This column contains spoilers to the season finale of True Detective. Watch before reading.
It's likely that wherever you fell on the spectrum about the need for, the execution of and the overall satisfaction surrounding the final mystery in HBO's terrific True Detective, depended on what show you were watching.
It's not exactly clear whether HBO ever intended to create a comedy brand wrapped around super creative, not very popular niche shows. It's probably more likely that it wanted two or four other shows in the vein of Sex and the City -- or even Entourage. Hell, at this point, it might even go for another Curb Your Enthusiasm (or, barring that, just a firm commitment from Larry David to make another season of Curb).
There's so much intriguing information, possibility and daring inside the modern-day version of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which updates Carl Sagan's epically important Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, that there's also a risk of overlooking the simple parts of it.
Here's the thing about memories (and a little bit about legacy): sometimes when you look back, it's a lie. OK, fine, if not a lie, then often a misrepresentation of what actually happened.
There are a number of things that ABC's newest drama Resurrection, has going against it. For starters, the concept -- dead people return from the dead but they aren't zombies, is on the face of it exactly like The Returned, a French series that aired to great acclaim on the Sundance Channel.
The level of tone deafness in the writing of Mixology (and, it should be noted, in the entertainment offices of ABC) is astounding. How does a network that skews female crank out a misogynistic piece of frat-boy awfulness like this? And who decided to schedule it coming out of Modern Family, the polar opposite in tone and comedic achievement?
One of television’s finest dramas, The Americans, returns tonight on FX for its second season and almost immediately answers a nagging question that haunts all ambitious, claustrophobic thrillers: Can this series get even better or will it go off the rails as the story unspools?
With absolutely no ill will toward series creator Kyle Killen, it's a little bit crazy to bet on his pilots taking off. He created the critically acclaimed and short-lived Lone Star for Fox, and the mostly critically acclaimed and short-lived Awake for NBC. Tonight his latest series, Mind Games,premieres on ABC at 10 p.m., up against Person of Interest on CBS and Chicago Fire on NBC.
One of the most difficult challenges of ambitiously trying to make a drama that can play in the big leagues of established series is getting everything – absolutely everything – right. In The Red Road, the new six-part series from Sundance TV, one crucial element comes up lacking.
Television is a writer’s medium and Red Road has enough hiccups there to disrupt what is otherwise a very well-acted, well-shot and intriguing series.
When it comes to late-night debuts, it would be hard to have a less stressful launch -- in terms of expectations -- than Seth Meyers taking over NBC's Late Night program.
All of the attention is elsewhere. And all of the troubles in that slot came well before Meyers.
It’s hard to figure out what NBC was thinking when it plotted out its Tuesday sitcoms. From 9 to 10 p.m. it’s a pretty tough field already, at least quality-wise. Fox has New Girl and this season’s hit comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. ABC counters with its own hit in The Goldbergs and the underappreciated Trophy Wife. NBC? Apparently it’s launching the Saccharine Offensive.
Another Olympics is in the books and two weeks of great television -- and a wonderful diversion -- has come to an end.
People who watch the Olympics for the thrill of competition -- which is probably most people -- will come away from the Sochi experience having witnessed all kinds of unpredictable, riveting television.
Those who watch it only to see Americans win gold -- people who after the fact deem an event less fulfilling if our athletes win a silver or bronze -- may not be as excited.
It was kind of a no-brainer to turn the film About a Boy, based on the novel by Nick Hornby (later turned into a movie as well, of course), into a television series. It seems easy to extend the warmness of a precocious kid bringing out the more mature side of a self-centered adult man. Add the hot single mom and you’ve got that network television vehicle for repeating variations on the same story from week to week.
