“I understand why you’re confused,” said the figure who wasn’t Elliot Alderson’s therapist Krista (Gloria Reuben) to the figure who wasn’t Elliot (Rami Malek) toward the end of the finale of Sam Esmail’s series MR ROBOT.  And, well, yeah. This year, we’ve had reason to be reminded how tough endings are to achieve in […]

  It’s been fascinating to watch AMERICAN GODS play out side-by-side with David Lynch’s rebooted Twin Peaks on the past several Sunday nights, because Bryan Fuller (who created the TV version of Gods with Michael Green from Neil Gaiman’s novel) may be this generation’s most overtly Lynchian TV artist.  Fuller and Lynch are both besotted […]

  There’s something inherently fascinating about the contortions that Lifetime, one of the squarest of cable networks, has to go through to balance the titillation factor of its hit series THE CLIENT LIST with what it seems to feel is a necessary moral counterweight.  This reached a peak in the most ludicrous episodes of the […]

  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 […]

    The dirty little secret at the heart of 30 ROCK has always been that it doesn’t really have one–a heart, that is.  That doesn’t make the show any less brilliantly written or superbly performed, but it explains why despite all its massive acclaim and zillions of awards, in 6 years on the air […]

  GO ON is a genuine bubble show–not just in its ratings (which are strong when it has The Voice as a lead-in and barely acceptable when it doesn’t), but in its quality.  The series wobbles from episode to episode and even between storylines in a single episode, sometimes smart and charming and equally often […]

  In this new era of serialized television drama, plot–and the skill with which it’s doled out–is more important than ever.  An overall clumsiness with the handling of its storylines is what’s held back Lifetime’s WITCHES OF EAST END from being more than a pleasant diversion, and tonight’s season finale was sadly no exception.  The […]

  What kind of show, in the end, is HOMELAND?  Focus groups are often asked simply to describe whatever it is they’ve just seen, and Homeland has tried to be a romance, a thriller, an action adventure, a story about politics and terrorism, a psychological drama, and more–all at once.  That it’s succeeded much of […]