A suburbanite with money troubles gets into the drug business, gradually becoming corrupt, paranoid and power-hungry, increasingly alienated from family and former life… Not to take anything away from Breaking Bad, which is one of TV’s great shows–but WEEDS was there first. For 8 seasons, Jenji Kohan’s dramedy about the pot trade has been […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME:  Sunday 8PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  Watching a season finale that looked like it could end the series, as Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), AKA the daughter of Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming/David Nolan (Josh Dallas), gave her seemingly dead biological son Henry (Jared Gilmore) a […]

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 […]

  Having blown up the initial premise of their show in its Season 1 finale, ONCE UPON A TIME creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have inventively plotted a Season 2 that came to a satisfying Act 1 culmination in the show’s Fall Finale episode, which they wrote and which was directed by Ralph Hemecker.  […]

  Within the first two minutes of its midseason premiere tonight, BUNHEADS featured a Harold Clurman gag.  For those not up on their celebrated left-wing Depression-era theatre directors, Clurman was–well, yeah.  (This particular gag took place in a kitchen perfectly constructed in miniature–including working electricity–in a cardboard box.)  I’m going to go out on a […]

  There can’t be very much quibbling about the selection of Ryan Coogler’s very impressive debut film FRUITVALE as tonight’s winner of both the Sundance Dramatic Competition Jury Prize and the Audience Award.   (Personally I might have gone with Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes–which didn’t win anything tonight–but Fruitvale would have been close behind.)  Coogler, who […]

  Whatever one may say about WHITNEY and whether it’s a sitcom that deserves to reach a Season 3, it’s clear that NBC and its producers (including star Whitney Cummings herself) heard the complaints about the show’s original version.  Season 2 wasn’t officially a reboot, but it featured an assortment of changes in style and tone.  Both Whitney and […]

  NURSE JACKIE:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime NURSE JACKIE had a strong, dramatic season last year that may have been its best.  But the ratings weren’t anything to speak of (a 0.2-0.3 in 18-49s, and fewer than a million total viewers), and series co-creator/showrunners Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem left the show rather messily (from […]