” is back, baby! Finally, after months of waiting, one of my favorite television shows is back in its familiar Sunday night slot(s). The first half of the fifth season represented one of the biggest television 180s that I’ve ever seen; last year, the show had the pacing and stumbling of Rick Grimes walking down railroad tracks, and now it's as exciting and suspenseful as it’s ever been. Naturally, between this most welcome surprise and the tension that was the midseason finale, I’ve been ready to get back on the road with our heroes for a while now.
(02/12/15 3:58am)
“Breaking Bad” is widely considered to be one of the greatest television programs of the last decade, if not of all time. I agree with this assessment; it’s entertaining, well written, addictive and engaging. So, when I rushed home from work on Sunday night to watch the premiere of “Better Call Saul,” I was expecting something very similar to “Breaking Bad.” Generally, that wouldn’t be too far-fetched; if you’re making a spinoff, you only change it enough to let watchers know the material is just new enough to be interesting. Sometimes this works… and sometimes you get “Joey.” I spent months hoping “Better Call Saul” would not be the next “Joey,” and that the writers would see the potential of Saul alone and not ruin him forever.
(02/05/15 7:12am)
Last week, I may have mentioned that this time of year is where TV goes to die. however, what I dod not take into account is that it’s trailer season! Not one but two super-amazing, awesome trailers debuted over the past week: one for season five of “Game of Thrones” and the other for “Wet Hot American Summer.” We knew that a “Game of Thrones” trailer would be forthcoming, and rather than shoot my “GOT” wad this early in the semester, I’ll just say that it was awesome. Like, really awesome. But the real exciting (and kind of unexpected) news of the day belongs to the “Wet Hot American Summer” teaser.
(01/29/15 4:24am)
Over the past year, one of the newest and best rivalries in TV history began and is now officially heating up. As Netflix continues to produce original content, Amazon has thrown its hat into the ring and now has come up with its first bona fide hit, “Transparent,” which stars Jeffrey Tambor as a father struggling to tell his children about his desire to be a woman, is garnering ridiculous amounts of praise. Amazon versus Netflix is a rivalry that would have been inconceivable even three years ago. Then, most of the world didn’t even know “House of Cards” was going to be a thing, and Amazon was just somewhere you went to compare prices with whatever you wanted at Target. If you had told me then that both of these companies would be serious players in the TV market, I would probably have laughed at you and made a joke about whatever was funny three years ago (Snuggies? Sarah Palin? I have to be close).
(12/03/14 4:06am)
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the BBC’s post-World War I crime drama “Peaky Blinders.” Two weeks ago, the second season was released onto networks mere weeks after its original BBC run, and I’m going to write about it again.
(11/19/14 5:22am)
This month, both Marvel and DC revealed their predicted movie schedules through 2020. The second “Avengers” movie comes out in May, and superheroes and their ilk continue to invade our television screens. We’ve seen everything from prequels (“Gotham”), to companion shows (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) and everything in between (literally everything else). We know now that the superhero model is a popular, insanely high-grossing construct with universes and story lines expansive enough to continue going on forever. The real question is whether or not we’ll continue to watch week in, week out after the thrill is gone.
(11/12/14 5:52am)
Sustainability is one of the key elements of any television show. For comedies, it may be the most important element. Once a show stops being funny, it’s (normally) cancelled. Of course, the longer a show runs, the less likely it is to be cancelled regardless of quality (looking at you, “Family Guy”). And, obviously, the longer a comedy runs, the harder it is to come up with new, unique situations and the easier it is to fall back on what worked before. Rarely do you find a show that does not stagnate—even “Seinfeld” was not as good at the end. Yet, “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”—which borrows a lot from “Seinfeld”—is atop the short list of shows you still have to watch.
(11/05/14 4:11am)
Halloween has now come and gone and with it have gone the smattering of Halloween-related sitcom episodes that have graced both network and cable alike. Soon, Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes will usher us into the most wonderful time of the year. As such, I figured I would take this opportunity to break down the trope that is the “Holiday Episode.”
(10/29/14 3:54am)
If there’s one thing television does not lack, it’s shows about criminals. If there’s one thing Netflix doesn’t lack, it’s acclaimed BBC dramas. “Peaky Blinders” fills both of these criteria. The BBC’s slow-burning drama about life for one gang in post-WWI Birmingham showcases life and criminality in what is undoubtedly one of the dirtiest cities I have ever seen (on television).
(10/22/14 3:29am)
On Sunday nights the most-watched show on television, AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” airs. Immediately after it ends, a foppish blonde man—comedian Chris Hardwick—comes on screen and talks about the show for the next hour. Nothing else happens. Hardwick and whatever celebrity guests and/or cast members tell jokes, talk about what just happened and what possibly could happen. The most interesting part of this is that people watch it. Viewers stay tuned in to watch Hardwick and his weekly compatriots draw the interest of “The Walking Dead’s” fans.
(10/15/14 3:51am)
Around this time last year, I wrote a column about how I thought “The Walking Dead” was the best show currently on television. I was wrong. In fact, I have rarely been more wrong. While still an excellent piece of television in its own right, the fourth season of what is somehow cable TV’s most watched program did its best to make me look like an asshole. While taking literally forever to finally wrap up the Governor’s storyline, it also spiced things up with what may go down as the worst ever use of a Mountain Goats song and one of the most heavy-handed “Of Mice & Men” knockoffs I have ever seen (“Just look at the flowers, Lizzie!”). However, things picked up again at the end of the season when our heroes finally reunited in Terminus, which of course turns out to be an old train station that a group of cannibal cultists call home. This new development left me tentatively excited for the new season, and when it premiered on Sunday night I tuned in for what I hoped would be a solid hour of Rick Grimes straight murdering the aforementioned cannibals.
(10/08/14 5:46am)
On Monday, it was revealed that David Lynch’s acclaimed psycho-drama “Twin Peaks” would come back after more than 20 years for a third season on Showtime. Lynch’s sprawling vision of a northern town and its seedy (and mostly psychotic) underbelly failed to live up to lofty ratings expectations in its second season and has since become a cult classic, gathering legions of new fans as the years have gone by.
(10/01/14 2:32am)
Last week, it was announced that Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn, along with a yet to be cast female lead will star in the upcoming second season of “True Detective.” Farrell will star as a detective, while Vaughn has been cast as a career criminal and seems to be the antagonist of the new season. The only other details that have been revealed about the new season are that it will take place in California and will have something to do with, in the words of show creator Nic Pizzolatto, “the secret occult history of the United States transportation system.” That certainly leaves a lot of room for speculation, and because I am a huge fan of both speculation and “True Detective,” I have decided to come up with some scenarios of what the new season might have in store, as well as which female actress would be best cast as the lead.