Friday Night LightsKyle Chandler is the new coach, Connie Britton his terrific wife, and Scott Porter the star quarterback injured in the first game of the season. […]
Brothers & SistersDespite cast changes, rewrites, and producer musical chairs, this brainy soap checks in with promise.
Objection!Justice and Shark are superslick but lack a crusader’s soul, while 30 Rock stumbles and Studio 60 soars.
The Boys of BarakaThe 12- and 13-year-olds we meet in this P.O.V. installment have fathers in prison, dealers on the corner, bullets in the street, and public sch […]
BonesWe’re delighted by the return of Emily Deschanel as forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan and David Boreanaz as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth.
Tune In TomorrowThe newest shows track one complex plot over a whole season. But are they really worth the investment?
Grass RootsGünter Grass’s revelation of his membership in the Waffen SS shows him as a flawed man. But the truths of his novels are as pure as ever.
Even More Inconvenient TruthsIn the aftermath of catastrophe, rampant incompetence
can be the worst disaster of all.
Inspector LewisWhat could have been a disaster or an insult—bringing Kevin Whately’s Robbie Lewis back to Oxford after the death of John Thaw’s Inspector Morse […]
Life on MarsManchester police detective Sam Tyler (John Simm) is in hot pursuit of a
serial killer who’s kidnapped Tyler’s girlfriend when he’s hit by a c […]
EurekaEureka’s cast works overtime to charm its materials—characters, ideas, and paranormalities left over from Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, and Pic […]
Extra! Extra!A reality show colonizes the Daily News,
where—surprise—hard reporting,
not gossip, makes for the best TV.
Read and Approved: Eclectic Beach FareStill looking for a summer book that isn’t 100 percent trashy? Perhaps even one that’s 100 percent non-trashy (say, on Spinoza)? Here are five n […]
Shamrocks and ShenanigansShowtime’s Cain-and-Abel crime
drama Brotherhood sings a
familiar tune, but with an Irish lilt.
Bill Moyers on Faith & ReasonAn actual conversation between intelligent adults, about serious subjects, in which viewers are assumed to be interested parties to the proceedi […]
Type A PersonalityThe punk-vampire splatterfest Blade
comes to the small screen,
retaining everything but its wayward star.
DeadwoodWhat makes Deadwood so fascinating is not the action we put up with; it’s the language we listen to.
Always Be ClosingKyra Sedgwick makes The Closer’s cop
part Helen Mirren, part Blanche DuBois;
also, Saved’s slacker savior.
Aliens Stole My Bikini!Hot teens, sweaty beaches, sudden
riches, and lots of paranormal high jinks.
That’s right—it’s summertime on TV.
Rabbit Is RadicalJohn Updike’s Terrorist puts us in the head of a man with 72 virgins on his mind.
Flower ChildrenA film that revisits “Russia’s 9/11”
is so harrowing you
can’t, and shouldn’t, look away.
War TornIn Baghdad ER, the point of
view is objective, but the
conclusions are impossible to escape.
Avian Flu SeasonDuring sweeps, everyone serves up
death and plague. But only
Stephen King really crawls under your skin.
WallSimone Bitton, a Morocco-born Arab Jew, looks at all sides of the multi-million-dollar security fence Israel is building along its border with t […]
JerichoJericho is the latest British import in public television’s Mystery! series that asks us to identify with a less-than-dashing not-quite-dude and […]
When She Was KingSure, she whupped Bobby Riggs.
But as a new film reminds
us, Billie Jean King
was also a proletariat pioneer.
Rocket ManRobson Green stars as an unemployed steelworks engineer and recently widowed father of two who has decided to build, in his garden, the very fir […]
The New Adventures of Old ChristineThis show wants us to know that fortysomething single moms are smart and sexy, too. Of course, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been here before.
Virgin TerritoryGod save Helen Mirren, who delivers one of the great—though
not the greatest—Elizabeths ever.
The Mercenary PositionWhile classic gumshoes had a code,
the vigilante Avenger simply
has a price. Also: 10 Days that changed
the country forever.
So NoTORIousIn VH1’s first scripted comedy, Tori Spelling, the poster child for affirmative action in Hollywood, stars as herself, or at least somebody not […]
Liza With a “Z”Restored, remastered, digitized up the Dolby wazoo, this one-hour Bob Fosse shake-and-bake from 1972 lets
La Minnelli run around on a Broadway […]
Splendor and Fear and GreatnessA smart new documentary
explains why Eugene O’Neill stands astride American theater, critics be damned.
Polygamy for DummiesBig Love, HBO’s show about a man with three wives, needs a little less winking and a little more thinking.
A Soap in Wolf’s ClothingDick Wolf’s Conviction is like Law & Order reimagined by Darren Star.
Also: The brilliant Braugher is back.
Thin, Rich, and Out of ControlMrs. Harris revisits the Scarsdale
diet-doc murder—a scandal
that brought reality TV to the masses.
Come and Meet Those Dancing FeetMarshall Berman’s history of Times Square hops, skips, and two-steps all over the twentieth century.
Slings and ArrowsWith or without the help of Martha Burns as his leading lady and ex-girlfriend, or Stephen Ouimette as the ghost of the
previous artistic dire […]
House on FireIn the blistering medical drama, Hugh Laurie’s character, Dr. House, is so engaging that he verges on mythic.
Black Like Me?In a new doc, stars from Oprah to Whoopi find out how African
they are—and whether it matters.
Courting AlexAlex is the opposite of Dharma. She’s a career-driven lawyer in daddy Dabney Coleman’s firm, with a cell phone instead of a life.
Charles in ChargeBleak House proves that if Dickens were alive today, he’d make an awesome TV executive.
LincolnBetween Gore Vidal, who wrote Lincoln: A Novel, a fictional account of Honest
Abe in which homosexuality was not absolutely out of the questi […]
Country BoysWhat does seem to be steadfast for both Chris Johnson and Cody Perkins is an alternative school in Appalachia, where dedicated teachers encourag […]
Catch My GriftThe new series Hustle shows why
con-man stories often satisfy:
They force writers to get smart.
Space OddityScience fiction has faltered on network TV. So why is Sci Fi Channel flourishing?
Watch This InsteadFor those of you overmedicated on reruns of Jimmy Stewart, Charlie Brown, and yet another version of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ here’s some alternate […]
Sideline BlowhardsIn all the hot air that swirls around TV
sports, only one show does more
than simply trot out jocks and jerks.
