Anyone who saw the ONCE UPON A TIME pilot and thought the series would be worth watching only “if nothing else is on” would surely have to be an idiot–and in this case, that idiot was me.  I couldn’t see how the conceit of a show that intercut between a fairy tale kingdom and […]

  The Season 3 finale of BOARDWALK EMPIRE, like the season itself, was an exercise in patience and a mix of satisfaction and anti-climax.   Written by series creator Terence Winter and Executive Producer Howard Korder, and directed by house director Tim Van Patten, the first half of the episode had antagonists Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) […]

  The Season 2 finale of TNT’s MAJOR CRIMES, intended to pay off the show’s one serialized storyline, about Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin), the teen ward of series protagonist LAPD Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell) and witness to a murder committed by imprisoned serial killer and attorney Philip Stroh (who was originally introduced back in […]

  Frank Darabont has had a busy couple of weeks, although not necessarily in a good way.  He launched TNT’s MOB CITY, his first project since being thrown off AMC’s The Walking Dead after less than two seasons as creator/showrunner, to ratings that started out as disappointing and only got worse.  Then, earlier this week, […]

  After a season or two where it seemed as though JUSTIFIED had run past its best days, burdened with villains and tangents unworthy of it, Graham Yost’s crime drama returned with a vintage 6th and final saga that brought the series back to its prime.  The show’s last rodeo may not have been as […]

  When SUBURGATORY went on the air last season, it had a clear vision:  as the title suggests, it was a light but acerbic satire about the perils of living a few too many miles from New York City, reflected through the gaze of Tessa (Jane Levy), a bright high-schooler who’d been brought from Manhattan […]

  No show enjoys running around in circles more than VEEP.  Armando Ianucci’s political sitcom glories in Vice-President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her staff of venal incompetents mistakenly navigating through 180, 360 and often 720 or more degrees of spin every week, usually managing to slam into whatever iceberg they’ve most been trying to […]

  The seventh season of HBO’s blockbuster GAME OF THRONES, its most watched and in some ways most confounding, was shaped by two outside factors, and possibly a third.  Series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, having outrun the completed portion of George R. R. Martin’s series of novels, were in total control of the […]