Last year, the cop novel “The Whites” was published as the work of Harry Brandt–except that “Harry Brandt” was actually a pseudonym for Richard Price.  This seemed odd at first, because unlike, say, JK Rowling deciding to write detective stories, crime novels were already Richard Price’s bread and butter, in celebrated works of fiction […]

  UNDER THE DOME went rather bonkers in its second season, apparently flummoxed by the fact that it existed at all.  Dome had originally been conceived as a limited summer series that, like the Stephen King novel which inspired it, would have a beginning, middle and end.  But the show became a sensational hit, the […]

  THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH:  Mon-Thurs 11PM on Comedy Central After one night of THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH, we conclusively know this:  Comedy Central isn’t bleeping the word “shit” anymore.  It was a fairly big deal when the network let Jon Stewart liberally use the cattle-related version of the word as […]

  The MTV version of SCREAM nailed its own problem back in the pilot, courtesy of its one-man meta machine Noah (John Karna)–but diagnosing one’s own illness is a long way from curing it.  A TV series, indeed, can’t possibly duplicate the experience of a slasher movie, because that genre plays a numbers game:  its […]

  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 […]

    Even by CW standards–and this is a network where shows that could barely hold a slot in basic cable get renewed–THE LA COMPLEX is a clear flop, watched by about  2/10 of 1% of the 18-49 year old audience and less than half a million people in total. So although it’s been reported […]

  FOREVER:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC Previously… on FOREVER:  Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is a New York medical examiner with a secret:  he’s been alive for 200 years.  It’s not that he can’t be killed, but when he is, his body instantly vanishes, only to pop up naked and alive in a nearby body of […]

  House of Cards Season 2 Eps 1-3 Review Here. Eps 4-7 Review Here. Eps 8-10 Review Here. It’s a paradox of the Netflix version of HOUSE OF CARDS that in many ways, its least interesting character is the one at its center.  Pick the wildlife metaphor of choice:  Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is a […]