GOOD BEHAVIOR:  Sunday 10PM on TNT As TNT continues with its scorched-earth policy of shedding its old-guard mainstream successes (Rizzoli & Isles, Major Crimes) for the more adult, serialized dramas favored by network head Kevin Reilly, pressure is increased on those new shows to perform–not necessarily in the traditional metrics, but with younger viewers […]

  For 3 seasons, Noah Hawley’s FX anthology series FARGO displayed an uncanny ability to channel the unique sensibilities of Joel and Ethan Coen, even while telling original stories with their own idiosyncratic characters.  In Season 4, Hawley seemed to tire of exercising that muscle, and while the season was clearly intended as his nod […]

> Worth a Ticket. HANNA may be the first movie not based on a graphic novel to feel like it is.  Written by Seth Lochhead and David Farr (the first film for both) and directed by Joe Wright, it has the feel of a film conceived in visual rather than dramatic terms, more concerned with […]

  FRINGE:  Friday 9PM on FOX WHERE WE WERE:  The present, or at least a version of it where our Earth exists in multiple parallel near-duplicate dimensions, and “Observers” from the future make sure everything stays on track.  Our FBI team of agents and scientists, headed by Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and troubled genius Walter […]

  AMERICAN HORROR STORY – ASYLUM:  Wednesday 10PM on FX WHERE WE WERE:  Doesn’t matter.  It wasn’t clear until late in Season 1, but the gimmick of AMERICAN HORROR STORY is that each season will offer a completely new setting, storyline, and group of (mostly doomed) characters, although some of the actors return in new […]

  ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK may be the most tolerant show on television (or “television,” or whatever it is we’re calling distributed entertainment content in this new Netflixed world).  All the characters, even those who commit the most heinous acts–inmates and guards both–have their reasons and their frailties.  They’re miserably in love, or living […]

  As bad as it is for a network when it launches a new series and no one shows up, in a way it has to be worse when the series premiere has a huge start–and then viewers drop away in droves once they’ve given it a try.  The first kind of failure may be […]

  50 Shades of Grey has only been playing in theatres for 2 weeks, but it’s plunged so quickly from its opening weekend that Dakota Johnson already seems a bit like the answer to a pop culture trivia question.  Nevertheless, the star of the presumed franchise (produced by Universal, which also owns NBC, which also […]