DEXTER:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime Here we are, once again at the outset of the declared final season for a long-lived, successfully distinctive TV series.  The conclusion of DEXTER won’t compare to the upcoming end of Breaking Bad later this summer (or to next year’s exit of Mad Men) in terms of passionate expectations, […]

  The allegory is piled on so thickly in Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER that after a while, it’s not clear just what the underlying subject is supposed to be.  Lanthimos is a cult-favorite filmmaker (the cult mostly consists of critics and film festival selection committee members) whose arresting Dogtooth was an unlikely Best Foreign Film […]

  The writer/producer/director John Wells made his reputation as the showrunner of ER, and he’s known as one of the most consistent, professional producers in the network business, with impeccable shows like The West Wing and Third Watch to his credit.  In recent years, though, he’s been spending a lot of his time in the more rambunctious world […]

A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to rear […]

  Movies have the advantage over TV when it comes to telling gimmicky stories, because a movie only has to sustain the gimmick for 2 hours, and then it’s done.  YOUNGER could have been an effortless feature vehicle for [fill in the rom-com star blank], but after 12 half-hour episodes, the effort is already showing […]

> FX’s Elmore Leonard-inspired crime drama JUSTIFIED really hit its stride in its second season last year, and now it’s back, trying to build on that very solid success. WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  The redoubtable Mags Bennett (Emmy-winner Margo Martindale) has gone to her grave, and so has her corrupt sheriff son.  (Her other son, […]

  SAVE ME:  Thursday 8PM on NBC – Change the Channel Note:  This review was originally written after last year’s Upfronts, before it was known that SAVE ME would be held by NBC until the summer.  It’s possible that the pilot underwent changes during the months that followed, although if it did, NBC didn’t publicize […]

  The Dramatic Competition at Sundance this year featured a pair of films that were largely built on duologues between two strong protagonists.  Attention was mostly–and properly–focused on Whiplash, which ended up winning both of the Festival’s top prizes, but Peter Sattler’s CAMP X-RAY is also worthy of some note. Camp X-Ray is set at […]