When it debuted in early 2014 on FX, You’re the Worst unfortunately got lumped together with all the other shows about people in relationships that were in production or released around that time. You’re the Worst was a lower-key choice for the network: a small-scale character comedy that had none of the splashy, dramatic flare …
The show begins with Josh (Jay Baruchel) awkwardly leaving the apartment of his now ex-girlfriend Maggie (Maya Erskine). As he walks away, heartbroken, suddenly it starts raining. But it’s only raining on him, nobody else. Dead birds fall from the sky and hit him, furthering his depressing state. The show only gets weirder from there. Within the …
One could easily lump Switched at Birth in among the ranks of the typical melodramatic soapy family dramas, wrought with teen angst, but to do so would be a mistake: Switched at Birth has much more inimitable qualities, placing it above the average-teen centered drama. It’s not only entertaining, but also compelling and thoughtful television. …
Dre Johnson (Anthony Anderson) is a successful guy. He has an intelligent wife, adorable twin kids, and two moody teenagers. They all live together in a big house, and they all seem to get along quite nicely, although they tend to get into tiffs and spats that can usually be resolved amicably after twenty minutes …
Anime, like comic books and video games, has often found itself on the absolute fringe of nerd culture. When someone isn’t into anime, it’s almost impossible to get them to give it a try with an open mind–and that’s really too bad, because they’re depriving themselves of some really spectacular stuff like Attack on Titan.
Intimacy is a difficult thing to film. Rather, it’s difficult to film well. You can capture two people clutched closely together, in a vulnerable moment, so that it feels as if the camera is encroaching on their privacy, an intruder. You can film in close-up, for a more practical intimacy, catching every hair and freckle. But to really feel like you’re getting a close understanding of the characters onscreen, there’s no list of actions one should take. Jill Soloway has figured it out.
Sitcoms, like every other TV genre, start off with something Buzzy and Conceptual to grab audience attention, before jettisoning it, to some extent, to get down to the business of what the show is actually about. Which, more often than not in sitcom-land, is the dating misadventures of a group of friends in a large …
As Parks and Recreation prepares to end, The Mindy Project continues to fall in the ratings, and pretty much every other new fall comedy has already been canceled, the network comedy landscape looks bleak past Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Modern Family, and The Big Bang Theory. But hope may have arrived in the form of Cristela, a multicam sitcom airing on Friday nights …
It’s difficult to describe what the show is to people, because it’s definitely not as simple as describing as a faux talk show. Here’s the premise as simply as can be put: Eric Andre plays himself as an incredibly inept public access talk show host. It doesn’t stop there though, as the guests he has on aren’t always the actual person. For example, Russell Brand is a homeless old black man, and a young black man shows up in a blonde wig as Reese Witherspoon. Celebrity impersonators of George Clooney and Jack Nicholson will appear as their doppelgangers and participate in low-rent late-night games like “The Coffee Challenge” and “What If It Was Purple?”. Joining as his co-host is comedian Hannibal Buress, and he’s a perfect laid-back foil to the insanity of Andre. He spends most of each episode berating Andre, then eerily standing behind the guests while they are being interviewed, interjecting with thoughts that range from deep to pot-induced. Just as Andre spends the opening credits tearing down his own talk show set then replacing it, he’s also dismantling every notion of the talk show and repurposing it to his zany means.
Eliza Coupe has an uncannily innate ability to seem like the most composed and least poised person at the same time on screen. It is a trait that Happy Endings used well, even if it didn’t fully embrace it until the final season, with the delve into Jane’s increasingly slapstick Car Czar. When dealing with the messiness of Brad or Alex’s tomfoolery, Coupe’s Jane Kerkovich-Williams was the only one keeping everything together, yet when she was unable to live up to her own standards of perfection she fell apart before you could squeak out a trademark Kerkovich “What?”
People looking for a satirized view of news and media haven’t had to look far as of late. Between the long running twin titans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from Comedy Central, the market has pretty much saturated itself as far as that daily news satire is concerned.
Picture the scene in Ocean’s Eleven where Brad Pitt’s Rusty leans confidently on the side of his car, dressed in an impeccable suit, eating junk food and looking great while doing it, because he’s confident that he will always look good no matter what garbage he puts into his body. This image is mirrored by …
There are plenty of television shows in 2014 with the ability to amaze an audience, surprising them with bold stories, impressing them with elaborate visuals, or engaging them by drawing parallels to our own world and lives. Many of these shows rank among the best on television, regularly analyzed by critics for their ability to blend cinematic elements, symbolic metaphors, and poignant dissections of life, that blend of intelligent and entertaining that’s hard to find at the box office in this day and age of loud tent poles and cliche, overwrought ‘indie’ films.
Although it’s easy to think of comedies and dramas as separate entities, the best series are often able to execute both styles of storytelling in establishing their identities. Mom is one of those series, and to call it a sitcom is almost misleading.
Of all the new offerings from The CW in the 2013-14 season, Reign outclasses its competition by delving totally and unashamedly into its melodrama.
In the 2012-2013 television season, a little-buzzed-about show made its series premiere on BBC America, on the heels of science fiction juggernaut Doctor Who. That show was Orphan Black, and over the course of its first ten episodes, it firmly formed its own identity, emerging from the shadows of all the other series in its …
Following the trend of reimagining classic films into television series, Fargo has been nothing but a pleasant surprise. Although it samples none of the original plot from the 1996 Coen Brothers film, there is a similar air to the cold, quirky and dark television drama set in Minnesota. The series stars Martin Freeman as Lester …
On the surface, Endeavour may sound like it’s full of tired clichés. Inspector Endeavour Morse (a brilliant Shaun Evans) is an emotionally damaged young detective who investigates complex murders in 1960s London. But Endeavour remains one of the most endlessly fascinating characters on television.
Created as a prequel series to Inspector Morse, which ran for thirteen years and starred John Thaw as the detective in his later years, Endeavour begins in 1965 as the young detective is writing his resignation letter. He’s never been one for dead bodies; he actually gets sick around them and doesn’t care much about attention and flashy cases. He simply likes the puzzle that cases represent and he often attacks them with a zeal that’s made him an outcast with other police officers. They feel he’s been given too much too young and is just plain weird.
As a fervent fan of both the films based on the character Hannibal Lecter and the source material written by Thomas Harris, I found myself very excited at the prospect of a television series based on the relationship between the titular cannibalistic sadist and the man who would eventually catch him hiding in plain sight, the highly intuitive Will Graham. When I heard that actors like Mads Mikkelsen, Laurence Fishburne, and Gillian Anderson had signed up to be a part of it, my anticipation became palpable, tempered only by the fear that this would be a short-lived cash-in on a mostly dead franchise. In that regard, I was happy to be mostly wrong.
Under-appreciated in critical circles, the CBS show Person of Interest is full of strong, unorthodox characters, both male and female, and strong plotting, as well as an examination of the ramifications of its premise, all of which combine together to make it a must-see.