TYRANT went all the way back to the source for its main plotline this season, giving Bassam Al-Fayeed (Adam Rayner) a saga so Moses-like that he might as well have witnessed a burning bush along the way.  Bassam was sentenced to death for treason by his brother Jamal (Ashraf Barhom), ruler of a Middle […]

  SLEEPY HOLLOW has been trying very hard to justify its survival this season under new showrunner Clifton Campbell.  In addition to telling its core story arc about Pandora (Shannyn Sossamon) gathering sundry demons to strengthen her evil god husband The Hidden One (Peter Mensah) in preparation for his destruction of, you know, the world, […]

  FX’s just-concluded third season of Noah Hawley’s FARGO was its most divisive, and the criticisms came from a number of directions.  One segment was simply done with Hawley’s theme-and variations approach to the Coen Brothers’ original film, in which each season tells a new story, but one that always features a disruptive representative of […]

  JOJO RABBIT (Fox Searchlight – October 4):  The discourse about Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit has quickly become a debate between those who think its Nazi-era black comedy is authentically daring, and those who feel its purported audacity is a pretense covering a merely middlebrow sensibility.  (Note:  every person in the history of language who […]

  It’s been 23 years since the pre-Christopher Nolan version of the Batman franchise launched into the boxoffice stratosphere, and a lot has changed in the movie landscape.  (1989 is so long ago that it was a topical gag in the movie to cast Gotham City’s Mayor with an actor who looked like New York’s […]

  Well, the studio audience seemed to be having a great time at SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE tonight.  There were more squeals than laughs to be had, what with Justin Bieber in the house as both host and musical guest.  The show was very careful never to force Bieber out of his comfort zone, and while […]

  It’s been a heavy week for epochal TV.  On Sunday, Mad Men sold us one last Coke, and tonight marked the end of David Letterman’s reign, one that’s lasted into a fourth decade on the air and has had an almost incalculable influence not just on late-night TV or even TV in general, but […]

  PROOF:  Tuesday 10PM on TNT Previously… on PROOF:  Brilliant, brusque cardiac surgeon Cat Tyler (Jennifer Beals), struggling with the death of her son and her own near-death experience, is recruited by dying billionaire Ivan Turing (Matthew Modine) to provide scientific proof of what, if anything, happens after death.  She sets off with intern Zedan […]