Crimestoppers versus Lawyers: The State of Modern Television Folds Inward Yet Again Tonight

Three major premieres tonight, and all three reflect the current TV tendency to solve crime. Whether this is because we like the comfort of watching square-jawed heroes catch bad guys before we shuffle off to bed or because we like to unwind puzzles or because there’s something in the SAG contract guaranteeing the opportunity to [...]

Squee! It’s…

Squee! It’s Andre Braugher on the two-hour season premiere of House tonight. If you’re mourning the overlooking of Generation Kill a bit today, you’re probably already familiar with Braugher’s Emmy-winning role in David Simon’s previous work (with Paul Attanasio and Tom Fontana, of course), Homicide: Life on the Street. If you’re not familiar with said [...]

The Pusher and The User: WEEDS and NURSE JACKIE Premiere on Showtime Tonight

It’s Ladies’ Night on Showtime, with the return of Weeds and the premiere of Nurse Jackie. Weeds is sharp, brutally funny, and well-acted, and…we have a hard time watching it. Mary-Louise Parker is terrific in her role as widow-turned-marijuana dealer Nancy Botwin, but Nancy’s choices put her children in such horrific, dangerous situations that we [...]

THE LISTENER: That’s Not the Color of His Parachute

Susannah and I were recently talking about the set-up and structure of serial storytelling. It makes sense that we see so many cop and doctor shows, because cops and doctors are so much more likely to stumble across a dramatic situation than are, say, retail workers or pickle-dehairers. Sure, we occasionally get a show set [...]

Summer Premieres Abound on Thursday Night

New summer TV is busting out all over! If you’re like me and are waiting out the audition process on So You Think You Can Dance (why does the producer manipulation in the audition rounds work so much better on American Idol than on SYTYCD? How can they possibly think I want to see the [...]

THE GOODE FAMILY “Pilot”: I Can’t Be Seen Here–I Work in Academia!

You have no idea how many times I’ve uttered those very words.
Which, you would think, would make me part of one of the target audiences for ABC’s new animated comedy The Goode Family, which pokes fun at those lefty, sprout-eating, sandal-wearing hippies who organize their lives by asking “What Would Al Gore Do?”. I may [...]

MENTAL “Pilot”: I Refuse to Turn That “E” Around

They say that drowning is just suffocating from breathing the wrong thing. People drown surrounded by oxygen because their lungs can’t convert that oxygen out of the water. It feels like we’re drowning in the television landscape right now, waiting for the summer season to start–everyone is still broadcasting, but we can’t convert the oxygen [...]

GLEE “Pilot”: Questioning Your Commitment to Sparkle Motion

Fox gave us a little taste of high school choir dramedy Glee last night after American Idol, and let’s be honest: that was good strategy. I loved the darn thing. Loved its guts. Any show with an a capella version of “Moonlight Sonata” and a huge choir’s worth of kids in polka-dot 50s dresses belting out [...]

SIT DOWN, SHUT UP: That Title Is Just Begging For It

Remember a couple of years ago when Aaron Sorkin, multiple Emmy winner, created Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and staffed it with Emmy winner Bradley Whitford and Emmy nominee Matthew Perry? And everyone got all excited about it, and then it wasn’t nearly as good as previous Sorkin efforts like Sports Night and The West [...]

CAPRICA: Is This The Transylvania Station?

The backdoor pilot for Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica is available today at a retailer near you or your web browser, but a few hundred of us were lucky enough to see it last night at the Paley Festival in Los Angeles. Co-executive producer David Eick held a ceremonial christening of the show by pulling out [...]