Posts Tagged ‘HBO drama’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Finale Review: “Sharp Objects”

  The HBO miniseries version of Gillian Flynn’s novel SHARP OBJECTS proved to be a fascinating exercise in adaptation.  Although the TV credits reported the show to be “created by” showrunner Marti Noxon...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Westworld”

  For all that HBO’s WESTWORLD is deliberately obscure and oblique, one thing has become increasingly clear through the course of its second season:  series creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy expect viewers to dec...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Succession”

  The most tantalizing question of the Summer 2018 TV season is whether Jesse Armstrong, the creator of HBO’s slow-boil triumph SUCCESSION, knew what he was doing all along, or if the first 3-4 episodes were as uncer...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “True Detective”

  The idea of applying a deep coat of existential angst to thriller conventions isn’t new–every Sundance Film Festival has at least a couple of examples of the sub-genre, and there are even sub-sub-genres of th...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Series Finale Review: “Treme”

  TV is a little poorer for the loss of TREME, a series that never fully received the appreciation–from viewers or critics–that it deserved.  Even a bit watered down from its usual density in a last season of ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Boardwalk Empire”

  It’s a continuing paradox that a show could have as many colorful characters, so terrific a cast, as much plot and incident and history (not to mention sex and violence) and visual style as BOARDWALK EMPIRE does an...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “The Newsroom”

  THE NEWSROOM:  Sunday 9PM on HBO In the end, just about everyone seemed to be ambivalent about THE NEWSROOM, and that includes its auteur and shining star, Aaron Sorkin.  The Season 2 finale felt like it could well hav...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Treme”

  TREME:  Sunday 9PM on HBO You don’t need big ratings to be considered a success on HBO (just ask Lena Dunham), but generating buzz is essential.  That’s something TREME never did, despite a small hard core ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Finale Review: “Boardwalk Empire”

  BOARDWALK EMPIRE was, from its start, HBO at its best and most frustrating.  The show was sumptuously produced, on a scale that no other small-screen purveyor of content could match, famously including the recreation of...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Series Premiere Review: “True Detective”

  TRUE DETECTIVE:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – DVR Alert It sometimes seems like brooding serial-killer thrillers are as plentiful on the New Television as multi-camera family sitcoms were on the Old.  TRUE DETECTIVE, thou...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere TV Review: “Here and Now”

  HERE AND NOW:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – In the Queue HERE AND NOW is sort of the Alan Ball/HBO version of The Fosters, which means that its characters are a generation older, it has a lot of sex, a lot of talk, and a l...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “True Detective”

  Since the TV cop show has come of age–a process that began back in the days of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, but has accelerated greatly in recent years–there have been repeated attempts to push the limits...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Westworld”

  WESTWORLD:  Sunday 9PM on HBO No one would ever accuse HBO’s WESTWORLD of being straightforward, but by the time Season 1 ended, series creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy had placed at least some of their cards ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Game of Thrones”

  GAME OF THRONES:  Sunday 9PM on HBO GAME OF THRONES is such an assured, expert piece of work that it’s easy to forget how many rules of conventional TV storytelling it routinely violates.  It’s not just the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Succession”

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 10PM on HBO HBO’s new drama SUCCESSION may be too much of its moment for comfort.  The series, created by Jesse Armstrong (previously a writer/producer on Armando Ianucci’s Veep, The Thi...
by Mitch Salem