FARGO:  Monday 10PM on FX Despite all the pressures of launching a new storyline and cast–not to mention living up to its brilliant first season–Noah Hawley’s reincarnation of the Coen Brothers’ FARGO gave no sign of missing a step in its Season 2 premiere (unlike, say, a certain anthologized HBO detective series one could […]

> Previously… on THE FIRM:  Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas), having relocated with his family to the Canadian part of Washington DC, 10 years after the events in the book and movie, has associated his scrappy small practice with a new but equally evil big firm that’s particularly interested in him because of an accused murderer […]

  THE AVENGERS:  Worth A Ticket – A Fun Summer Movie, No More Or Less   It’s easy to forget that THE AVENGERS is, you know, a movie.  It’s perhaps the ultimate example of corporate intellectual property, bioengineered years in advance of its production by Marvel and that company’s recent owner Disney, like the spawn […]

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 […]

  How much guitar string does NASHVILLE have left?  Last night’s fall finale had a 1.4 rating in 18-49s, half a point below last season’s–which was already considered a major disappointment.  When you’re already below a 2, half a point is critically important, and at some point, the revenues ABC/Disney get from Nashville iTunes sales […]

> WHERE WE WERE:  Reeling from the news that Don Draper (Jon Hamm) had proposed to his French-Canadian secretary Megan (Jessica Pare).  In other cubicles at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Joan (Christina Hendricks), pregnant by Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and not her doctor/soldier husband, had decided to keep the baby after all, assuming hubby wouldn’t […]

  MODERN FAMILY:  Wednesday 9PM on ABC MODERN FAMILY has now won the Emmy Award for Best Comedy in each of its four years on the air, putting it one behind Frasier‘s record-setting pace.  The TV Academy nominates smaller, more complex shows like Louie, Girls and Veep, but its heart is with Modern Family, and […]

  THE YOUNG POPE:  Sunday/Monday 9PM on HBO – DVR Alert The cinema-tization of television continues with HBO’s THE YOUNG POPE.  It’s been created and directed by the filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, who made 2013’s Best Foreign Film Oscar winner The Great Beauty and followed it with the gorgeous but not quite coherent Truth.  Sorrentino is […]