I remember watching the first episode of Enlightened -- the Mike White-created series starring Laura Dern as a woman who breaks down (badly), goes to rehab and comes back all sunshine and rainbows trying to be a positive influence on the rest of the world -- and thinking: "Hmmm. That was interesting. Whatever that was."
Note: This column contains spoilers about the season finale and previous nine episodes of Girls.
With two of its four main female characters finding connections that Girls often keeps at arm's length -- a kind of emotionally available and heartwarming take on love and happiness -- season two of Girls closed out with a tightly written, insightful and even kind-hearted season finale that stood in stark contrast to the darkness of last week's penultimate episode.
I happen to love, and thus frequently partake in, the concept of “failure analysis.” If you write about the television industry beyond reviews, this is an essential part of the job.
And as I noted Monday in a detailed piece about what ails network television in particular, it needs its own version of Steve Jobs in the worst way.
There is no element of the television industry more intriguing at this point than the broadcast networks and their fascinating slow death. The Big Four -- ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC -- have had their heads in the sand about the complicated future they face. Only one of them, CBS, appears able to thrive working under the old truisms and rules that governed the industry for 50-plus years.
Well, there's your big fiery death ball. Again. No, not the meteorite in Russia, the one that hit NBC on Wednesday like the gods themselves threw it out of anger.
There’s one thing Bates Motel creators Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights) want to emphasize about their new A&E series: No, it’s not an homage to Psycho.
When Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "two high-level industry sources" had told her that NBC was planning its exit strategy for Jay Leno -- and that his arguably forced departure in favor of Jimmy Fallon was coming as soon as 2014 -- the network denied the story absolutely.
Of course it would. It had to. But the question is, if NBC is not planning on Leno's departure, why not?
Is it too late for ABC to bring back Last Resort? Maybe if viewers knew back in the fall what they know now -- so many of the broadcast network shows are bad -- they wouldn't have been so quick to turn their backs on a show about, say, a nuclear submarine commanded by Andre Braugher (!) that gets orders to nuke Pakistan, questions the orders, gets fired on by U.S. ships and then goes rogue to figure out what the hell is going on up on the surface and in Washington.
There are certain kinds of series that primarily seek to entertain, such as Spartacus on Starz or Banshee on Cinemax. They don’t all have pretensions to greatness. Others such as The Tudors seemed to be stalking that ground but never found it, while The Borgias is on the right path and just getting better and better. Few, like Game of Thrones, come out fully formed and brilliantly top-tier from the start.
It's become almost impossible to figure out if CBS shows actively try to be average because there's some formula at the network that proves that's the way to the largest possible audience in America. Some shows overshoot that target and end up being shockingly good -- Elementary, The Good Wife, Person of Interest -- and others fall short. The problem with that latter group is that the CBS audience doesn't seem all that indignant about underperformers, so those series have a legitimate shot at being on the air for a very long time.
After the travesty of the Jersey Shore-esque Boston series Southie Rules that bowed in January, the town’s image is in need of a cleanse. Time to call the Wahlbergs -- Robert, Donnie or Mark -- to the rescue. The trio have always made their hometown love of Boston well known, and Donnie’s latest project for TNT, the unscripted series Boston’s Finest, is an ode not just to his beloved city but also to the police who patrol the same streets they live on.
The one thing that's important to remember when discussing the Academy Awards is that its relentless push to make the ceremony seem like the most important thing in the world is precisely what dooms its hosts. There is never 100 percent consensus that a host did a great job, or even that a host did a lousy job. But it's 100 percent true that this is the most over-analyzed three-hour job in Hollywood.
