BuzzFeed: "The Affair Advances Hollywood’s Heated War-Between-The-Sexes Conversation"

The new Showtime drama joins movies Gone Girl and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby in its exploration of gender wars, a topic that’s currently heating up the pop culture landscape. Warning: Minor spoilers for both films and the series ahead.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "The Affair Advances Hollywood’s Heated War-Between-The-Sexes Conversation," in which I review Showtime's The Affair and examine it in the context of the similarly themed battle-of-the-sexes dramas Gone Girl and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.

While we can attempt to empathize, it’s impossible to truly ever know every crevice of someone’s psyche, whether it’s the stranger you pass in the street or your own spouse. Other people are innately unknowable.

Gone Girl, whose gender politics have been hotly debated, takes this notion to an operatic and hyper-intense place as the audience is forced to contend with the unreliability of two narrators — Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), the seemingly perfect husband with a quick and easy smile, and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), a Cool Girl with her sharp nails very much intact. The plot of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl and the subsequent film adaptation, also written by Flynn and directed by David Fincher, toys with the preconceptions of the viewer, jumping back and forth between male and female perspective, between past and present, between fact and fiction, in a tantalizing and telling way, though it never attempts to capture the realities of everyday marriage. The more realistic film The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them presents the complete breakdown of the marriage between Eleanor Rigby (Jessica Chastain) and Connor Ludlow (James McAvoy), flitting between his and her viewpoints as they attempt to regain their equilibrium in the face of searing loss. It’s the grounded and ultimately gut-wrenching counterpoint to Gone Girl, depicting both sides of their struggle with poignancy and grit. If Gone Girl is the cinematic equivalent of a head-on collision, Eleanor Rigby is more like a glancing blow that nonetheless ends up destroying you.

In their own ways, neither film is easy to watch as they portray the vast chasm of perception between the male and female characters — and each is structured in a way that borrows from the mystery format: Did Nick kill Amy? Just what are Eleanor and Connor running from? They achieve their ends in very different ways, however: Gone Girl builds to a Grand Guignol crescendo of horror, while Eleanor Rigby ultimately parcels out the central issue between the estranged couple, posing the question of whether two people, having fallen apart, can ever grow back together. Eleanor Rigby, as a result, becomes a film of two halves — his and hers — as it shifts between the female and male views of the couple. The couple here is far more reliable than Amy and Nick, and Eleanor Rigby director Ned Benson goes to lengths so that neither appears wholly responsible for the breakdown in their marriage — they’re both relatable and relatably flawed. The director actually created three films out of the material that he shot on the project: Them and Him and Her, which are being released in select theaters this weekend, showing the extremes of perspective that unfold over the course of their plots.


Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Twin Peaks Co-Creator Mark Frost On The Series’ Return To Television"

Damn fine news: After 25 years, Twin Peaks is headed to Showtime with a nine-episode limited series. BuzzFeed News spoke to Frost about the revival and what fans can expect.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Twin Peaks Co-Creator Mark Frost On The Series’ Return To Television," in which I talk to Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost about the series' resurrection as a limited series on Showtime in 2016.

Earlier this summer, deleted and extended scenes from the Twin Peaks follow-up film Fire Walk With Me were unearthed for the series’ complete Blu-ray release. But that was nothing compared to what happened on Oct. 6, as the impossible suddenly became a reality: Co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost announced that Twin Peaks would be returning to television 25 years after it went off the air, its resolution as hazy and unclear as a fever dream.

Nine episodes of a Twin Peaks revival series will air on Showtime in 2016 as a limited series, one that promises a resolution of sorts for FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and one that signals a reunion of Lynch and Frost, who will write every episode, with Lynch set to direct as well. For Frost, it’s a unique position to be in, one that has been three years in the making.

“It’s a very rich feeling, to finally be able to tell the world about it, because we’ve been living with it for three years,” Frost told BuzzFeed News shortly after the limited series announcement was made. “People’s reactions are so fantastic. The thought that something like this could make so many people excited and hopefully happy fills you with the kind of joy you don’t get most days. So it’s a wonderful opportunity to close the circle.”

Frost also talked about Showtime’s announcement, why there are exactly nine episodes planned for the resurrected Twin Peaks, whether composer Angelo Badalamenti will return with another iconic score, and what fans can expect from this most unlikely news. In the words of the Little Man From Another Place, let’s rock.

Very few artists ever get the opportunity to return to a work 25 years later, particularly those working in television. What does it feel like to have the chance to make this journey and specifically with David?

Well, you know, the heart of this whole experience, from the beginning, has been this friendship that we share. Everything that we’ve done has started and flowed from that. In a way, it’s a wonderful way to continue the friendship, and deepen the experience for both of us, as friends, as collaborators, and as people, working to tell a story together. Neither of us has ever collaborated with anybody else in this way, and it’s a very special relationship. I guess you can say it’s like the U.S. and Great Britain, in diplomatic terms. It’s the special relationship in my life, creatively, and I think in his in the same way. First and foremost, it’s a wonderful chance to work together with a very good, dear friend.

Given that this is the only collaboration that both of you have done, what is the process for co-writing these episodes, and how has your relationship with David changed in the more than two decades since you last worked together?

I think that the main thing is — you’re different people 20 years later. You’re older and hopefully wiser, and you’ve had a lot more life experience. You’re bringing all that to the table. That’s certainly been our experience; that’s what it feels like to me. We’re not just trying to bring back the show because we can bring back the show; we’re doing it because we feel there’s something more to say with it, and it’s the perfect vehicle for expressing those thoughts and feelings.

Why specifically is the revival nine episodes?

Well, if you think back about the first season, if you put the pilot together with the seven that we did, you get nine hours. It just felt like the right number. I’ve always felt the story should take as long as the story takes to tell. That’s what felt right to us.
There are still a lot of details that are coming together. In terms of the general thrust of this, is this being envisioned as a strict continuation of those plots that were left dangling when the show was canceled, or is it something altogether different?
It’s kind of all of those things. It’s different and yet the same. It’s reassuring, and yet, I hope, equally startling and unsettling. And, more than anything it does, Twin Peaks is kind of a way to look at the world. And this is a chance to refine that vision, so many years later. As you say, it’s a very unique opportunity.

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Where Can Homeland Go From Here?"

Showtime’s espionage thriller wrapped up its third season and much of its overall narrative. So where can the show possibly go in Season 4? WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Where Can Homeland Go From Here?" in which I look at the third season finale of Showtime's Homeland and where the show could possibly go from here. (Answer: wherever it does, I likely won't be watching as I'm fatigued with this show at this point.)

With Sunday’s season finale of Homeland (“The Star”), Showtime’s espionage thriller seemed to fold inwards upon itself, offering up a 20-minute epilogue that felt very much like a conclusion for the series, an alternately intelligent and deeply frustrating drama, depending where in its overall narrative you were at any given time. (It was, however, renewed for a fourth season earlier this year.)

In its often maddening and meandering third season, Homeland found Carrie (Claire Danes) pretending to be on the outs with the CIA while actually on a covert operation under the watchful eye of an even-more-gruff-than-usual Saul (Mandy Patinkin). Saul, meanwhile, hatched a truly mind-boggling plot to insert a high-level asset in the Iranian government… and get Brody (Damian Lewis) — himself the subject of an international manhunt for a bombing at the CIA that killed 100-plus people — to assassinate a high-ranking Iranian official in order to put the rogue nation under U.S. control.

“The Star” managed to tie up many of the narrative’s loose ends and capped off the Carrie/Brody dynamic, offering up a season finale that may have worked more effectively as a series finale. (Seriously, stop reading right now if you haven’t yet watched “The Star.” SPOILERS!) Brody’s death — ordered by Javadi (Shaun Toub) in an effort to secure his role in this power play — is meant to be a pyrrhic victory; it’s meant to be a gut-wrenching ordeal both for Carrie — who is carrying his baby — and for the audience at large. And there is a brief moment, when Brody is raised on a crane by his neck at a public execution and he stares outwards with terror in his eyes, where his death has some actual emotional weight and consequence. And then Carrie climbs the fence and shouts his name and I remember I’m watching Homeland, which ultimately stumbles into some melodramatic excess every five minutes or so.

Brody: “So what happens next?”
Carrie: “What do you mean?”
Brody: “When we get home, what happens next?”
Carrie: “I don’t know. What do you want to happen?”
Brody: “Honestly, I never expected to get this far, so I try not to think about it.”

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

The Daily Beast: "Ray Donovan: Is the Liev Schreiber–Led Showtime Drama The Next Sopranos?"

I review Showtime’s fixer drama Ray Donovan, which begins Sunday night and stars Liev Schreiber as a Hollywood fixer whose South Boston past creates present-day troubles.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Ray Donovan: Is the Liev Schreiber–Led Showtime Drama The Next Sopranos?" in which I review Showtime's fantastic new drama Ray Donovan, which premieres on Sunday night at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

The specter of HBO’s still-mourned organized crime family drama The Sopranos, which arguably kicked off the latest golden age of television, can be glimpsed in the foundations of nearly every cable drama that has come since, ushering in an era of the male antihero that has permeated the popular culture.

The Sopranos’s mischievous, malevolent spirit flits through Showtime’s outstanding new drama Ray Donovan, which premieres Sunday night at 10 p.m. Starring Liev Schreiber as the titular character, the show—created by Ann Biderman, who also created the gripping, gritty cop drama Southland—deftly balances matters of crime and punishment, love and enmity, savagery and civility. It’s a drama that’s about the push and pull of the domestic and the professional spheres. And it must be said that Ray Donovan is also about the battle between good and evil, often within the same man.

Schreiber’s Ray is a Hollywood fixer, the sort of hard-boiled figure that you might have to call when you’re a celeb being blackmailed by a transgendered hooker or a basketball star waking up in bed next to a dead woman after a night of heavy drug use. Escaping his rough-and-tumble Irish Catholic past in South Boston, Ray has established himself as an imposing if shady figure in the boardrooms and back lots of Los Angeles, equal parts deterrent and enforcer. The rich and famous—portrayed largely as venal, vapid parasites—pay him handsomely to deal with the messes in which they find themselves. And Ray deals with everything with vicious panache, imposing whether he’s wielding a baseball bat or an unspoken threat.

Ray’s talents in this area have allowed him to set up his family in the tony enclave of Calabasas, where his children and his wife, Abby (Paula Malcomson), exist in a bubble of privilege that is a far cry from their parents’ formative years. Across the city in Hollywood, Ray’s brothers, Bunchy (Dash Mihok) and Terry (British actor Eddie Marsan, excellent here), operate a struggling boxing gym, supported by their brother. Bunchy is a self-described “sexual anorexic,” a recovering addict who was molested by a priest as a boy. Terry is a sullen and solitary ex-boxer with Parkinson’s Disease who is attracted to his nurse, Frances (Brooke Smith), but too afraid to act on it.

Ray’s past is a bit of an enigma, teased out in little morsels over the course of the first few episodes. His sister killed herself as a teenager, and her death continues to paralyze the Donovan boys in intriguing ways. Ray is additionally concealing something terrible, having colluded with his business partners, Ezra Goodman (Elliott Gould) and Lee Drexler (Peter Jacobson), in order to put his own father in prison 20 years earlier. But Ray’s demons come home when his father, Mickey (Jon Voight), gets out of prison five years earlier than expected and heads to Los Angeles to exact revenge upon those who destroyed his life. Voight radiates ferocious intensity here, rendering the surprisingly charming Mickey as a volatile presence in the Donovan clan; his every move is unpredictable and laced with danger. Loud, overbearing, and unseemly, he is the very personification of the human id in a mock turtleneck and gold chain.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Is This The Real Carrie Mathison?"

Who is the real Carrie Mathison? I explore the thematic overlaps between two female spies now stealing our collective attention: Claire Danes’s character on Homeland and Jessica Chastain’s Maya in Zero Dark Thirty. WARNING: the following contains plot details from the latest episode of Homeland. If you are not up to date, read at your own peril.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Is This The Real Carrie Mathison?," in which I compare the similarities and thematic overlaps between Homeland's Carrie (Claire Danes) and Jessica Chastain's pseudonymous CIA agent "Maya" in Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming Osama bin Laden manhunt film Zero Dark Thirty, out December 19th in New York and Los Angeles.

“We fight with what we have.”

On the most recent episode of Showtime’s byzantine terrorism thriller Homeland, Carrie Mathison, the damaged, disgraced, bipolar CIA analyst played by Emmy-winner Claire Danes, finally came face-to-face with the terrorist that she had been doggedly pursuing for years, a hunt that put both her career and her sanity in jeopardy.

While the fanatical Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban)—responsible for the death of countless innocents and for brainwashing Marine Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) and transforming him into an instrument of vengeance—had the upper hand in this standoff, the tête-à-tête that followed was remarkable for the fact that Carrie was staring into the face of her adversary, and the words that he spat out at her, hogtied though she was, reflected Carrie’s own indomitable will.

“Do you have the perseverance, the tenacity, the faith?” a seething Nazir asked Carrie, referring to his own will to “exterminate” the American people, even if it takes “three centuries” to do so. His extremism is a distant relative to Carrie’s own, her flawed moral compass guided by the belief that Abu Nazir was planning a major attack on the United States and that Nicholas Brody had been turned.
But what their conversation revealed was that Carrie does have all of those characteristics, embraced on the long road to tracking down Nazir, qualities shared by Carrie Mathison’s sister in arms, Jessica Chastain’s Maya, in Kathryn Bigelow’s sensational Osama bin Laden film, Zero Dark Thirty, which opens Dec. 19 in New York and Los Angeles.

It’s impossible to watch the remarkable Zero Dark Thirty without thinking of Homeland or of Carrie Mathison. Like Abu Nazir, they too fight with what they have: drawing on a wellspring of tenacity and perseverance, and an unerring faith that what they are doing is not only right, but just.


Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Review: Season 2 of Homeland and Season 4 of The Good Wife"

Set your DVRs! I review Season Two of Showtime’s Homeland and Season Four of CBS’s The Good Wife, finding common ground in their deft and subtle explorations of identity.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TV's Kick-Ass Women Return," in which I review Season Two of Homeland and Season Four of The Good Wife, tracing the way that both shows explore their characters' shifting identities.

In the season opener of Homeland, which airs on Sunday, Claire Danes’s Carrie Mathison smiles.

If you’ve been watching Showtime’s Homeland, the newly crowned winner of the Emmy Award for Best Drama, this seems entirely contrary to her character, a bipolar and deeply disgraced CIA officer who underwent electroconvulsive therapy in the first season finale. Carrie isn’t prone to happiness: she has been misunderstood, mocked, and kicked out of the intelligence community. For all of that, Carrie was also right that Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Emmy Award winner Damian Lewis), a former prisoner of war, is not what he appears to be.

Danes—who also won an Emmy on Sunday—inhabits Carrie with a crippling onus placed on her, one that has only widened the cracks in her sanity. Her prescience and her instincts go unheeded, and the damage that she causes threatens to consume her altogether.

CBS’s The Good Wife, also returning on Sunday evening, will deal with its own identity crises this season. On the surface, these two shows don’t seem to share many similarities. One is a tense terrorism thriller on premium cable, the other a contemplative legal drama that explores technology, politics, marriage, and the law with a subtlety that make it a paragon among television dramas. Both, however, tackle issues of self-identification with insight and perspicacity, and this is felt even more keenly in Homeland’s second season and The Good Wife’s fourth.

Within The Good Wife, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) has played the dutiful wife and the aggrieved spouse with equal vigor, a friction that cuts to the core of The Good Wife. What does it mean to be good? And how does that reflect our own needs and desires outside that of familial responsibility? Having lost everything after the betrayal of her philandering husband, Peter (Chris Noth), Alicia had to, out of necessity, redefine herself through her work, returning to a profession that she had left. Her discovery that she excelled in the field is the first in a series of transformations for the character.

Continue read at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Homeland Sweeps the Emmys: Why Showtime’s Thriller Exploded"

Mad Men is triumphant no more. I examine Showtime’s superlative terrorist thriller Homeland, which took home the Emmy for best drama Sunday.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Homeland Sweeps the Emmys: Why Showtime’s Thriller Exploded," in which I take a look at Homeland's victory at the Primetime Emmy Awards last night and look at why the premium cable drama toppled Mad Men.

Not only did Mad Men not win the Emmy Award for best drama, the AMC period drama went home empty-handed Sunday, leaving the 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards with not a single statuette in its possession.

In the weeks leading up to the awards telecast, Mad Men seemed very much like a sure thing: it had won four of the four times it was eligible for Best Drama, and the odds seemed very much in its favor once more. In fact, Showtime’s Homeland—the taut psychological drama that also nabbed best-actor and -actress awards for Damian Lewis and Claire Danes—had cooled in recent weeks, with Breaking Bad or Downton Abbey poised as far more likely usurpers to Mad Men’s throne.

Yet Homeland did triumph, putting Showtime on the awards map in a very real way and ending the streak maintained by AMC and HBO. It’s not only a victory for showrunners Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, but also for the new regime at Showtime overseen by David Nevins, whose support for the fledgling Homeland has paid off in dividends.

However, those scratching their heads over what happened to the once-Teflon Mad Men are missing the point. Homeland’s victory isn’t much of an upset, if we’re being honest. While the least expected choice of the viable ones, the Emmy is still very much deserved. While I’m a staunch supporter of Mad Men (and will continue to be), Homeland is new and shiny, and Emmy voters, like magpies, are often drawn to the glitter of a fresh show. But Homeland is also a highly provocative drama, fueled by paranoia, patriotism, zealotry, and madness.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Best Drama Race: Will Mad Men Make History?"

The race for the Emmy Awards’ top drama prize is fierce (hello, Downton!).

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Best Drama Race: Will Mad Men Make History?" in which I assess the field to see whether Mad Men will make history with a fifth win.

Can Mad Men could do the impossible on Sunday and win a fifth Emmy Award for Best Drama? After walking away with the statuette four years in a row, all eyes are on AMC’s Emmy darling, which could make history with a five-time win.

Currently, Mad Men shares the record for most Best Drama wins with such notable programs as Hill Street Blues, The West Wing, and L.A. Law, all of which were crowned victors four times. But a win at Sunday’s 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards would make Mad Men the undisputed drama record-holder, no small feat for a show that is about to go into its sixth season—reportedly the show’s penultimate—and whose loyal viewers are considerably dwarfed by HBO’s and Showtime’s entries.

Mad Men’s fifth season found Don Draper (Jon Hamm) rediscovering himself as a newlywed after his surprising proposal to his secretary, Megan (Jessica Paré); Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) facing his mortality; Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) selling herself to become a partner; Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) leaving the firm; and poor Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) taking his own life in the office. Often polarizing, Season 5 of Mad Men was a challenging and gut-wrenching season of transformation for its characters, and a lyrical and haunting experience for many viewers.

It’s Mad Men’s toughest road to the Emmys podium. This year’s competition is fierce; so fierce, it seems, that there isn’t a single broadcast network drama competing for the top prize. (Stalwart CBS drama The Good Wife is the most obvious omission.) Instead, Mad Men’s competitors come almost entirely from cable, with AMC sibling Breaking Bad, HBO’s Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, and Showtime’s Homeland all represented.

And then there’s Downton Abbey, the British costume drama that transformed itself into a phenomenon this year. The Julian Fellowes–created show—which depicts the lives of the wealthy Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era—airs on PBS’s venerable Masterpiece, the 41-year-old anthology series that has suddenly become a mainstream success story thanks to its wise and prescient investment in Downton.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "TV Tackles Bipolar Disorder"

With Showtime’s recent dramas Homeland and Shameless, characters with bipolar disorder on television are no longer on the fringes.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TV Tackles Bipolar Disorder," in which I explore the portrayals of Carrie Mathison and Monica Gallagher, played by Claire Danes and Chloe Webb, as individuals with bipolar disorder and how those realistic and nuanced portrayals both shape their respective series but also help to remove the stigma associated with mental illness. I talk to Homeland co-creator Alex Gansa about Carrie's illness and how her decision to turn to ECT will affect Season Two (beginning in September) and with Shameless writer/producer Etan Frankel about the handling of Monica and how her condition has molded the Gallagher family.

On Homeland, Claire Danes’ Carrie Mathison is a brilliant and ambitious CIA analyst, gifted with a beautiful mind that sees connections and hidden patterns that others around her can’t. She’s driven to an obsessive fixation on Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a recently returned POW whom she believes to be a terrorist sleeper agent. Carrie, to her horror and ours, is right.

However, Carrie suffers from bipolar disorder, a crippling psychological condition that is sometimes known as manic-depression, which affects roughly 5.7 million Americans, or 2.6 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to data from the National Institute of Mental Health. The illness includes “dramatic shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels that affect a person’s ability to carry out day-to-day tasks” that “are more severe than the normal ups and downs that are experienced by everyone.” (Other symptoms can include but are not limited to erratic behavior, hypersexuality, rapid cycling between mood states, and even delusions and hallucinations.)

What makes Carrie such a superb intelligence agent is also her Achilles’ heel, and her journey over the course of the first season of Homeland was one of frustration, error, and ultimately being right. Her words go unheeded when her condition is discovered by her employers, making her a modern-day Cassandra, a woman too smart for the room, too close to the truth, whose viewpoint is discarded by men who believe they know better. Danes’s stunning performance is one of several new groundbreakingly realistic depictions of mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, on television.

“A lot of women in particular have responded to this idea that Carrie was right and that nobody knows she was right,” Homeland’s cocreator/executive producer Alex Gansa told The Daily Beast. “There’s a real sense of tragedy in that.”

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

Our Own Worst Enemy is Ourselves: Quick Thoughts on the Homeland Season Finale

I'm puzzled by how polarizing the season finale ("Marine One") of Showtime's Homeland ended up being, with viewers on one side or the other about just how effective--and believable--the climax of the espionage drama was last night.

Personally, I thought it was powerful, heartbreaking, and superlative, filled with emotional resonance and an aura of tragedy hovering uneasily over everyone, particularly the now-tragic figure of Cassandra-like Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), whose portents of doom fell onto deaf ears. It's Carrie who saves the lives of the Vice President and his cabinet as well as that of Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), but her instability is used as a weapon against her. In essence, she saves the world, but is denied the knowledge that she's done so.

Her breakdown in the final third of the episode isn't just a mental one, but that of communication as well as self-worth. Carrie's entire persona is based on a laser-like precision of the facts, collating information, and projecting possible scenarios. Her guilt over missing some valuable clue that led to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 have shaped the person she is today, one who is determined to dig at the truth regardless of the personal cost to herself. Which is why Carrie's decision at the end of the episode is all the more tragic.

In voluntarily opting to undergo electroshock therapy, Carrie is choosing to forget, to wipe clean the slate of her memory, and start fresh. Her tabula rasa is the result of weeks of being correct but not knowing so, of falling under the thrall of Brody and falling in love with him, of not being trusted by those in charge, and by being exposed in the eleventh hour by someone she trusted. Carrie began the season a disgraced CIA officer; she ends it a disgraced woman, full stop.

What makes her decision all the more tragic--and the implications all the more severe--is that in that moment of clarity before she slips under the anesthesia, Carrie finally slips together the final missing puzzle piece in her color spectrum of clues, remembering that Brody spoke of Issa in his sleep and that Abu Nazir's son was named Issa. The missing part of the spectrum is finally in full view, the rainbow complete, the puzzle solved, the meaning of Nazir's silence finally clear.

But Carrie has doomed herself to forget, to wipe away the events of the last few weeks, her painful time with Brody, her ouster from the CIA, her injuries in the blast and the subsequent psychological freefall that followed. Carrie won't remember that she made the connection, that she unmasked Brody's involvement, that she Solved It All. Instead, her words are once more misheard, misunderstood, disregarded. Her Cassandra cries are ignored, and cast off as meaningless gibberish, the white noise that arrives before the long sleep.

Brody, meanwhile, has his own life saved in the wake of Carrie's crusading. He--and his family--owe her a debt of gratitude, but it's one that he'll never repay. In reaching out to Dana (smartly, the only member of the Brody family who saw anything about their pater familias' behavior as irrational, bizarre, or troubling), Carrie follows through on Saul's advice vis-a-vis Aileen: she seeks out not what made Brody an extremist (Issa) but what makes him human (his family), hoping that Dana's voice on the line can, in essence, "talk him down" from detonating himself, the Veep, and a slew of government officials in that underground Cheney-esque bunker. It's a masterful payoff to a plant from several episodes ago. In trying to get to Dana, Carrie tries to stab at Brody's Achilles heel: his family.

And it's not until Brody hears Dana's voice on the phone that he begins to rethink this turn of events and weighs what the true collateral damage would be: his own loved ones. It's in that moment that Brody himself decides where his true allegiance lies. Can he rip open a psychic wound in his family through his sins? Can he fail to fulfill a promise to his daughter? On the roof later, it's as though Brody is seeing things clearly for the first time, acknowledging that they do in fact have "views," which he never noticed. Carrie may be forgetting, but for Brody, it's an acknowledgement that he chooses to remember, something that connects to the opening sequence as he videotapes his final confession.

It's a masterful turn of events, once more setting up Carrie and Brody as ideological opposites, defined by their choices and the way in which they process their damage. Which isn't to say that there weren't some missteps along the way here. I agree with the dissenting opinion that Brody's decision to not detonate the VP but instead assume a position of power within the government and do more damage there--while it made sense within the context of Brody's mind--should not have come as a surprising development to Nazir.

After all, surely a turned politico with a grudge against the administration and a fervent Islamist is more of an asset that killing the VP. Brody is right when he says that if he cuts off one head, like a Hydra, another will rise up to take its place. This is all very true, but the way it's handled within the context of the show makes it seem as though this brainstorm of Brody's is news to Nazir, that the leader wouldn't have anticipated this potential turn of events in advance and that it takes Brody failing to follow orders to get him to see a different path for his so-called "Marine One."

But that's a minor quibble in a season finale that brought tension, emotional depth, and gripping suspense to the mix, as well as some unexpected humor (Walker mussing the old woman's hair as he walked out of her apartment, the VP's disgusting use of Elizabeth's death to declare his presidential intentions, Brody's gut-punch of words to Carrie in the police station parking lot, and Carrie's insistence that she go to the hospital). While I suspected that Carrie would figure it out in the end--just in time to forget it all--that moment carried more than its fair share of intellectual and emotional weight (particularly the beautiful scenes between Danes and Mandy Patinkin), rendering Carrie a far more tragic figure than we previously believed her to be.

I'm curious just how far into the future Season Two of Homeland will be set, and just how Carrie will be drawn back into the mix when her security clearance has been revoked permanently. (The sadness with which Saul tells her that there's no way her termination will be reversed was palpable.) Having forgotten what she knew about Brody, Carrie will be forced to start back at square one again, but, considering her dogged determination thus far, I think it's safe to say that Carrie will once again be in pursuit of Brody--and the Truth--before too long.

As for me, I'm anxious to see what that means and how it unfolds. The America of Homeland--and the larger one of the real world--need Carrie Mathison and it needs shows like Homeland that ask uncomfortable questions about the greater good, morality, and governmental malfeasance. I just hope that Season Two lives up to the very large expectations created in the wake of this fantastic and thoughtful finale.

What did you think of the season finale? Are you dying to see Season Two of Homeland as soon as possible? Head to the comments section to discuss and debate.

Season Two of Homeland will air in 2012 on Showtime.

The Daily Beast: "Showtime's Homeland: The Best New Show of the Season

There is no room for argument: Showtime’s provocative and gut-wrenching psychological thriller Homeland is the best new show of the season.

Revolving around two very unreliable narrators engaged in a series of riveting mind games, Homeland explores an America 10 years after 9/11, surveying the damage done to both the national psyche and the central protagonists. Claire Danes plays Carrie Mathison, a CIA operative with both a mental illness and a troubling sense of personal guilt that she missed crucial intelligence prior to the Sept. 11 attacks; Damian Lewis (Life) plays soldier Nicholas Brody, a prisoner of war who returns home to a family that long thought him dead, and who may or may not have been turned into an enemy of the state during his eight-year captivity in Iraq.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Showtime's Homeland: The Best New Show of the Season," in which I talk to the show's co-creators Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon about terrorism, intelligence analysis, and paranoia in the post-9/11 and post-24 era.

Homeland airs Sunday evenings at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.

Heart of Gold/Heart of Glass: An Advance Review of Season Four of Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Over the course of the last three seasons, we've gotten to know the, uh, intimate secrets and details of the double life of Hannah/Belle (Billie Piper), the working girl attempting to life her life and figure out just what she wants out of it.

Tonight marks the launch of the fourth and final season of the frothy and fun Secret Diary of a Call Girl and we see Belle standing at the edge of a precipice: Will she allow herself the chance to be happy with Ben (Iddo Goldberg)? Can she ever be happy or hope to settle down, given her line of work? Will she choose between personal fulfillment, professional success, or something that blends the two?

As Season Four--which launches tonight on Showtime--begins, Belle finds herself grappling with a series of transformative changes in her life. She's back in London after a luxurious gig that took her far away from her life and from Ben, of whom she's still sure of what the future holds. Returning to the city, she's now a proud homeowner with her own front door (something all London girls dream of, according to Belle) and, no sooner than she's set foot in her new place, Ben has shown up and is making her heart ache with the possibilities of whether or not they can and should be together.

But fate has other surprises for Belle. Her frenemy and former boss Stephanie (Cherie Lunghi) has been sent to prison and she has two favors--or curses--for Belle, asking her to take over the business for her while she's in the big house (only for a few weeks, she promises) and keep an eye on her naive and innocent daughter Poppy (Lily James). Belle's empty house is suddenly overfull and bursting with life, including the call girls on her books that she must keep happy, including icy Charlotte (Gemma Chan), who wants the business for herself.

It appears as though Belle wasn't the only one with a double life, as we learn here. Stephanie told her daughter that she was a corporate headhunter, and it's up to Belle to uphold that impression and conceal the fact that Poppy's mother is in prison and not on a business trip. While Belle has had to deal with naive girls under her wing (i.e., Bambi) in previous seasons, she's now being forced to walk that fine line between honesty and deception in her own home. While Hannah has managed to conceal her line of work from her family--despite some close calls in the past--she's now wearing a mask around the clock, trying to keep Poppy in the dark, keep Stephanie's business alive, keep her girls happy, and justify her career while approaching a full-blown romantic relationship with Ben.

It's enough to make a girl exhausted, really.

Elsewhere, there's a producer who wants to option Belle's book and turn it into a movie. While Belle can see dollar signs, it's also a possible escape hatch from the, uh, damage that occurs in her life. And then there's that crooked copper lurking around on the periphery, one with a certain interest in Belle that goes way beyond professionalism and a loyalty to Stephanie...

The first four episodes of Season Four, provided to press for review, show the blend of playfulness and vulnerability that we've come to expect from Secret Diary of a Call Girl, along with a healthy dose of sexuality and a never-ending parade of male foibles in the form of Belle's clients: a member of Queen's Council with a reliance on performance-enhancing drugs, a virginal young man, and that copper who has quite an active imagination and requires some very specific details to enact his happiness.

I don't want to spoil too much of the plot but these installments are in keeping with both the characters we've come to know and love and some new situations and tensions for them as well. There's a deftness and a wink-and-a-smile cleverness to the subtext here and the consideration of Belle's line of work and how it affects her personal life, how that hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold trope we've seen so many times might or might not apply here and that Belle might be far stronger or far more scared than any of those other working girls.

At times dark, jubilant, and hysterical, we're seeing the pieces fall into place for Belle as a major decision looms before her in the final season of Secret Diary. Pushed into the role of girlfriend, mother, career girl, the future might be Belle's oyster, but it's also about to clamp down right around her...

The fourth and final season of Secret Diary of a Call Girl begins tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on Showtime.

The Saints' Guide to Bottoming Out: An Advance Review of Season Three of Nurse Jackie

It's always rewarding--and exceedingly rare--to see a show have such a sense of itself right out of the gate and to continue to mine its central premise and its characters for new depths (and highs) as the seasons pass by.

Showtime's dark and hysterical dramedy Nurse Jackie returns tonight for a sensational third season with its sense of self firmly intact. Revolving around in-denial drug addict Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco), her family, and her memorably offbeat emergency room co-workers, the show is a winning blend of emotional highs and lows. Jackie still can't function without the assistance of prescription painkillers, but the walls have closed in on her after the intervention at the end of last season, thrown on her by husband Kevin (Dominic Fumusa) and best friend Dr. Eleanor O'Hara (Eve Best).

But rather than get the help we all know she needs, Jackie lashes out at those who would help her; there's a lesson inherent within her reaction that we can only help those who want our help. It's something Jackie knows from her time at the hospital, but it's a hard truth to swallow. What we see instead this season is Jackie pulling the wool over everyone's eyes but her own, as she sinks deeper and deeper into the embrace of addiction.

Jackie's entire existence has been about compartmentalizing: she's a woman who took her wedding ring off at work and pretended to be single; who maintained an ongoing affair with a coworker who later befriended her husband; who can't bring herself to admit that she has a problem but who freaks out when she realizes her stash of Oxycontin is running perilously low. Jackie's brain is a series of little rooms which sit next to each other but whose walls are thick and impenetrable.

Those boundaries also seem to be the only thing keeping Jackie going (that and the pills, of course) but this season forces her to confront the possibility that she can't maintain those compartments of her life; things have a nasty way of bleeding together this season: her home life, her work life, Kevin, Eddie (Paul Shulze), Kevin's immature sister Tunie (Jaimie Alexander), whom Kevin wants Eddie to date.

At the hospital, we see Jackie wheel and deal for the benefit of her patients, engaging in a barter system to get them the help that they need, promising flu shots to this psych admitting nurse, promising something else to another. It's all about bargaining, really, something that Jackie knows a great deal about as she heads towards rock bottom. But when she gets there, will she get the help she needs or will she bargain for another fix?

That's the question that hovers uneasily over the third season, as there are consequences for our favorite nurse after she took that patients' bulging bag of Oxy last season. (Look for one hell of a creepy twist to that unsavory character a few episodes into the season.) We see her stash her pills around her house and the hospital, collect her fix, furtively swallow, count her pills. It's an addict's routine, complete with some low, low moments, such as when she has to recover a box of her kids' old clothing from a church donation center because she hid some pills in an old mitten. It shows just how far down the rabbit hole Jackie has gone, how desperate her hunger is, how badly she needs this fix to survive, to cope, to make it through the day.

Jackie is no saint, we're told numerous times. She cares for her patients, she cares for her family, but she has an unerring self-destructive streak within her, one that's destined to unhinge everything in her life, starting with her friendship with O'Hara this season. But All Saints Hospital has troubles of its own: the chapel is to be de-consecrated, as Akalitus (Anna Deveare Smith) learns in the season opener, its statues and paintings to be seized and moved to a warehouse in Staten Island (a fate worse than death in Gloria Akalitus' mind). What is All Saints without its saints? Without the chapel as its warm sanctuary?

But Akalitus--who has quickly become one of my favorite characters--has other things to consider as well, amid widespread hospital closures, budget crunches, and the possibility of a visit from First Lady Michelle Obama. It's the latter with which Akalitus seemly becomes obsessed, embracing the ideals of Michelle Obama, her love of jumping rope, her style, her mien.

Elsewhere, the staff of All Saints is just as delicious offbeat as ever. Merritt Wever's Zoey Barkow once again nearly steals the show. Her naivete, her carefree spirit, and her hero-worship of both Jackie and O'Hara are beyond endearing, and we see her nascent relationship with EMT Lenny (Lenny Jacobson) go to some new places this season. (Look for a beautifully realistic and tender moment between the two in the sixth episode this season, which contains a napkin, a meatball sub, a pocketwatch, and a crystalization of their relationship.) As much as Wever's Zoey drives Jackie crazy, she's the soul of All Saints and the show itself: an idealist and dreamer in puppy dog scrubs.

Coop (Peter Facinelli) remains the cocky/needy constant in the series; this season, he'll deal with an excruciating foot condition (I won't reveal just what is troubling him, but it has to be seen to be believed) and a crushing situation in his personal life. Plus, there's still fallout from his sleeping with the then-girlfriend of nurse Sam (Arjun Gupta) and those fences have not been mended, despite Coop's insistence that he's sorry. (Really, the more of a screw-up that Coop becomes, the more I love the character.) He'll face off with O'Hara for a chance at the chief of the ER position, a role that Akalitus has already promised to Eleanor... (Look for a hysterical scene involving Coop outside Central Park's Boathouse.)

And then there's Thor (Stephen Wallem), who I only love more and more with each passing episode. It's so fantastic to see the show's writers recognize what a winning character they have with Wallem's Thor and give him more screen time as a result. He's front and center in the third season and rightly so.

The result is one of the sharpest and wittiest comedies on television, and an exploration of what makes us tick, the compromises and mistakes we make in our lives, the way we made it through the day, the ways that we fall, and those who help pick us up. (Often, in more ways than one.) Ultimately, Nurse Jackie manages to be both sweet and tart at the same time, a dark comedy that makes us laugh and cry. And then laugh some more. Not to be missed for any reason.

Season Three of Nurse Jackie begins tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on Showtime.

British Invasion: Brief Reviews of Showtime's Shameless and Episodes

The irony of airing a series based on a hit British series (Shameless) back-to-back with a comedy that satirizes that very process (Episodes) isn't lost on Showtime's president of entertainment David Nevins.

But that juxtaposition is part of the charm of seeing these two series launch on Sunday evening. While tonally dissimilar, there's an anarchistic quality to both Shameless and Episodes.

While both are enjoyable series in their own right, it's Shameless that is the true breakout hit for the network, a remarkable translation of Paul Abbott's hit C4 drama, which deposits the rough-scrabble Gallagher family to the mean street of Chicago.

Overseen by ER's John Wells, Shameless is gripping and absorbing television that's instantly ranks as the best of 2011. At turns hilarious, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and sexy, Shameless upholds the high quality of the British original (along with borrowing some plot points in the first few episodes as well). The plot revolves around the resourceful Gallagher kids--led by grimly determined eldest daughter Fiona (Emmy Rossum)--as they grapple with making ends meet after their mother walks out on them and their father Frank (William H. Macy) lurches about in a neverending series of drunken staggering.

Rossum is incandescent.

She manages to steal the show from right out under Macy. Which isn't to say that Macy is bad as Frank Gallagher, but his character is perhaps the least interesting element of the series. Perpetually drunk and ill-mannered, it's hard to find Frank sympathetic or interesting, which makes the second episode, "Frank the Plank," which focuses on the immature oldest Gallagher, the least interesting of the three episodes screened for press.

Rossum's Fiona, meanwhile, is the beating heart of the series, a woman determined to get "her kids" to adulthood any way she can, sacrificing everything to provide whatever she can for her siblings. But despite for the care she gives to her siblings, she's a woman who is closed off from the possibility of love. Which makes it all the more difficult when love finds her in the form of Justin Chatwin's Steve, a rich kid who is far more than he initially appears.

To be blunt: sparks fly when these two cross paths and the love scene that they embark on in the pilot episode manages to be both messy and sexy, which sums up the show in a nutshell. But Rossum's Fiona isn't the only character who manages to break out of the noisy menagerie: Cameron Monaghan's Ian and Jeremy Allen White's Lip manage to be engaging and compelling characters in their own rights.

The series, which offers a breakneck switch between dark comedy and drama, tackles a number of "serious" issues within the context of its rough-edged story, casting a sharp eye on alcoholism, homosexuality, drug addiction, theft, and welfare fraud, and proves that blood is thicker than water. The the third episode ("Aunt Ginger") is heartbreaking television, equally emotionally stirring and painfully funny, walking a thin line between hard-biting drama and bleak comedy. The result is utterly intoxicating.

***

While Shameless stands on its own, I'm of the belief that Episodes works best when viewed in marathon form, the serialized episodes flowing nicely into one another with a great sense of momentum. On a weekly basis, however, the episodes (heh) seem somewhat stunted when viewed within the vacuum of episodic television.

Which isn't to say that Episodes is unfunny, because it isn't. Matt LeBlanc plays a brutally arrogant version of himself, clearly willing to skewer his own post-Friends image. And, as married English writers, Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig, are top-notch, relishing the opportunity to appear on-screen together again as they explore the highs and lows of both marital relations and the snake pit that is Hollywood, particularly within the television industry.

I still maintain that Showtime should have aired the first two episodes back-to-back as LeBlanc barely appears in the first episode, but, alas, I don't have the clout to make that happen. What I will say is that Episodes is very nearly a deft evisceration of the shallow-mindedness of Hollywood and the culture clash that inevitably happens when you bring a British mentality and reverence for writing into the Hollywood system.

I just wish that creators David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik had pushed themselves a little more, either into deeper satire or into more broad comedy. What happens in the end is that the two sides of Episodes' comedic structure counteract each other a little bit.

Episodes is still charming and funny, but ultimately I want a bit more savagery from these, well, episodes.

Shameless and Episodes launch this Sunday evening on Showtime.

The Daily Beast: "Showtime's New Mastermind, David Nevins"

Former producer David Nevins stunned many Hollywood insiders when he announced that he was stepping down from his role at Imagine Television and taking the top job at Showtime, recently vacated by Robert Greenblatt.

Now five months into his term at Showtime, I sit down with Nevins over lunch in a new feature at The Daily Beast, entitled "Showtime's New Mastermind, David Nevins," in which he tells me about his “girly taste in television,” and why it’s “fun to be naughty” as a programmer.

We also discuss what's coming up for the network, what's in development (Damian Lewis/Claire Danes psychological drama Homeland, House of Lies, starring Don Cheadle), the challenges and opportunities facing Showtime, which is on a growth trend, and, um, selling Time Life books over the phone.

Life Serial: Dexter Gets Sixth Season

Not exactly a shocker: Showtime has officially renewed its top-rated drama Dexter for a sixth season.

The current season will wrap up its run on Sunday, while Season Six of Dexter will go into production in Los Angeles in the spring. No word on when the next season will launch on the pay cabler, but another fall launch--such as the one for the current season--is more than likely.

“Dexter is the best suspense drama on television,” said Showtime President of Entertainment David Nevins. “To grow its audience so significantly in its fifth season is an enormous accomplishment by this amazing cast and crew. This is the easiest decision I’ve made since I got to Showtime.”

The full press release from Showtime can be found below.

SHOWTIME SLICES INTO A SIXTH SEASON OF DEXTER
Network’s Top-Rated Drama Series Renewed

DEXTER On Pace To Post Its Highest- Rated Season Ever
LOS ANGELES, CA — (December 6, 2010) — As season five of SHOWTIME’s top-rated drama series DEXTER, starring Emmy®-nominated and Golden Globe® award-winning actor Michael C. Hall, heads toward another powerful, suspense-filled finale on Sunday, December 12th at 9 PM ET/PT, the network has renewed the series for a sixth season. The announcement was made today by David Nevins, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks. Season 6’s episodes will go into production next spring in Los Angeles.

“DEXTER is the best suspense drama on television,” said Nevins. “To grow its audience so significantly in its fifth season is an enormous accomplishment by this amazing cast and crew. This is the easiest decision I’ve made since I got to Showtime.”

One of the most acclaimed series on television, DEXTER received seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations this year, including Outstanding Television Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Michael C. Hall and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for John Lithgow, which Lithgow won. Additionally, director Steve Shill won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. The series has received numerous Golden Globe nominations, as well as a prestigious Peabody Award in 2008 and was twice named one of AFI’s top ten television series.

DEXTER had its second highest ratings ever with this season's tenth episode (Nov. 28), delivering 2.54 million viewers, up 43 percent versus the season five premiere (1.77 million). The telecast was the second-highest delivery in the series’ history, behind the season four finale (2.57 million).‬

DEXTER stars Michael C. Hall (Golden Globe and SAG Award winner) as a complicated and conflicted blood-spatter expert for the Miami police department who moonlights as a serial killer. Season five of the series also starred Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee, Lauren Vélez, David Zayas, and James Remar.

The Daily Beast: "Idris Elba: The Next Denzel"

Idris Elba is everywhere, from The Big C to next summer’s Thor to playing Alex Cross in the rebooted James Patterson franchise. His BBC America mystery, Luther, begins Sunday.

Over at The Daily Beast, I talk to the former star of HBO's The Wire about his career and about his new BBC show Luther in my latest feature, "The Next Denzel," in which we discuss everything from Luther to The Big C and The Office and his role in James Patterson's Alex Cross franchise, a role he takes over from Morgan Freeman.

Personally, I had a blast chatting with Idris, who has an immense amount of charm and charisma... as well as a way with colorful turns of phrases.

Luther begins Sunday night at 10 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

Channel Surfing: Incredible Hulk to Smash ABC, Wentworth Miller Spies Spartacus, HBO Eyes Tea Leoni, Weeds' Shane, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

Hulk smash... TV? The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd and Brys Kit are reporting that ABC and Marvel are developing a television series based on comic "The Incredible Hulk," which was previously a 1978-82 television series that starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. Hulk is one of two projects, along with Cloak and Dagger (which is said to be in development at ABC Family), that Marvel Studios has in development, though the company is also said to be looking at other properties to develop as series, including Heroes for Hire, The Eternals, Agents of Atlas, Alter Ego, Moon Knight, The Hood, Ka-Zar, Daughters of the Dragon, and The Punisher, the latter of which is said to also be high on Marvel's radar, possibly as a cable series. [Editor: The story, however, fails to discern between several properties, which it has erroneously merged into single entities.] (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that former Prison Break star Wentworth Miller is rumored to be interested in replacing Andy Whitfield as the lead in Starz's gladiator drama Spartacus. Whitfield has dropped out of the project due to the recurrence of his cancer and the need for medical treatment. "But is Miller right for the part?" asks Ausiello. "Since his Fox series wrapped, he’s been largely out of the limelight. And when he has been spotted, he hasn’t quite been the picture of buffness that the sand-and-sandals epic demands. Of course, that’s nothing a month or two with a personal trainer couldn’t fix." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that HBO is weighing a pilot order for fashion-based comedy Spring/Fall, which would star Tea Leoni (who will also executive produce) as "half of a dysfunctional partnership between two women with different approaches to career, family, and friendship," set against the New York fashion world. Project, written by Kate Robin, would be executive produced by Leoni, Robin, Jimmy Miller, and RJ Cutler (The September Issue). (Deadline)

TVGuide.com's Mickey O'Connor has an interview with Weeds star Alexander Gould, who plays teenager/murderer/croquet star Shane Botwin. "He was as normal as could be, given the circumstances," said Gould when asked about initially playing Shane at the start of the first season. "When he learned about his mother's operation, he became sort of like the family's moral compass. I remember early on I had to say the F-word and I was really hesitant about it. Over time, Shane just got more confident and odd. I felt like Shane really was just [slowly] going crazy. He put that craziness away and it manifested itself in a funny way. He always seemed a little out of it." (TVGuide.com)

SPOILER!Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello as a first look at an upcoming scene from NBC's The Event featuring some, uh, surprising transformations for the survivors of Avias Air Flight 514. “They’re [undergoing] a transformation that could eventually lead to death,” creator Nick Wauters told Ausiello. Wauters also indicated that Thomas will “use them as leverage to try and get the president to free his people.” (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Don't expect remakes of The Rockford Files or Prime Suspect to turn up on NBC this midseason, according to Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice. [Editor: I wasn't as it's widely known that both in deep development.] Both projects are back in development following a disastrous pilot for Rockford and the lack of a lead for Prime Suspect, both of which will now be overseen by Peter Berg. Should Rockford move ahead, look for someone to replace Dermot Mulroney as Jim Rockford. (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

Casting roundup: John Heard and Evan Handler have joined the cast of Curtis Hanson's HBO telepic Too Big to Fail, while Kathy Baker has joined the cast of Lifetime pilot Against the Wall, where she will play the mother of Rachael Carpani's Abby. (Deadline)

ABC ordered four more scripts for family drama No Ordinary Family, while the CW ordered two more scripts for Life Unexpected, while ABC also gave additional script orders to Brothers and Sisters and Off the Map as well. Brothers and Sisters received an order for four additional scripts, while Map got one more. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin, Variety)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Secret Millionaire is going to get the plum Sunday at 8 pm timeslot currently occupied by Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for a six-episode run starting March 6th. "That is the Sunday after the Academy Awards, with ABC planning to heavily promote Secret Millionaire during the awards broadcast," writes Andreeva. "For ABC, which has no football, the Oscars are the most-watched telecast of the year and the biggest possible promotional platform for its shows. Additionally, ABC has asked Secret Millionaire producer Zodiak USA to begin casting on a new cycle, an indication that the network is looking to order more episodes beyond the original 6." (Deadline)

Danny Cohen is the new controller at BBC One, making the move from BBC Three effective immediately. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

The Daily Beast: "TV's Pop Art Boom"

Law & Order: SVU valentines, anyone?

Over at The Daily Beast today, I offer a look at "TV's Pop Art Boom."

In my latest feature, I talk to graphic artists Dyna Moe and Ty Mattson about their Mad Men-, Lost-, and Dexter-inspired artwork, which has redefined the term "fan art" and taken it to an entirely different level, where television-inspired pieces are challenging the way that we look at the medium and offering a new perspective to the atmosphere, characters, setting, and tone of some of our favorite series.

Plus, I offer a gallery of television-inspired pieces of art from Dyna Moe, Ty Mattson, Brandon Bird, and others, including some must-see Law & Order-inspired pieces.

Channel Surfing: Gwyneth Paltrow Tackles Glee, V lands Jay Karnes, NBC Lands Legends, Showtime Renews Weeds, The Big C, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos is reporting that Gwyneth Paltrow is in talks to join the cast of FOX's Glee in a two-episode story arc in which she would play a potential love interest for Matthew Morrison's Will Schuester. "According to rock-solid Glee sources, Gwyneth would play a substitute teacher in two episodes airing in November," writes Dos Santos. "Mr. Schuester gets sick, so Gwyneth's character steps in and takes over the glee club. The kids love her, and Will starts to fall for her... complicating his relationship with Emma (Jayma Mays)... I'm told Glee creator/executive producer/creative badass Ryan Murphy wrote this role expressly for Gwyneth, as the two are friends. If it all comes together, Ryan will be directing her first episode, which begins shooting in two weeks." Should the deal close, Paltrow would appear in two episodes slated to air in November. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

[Editor: In other Glee news, TVGuide.com's Denise Martin has a set visit feature for Glee, returning tonight for its second season, which you can read here.]

TVGuide.com's Adam Bryant is reporting that Jay Karnes (The Shield) has been cast in a recurring role on Season Two of ABC's V, which returns in November. Karnes will play FBI Agent Chris Boling, who will serve as the new partner for Elizabeth Mitchell's Erica Evans. "The two have some history, having trained together at Quantico," writes Bryant. "However, Bolling quickly begins to suspect Erica may have divided loyalties when it comes to her dedication to the Visitor resistance group, the Fifth Column." Casting marks a reunion between Karnes and former Shield writer/producer Scott Rosenbaum, who serves as V's showrunner. (TVGuide.com)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that NBC has given a put pilot order to espionage drama Legends, from writer Mark Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard) and executive producers Howard Gordon (24) and Jonathan Levin (The Ex-List). Project, from 20th Century Fox Television, is said to be based on a Robert Littell book and revolves around "an CIA operative with an uncanny gift for 'legends' - aka false identities - who is sent on a variety of missions, while simultaneously coping with the possibility that his own identity may be a 'legend' itself." (Deadline, Variety)

Showtime yesterday handed out renewals to dark comedies Weeds and The Big C, which will return for their seventh and second seasons respectively next year. "The unprecedented viewership for both The Big C and Weeds proves that audiences love these shows as much as we do," said Showtime's President of Entertainment David Nevins in a statement. "There are definitely more comedic adventures in store for these fascinating, complex women. For six seasons, we've happily traveled along with Nancy Botwin and we're equally as excited to follow Laura Linney and The Big C team as they chart Cathy's unique journey through such a provocative and personal subject as cancer. We're thrilled that these two signature shows will be returning to the network in 2011." (via press release)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck has a first look at Celia Weston playing Barb Tucker, the mother of Eric Stonestreet's Cameron on ABC's Modern Family. "She's somebody who made him the person he is," Stonestreet told Keck about Cameron's mom. "When she comes to the door, she gives me her little puppy kisses. And we find out she called him her 'Little Bomber,' which was actually what my [real-life] grandma called me as a little kid — I think because I was a little gassy." (TV Guide Magazine)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has details about the now prolonged absence expected to face Olivia Wilde's Thirteen on House this season, given that the actress has booked four major film roles, including one of the leads in Cowboys and Aliens and a newly minted role in The Change Up, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman. “It’s going to be a while unfortunately,” series creator David Shore. told Ausiello. “We love her but it is going to be a while. It’s going to be this season, but well into this season.... She called us up and said she wanted to do [The Change Up]. And it just so happened that what we had worked out storyline-wise allowed her a couple of extra episodes [off]. So that movie just filled in the gap. There were no further adjustments to her schedule as a result of that.” (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Elsewhere, Entertainment Weekly has some further details about Community's upcoming zombie-based Halloween episode. “Knowing too much about this particular plot would ruin it, but I promise it’s an awesome, one-off crazy conceptual episode with plot points and effects that are more familiar to horror film fans than our show’s fans,” said creator Dan Harmon. “We’re going over schedule and over budget to get it right,” he adds. “I’ve had to promise to do a few what I call ‘Bottle Episodes,’ where the group never leaves the library, to make up for it.” (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

NBC has ordered a pilot script for an untitled comedy to star comedian Mo Mandel (Strange Brew). Project, from 3 Arts, will revolve around "what a group of twentysomethings do in the last five years of their lives before the Earth is destroyed by a meteor." (Deadline)

ABC's upcoming weight loss reality series Obese has already received an order for a second season... and will undergo a name change to the less provocative Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. Six episodes are on tap for the second season, which is being slated for sometime in the 2011-12 season, while Season One is being targeted for midseason, possibly with a March launch. Each episode follows a single person over their year-long weight-loss journey. (Variety)

Disney XD will launch new animated superhero series The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! on Wednesday, October 20th at 8:30 pm ET/PT. (via press release)

Stay tuned.