The Daily Beast: "Zero Hour: Is This the Dumbest Show Ever to Air on TV?"

ABC tries to get back in the Lost game with the ridiculous Zero Hour. My take on the show, launching Thursday, that just might be the dumbest ever on television.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my review of the first episode of ABC's overhyped adventure drama "Zero Hour" (entitled ""Zero Hour: Is This the Dumbest Show Ever to Air on TV?"), in which I call the Anthony Edwards-led drama "nothing more than stale schlock, an hour full of zeroes.

Ever since Lost went off the air—and, actually, before—the broadcast networks have desperately searched for a show that could tempt viewers eager to get, well, lost in the complexity, mythology, and mystery of the Damon Lindelof/Carlton Cuse drama.

Zero Hour is not that show.

The ABC drama, which begins Thursday night at 10 p.m., recalls fiascos like FlashForward more than Lost. Created by former Prison Break writer Paul Scheuring, Zero Hour is no valentine to television, offering up a ludicrous mash-up of overtly familiar tropes: doomsday devices, the birth of the Anti-Christ, secret societies, and a witch’s cauldron of yawn-inducing fare. Did I mention that there are also goose-stepping Nazis, clocks embedded with treasure maps, demon spawn, and enough nonsense to make The Da Vinci Code seem downright plausible?

The plot—and I use that term lightly—revolves around Hank (Anthony Edwards), the shlubby editor of a paranormal magazine (called Modern Skeptic, no less) whose wife, clock seller Laila (Jacinda Barrett), is kidnapped by a ruthless assassin on the FBI’s most wanted list as part of a conspiracy that involves the end of the world.

There’s also the appearance of 12 mystical clocks, constructed during the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and the Rosicrucians, a secret Catholic mystical sect said to be guarding some sort of device with the power to bring about “zero hour” for the planet. Hank sets out on a world-spanning mission (funded by whom?), heading for the Artic circle after discovering a diamond whose flaw is actually a map to something called “New Bartholomew” in an effort to find Laila and the man who took her.

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The Daily Beast: "Community: Season 4 of the NBC Comedy Ponders the End"

(Jordin Althaus/NBC/Sony Pictures)

The absurdist comedy returns to NBC on Thursday after a lengthy delay and many behind-the-scenes changes, including the exit of creator Dan Harmon.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Community: Season 4 of the NBC Comedy Ponders the End," in which I review the fourth season of NBC's Community, which returns Thursday evening and after many behind-the-scenes changes. Does the show look and feel as it once did? Or does it feel as though not every came back from summer break?

“What’s the deal, Jessica Biel?”

Community, after an absence of what feels like five years and numerous timeslot and launch date changes, finally unveils its fourth season on Thursday. For the faithful, waiting this long to return to Greendale has been an arduous trial, particularly as curiosity is running high amid the many behind-the-scenes changes made since the show wrapped up its third season way back in May 2012.

For one, series creator Dan Harmon is no longer at the helm, after a well-publicized ouster that saw him as well as showrunners Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan depart the NBC comedy. A handful of others—including writer/producer Chris McKenna (currently writing on Fox’s The Mindy Project), executive producers/directors Anthony and Joe Russo, and actor/writer Dino Stamatopoulos (Starburns)—also exited stage left. In their place are new showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port, perhaps best known for their work on the multi-camera workplace comedy Just Shoot Me and for creating the short-lived comedy Aliens in America.

Suffice it to say, fans of Community want to know: what does the show feel like without Harmon and Co. steering the plot? On a show so gonzo and absurd and generally out there, what does the loss of its creator mean?

It would be far easier to say if the (new) Community were a disaster or a masterpiece. However, the truth doesn’t fall at either end. Community now feels rather like it did during its first three seasons, with its sense of humor and bizarro-world energies intact. (That sense of sameness might be aided by longtime writer Andy Bobrow scripting the season opener, offering a sense of continuity.)

If there’s anything I noticed during the two episodes provided to press for review (the first and third installments, but not—oddly enough—Megan Ganz’s Halloween episode, which airs on … Valentine’s Day), it’s that perhaps a spark that permeated the very best episodes of Community is missing. Perhaps that sense of mad genius came from Harmon himself or perhaps it can be regained once this new configuration of the Community writers finds their legs. But I can’t point to anything specific after two viewings. It doesn’t feel entirely off, but it feels as if not everyone came back from this prolonged summer break.

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The Daily Beast: "House of Cards: Should You Binge-Watch Netflix’s Political Drama?"

Netflix just released all 13 episodes of its first original show. Having binge-watched all 13 episodes this weekend, I ponder whether the strategy behind House of Cards represents a new narrative format for television—and if it could backfire.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "House of Cards: Should You Binge-Watch Netflix’s Political Drama?" in which I discuss binge-viewing and Netflix's strategy regarding House of Cards. Is this television's new narrative form?

Bet you can’t eat just one.

A lot has been written lately about consumer patterns and television, specifically the rise of what has been coined “binge-watching” or “binge-viewing,” the practice of marathoning an entire season or multiple episodes of a television show in a highly concentrated period of time. It might occur during a single evening or over the course of a weekend, but the notion of consumption is apt. Netflix, the streaming video service that started out as a distributor of DVD rentals by mail, has made this practice far easier than ever before, offering a catalog of full seasons of past television shows. Why wait a week to watch another episode when there are 108 more available and you can sate your hunger by just clicking away?

Binge-watching is not new—IFC’s Portlandia did a sketch about a Battlestar Galactica-obsessed couple whose lives go into freefall after they marathon the entire series—but talk of it has intensified since Friday’s release of House of Cards on Netflix. The streaming-video pioneer released all 13 episodes of Season 1 of House of Cards on the same day, a potentially paradigm-shifting strategy that pokes a sword in the belly of the broadcast networks, who are beholden to advertisers and time slots, and therefore the slow rollout of product.

Netflix doesn’t have these concerns. It features no advertising, is a subscription-based service (like premium cablers HBO and Showtime, original programming exists to drive subscriptions), and doesn’t feel the need to share “ratings” or compete in the same ratings-obsessed pool with the broadcasters. The strategy behind the mass release of House of Cards, the American remake of the seminal 1990 U.K. miniseries of the same name, is that viewers deserve choice. If they want to watch all 13 in a row, more power to them, but the platform isn’t reliant on a single timeframe for viewing. If a consumer decides to watch a few and then pick it up a year from now, it doesn’t matter.

That belief is echoed by Beau Willimon, House of Cards’s showrunner. “It’s fully in the audience’s hands to decide what their own experience is,” Willimon said in an interview with The Daily Beast in January. “The same way that you read a novel. You can read Anna Karenina in two days, or you can read it over a year. And I think that’s better because it personalizes the experience.”

It’s this semblance to the novel that seems particularly apt. The narrative of House of Cards, itself based on a novel by Michael Dobbs, is largely dependent on a novelistic structure. The episodes are even referred to as “chapters” in an effort to underscore this comparison more deeply.

The entire narrative benefits from the close scrutiny of novel-reading, or of similarly ambitious and novelistic shows like Mad Men or Breaking Bad. A paper swan, made of a $20 bill and tossed at Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) in one episode, turns up repeatedly throughout the back half of the season. It represents her own unknowable quality, a tightly bound mystery that’s contorted and bent.

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The Daily Beast: "House of Cards: Inside Netflix's First Show"

Netflix is jumping into the original programming arena with a remake of the BBC miniseries ‘House of Cards,’ all 13 episodes of which will be available for streaming on Friday. I talk to David Fincher, Beau Willimon, and Kate Mara about the adaptation, Frank and Zoe’s twisted dynamic, television antiheroes, and more.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "House of Cards: Inside Netflix's First Show," in which I sit down with David Fincher, Beau Willimon, and Kate Mara (as well as Andrew Davies) to discuss Netflix's upcoming (and paradigm-shifting) original series, House of Cards, which launches Friday with all 13 episodes available same day on the streaming service.

The quest for power knows no nationality or political allegiance.

In House of Cards, the BBC’s seminal 1990 miniseries, based on the novel by Michael Dobbs, Ian Richardson’s Francis Urquhart is the Machiavellian chief whip of the Conservative Party in the days following Margaret Thatcher’s fall from grace. After being passed over yet again, the deceptively placid Urquhart schemes, manipulates, and plots his way over the bodies of his colleagues and former friends in a bid for that most elusive of goals: true power.

On Friday, Netflix will unveil its American remake of House of Cards, written by Beau Willimon (Farragut North) and directed by David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). In a paradigm-shifting move, the streaming video giant Netflix will be releasing all 13 episodes of the show’s first season on the same day, a move that could sound a death knell for the traditional scheduling models of network television. Gone are time slots, episode run times, and any sense that the viewing experience is being dictated by anyone other than the consumer, who can choose to watch as few or as many episodes of House of Cards as he wishes.

“It’s fully in the audience’s hands to decide what their own experience is,” Willimon told The Daily Beast earlier this month. “The same way that you read a novel. You can read Anna Karenina in two days, or you can read it over a year. And I think that’s better because it personalizes the experience.”

Francis Urquhart, one can’t help but think, would surely appreciate this power grab.

In Willimon and Fincher’s version of House of Cards, Urquhart is reincarnated as Francis “Frank” Underhill (Kevin Spacey), a Democratic chief whip from South Carolina whose shark-like intelligence—and ruthless amorality—is depicted as a natural side effect of the American Dream. Here, the story is transplanted from Westminster to Washington, where the plot revolves around the dynamic between Underhill and the ambitious reporter Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara). Like Frank, Zoe is overlooked and undervalued, dismissed as a blogger and a “Twitter twat” at one point. Trading secrets and access, the two form a mutually beneficial alliance that could ultimately topple an entire presidential administration.

“She is not as dangerous as Frank is, but I would definitely say she’s unpredictable,” said Mara. “To him, she is dangerous. They’re dangerous to each other.”

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The Daily Beast: "Keri Russell On The Americans, Sleeper Agents, Motherhood & More"

On FX’s The Americans, which begins Wednesday, Keri Russell plays a Soviet sleeper agent in 1980s suburban D.C. I talk with the former Felicity star about Russian spies, secret lives, and being a mom.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Keri Russell On The Americans, Sleeper Agents, Motherhood, and More," in which I sit down with Keri Russell to talk about FX Networks's new 1980s espionage drama The Americans (and why it's perhaps the anti-Felicity), motherhood, and more.

In the opening scene of The Americans, Joe Weisberg’s tense new 1980s spy drama, Soviet sleeper agent Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) flirts with a middle-aged stranger in a Washington, D.C., bar.

Donning a blond Pretty Woman-style wig and a short dress, Russell is nearly unrecognizable, convincingly transformed into a barfly who pretends to be turned on by a G-man’s security clearance. Elizabeth and her mark head to a hotel room, where she proceeds to seduce him in order to elicit top-secret information, engaging in a range of sexual contact that’s all recorded and later listened to by Elizabeth’s husband, Phillip (Matthew Rhys).

In other words, this is the anti-Felicity.

“Oh, yeah, blow jobs and push-up bras and wigs,” says Russell, laughing. “It’s certainly a far cry.”

It’s January, and Russell sits demurely on a couch at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena. The 36-year-old actress is animated and excited, prone to waving her hands and pounding her fists emphatically on her knees while talking. It’s impossible to believe that it’s been more than 10 years since Russell played Felicity Porter on The WB’s beloved coming-of-age drama Felicity between 1998 and 2002. In the time since Felicity wrapped, Russell segued into a movie career, starring in the late Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 Sundance favorite Waitress, Mission: Impossible 3 (which reunited Russell with Felicity co-creator J.J. Abrams), and a slew of others. (A brief return to television, as the female lead opposite Will Arnett in Mitch Hurwitz’s 2010 Fox comedy Running Wilde, was short-lived.)

In person, Russell is warm and open, nothing like the character she plays on The Americans, which begins Wednesday night on FX. While she’s all high-waisted jeans and smiles on the surface—the perfect portrait of 1980s suburban motherhood who brings over home-baked brownies to her new neighbors—Elizabeth is, underneath, a brutal and unflinching killer who believes in the mission given to her and her “husband” by their Russian overseers.

It’s a bit ironic that Russell is now playing a spy. After Felicity, Abrams went on to create the Jennifer Garner-led ABC espionage thriller Alias, the idea for which grew out of a writers’ room discussion about what it would be like if Felicity became a spy. (Alias would make a star out of former Felicity guest star Garner and become an international hit.) But while Alias featured a spy who was one of the good guys, The Americans’ Elizabeth is anything but on the side of the angels.

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The Daily Beast: "30 Rock Wraps Up Seven Iconic Seasons"

Blerg. 30 Rock will end its seven-season run later this month, meaning that we'll have to say goodbye to Liz Lemon, Jack Donaghy, and the TGS crew... though the show's creator, Tina Fey, isn't going anywhere just yet.

In this week's Newsweek (and over at The Daily Beast), you can read my latest feature, "30 Rock Wraps Up Seven Iconic Seasons," in which I examine the comedic legacy that the show leaves behind.

Back in 2006, one of the year’s most highly anticipated new shows was a roman à clef set at a Saturday Night Live–style sketch comedy show. No, it wasn’t Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, but Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which also aired on NBC and died in 22 episodes. In fact, 30 Rock was very nearly canceled right out of the gate, with nearly half its 8.2 million viewers fleeing by the fourth week. But instead of being axed, 30 Rock became a sleeper hit. The show that gave us Liz Lemon and launched a thousand catchphrases (“Blerg!”) wraps up a seven-season run at the end of January.

30 Rock made creator-star Tina Fey—a former SNL writer and anchor of its talent springboard “Weekend Update”—a household name, while the show soon became a critical darling, known for its smart, tongue-in-cheek writing and acerbic wit. Beneath the absurdist single-camera comedy trappings of 30 Rock was a hyperliterate cultural magnet, one that exerted a powerful attraction toward the cultural memes of the day, not to mention bipartisan politics, celebrity vanity, corporate mergers, and the eternal struggle faced by working women to have it all.

In Liz Lemon, the harried executive producer and head writer of the comedy show TGS, Fey created an everywoman whose flaws were in fact part of her attractiveness; her persistent fear of exercising and love of junk food refreshing in an era of actresses who would like viewers to forget they have to eat at all. 30 Rock was, in many ways, a bildungsroman depicting the psychological development of Liz as she moved into a semirational adulthood, surrounded by a crowd of unruly eccentrics—such as Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney, Tracy Morgan’s Tracy Jordan, and Jack McBrayer’s Kenneth Parcell—and an unlikely mentor in her boss, Alec Baldwin’s ultraconservative executive, Jack Donaghy.

But rather than make, as most Hollywood projects would, marriage the inevitable conclusion to Liz Lemon’s saga, 30 Rock bucked that long-held trend by marrying off Liz before the ending and downplaying her wedding altogether. There would be no special episode, no electronic invitations on the NBC website, no fuss about reaching yet another milepost on Liz’s uncharacteristic journey. Instead, the show has held out Liz’s ultimate goal—motherhood—as a possible ending for the overworked writer, though it has once again defied expectations. A recent episode suggested that Liz would be adopting an older child, her quest toward motherhood not reliant on biology or medical intervention. In doing so, Fey signaled yet again that 30 Rock was not a traditional comedy defined by traditional sitcom trappings: it was a glorious metareflection of the times we live in.

Fey cohosted the Golden Globes telecast with Amy Poehler this year, the first time two women had done so, well, ever. It was a big night for women in general, between the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Jodie Foster and the wins for Lena Dunham (another multihyphenate, like Fey, it should be noted) and her HBO comedy, Girls. Dunham thanked Fey and Poehler, calling them “inspirations.” And it’s true: Girls gets most often compared to Sex & the City, but without Fey and 30 Rock, it’s possible it might not have existed.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men: Creator Matthew Weiner Shares 10 Facts About Season 6"

Mad Men returns on April 7! I talk with creator Matthew Weiner about what to expect from Season Six of the period drama, from a time jump to Don and Megan’s marriage.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men: Creator Matthew Weiner Shares 10 Facts About Season 6," in which I talk to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about what lies ahead for Don Draper and the staffers of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in Season Six of AMC's Mad Men.

Hold on to your period-appropriate hats: AMC’s Mad Men will return for its sixth season on Sunday, April 7 at 9 p.m. with a two-hour premiere, the network announced today. (The Emmy Award-winning drama will settle into its regular time at 10 p.m. ET/PT the following week, with an episode directed by series star Jon Hamm.)

“To be able to continue exploring the stories of these characters for a sixth season is an amazing opportunity,” said series creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner in a statement. “We love mining this world and look forward to bringing the audience stories that we hope will continue to both surprise and entertain them.”

When we last saw Don Draper (Hamm) and his fellow partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, they were being tested by marital infidelity, objectification, and suicide, to name but a few of the crucibles Weiner and his writing staff put the characters through in Season 5. But the darkness that enveloped Don at the end of the season may not have dissipated just yet.

The Daily Beast caught up with Matthew Weiner yesterday to shed some light on what lies ahead for Don and Megan (Jessica Paré), newly independent Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), and our other favorites. Below are 10 facts, gleaned from The Daily Beast’s phone interview with Weiner, about Season 6.

This will be the second-to-last season of Mad Men.

Weiner, speaking to The Daily Beast yesterday, confirmed that Season 6 will most definitely be Mad Men’s penultimate season, with the show set to wrap after next season.

“I’m going to confirm that,” said Weiner, who added that having an end date helped shape the overall narrative of Season 6 quite a lot.

“I came in with my plan for the season,” he said. “I was like, ‘I want to save that for the last season, I want to save that; I want to wait on that’ and I was pulled aside by Maria and Andre Jacquemetton, my executive producers, who said, ‘Don’t do that. You’ve never done that before. Let’s just use all the story that we have and we’ll deal with it on the other side of it.’ It really helped. Because I don’t want to change—part of it is superstition and part of it is the only way I know how to do it.”

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The Daily Beast: "Parenthood: In Praise of Season 4, Monica Potter, and More"

Following the conclusion of the show’s fourth season, I examine NBC’s underrated Parenthood and offer why television needs a fifth season of this remarkable drama.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Parenthood: In Praise of Season 4, Monica Potter, and More," in which I sum up my feelings about the fourth season of NBC's Parenthood and praise the show's subtlety and bravery.

Dry your eyes: it’s time to celebrate this season of NBC’s Parenthood, not to mourn it.

The show’s fourth season, which concluded Tuesday night, was arguably its best to date, one that captured the emotional highs and lows of family life with bravery, subtlety, and realism. Overall, Season 4 was both somber and uplifting—often at the same time—depicting and playing with the notion of change, as seen through the adults and children of the sprawling Braverman family. Change, as we know, comes in many forms: from the pangs of puberty and the leap into adulthood to the inexorable idea of death, one that hovered over the season.

This was a brilliant 13-episode run on a drama that only gets better with age, one that gave each member of the Braverman clan some substantive and emotional plots to work through, from the cancer diagnosis faced by Kristina (Monica Potter) and the struggle between Julia (Erika Christensen) and adopted son Victor (Xolo Mariduena) to the romantic tug-of-war between Sarah (Lauren Graham), Mark (Jason Ritter), and Hank (Ray Romano), and the tumultuous relationship between Amber (Mae Whitman) and Afghan-war vet Ryan (Matt Lauria).

It is no easy feat to balance the emotional needs of so many characters, but creator Jason Katims and his talented writing staff manage to do just that. Multiple subplots are woven through each episode, resulting in unexpected character configurations and pairings. (Who would have thought that a Crosby/Julia scene would carry such weight, as it did last week?) Yet, despite the presence of a cancer story line, the season never meandered into the territory of the saccharine but lightened any semblance of sentimentality with humor and wit. If you need proof of that, you need look no further than the puberty discussion enacted by Max (Max Burkholder); where other shows would have turned toward the after-school-special approach, Parenthood embraced both Max’s Asperger’s and a frank discussion of the changes the male teenager undergoes during that transformation.

In fact, it’s Kristina and Max’s relationship that yields some of the greatest rewards this season, delivering some stunning scenes between mother and son. Here, the writing staff is wise to depict the slightest movement of Max’s emotional life as something triumphant and huge; a scene in which he asks his ailing mother to teach him how to dance is as huge as a gravity-free space jump.

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The Daily Beast: "Rewind: BBC’s Iconic Political Thriller House of Cards Still Captivates"

Ahead of David Fincher’s American remake of House of Cards, which launches on Netflix in February, I revisit the original British potboiler and find that it still thrusts a steely rapier under the viewer’s skin.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Rewind: BBC’s Iconic Political Thriller House of Cards Still Captivates," in which I reflect upon the legacy and vitality of 1990 British miniseries House of Cards, ahead of Netflix's American remake--premiering Feb 1 and starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Mara, and Robin Wright--from David Fincher and Beau Willimon.

Netflix, the now-ubiquitous digital streaming service, will enter the original programming arena with its upcoming American remake of House of Cards, from writer Beau Willimon (Farragut North) and director/executive producer David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). The series, which launches Feb. 1, stars Kevin Spacey, Kate Mara, and Robin Wright in roles that are now as iconic as the British miniseries itself.

In many ways Netflix picked a stellar property to adapt as their first nonacquired original. The American House of Cards is, of course, based on the 1990 BBC political thriller miniseries of the same name—itself adapted by writer Andrew Davies from Michael Dobbs’s novel—which revolved around the Conservative Party’s chief whip, the Machiavellian Francis Urquhart, played to icy perfection by the late Ian Richardson.

More than 20 years after its release, House of Cards still manages to thrust a steely rapier under the viewer’s skin, its view of the hostile British political maneuverings of Urquhart and his kind both riveting and shocking. The overarching plot is simple: Urquhart—who is part spymaster, part enforcer, and wholly unpredictable and dangerous—is passed over for a cabinet position when his candidate for prime minister rises to power. Frustrated and seething, he sets out to destroy everyone in his path as he launches a chesslike battle to ascend to the highest seat in Her Majesty’s Government. Along the way, Urquhart meets an ambitious young journalist, Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker), and together they help each other achieve their ends, their partnership tinged with a particularly creepy psychosexual tension.

In Britain, House of Cards premiered on Nov. 18, 1990, playing out against the backdrop of the final weeks of Margaret Thatcher’s downfall and the succession of fellow Tory John Major to the seat of prime minister. With a clear sense of premonition, Thatcher’s fall from grace is even dealt with in the narrative. “Nothing lasts forever,” Urquhart says to a framed picture of Maggie Thatcher. “Even the longest and most glittering reign must come to an end someday.” (Even more emphatically, Urquhart—with a roguish smile—turns her picture facedown on his desk.)

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The Daily Beast: "Girls: Season 2 of HBO’s Lena Dunham Comedy Soars"

HBO’s Girls returns for a second season on Sunday night. I review the first four episodes of Season 2 of the Lena Dunham-created comedy, which "captures the quicksilver magic of Dunham at her best."

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Girls: Season 2 of HBO’s Lena Dunham Comedy Soars," in which I review the first four episodes of Season 2 of HBO's Girls, the most polarizing television show of 2012.

The most polarizing show of 2012 was HBO’s Girls, which revolves around the lives of four 20-something women orbiting each other in Brooklyn. The Lena Dunham–created comedy elicited a love-hate relationship with premium cable audiences. You either loved the bravery of the show, its incredible sense of voice and time, and its unrepentant navel-gazing attitude ... or you loathed it.

In its first season, the show received various criticisms of racism, elitism, and, er, hipsterism. The amount of ink devoted to tearing down both Dunham and Girls was shocking to me, particularly as much of it emerged from those who hadn’t actually watched the show or from those who failed to see that Dunham’s Hannah Horvath wasn’t meant to be held up as a paragon of virtue, but rather a flawed, sheltered narcissist whose greatest enemy was herself. The girls of Girls aren’t meant to represent all women, or even all 20-something women in Brooklyn. The show represents a very specific snapshot of a very specific cultural subset existing at this very second in time. As such, it is part anthropological record, part comedy, and part tragedy.

The hotly anticipated second season of Girls, which returns to HBO on Sunday, builds on the strengths of its stellar first season and captures the quicksilver magic of Dunham at her best, with the first four episodes supplying a mighty kick to the heart.

[Warning: Minor spoilers ahead!] Yes, the girls and guys of Girls are back, though their relationships, tested by events at the tail end of Season 1, remain tantalizingly fractured: Hannah is no longer with Adam (Adam Driver), her quirky, conflicted, body-conscious boyfriend, though she is caring for him while he recuperates from his car accident. Immobilized and dependent upon Hannah for everything except sex, their dynamic is a pale reflection of the sparks they kicked off last year. Hannah, meanwhile, is involved with a black Republican played by Community’s Donald Glover, and their sexual chemistry manifests itself in a playful, easy way. His inclusion here seems calculated to dispel the charges of racism leveled against the show, depicting a Brooklyn that is less lily white than the canvas shown in Season 1. But I’m glad to see that Dunham doesn’t make Glover’s Sandy a stereotype: he’s sweet but conservative, easygoing but also as rigid in his political thinking as Hannah is.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Season 3: Julian Fellowes, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, and More"

UPDATED: I talk to Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame and nine cast members (including Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Thomas, Rob James-Collier, and many more) about Season 3 of Downton, which returns to PBS and Masterpiece on Sunday, January 6.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read the updated feature, "Downton Abbey Season 3: Julian Fellowes, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, and More," in which we talk broadly about Season 3 and break down some of the specific arcs from the third season, character by character. (Minor spoilers.)

Downton Abbey viewers are anxiously awaiting Season 3 of the addictive British costume drama—which arrives on Jan. 6 in the U.S., when it returns to PBS’s Masterpiece—searching for televised methadone to tide them over until Downton Abbey’s third season kicks off.

One problem: there isn’t really another show like Downton Abbey on television. Between the exquisite costumes and lavish sets (including real-life Highclere Castle), the now-familiar characters and turbulent plots, Downton Abbey has captured the imagination of a broad range of viewers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Season 3 of Downton Abbey will unfold over roughly two years, but unlike in previous years, Season 3 won’t be structured around historical events like the sinking of the Titanic, the start of World War I, or the Armistice.

“It’s not bookended in that way,” creator Julian Fellowes told The Daily Beast. “One of the reasons for starting with the Titanic is that it’s a piece of shorthand. If you start something with the Titanic going down, everyone in the world knows we’re just before the First World War. It’s symbolic, and you don’t have to waste any scenes on exactly where you are in history. But we don’t need that anymore. It’s really about the personal journeys, in a way, of the characters.”

Those journeys will reflect how the war changed the residents of Downton Abbey, both upstairs and below stairs, in palpable ways, picking up the action shortly after Matthew (Dan Stevens) proposed to Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).

“We go back about three months later,” Fellowes said. “We’ve lost no time at all. They’re still trying to decide how much of their life will survive, how much will go back to normal, and how much has been changed forever. Within the family, there has been certain change. Sybil is married to an Irish rebel chauffeur and living in Dublin, and that’s never going to go back to the way it was.”

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Season 3 Review: A Return to Form"

Downton Abbey is back, and I review the sensational third season—and the highly controversial finale—of the British period drama, which returns to PBS’s Masterpiece on Sunday. WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead!

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey Season 3 Review: A Return to Form," in which I review the third season of PBS's Downton Abbey ahead of its premiere on Sunday evening.

Downton Abbey is back.

For some, that’s incentive enough to tune in to the award-winning British period drama, which returns to PBS’s Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, Jan. 6, for another season of soapy intrigue with the Crawley clan and their servants. Other viewers, who like me were disappointed with last season, will take more convincing. They should take heart: Season 3 of Downton is a return to form for the show, recapturing the dazzling wit and sweeping romance of the now-classic first season.

I was intensely critical of Season 2 of Downton when it aired last year. The sophomore season lacked the deft plotting and nuance of the first year, to say nothing of the disastrous “Patrick Crawley” subplot or the miraculous recovery of paralyzed heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), who nearly leapt from his wheelchair to dance the foxtrot. Such miscues mired the show in histrionic soapiness, upsetting the delicate balance between domestic drama and social change. Downton, after all, functions best when it focuses on small moments—a missing snuffbox, a snow-swept proposal, a knock on a door—not over-the-top plot twists.

Which isn’t to say that Season 3 lacks surprises. Alternately humorous and heartbreaking, Downton’s stunning third season packs several narrative punches into PBS’s seven-week run. Hopes are dashed, losses mount, and the most bitter change comes uninvited to Downton Abbey. That’s to be expected in a serial like this one, where stasis is the enemy of the narrative. Creator Julian Fellowes appears to be aware that the characters must change and grow, and so must their circumstances.

Indeed, Downton’s central conceit, keenly felt this season, seems to be the collision between the traditional and the modern, between those attempting to remain entrenched in the past—such as Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and his ever-vigilant butler, Carson (Jim Carter)—and those looking toward the future. But change always comes at a price, and calamity has a way of forcing drama, after all.

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The Daily Beast: "18 Shows to Watch This Winter"

Stay cozy this New Year: I find the 18 new and returning television shows that will keep you warm this winter, from Girls and Justified to The Staircase, The Americans, and House of Cards.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "18 Shows to Watch This Winter," in which I round up 18 new and returning noteworthy shows that you should be watching between January and March. Some you're looking forward to, some you may not have heard of, and there are a few that you've already drawn a big red circle on the calendar on the day that they return...

Yes, Downton Abbey is back: the beloved British period drama returns to PBS’s Masterpiece for a third season beginning on Jan. 6, but it’s not the only new or noteworthy show heading to television this winter.

Indeed, some of the most intriguing, dynamic, or plain interesting shows are launching in midseason this year, from Fox’s serial killer drama The Following and Sundance Channel’s Jane Campion-created murder mystery Top of the Lake to FX’s Soviet spy period drama The Americans (starring Keri Russell!), Netflix's American remake of political potboiler House of Cards, and the return of both NBC’s subversive comedy Community and HBO’s Girls.

Jace Lacob rounds up 18 new and returning television shows that will help keep you warm during these chilly winter months, from the intriguing to the sensational.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey: My Tea with Mrs. Patmore"

Sipping a cup of Earl Grey, Downton Abbey’s feisty cook spills on the upcoming third season, a potential romance for her character, posing for German Vogue, and more.

"Downton Abbey: My Tea with Mrs. Patmore," in which I sit down for tea with Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol to discuss Season 3—which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece Classic on January 6—and a potential romance for Mrs. Patmore, posing for Bruce Weber, and the Mrs. Patmore doll.

No, Mrs. Patmore cannot cook. It’s a question that is frequently asked of Lesley Nicol, the 59-year-old actress who plays the uppity cook on PBS’s sumptuous costume drama Downton Abbey.

“There’s a thing in the U.K. called Celebrity MasterChef,” Nicol says, sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea at the London Hotel in West Hollywood. “I’ve been asked several times to go on that. I keep saying, ‘No, you have to be at a certain level before you even think about that, and I’m not there at all. When you look really hard, I’m doing a bit of seasoning, but I make sure I don’t do anything that will look really wrong.”

Over a lengthy afternoon tea service, she tells me a story of a disastrous dinner she cooked for her husband, to whom she has been married six years (“He came to me later on in life,” she says), an attempt to make a prawn risotto that backfired magnificently when she opted to substitute arborio for brown rice.

“This is where being a proper cook is an issue,” she says, laughing. “Before he was around, it was quite understood with my friends that if they came for dinner, they would probably have to finish cooking it because it wouldn’t be ready. I haven’t gotten any better.” Still, she says, “when it’s made with love, it tastes good, doesn’t it? The first meal my husband ever made me was a chicken curry. I have never tasted anything so delicious in my life.”

And Mrs. Patmore, it must be said, loves her job. “She cares very much,” says Nicol, perusing a tower of scones and finger sandwiches. “You don’t ever see the dishes very close up, but they are wild and wacky, some of them, particularly this last season because they’ve had a lady come in to create and design them. What they would taste like, I don’t know, but they look amazing.”

Nicol looks little like her character. On a cloudy Los Angeles afternoon, her hair cascades down to her shoulders, and there is not a single trace of the starched uniform of the stately home’s downstairs brigade, or of the corset she endures for hours at a time.

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The Daily Beast: "The 10 Best TV Shows of 2012: Borgen, Girls, Parenthood, Mad Men, and More"

From Borgen to Downton Abbey to Girls, Jace Lacob and Maria Elena Fernandez pick the 10 best TV shows of the year. Warning: may contain spoilers if you are not entirely caught up on the shows discussed here.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature,
"The 10 Best TV Shows of 2012," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer up our individual Top 10 TV Shows lists for 2012. My list, not surprisingly, contains shows like Borgen, Mad Men, The Good Wife, Louie, Parks and Recreation, Shameless, and others. What was on your list this year?

Now is the winter of our (TV) discontent. After a fall season that largely failed to deliver on the promise of new shows—and, in some cases, returning programs as well—it’s time to take a look back at the year in television as a whole, as we try to remove such canceled shows as Partners, The Mob Doctor, and Made in Jersey from our collective memory.


But rather than dwell on the very worst of the year (ABC’s Work It!), let’s celebrate the best of what the medium had to offer us over the last 12 months. Below, our picks for the 10 best shows of 2012, which include a Danish political drama, a sumptuous period drama, a resurrected primetime soap, and a navel-gazing comedy.

A few caveats before proceeding: these are individual lists representing personal opinions; omitting a particular show does not invalidate the rest of the list, nor does including a specific show; and the lists are limited to what aired on U.S. television during the calendar year. Finally, a WARNING: For those of you who aren’t entirely caught up on the shows selected, read on at your own risk—the descriptions contain many spoilers.

He Said: Jace Lacob’s 10 Best
‘Borgen’ (LinkTV)
No other show comes this close to epitomizing the best of television this year as the exquisite Danish political drama Borgen, which depicts the rise to power of Denmark’s first fictional female prime minister, Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen) amid the infighting and back-biting that categorizes partisan politics around the world. As Birgitte sacrifices everything for her position—her marriage, her children, and even her sense of self—her journey from naïve crusader to hardened politician is juxtaposed against that of ambitious journalist Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen). The two women deliver two of the best performances on television of the past decade, reveling in, rather than avoiding, the realistic flaws of their respective characters while overcoming the institutionalized misogyny of their respective spheres. Brash spin doctors (including the great Johan Philip “Pilou” Asbæk as Kasper Juul), venal civil servants, and arrogant tabloid magnates spin in orbit around Birgitte, as Borgen delves into the interlocking worlds of politics and the media. The result is nothing less than riveting, insightful, and heartbreaking, not to mention powerfully original.

‘Girls’ (HBO)
Despite its deeply polarizing nature, the first season of Girls—Lena Dunham’s navel-gazing HBO drama—proved itself every bit as witty, sharp, and biting as the promise exhibited in those early episodes, perfectly capturing the insular world of privileged and underemployed 20-somethings in Brooklyn with astute honesty and self-effacing charm. In Hannah Horvath, Dunham has created a character who is so oblivious to her failings, her egotism, and her flaws that it’s impossible to look away from her—whether she’s eating a cupcake in the bath, getting an STD test, or breaking up with her quirky boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver)—or to not fall in love with her don’t-give-a-damn attitude as she bares her body and her soul, even as the show skewers the elitist sensibilities of Hannah and her friends: flighty Jessa (Jemima Kirke), prim Marnie (Allison Williams), and sheltered Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet). Alternately awkward, tender, funny, and depressing, Girls is more than just Hannah and her sisters; it’s a brilliant portrait of disaffected youth on the delayed brink of adulthood.

‘The Good Wife’ (CBS)
Whether you loved or hated the storyline involving kick-ass legal snoop Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) and her psychotic estranged husband, Nick (Marc Warren), this year on The Good Wife had more than enough to offer: its typically intelligent and insightful analysis of politics, the media, technology, and cultural mores, as viewed through the prism of the legal system and the tumultuous marriage between the title character, Julianna Margulies’s Alicia Florrick, and gubernatorial candidate Peter (Chris Noth). Nathan Lane—appearing as the court-appointed trustee after Lockhart/Gardner finds itself moored in bankruptcy proceedings—has been a welcome addition to the show, sowing seeds of distrust among the partners at the firm during an already shaky time. As always, the show excels at dramatizing the internal struggles within Alicia; as her career has advanced, her sense of morality has grown ever more flexible, and her sense of compromise and sacrifice have been tested at work and at home. The slowly thawing dynamic between Alicia and Kalinda provided a measured exploration of trust issues in the wake of betrayal from a friend, while Will (Josh Charles) had his own fortitude tested by a grand-jury investigation and suspension, and Diane (Christine Baranski) fought to keep the firm afloat. Few shows remain as nuanced and smart as this one, regardless of whether they’re on cable or broadcast television, nor do many offer as much grist for thought as each episode does, along with insight, subtlety, and humor. If last season’s sly and hilarious elevator scene didn’t make you chuckle aloud, you have no soul. The Good Wife, as always, isn’t just good; it’s great.

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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.


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The Daily Beast: "Ben Whishaw, The Hour's British Invader"

Q in Skyfall goes back in time to the 1950s newsroom in Season Two of The Hour, beginning tonight. I explore the range and appeal of talented British actor Ben Whishaw.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The Hour's British Invader," in which I write about the astonishing range of 32-year-old British actor Ben Whishaw, who held his own against Bond as Q in Skyfall and returns to television tonight with Season Two of BBC America's The Hour.

You know Ben Whishaw.

Or rather, you should know precisely who the British actor is, even if he isn’t yet a household name. You may have seen him as doomed poet John Keats in 2009’s Bright Star or as doomed playboy Sebastian Flyte in the remake of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. In this autumn’s Cloud Atlas, he plays five distinct roles, from a classical composer and a record-store clerk to a cabin boy and even a woman. And you definitely saw him in the most recent James Bond flick, Skyfall, in which he plays Q, the youthful quartermaster for Daniel Craig’s aging 007.

Bespectacled and dressed in a cardigan and cravat, the whisper-thin Whishaw epitomizes the casual arrogance and dubious irony of the very young; he’s the brains to Bond’s rough-hewn brawn. Their meeting is a collision of the old and the new, technology versus humanity. Whishaw and Craig share several scenes together, but the most telling is perhaps that set in the National Gallery. As Q and Bond stare at a painting of an old frigate being dragged out to sea, Q tells the supersuave superspy, “I can do more damage on my laptop, sitting in my pajamas, before my first cup of Earl Grey tea, than you can do in a year in the field.”

It’s no surprise that the quote became embraced immediately on Tumblr, where Whishaw has quite a fan presence. In fact, it’s hard to swing a techie’s radio transmitter without hitting a comic strip of Whishaw’s Q or numerous fan pages devoted to the 32-year-old actor whose roles demonstrate not only versatility and raw sentiment—he’s a tousle-haired poster boy for emo actors everywhere—but also a penchant for playing impassioned, ill-fated characters.

Whishaw reprises his role as crusading journalist Freddie Lyon in Season 2 of British period drama The Hour, which launches stateside tonight on BBC America. The first season of the critically beloved drama from creator Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady) found Freddie enmeshed in a love triangle with ambitious producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) and debonair news anchor Hector Madden (Dominic West) as they set out to create an evening news program in ’50s London.

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The Daily Beast: "Dallas Loses Its Schemer: Larry Hagman Dies at 81"

Larry Hagman, best known as the dastardly J.R. Ewing, died Friday at age 81. I explore the indelible mark Hagman left on television and popular culture.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Dallas Loses Its Schemer," in which I offer an obituary and appreciation for the late Dallas actor Larry Hagman, who passed away on Friday at the age of 81.

Actor Larry Hagman, best known for his role as Dallas’s Machiavellian oil baron J.R. Ewing, died Friday at age 81, after complications from cancer.

Hagman’s career spanned over 60 years, and included not only Dallas and its revival series, which launched earlier this year on TNT, but also the seminal 1960s comedy series I Dream of Jeannie, where he played Major Anthony “Tony” Nelson opposite Barbara Eden’s titular character. Hagman had, according to The Hollywood Reporter, filmed six of the new Dallas’s 15 episodes at the time of his death, with the second season scheduled to start on January 28. How the show will incorporate Hagman’s death remains to be seen.

“All of us at TNT are deeply saddened at the news of Larry Hagman’s passing,” said cable network TNT in a prepared statement. “He was a wonderful human being and an extremely gifted actor. We will be forever thankful that a whole new generation of people got to know and appreciate Larry through his performance as J.R. Ewing. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this very difficult time.”

Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1931. His mother, Mary Martin, would go on to become a renowned Broadway actress and his father was an accountant and a district attorney; the two divorced when Hagman was five years old. Hagman served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War and entertained troops in the U.K. and Europe during the conflict, and opted to follow in his mother’s footsteps with a career in acting once he returned to the U.S.

Roles on the stage segued into television work, with his first on-screen appearance coming in 1956 in syndicated cop drama Decoy; he later joined the cast of CBS mystery soap opera The Edge of Night, where he stayed on board for two seasons. But it was his role nine years later on I Dream of Jeannie that established his meteoric career trajectory, with CBS primetime soap Dallas arriving in 1977. And with that role—as manipulative oil scion J.R. Ewing—Hagman further entered the cultural lexicon. He also appeared in such films as Primary Colors, Nixon, and JFK.

Hagman leaves a lasting legacy, not just among Dallas’s devoted viewers in the 1980s, but among a younger generation that discovered J.R. and the Ewings thanks to TNT’s revival series, which picked up with the Ewing clan 20 years after the end of the series. A schemer and a dreamer, Hagman’s J.R. was known for his devilish eyebrows and for his manipulative streak, as well as for amassing both wealth and enemies in equal measure.

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The Daily Beast: "Borgen, The Thick of It, Bond: What to Watch During the Thanksgiving Weekend"

Clear the table, do the dishes, hit the couch—TV is ready for you, with a slew of marathons, miniseries and specials, from Borgen to Bond, from Sherlock to Louie. I offer my take on what to watch on TV and online this weekend.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Borgen, The Thick of It, Bond: What to Watch During the Thanksgiving Weekend," in which I round up some notable television marathons (Borgen! Bond!) as well as selections from Hulu, Netflix, and on linear television, to keep you occupied (or offer you an escape) this holiday weekend.

Thanksgiving isn’t just about gorging yourself on turkey and pumpkin pie--it’s also about getting prostrate on the couch after stuffing yourself … or getting away from your family for a few hours in front of the television.


Fortunately, the television networks have realized that everyone during the long Thanksgiving weekend is in search of escape of some kind, and have gone out of their way to offer a number of marathons during the next few days, from the classic—all Gone With the Wind all the time on AMC!—and the gripping (Borgen) to the tragic (a Here Comes Honey Boo Boo marathon) and the suave (Bond).

But whatever your tastes, The Daily Beast has you covered with a round-up of some of the more interesting, unusual, or compelling programming hitting the airwaves, the Internet, and your Netflix queue over the next few days to sate whatever appetite still remains after the big feast.

Borgen (LinkTV and online at LinkTV.org)

If you haven’t yet fallen under the spell of Danish political thriller Borgen yet, here is the perfect opportunity to watch a marathon of Seasons 1 and 2 as LinkTV will air all 20 episodes of this penetrating and intelligent series over the holiday weekend, from Thursday to Sunday. Revolving around the political, moral, and ideological struggles of Denmark’s first female prime minister, Borgen is hands down the best television show of 2012, and the women at the show’s center—Sidse Babett Knudsen’s sympathetic statsminister Birgitte Nyborg and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen’s ambitious journalist Katrine Fønsmark—deliver two of television’s strongest and most nuanced performances in a show that holds up a microscope to the political and media spheres in Denmark. The result is an unforgettable and insightful drama that will have you forgetting that you’re reading subtitles.

Bonus tip: Don’t worry if you don’t have DirecTV or Dish or if you’re away from your television this weekend: you can watch the episodes online at LinkTV.org for two weeks after the on-air marathon.

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The Daily Beast: "Denmark's Leading Export: Sofie Gråbøl, Star of Forbrydelsen"

Sofie Gråbøl may not be a household name in the U.S., but around the globe she’s now legendary for her performance as Sarah Lund in the Danish television drama Forbrydelsen. At The Daily Beast, I explore Lund’s appeal and the sensational third season of the original The Killing, which premieres on BBC Four in the U.K. on Saturday.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Denmark's Leading Export: Sofie Gråbøl, Star of Forbrydelsen," in which I explore both Sofie Gråbøl and Sarah Lund’s appeal and the gripping tension of Forbrydelsen III.

It is tragic that American viewers have been denied the chance to become obsessed with Forbrydelsen and with the show’s magnetic star, Sofie Gråbøl. The Danish detective drama exemplifies the power of the provocative and globally significant Nordic noir genre, and the show's lead delivers one of television's most haunting performances of the past decade. Gråbøl, 44, has achieved cult status in Britain and abroad for her embodiment of Detective Inspector Sarah Lund, the grim-faced, Faroese sweater-clad cop with a penchant for solving impossible crimes while sacrificing everything else in the process.

Forbrydelsen (literally “The Crime,” but generally translated as The Killing) was the basis for AMC’s short-lived murder-mystery series, which may or may not be resurrected thanks to an assist from Netflix. Outside the United States, however, the original is still going strong, as the enthralling third and likely final season of Forbrydelsen premieres in the United Kingdom this Saturday on BBC Four.

Previous seasons have followed Lund through a devastating sequence of hardships, both personal and professional, the result of outside forces and her own intractable nature. Season 3, which takes place several years since we last saw her, finds the detective’s career on a more solid footing. She has put her past disgrace behind her, and she radiates an unsettling sense of complacency as she prepares to leave the Copenhagen police force for a cushy desk job. “If you lose everything you invest, can you just put everything on the table again the next time?” Gråbøl recently asked in a newspaper interview. “Like most of us when we get older, we tend to think, ‘Let somebody else save the world.’”

But then a young girl is kidnapped—an act of as yet unexplained vengeance—and corpses begin piling up in a grisly (and connected) murder spree. The kidnapping harkens back to the first season, recalling the murder of teenager Nanna Birk Larsen. This time, however, the victim is still alive, and Lund is forced to confront her past mistakes. If she can find the girl and stop the gruesome killings, there’s hope of redemption—or at least amends. An investigation of byzantine complexity leads Lund through the murky waters of the Danish financial sector to the corridors of power, entangling a billionaire financier and his family, an assortment of venal civil servants, and even the Danish prime minister in a web of murder and deceit.

Gråbøl’s Lund isn’t your typical female police detective. In fact, she isn’t a typical female TV character of any kind. She wastes little effort on irrelevancies like her appearance, usually pulling on a Faroe Islands jumper—now iconic thanks to the series—day after day, rather than worrying about her outfit. “It tells of a woman who has so much confidence in herself that she doesn’t have to use her sex to get what she wants,” Gabrol said in an interview last year. “She’s herself.” The knitted sweater is Lund’s uniform, her armor against the world.

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