> CALIFORNICATION lost a step this season, which is what often happens when a series of limited scope reaches Year 5. Unlike other Showtime series like Weeds and Dexter, Californication has never had the appetite for seasonal re-invention. It tends to merely introduce a few new supporting characters and run the same basic story again. […]
In HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas created an odd but appealing mix of traditional sitcom humor and conceptual originality (their upcoming FOX show The Goodwin Games looks like another unusual angle on the genre), and with comedy, as with drama, the thing about conceptual storytelling is that at some […]
HART OF DIXIE barely survived the hunger games known as network scheduling season this year–it won’t be back until midseason, with an abbreviated (and probably final) set of episodes, and even then only so it can hit the 4-season mark that increases syndication prices. The show’s ratings were passable at best when it aired […]
NBC’s marathon 90-minute festival of new COMMUNITY episodes tonight (interrupted by the 30 Rock season finale at 8:30) was less an expression of love from the network than a who-cares approach to the night, scheduled that way because The Office and Parks & Recreation aired their season finales last week, and Community, kept off […]
SPOILER ALERT: This review will discuss events that occur throughout Season 2 of ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. The second season of ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, like the first, ends with an act of violence–and this one is (seemingly) more fatal than the first–and yet the tone couldn’t be more different. Season 1 […]
DESIGNATED SURVIVOR has been running through showrunners like breath mints (a fourth is scheduled to join the show for Season 2, and reportedly every script makes its way through star/executive producer Kiefer Sutherland as well), so it’s not much of a surprise that the tone and even the genre of the show has wobbled […]
MAJOR CRIMES has been doing for TNT what it was created to do–that is, fill the hole left by the departure of the network’s long-running hit The Closer–and it’s earned the Season 2 renewal it’s already received. Putting aside a bump for last night’s season finale, it’s been getting around a 0.7 rating in […]
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 […]