The first season of YELLOWSTONE was a feat of auteurship.  Every episode of the recently-rebooted Paramount Network’s prestige series was written and directed solely by series creator Taylor Sheridan, something not even David Lynch or Sam Esmail can claim.  The result was 10 hours of television that qualified, to an extent rarely seen, as […]

        After last week’s tumultuous, spectacular battle of Blackpool, tonight’s Season 2 finale of GAME OF THRONES was, necessarily, somewhat lower-key.  It served more as a coda, and as a transition to Season 3 (considering that there was no attempt at closure in any of the stories, it’s a good thing that […]

  TYRANT wasn’t the summer’s worst show, but it’s been the most piercing disappointment of the mini-season,  wasting a potentially thrilling premise–behind the scenes at a Middle Eastern military dictatorship–that seemed perfectly suited to FX, one that could combine the network’s trademark narrative energy and ambition with prestige (series co-developer Howard Gordon is also a […]

  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 […]

  Once it became clear that, for the most part, THE LAST SHIP was science fiction only in the strictest sense (there was science and it was fiction), it was fairly enjoyable for the neo-Tom Clancy-esque action-adventure it aspired to be.  Much of Season 1 was, for all intents and purposes, a Cold War saga, […]

  Even with the nonstop double (sometimes barely single) entendres, 2 BROKE GIRLS is as basic and old-fashioned as a sitcom can be–it’s sort of a starter kit for CBS comedy.  Take 2 mismatched diner co-workers/roommates/business partners (Kat Dennings as streetsmart Max and Beth Behrs as once-wealthy Caroline), mix with a wacky boss and fellow […]

  BELIEVE was one of the more regrettable failures of the 2013-14 broadcast season.  That wasn’t because of its premise (super-powered girl is pursued by evil scientists who want to weaponize her gifts, ho hum), but due to the involvement of the great Alfonso Cuaron as series co-creator.  But Believe was in trouble from the […]

It is, to be honest, somewhat difficult to focus on the clatter of THE NEWSROOM on the same night that Breaking Bad aired one of the most devastating episodes in its history–which made it one of the most devastating hours in this TV era.  “Ozymandias,” as the episode was called, was the second consecutive episode of Breaking Bad that most shows […]