Noah Hawley handily retained his status as the Third Coen Brother with a second masterful season of FARGO.  This go-round may have been even more ambitious than the first:  not only did Hawley once again capture the spirit of the original film, but this time he added 1979-era period detail and an allegory of […]

  Despite the fact that the producers didn’t know if the Season 4 finale of NASHVILLE would be the end of the series when it was written (and lead studio Lionsgate, in fact, is still trying to sell the show to another network or platform, proposing a Season 5 writers room that would be run […]

With the 2011-12 broadcast season now concluded, here’s a list of all our Season Finale reviews at The Sked: 2 BROKE GIRLS  30 ROCK 90210 AWAKE  BONES COMMUNITY More after the break–

The problem with making a show about someone dying of cancer is that no one really wants to watch a show about someone dying of cancer.  Viewers will roll along with the dark and disturbing, but by and large they draw the line at bleak and depressing.  So Walter White, on Breaking Bad, hasn’t had […]

  It’s odd to think that the biggest hit on American television is centered around the flesh-eating undead, but enough about Fox News…  THE WALKING DEAD is a genuine television phenomenon, in more ways than one.  To begin with, it’s a staggering success, a cable series that routinely has larger audiences (in the 18-49 demographic, […]

  Over the course of the season, THE NEW NORMAL toned down its most disastrous miscalculation, which can be summarized in two words:  Ellen Barkin.  Not Barkin the very fine actress, of course, but the character she was called upon to play, Jane Forrest, the conservative Republican midwesterner grandmother who had raised Goldie Clemmons (Georgia […]

  NEW GIRL only got better this season.  There are TV comedies that are good at silly (Happy Endings, The Neighbors), and there are some that are great at soulful (Parks & Recreation more than any).  But combining silliness and soulfulness at once is a remarkable combination, and even in its first-rate initial season, New Girl […]

  There was hardly a moment in Season 6 of MAD MEN when Don Draper (Jon Hamm) seemed to feel comfortable in his own skin.  Oh sure, he could gather up some venom when he had the chance to cut colleague Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) off at the knees, he could massage a pitch (sometimes) […]