A couple of weeks ago, I suggested in this space that religion is really tough to make good series about. My explanation for this, in a nutshell, is that any good story about religion requires us to believe, just a little bit, in religion ourselves, if only in the fictional
Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend, who was expressing irritation with how a professional colleague/competitor seemed to be making my friend's life much more difficult. And, to be sure, some of this was just pure competitive spirit, which is usually fine. (I doubt my
Of all of the things about me that seem to most amuse my fellow critics, my general affection for awards shows (especially the Oscars and Emmys) probably takes the cake. As we all know, awards shows almost never pick the best possible option. They always end up picking some dumb
As part of my TCA prep, I've been watching episodes of Hulu's upcoming The Path. It's a part of the streaming service's attempt to step up to the level of Netflix and Amazon when it comes to original programming, and it does
True crime is having a moment. Serial seemed to kick it off for a lot of people, and then Making a Murderer launched everything into high gear. (I'm fascinated by how it seems to have become a cultural phenomenon pretty much because it was on Netflix. But I&
My winter holidays were bookended by the very odd phenomenon of being called horribly uncritical on one end, then being called too critical on the other. Both are at least somewhat grave accusations for someone in my profession. The former suggests a cheerleader whose word can't be trusted;
It took us far longer than it should have to move out of the old apartment, choked with dust and junk as it was. It was a place we had both disappeared into, and even though we budgeted six weeks to crawl out of it, it took us an extra
When I interviewed him at the end of The Leftovers' second season, Damon Lindelof said something that's stuck with me ever since. The best stories, he suggested, are all about transformation on some level. I'm sure if you and I sat down, we could come
The Christmas TV special canon is pretty small and mostly relegated to a handful of specials made in the '60s and '70s. Certainly Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and the Grinch. Then there are a handful of other Rankin-Bass productions and Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas, if we
(Yo, this piece originally appeared on Tumblr. I am tired and don't want to write any more.) The first time I saw “So-Called Angels,” the much-maligned Christmas episode of My So-Called Life, I was but 14, and I thought it was the best episode of television I had
Few aspects of being a critic seem to fascinate readers more than the making of the annual top 10 list. (Okay, getting TV screeners/attending movie screenings are more interesting to most.) The irony here is that many critics hate to make them — narrowing a full year down to just
Criticism is sleight of hand. It's three-card monte. It's whatever you call that game with the cups where there's a ball under one of the cups. What I mean by this is that criticism is a personal essay that either needs to put the