TREME thrives on its idiosyncracies–if “thrive” is the word for a show that hardly anyone watches–and one of those is its limited interest in engaging in a “season finale.”  Thus, tonight’s close of Season 3, written by series creators David Simon and Eric Overmeyer (from a story by Simon and Anthony Bourdain–yes, that one) […]

  The biters and the Governor took their toll on the humans who remained in Season 3 of THE WALKING DEAD, but the show’s potentially most damaging casualty may have been at AMC’s own hand, when it decided to get rid of showrunner Glen Mazzara, for reasons neither side has disclosed or–remarkably–even leaked.  His season […]

  As this new era of television drama has developed, people have talked wistfully about the broadcast networks airing shows with the distinctiveness and stylization (and darkness) we now associate with cable, but really that show already exists, and it’s NBC’s HANNIBAL.  It may very well be the damnedest thing to appear on one of […]

  LOW WINTER SUN just kept going around in circles.  The most characteristic hour of its season may have been its penultimate one, which aired as the first half of a 2-hour season (very possibly series) finale.  (Hour 1 was written by Co-Executive Producer Rolin Jones and directed by Anthony Hemingway; the final hour was […]

  CALIFORNICATION knew going in that this 7th season would be its last, and we’ve grown used to series in that position, from Breaking Bad to Friends to–God help us–Lost, making a special effort to provide a final run with extra impact, tying up loose ends and providing a summation of what the show has […]

  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 […]

  THE 100 stood apart from its CW fantasy-adventure counterparts, unique both in its often unexpected (and sometimes ruthless) narrative choices, and in the sense it imparted of true auteurship by series creator Jason Rothenberg.  The fact that the series reached 7 seasons is itself remarkable, as it never approached the ratings echelon of the […]

  Although frequently tortuous to watch, TOP OF THE LAKE wasn’t really Snob TV, where a Famous Filmmaker slums their way through a series.  It’s more that narrative has never been of particular interest to Jane Campion, even in her best films like The Piano or Holy Smoke, and giving her 6 hours to play […]