> THE KILLING:  Sundays 9PM on AMC No, really:  who did kill Rosie Larsen? WHERE WE WERE:  Possibly throwing something at the TV set.  It’s not all that unusual for a series finale to leave fans disappointed or frustrated–I say this as someone who will never forgive the responsible parties for the ending of Lost–but […]

Even the acceptance speeches are classier on THE TONY AWARDS.  Tonight’s telecast featured a eloquent salute to “All those who say ‘Yes’” in the name of theatre from the lead producer of Best Play winner Clybourne Park, and a little later on, an anecdote from Best Musical winner Once‘s producer incorporating Harold Clurman and Constantin […]

  HIT & MISS:  WEDNESDAY 10pm on DirecTV Audience Network – Worth A Look   HIT & MISS is considerably less sensationalistic than its premise and first five minutes might lead you to expect.  By the end of the first episode’s opening credits, we’ve watched Mia (Chloe Sevigny) calmly shoot a man for money, then […]

  MAJOR CRIMES:  Monday 9PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On…   As soon as plans for the Closer spin-off MAJOR CRIMES were announced, the central question was always how a series could work whose main protagonist was going to be Internal Affairs Capt. Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), the least likable, most humorless […]

  BOARDWALK EMPIRE:  Sunday 9PM on HBO WHERE WE WERE:  Mourning an unexpected death.  In the Season 2 finale of Boardwalk Empire, anti-hero bootlegger Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) murdered his one-time protege, later rival Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), a startling plot development, and even more so in the context of Empire as a TV series.  […]

  REVENGE:  Sunday 9PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  Discovering that the long-vanished mother of Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp), who’s really Amanda Clarke (don’t get us started), is actually alive.  This was among a Hamptons mansion’s worth of season finale revelations, the least convincing of which was that Cruella de Ville Victoria Grayson (Madeleine Stowe) […]

  DON’T TRUST THE B– IN APT 23:  Tuesday 9:30PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  New York City, where naive midwestern arrival June shares an apartment with street-smart, manipulative Chloe (Krysten Ritter).  Their neighbor, and Chloe’s best friend, is James Van Der Beek, playing the same kind of version of himself that Matt LeBlanc does […]

  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 […]