BuzzFeed: "The 16 Best New Television Shows Of 2013"

Yes, returning shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Good Wife, Borgen, Parenthood, and others were aces this year. But this is all about the newcomers.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "The 16 Best New Television Shows Of 2013," in which I offer up my picks for the best new shows of the year, including Rectify, Orange Is the New Black, The Returned, Masters of Sex, Broadchurch, and Orphan Black, to name a few.

16. Bates Motel (A&E)

The story of Norman Bates — recounted in Alfred Hitchcock’s jangling Psycho — is only too familiar to most people. But under the watchful eye of executive producers Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse, the Twin Peaks-esque Bates Motel offers a fresh look at Norman’s formative years (despite the fact that the series is set in the present day and in a different location), including his relationship with his overbearing, quixotic mother, Norma (a stellar Vera Farmiga) after they purchase a run-down motel on the Oregon coastline and discover that their new sleepy town holds all manner of deadly secrets. As Norman and Norma, Freddie Highmore and Farmiga are riveting to watch, their damaged psyches threatening to erupt into violence at any moment. The result is an eerie and off-kilter drama about the things that bind us.

15. The Bletchley Circle (PBS)

This three-episode British import — about a quartet of women who worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park during World War II and reunite years later in order to entrap a serial killer when his pattern emerges — was a taut, thrilling chase as well as a nuanced portrait of the changing role of women in the 1950s, as each of the ladies struggles with a life of mundanity after playing such a pivotal role in the war. No surprise that another go-around is on tap for the amateur sleuths; The Bletchley Circle was downright gripping.

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The Daily Beast: "Sundance Channel’s Rectify is the Best New Show of 2013"

Sundance Channel’s ‘Rectify,’ which begins on Monday, is a weighty meditation on crime, punishment, beauty, and solitude. It is also insanely riveting television.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Sundance Channel’s Rectify is the Best New Show of 2013," in which I review Sundance Channel's Rectify, which begins Monday and which I name the best new show of 2013: "With Rectify, McKinnon creates a world of light and darkness, and of heaven and hell, one that exerts a powerful gravity from which it is impossible to escape."

Sundance Channel, the indie-centric network that is closely aligned with corporate sibling AMC, is quickly ascending to a place of prominence in an increasingly fragmented television landscape. For the longest time, the network was identifiable as the home of independent films, repeats of Lisa Kudrow’s short-lived HBO mockumentary The Comeback, and some forgettable reality fare. It lacked a cohesive programming identity and existed within the same hazy hinterlands as IFC.

But in the last year, Sundance Channel has found itself in the white-hot spotlight normally reserved for AMC—home of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead—thanks to a slew of high-profile and critically acclaimed shows, like the gripping paraplegic unscripted series Push Girls, Jane Campion’s haunting mystery drama Top of the Lake, and now Rectify, a six-episode drama that begins Monday.

The network’s first wholly owned original series, Rectify, created by Ray McKinnon, is exactly the type of show that would have once aired on AMC. (Ironically enough, it was originally developed for the channel.) It’s a breathtaking work of immense beauty and a thought-provoking meditation on the nature of crime and punishment, of identity and solitude, of guilt and absolution. It is, quite simply, the best new show of 2013.

Sentenced to die for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl, Daniel Holden (Aden Young) is released from prison after 19 years, when his original sentence is vacated, due to new DNA evidence that was overlooked at the time of his original trial. Thanks to the persistence of his headstrong sister, Amantha (a perfectly flinty Abigail Spencer), and his lawyer, Jon Stern (Luke Kirby), Daniel returns home to his mother (True Blood’s J. Smith-Cameron) and to a world he hasn’t seen since he was a teenager. In the small town of Paulie, Georgia, Daniel must rediscover a life forgotten and distant, while outside forces look to demonize him and swing the executioner’s axe once more.

I watched the six-episode first season of Rectify with the sort of rapt attention one usually reserves for high-end television dramas these days, but with one distinct difference. Like Top of the Lake before it, I watched Rectify in two sittings, eagerly speeding through these six episodes with almost beatific devotion. I don’t want to call that “binge watching,” because binge has a rather negative connotation (it implies that you should, perhaps, feel guilt for overindulging). Instead, I see it as “holistic viewing,” attempting to judge the work on its complete form, rather than on just its individual parts.

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The Daily Beast: "Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Bates Motel: 15 Shows Worth Watching This Spring"

How to choose from the slew of content about to hit the airwaves? From miniseries (Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake) to returning favorites (Game of Thrones) and new offerings (Rectify), I makes my picks for what's worth watching on television this spring.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Bates Motel: 15 Shows Worth Watching This Spring," in which I offer up 15 television shows to check out in the coming months, from the tried-and-true to those off the beaten path.

With the promise of warmer weather just around the corner, a slew of new and returning television shows are hitting the airwaves. HBO welcomes back Game of Thrones on March 31, AMC travels back in time for another season of Mad Men on April 7, and Sundance Channel offers two spellbinding new original dramas: Top of the Lake, a mystery series from co-creator Jane Campion, and Rectify, a searing drama that looks at what life is like after being released from prison after 19 years. But it’s not all heavy drama: two serial killer thrillers are on tap, with A&E’s Bates Motel squaring off against NBC’s Hannibal (as in Lecter), the Doctor returns with a new companion in Doctor Who, and HBO’s Veep returns for another season of vice-presidential comedy. I round up 15 new and returning television shows that are worth checking out this spring.

Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel)
The Piano writer-director Jane Campion and the film’s Academy Award-winning star Holly Hunter reunite in the seven-part Sundance Channel miniseries Top of the Lake, which stars Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss, Peter Mullan (War Horse), David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings), and Lucy Lawless. Set in the breathtaking wilderness of New Zealand, the miniseries charts the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old local girl and the journey of a detective (Moss), returned home to care for her ailing mother, as she struggles to discover what happened. What Moss’s Robin Griffin discovers is a world of savagery and wonder, as she is forced to trace both the girl and her own dark history. Gorgeous, provocative, and mythical, Top of the Lake is not to be missed. (Launches March 18 at 10 p.m.)

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