Probably The Office, if only because it was by far the most popular of the three, even though 30 Rock was funnier at its peak and Parks and Rec was overall better (and far more consistent). On the other hand, Movie Star Chris Pratt adds a neat wrinkle to this discussion. If he remains this huge, it could lead to more… Read more

A little bit of that, a little bit of the difficulty of writing multiple original songs per week for a 22-episode season, and a little bit of tonal dissonance. The Singing Detective predated it, but was more of a niche production (and made in the UK), and wasn’t aiming to be quite as gritty and realistic in its… Read more

I don’t think being on FX is what differentiates the two shows. About the only thing The Shield couldn’t do content-wise was have people occasionally drop F-bombs. I think Ryan made the show he wanted to make, and the show he likely would have made if he’d somehow landed at HBO. And it’s a great show; just one step… Read more

It’s hard to say, just because so few dramas were even trying anything remotely like what Hill Street was. I could imagine some of the early dramas like Naked City or The Defenders employing that Bochco structure, but your Honey Wests or your Kojaks were just doing different things.
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I rewatched a whole bunch when I was writing the first edition of the book back in 2012, and it holds up. Admittedly — as with all 12 shows I wrote about — I had to cherry-pick episodes because I didn’t have time to marathon them all, so I wasn’t necessarily watching the ones that were more procedural-ish at… Read more

The ship has sailed for Americans and the Emmys, I’m afraid. If the show hasn’t gotten any significant nominations by now, I doubt it ever will. For the most part, that stuff doesn’t matter. I only care about the Emmys to the extent that they, like critics’ polls, are something of a historical record, so that when… Read more

It’s up there, certainly, and my glowing review will come next week. (No fair, Amazon, sneaking the premiere on yesterday with little advance warning.) I’m going to be curious to see how it performs in the HitFix TV Critics Poll, which is being published next week before the Transparent premiere, but after at least… Read more

I’ve seen tonight’s, which is excellent. Was saving the finale til after I reviewed the penultimate, because I didn’t want the review of the one to be informed by the other. Been a great and challenging season, albeit with a few rough edges here and there when they’ve leaned too much on recurring characters like… Read more

It really is! I wanted to be patient before writing much, because I knew that the showrunner left over the famous “creative differences,” and that usually means it takes a new show at least half a season to figure itself out. But it’s gotten more and more confident every week. I wrote a review of last night’s episode… Read more

Hamm’s problem is that he was too old when he broke through, and the movie business doesn’t have use for a relative unknown who’s already pushing 40.
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I’m just glad most of my Hamm conversations have been by phone. It is a LOT of handsome to be around in person.
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God, I hope so. Comedy Central let Review dangle out there in the wind for a while last year, but I hope they come around. Leftovers, I’m more worried about. Last year, it seemed the only thing delaying renewal was whether Lindelof wanted to do another season. This year, the ratings are way down, even though the buzz… Read more

Well, I almost always order extra meat when that’s a reasonably priced option. So yes.
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Every now and then, Walking Dead will do an episode like the Morgan one, or a run of episodes like the ones they did last fall, where I’m reminded why I keep sticking with it even though the show is so fundamentally uneven, and way too faithful to a comic book I never liked all that much. It’s capable of being really… Read more

Gotham season 2 falls into the category of “Very improved, but not at all for me.” I appreciate that they found some focus, but I checked out after a few weeks because that focus isn’t really what I was looking for, especially with Master Bruce still so young.
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Krisnaps Bazingus, right?
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