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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Daily Beast: "The Great Bates Motel Debate: Sex Scenes, Mother Issues & Implausible Twists"

Windy sex scenes! Dumpster diving! Imaginary mommy meltdowns! Or as it says at the site: "A conflicted Jace Lacob and a hooked Anna Klassen debate the merits and flaws of A&E’s Psycho prequel, Bates Motel."

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The Great Bates Motel Debate: Sex Scenes, Mother Issues & Implausible Twists," in which Anna Klassen and I debate the merits and flaws of A&E's Bates Mote, which was recently renewed for a second season and approaches Season One's halfway point tonight.

A&E’s Bates Motel, the Psycho prequel overseen by Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights), hasn’t just attracted an audience—4.5 million viewers tuned into the pilot. It has already been renewed for a second season of Oedipal strife between Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his overbearing mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga), set against the backdrop of a seemingly idyllic Pacific Northwest logging town that hides more than a few secrets.

Sound familiar? The Twin Peaks allusions are very much intentional here, as is the ominous mood lingering over the action, which so far has seen Norma murdering a would-be rapist and covering up the crime, Norman discovering a human smuggling/prostitution ring, and Norma’s other son, Dylan (Max Thieriot), keeping watch over an enormous pot field. Not to mention that a local cop (Mike Vogel) may or may not have an Asian girl chained up in his basement.

As the halfway point of the first season approaches Monday night, The Daily Beast’s Jace Lacob and Anna Klassen debate Bates Motel’s pros and cons, as well as last week’s episode, “Trust Me,” which had both them scratching their heads.

JACE LACOB: I’m so conflicted about Bates Motel. I like it, but I don’t love it. And last week’s episode didn’t resolve my inner turmoil.

ANNA KLASSEN: I disagree. Bates Motel is a cleverly crafted show with complex characters. As we approach Episode 5, we have just begun to touch the surface of Norma and Norman’s relationship, but I am completely hooked and want to see more of their twisted family life unfold.

LACOB: Interesting. For me, Vera Farmiga is by far the best part of the show, but I feel like lately they’ve moved away from exploring the Norman-Norma dynamic. Which is fine, to a certain extent, as I’m intrigued by the Twin Peaks aspect of the show: that its own way White Pine Bay, Ore., is in concealing a dark underbelly of drugs, murder, and human trafficking. That’s interesting to me in the same way the denizens of Twin Peaks reflected the darker impulses of society. But we’ve gotten away from that too, as the show focuses more on Norman and Bradley, whose tumble in the sheets this week seemed really, really creepy to me. For one, Freddie Highmore looks like he’s 12 years old, but also it was just so...odd.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men Season Premiere: Matthew Weiner on the ‘The Doorway,' and More"

Hawaii, hell, and heart attacks! Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner discusses Sunday’s sixth-season opener (‘The Doorway’), Don’s quest for paradise, Betty’s transformation, and more. Warning: spoilers abound!

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men Season Premiere: Matthew Weiner on the ‘The Doorway,' and More," in which I talk to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the sixth season opener ("The Doorway") and some of the themes, questions, and characters within.

“Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”

Mad Men’s sixth season started with a bang, with the season opener (”The Doorway”) offering us a look into the psyche of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), flitting between a doorman’s near brush with death, the weight of mortality, and the bliss of paradise, in this case the hot, white light of Hawaii. Throughout the two-hour opener, a jumping-off point for issues of life and death, characters took on complex examinations of identity and perception in an installment that managed to be lyrical and darkly existential.

The Daily Beast spoke to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who is currently directing the season finale, to discuss Don’s quest for peace and his relationship with Megan (Jessica Paré), the transformation of Betty Francis (January Jones), the new role of Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), that bizarre rape joke, and more. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

The episode begins with Jonesy (Ray Abruzzo) suffering a heart attack, then shifts to Hawaii, where Don doesn’t speak aloud for eight minutes. What was behind your decision to open the season this way?

The idea was that it opens up with this heart attack, and its point of view is that Don is dead and that he is in some kind of state of paradise or maybe hell, or wherever you go—limbo, purgatory. I wanted to show him experiencing life around him and trying to get the mood of what paradise is, what Hawaii is. The idea was that you don’t know what state he’s in. It’s not mystery for mystery’s sake. It’s supposed to create a mood, actually paying attention to the ocean and the people having the party, and Megan with all of her joy.

The whole point of the first episode—and I’m calling it the first episode, those two hours together—is a lot about is how he’s seen by the outside world, and how we all are seen by the outside world, but particularly him and Betty. You approach him from the outside, and you slowly get into his mindset as you watch him. But you’ve got to have someone like Jon Hamm, who can hold your attention when he’s not talking.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men Returns: A Recap of Season Five"

Can’t remember what happened to Don, Peggy, and Joan? Ahead of its sixth season premiere on Sunday, I bring you up to speed on what happened last season on AMC’s Mad Men. Plus, read our review of the Season Six premiere.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men Returns: A Recap of Season Five," in which I round up all of the important plot points of Season Five of Mad Men in order to get you ready for Sunday's premiere.

Season Six of Mad Men begins Sunday evening at 9 p.m. with a stellar two-hour premiere, 10 long months since we last traveled back in time with AMC’s devastatingly elegant period drama.

In that time, your brain may have erased precious details about what happened to Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in the dentist’s chair, whether he and “Zou Bisou Bisou” chanteuse Megan (Jessica Paré) repaired their marriage or ended it, and just what Joan (Christina Hendricks) did in order to secure herself a seat at the partners’ table. What happened to Lane Pryce (Jared Harris)? Did Betty (January Jones) have cancer? Why isn’t Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) working at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce anymore? What happened to Sally (Kiernan Shipka) at the museum?

Can’t remember the details of Season Five? Read on:

Don Draper (Jon Hamm)

Don has married his former secretary, Megan, to whom he proposed after a trip with the kids to Disneyland at the end of Season Four. Megan now works as a copywriter at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and Don seems happy to come to work in a way he didn’t before.

Newly relocated to a fabulous Manhattan apartment, Don and Megan have more of a spark than Don and Betty had. At a party, Megan serenades Don with a sexually charged rendition of “Zou Bisou Bisou” in front of his coworkers, something that makes him uncomfortable. They argue. The following day, as she angrily cleans up from the party, they engage in a sex game.

Don and Megan take a trip together, but their marriage hits the skids along the way. The two have a terrible row about orange sherbet, and Don leaves Megan in a Howard Johnson parking lot. He later has a sinking feeling, frantically calling the office in an effort to track her down. Don discovers Megan at home; he kicks down the door and menacingly chases her around the apartment, throwing her to the ground in their living room. His words? “I thought I lost you."

Megan single-handedly saves the Heinz account, but lets Don take the credit for the pitch. Her lack of enthusiasm is the precursor to a larger confession: she wants to quit her job and pursue acting again. Don nearly steps into an open elevator shaft at work, a brush with death that leaves him reeling.

Don spends an afternoon with Joan, test-driving a Jaguar and drinking together in a bar, reminiscing about the past. Arriving home late and drunk, Don is stunned when Megan angrily throws his dinner against the wall. The two lead increasingly separate lives. Megan lands a callback for a role in a play in Boston, which leads to yet another row between the two. They make up, but it’s clear that fissures are forming in their relationship.

Don has a "hot tooth" with which he is avoiding a confrontation. When he finally goes to see a dentist, he learns that he has an abscess: the tooth is rotten, threatening to overtake his jaw. In the dentist’s chair, he has a vision of his dead brother, Adam (Jay Paulson), a ghost whose presence occurs throughout the final episode.

Megan wants Don to help her snag an audition for a shoe commercial. Don vacillates but ultimately helps Megan, realizing that her failure will be his responsibility. On the commercial’s lavish set, she tells Don that she loves him, and they kiss, an emblem of their love set against a false façade. As he leaves her on the brightly lit set of the commercial—where she is playing Beauty of Beauty and the Beast—he is surrounded by the darkness of the studio, one that echoes the gloom within him. Don is then shown at a low-lit bar, where he's asked, "Are you alone?"

Roger Sterling (John Slattery)

Roger is still married to Jane (Peyton List), though their passion has clearly evaporated, as seen from their sparring at Don and Megan’s party. Don is forced to hire an African-American secretary, Dawn Chambers (Teyonah Parris), after Roger takes out an ad in a newspaper—stating that they are an “equal opportunity” employer—as a joke against rival firm Y&R. When several applicants show up, Lane is forced to carve out funds from their budget to support one new position… so that the firm isn’t itself a recipient of angry protests, thanks to Roger’s “joke.” Later, Roger instructs Peggy to hire a Jewish copywriter, Michael Ginsberg (Ben Feldman), because having Jews and African-Americans makes SCDP seem more “modern.”

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The Daily Beast: "Arrested Development Finally Gets a Release Date"


Netflix has finally announced a launch date for Season 4 of Arrested Development, the beloved cult comedy which the streaming platform has brought back to life.

Over at The Daily Beast, I've got a brief post up, "Arrested Development Finally Gets a Release Date," about the fact that Netflix has finally announced the launch of Season Four of Arrested Development. (Thank god.)

Back up the stair car, there’s no need to be blue: Netflix has finally announced a return date for Arrested Development.

Mitch Hurwitz’s oddball comedy, which aired on Fox between 2003 and 2006 and revolved around the Bluth clan of Orange County, was resurrected last year by the streaming video provider, which announced today that it will release the fourth season of Arrested Development to subscribers on Sunday, May 26.

(That’s right, you can mark your calendars now: May 26 will be the day that the Internet will break in half.)

All 15 episodes of Arrested Development will be available to stream on the same day, beginning at 12:01 a.m. PT. The launch follows the rollout pattern established by the platform’s first original series, House of Cards, which launched with all 13 episodes in February, and that of its upcoming Eli Roth horror thriller, Hemlock Grove. Previous reports had the series launching with 14 episodes, but Netflix today confirmed a total order of 15 installments, a significant increase from the 10-episode order it gave the show in December. Each episode will unfold from a different character’s perspective, with several plotlines overlapping, giving the series—already known for inside jokes, callbacks, and formalizing what became known as the TiVo effect—even more of an interlocking puzzle feel.

Netflix had previously hedged its bets when it came to announcing a release date for Season 4 of Arrested Development; the May 26 date will allow the show to remain eligible for Emmy Awards consideration, which means that Netflix will likely be launching massive Emmys campaigns for this and House of Cards come the summer.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men Season 6 Review: Triumphant, Lyrical, and Way Existential"

Mad Men’s Don Draper returns for his penultimate season on AMC Sunday—and he’s as down in the dumps as ever. I write about the dark mood hovering over the show’s brilliant sixth season.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men Season 6 Review: Triumphant, Lyrical, and Way Existential," in which I review the fantastic sixth season premiere of AMC's Mad Men, which returns on Sunday at 9 p.m. for its penultimate season: "Don isn’t so much a person as a reflection, a shadow, the wet ring left on a bar by a glass of Scotch."

Spoilers are funny things.

It’s tricky enough to write about a show without delving into the plot mechanics, and even more so when you can’t even touch upon certain aspects of the plot in even a cursory way. But that’s always been the case with AMC’s Mad Men, which returns for its sixth—and penultimate—season on Sunday at 9 p.m.

Creator Matthew Weiner wants to ensure that even the most quotidian of details about the plot remain concealed. Members of the press who received an advance copy of the two-hour season premiere were instructed not to reveal several elements about the new season, a detailed list of plot points that are considered verboten. Those restrictions make writing about Mad Men’s beautiful and bravura Season 6 opener (“The Doorway”)—gorgeously written by Weiner and directed by Scott Hornbacher—a minefield of potential missteps, but fortunately not entirely impossible to navigate.

The title is a clue to what is at play within Mad Men’s ambitious sixth season. Doorways are, of course, both a means of entrance and exit, and how you see this portal depends a lot on your state of mind at the time. Are we coming or going? Or, in an existential sense, aren’t we all always coming and going, the world forever on that inexorable loop of birth and death? Issues of mortality carry over from the brilliant (if somewhat polarizing) fifth season, which saw all manner of death imagery swirl around Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and the staffers at Madison Avenue ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This emphasis on the transitory nature of life—embodied in last season’s suicide of Lane Pryce (Jared Harris)—looms still over Season 6.

If we are forever on that trajectory—from the womb to the grave—what matters most is perhaps how we spend the time we have, and what we make of ourselves. But for Don Draper, the quick-change chameleon ad man, identity is something fluid and fraught. An admonition to “be yourself” results in nothing but confusion. Who is Don, really? It’s a question that has been posed time and time again throughout the first five seasons of Mad Men, and one that he often answers through the relationships with the women in his life: first wife Betty (January Jones), daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka), and his latest wife, actress Megan (Jessica Paré). Don isn’t so much a person as a reflection, a shadow, the wet ring left on a bar by a glass of Scotch.

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The Daily Beast: "Chopped: Why I’m Obsessed with Food Network’s Reality Competition Show"

Food Network’s Chopped returns for its fifteenth season. I write about why sea cucumbers, speculoos, and lacinato kale--on the surface, ingredients which many of us have never heard of--matter.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Chopped: Why I’m Obsessed with Food Network’s Reality Competition Show," in which I I write about my insatiable obsession with Food Network's Chopped, and how the competition show brings a deeper and richer awareness of food and culinary diversity to the public at large.

When the Food Network, the culinary-themed cable network available in approximately 99 million American homes and 150 countries around the globe, launched Chopped in 2009, no one could have imagined the eventual impact the show would have.

And by no one, I mean me.

I was initially less than enthusiastic about Chopped—a culinary competition show featuring four chefs squaring off by cooking an appetizer, entrée, and dessert from various mystery basket ingredients—during the early part of its run. I complained about the under-lit sets, the under-enthusiastic judges, the under-utilization of knowledgeable foodie host Ted Allen. I compared it unfavorably to Bravo’s Top Chef, from which it had appeared to borrow its overall conceit.

Over time, Chopped course-corrected: the set now no longer looks like it’s perpetually twilight, and the judges—a selection of well-known and well-respected chefs and restaurateurs—are now very much engaged and invested in the action in front of them. As for host Ted Allen … well, I always wish the show’s producers would give him something to eat, or at least offer him a chair.

I came back to Chopped a few years ago to discover the show’s transformation from staid and predictably over-produced competition show into something more intriguing and rewarding: a show that celebrated the competitive nature of chefs and brought a level of awareness—of technique, of ingredients, of culinary passion and poise—to a wider audience than ever before.

Years ago, Food Network’s primetime lineup was overflowing with how-to cooking programs. In the late 1990s, you couldn’t flip on the channel without seeing Emeril Lagasse or Ming Tsai or Bobby Flay preparing a dish, step by step, for the viewers. There was even a live call-in program, Cooking Live Primetime, hosted by Sara Moulton, which often featured sommeliers and wine experts in the mix. It was approachable, accessible, and most definitely focused on viewers who understood food and its preparation.

Over time, the network subtly changed its remit; in more recent years, it is stocked with various culinary competition shows, programming that places the emphasis more on competition (whether it be cupcakes, elaborate cakes, chocolate structures, new program hosts, etc.) than the food, per se. It wasn’t necessarily food television for foodies, but rather escapist fare for people who might derive more enjoyment from watching people cook than cooking themselves. (A spinoff network, the Cooking Channel, was created in 2010 to service the latter group.)

Chopped, however, occupies a unique strata within the world of Food Network. It might, like its similarly themed brethren (the terrifying Sweet Genius, for example), be a reality competition show in the vein of Top Chef, but Chopped manages to be absolutely riveting television that educates, informs, and thrills at the same time.

Four chefs enter the kitchen; one is crowned the Chopped Champion at the end, having gone through three courses and no less than a dozen mystery ingredients, ranging from the mundane (leftover pizza) to the sublime (abalone). The clock is relentless as they churn out dish after dish, being judged on creativity, taste, and presentation. Egos flare, tempers simmer over, and occasionally true culinary genius and ingenuity is glimpsed.

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The Daily Beast: "Game of Thrones Season 3 for Dummies"

HBO's fantasy series Game of Thrones returns Sunday for a third season. Can’t remember the difference between a wight and a white walker? Jace Lacob's glossary explains all! (Plus, read our advance review of Season 3.)

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Game of Thrones Season 3 for Dummies," the third in an ongoing series that each year brings you up to speed (and reminds you of what you may have forgotten) about the people, places, and recurring motifs from the immersive HBO drama (and George R. R. Martin's massive A Song of Ice and Fire novel series), which returns Sunday, March 31.

In its riveting second season, Game of Thrones—based on George R.R. Martin’s behemoth A Song of Ice and Fire series and adapted by executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss—brought the war for the Iron Throne to a staggering climax with the amazing Battle of the Blackwater, a hugely dramatic set piece that found the naval forces of Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) attacking King’s Landing, only to be cast back into the sea, thanks to some ingenuity from Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage).

The highly anticipated third season of HBO’s Game of Thrones begins on Sunday at 9 p.m., kicking off another season of treachery, romance, conspiracies, dragons and, um, snowy blue-eyed zombie creatures. If you haven’t read Martin’s hefty novels, the world that the show inhabits can be an intimidating place without the maps, family trees and lineages contained within the novels’ vast appendices. And Season 3 of Game of Thrones is no exception, introducing a slew of new characters, settings and plots, each requiring a whole new knowledge base.

As we did for Season 1 and Season 2, The Daily Beast delves deep into the first four episodes of Game of Thrones Season 3, Martin’s third novel (A Storm of Swords) and beyond to bring you up to speed on everything you need to know, from Astapor to Winterfell. Consider it both a refresher on events from the second season and a constant source of information and background to come back to as you watch the third season.

WARNING: A note on spoilers: I discuss many plot details from Season 2 below. But I do not spoil specifics from Season 3, unless you count knowing settings and themes and characters as spoilers. In which case, spoiler alerts!

Astapor: A city set upon Slaver’s Bay, and a nexus for a thriving slave trade and a huge economic gap between the masters and their servants. It is home to the training grounds for a rare breed of slave-warriors. (See: Unsullied, The.)

“Bear and the Maiden Fair, The”: A traditional, if exceedingly ribald, song that is quite popular throughout Westeros. One of its verses: “A bear there was, a bear, a bear!/All black and brown, and covered with hair!/The bear! The bear!/Oh, come, they said, oh come to the fair!/The fair? Said he, but I'm a bear!/All black, and brown, and covered with hair!” (It is also reportedly the title of the seventh episode of Season 3 of Game of Thrones.)

Blackfish, The: The nickname of Ser Brynden Tully (Clive Russell), the uncle of Lady Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) and Lady Lysa Arryn (Kate Dickie). A Tully by birth, he has taken a black fish as his personal sigil, an inside joke that plays upon the Tully’s fish sigil.

Brotherhood Without Banners, The: A motley group of rebels and outlaws who were once part of a team sent by Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) to capture Gregor Clegane (Ian Whyte), a.k.a. The Mountain. But after the deaths of Ned and Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), they found themselves adrift without someone to whom they could pledge their loyalty. (Hence, no banners.) Now, they claim allegiance to no individual faction in the War of Five Kings, instead keeping the peace by their own vigilante methods. (Can also refer to real-life fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novel series.)

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Newsweek: "Here Be Dragons: Season 3 of HBO's Game of Thrones Reviewed"

Based on a 1,000-page novel, the third season of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ is the best—and most complex—one we’ve seen yet.

In this week's issue of Newsweek (and online at The Daily Beast), you can read my latest feature, "Here Be Dragons: Season 3 of HBO's Game of Thrones Reviewed," in which I review the first four episodes of Season 3 of HBO's Game of Thrones, which might just be the best season yet.

When it launched in 2011, HBO’s fantasy drama Game of Thrones quickly became part of the global collective consciousness, an often brutally violent and staggeringly beautiful series that offered viewers an immersive television experience.

Based on the gargantuan bestselling novel series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones depicts the bloody and vicious battle for control of the Iron Throne in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a fictional world that bears a resemblance to medieval Europe ... if Europe had once been the home of magic, dragons, and a long-slumbering ancient evil. However, unlike most fantasy stories, Game of Thrones presents a complex morality that is far more nuanced than simply the forces of good vs. evil. Here, good men are killed while the wicked are rewarded; innocence suffers in the face of depravity; and everyone has a personal agenda to advance, a knife hidden behind the most beatific of smiles.

Season 3 of Game of Thrones kicks off on HBO on March 31 with 10 episodes that are based on Martin’s perhaps most beloved novel, A Storm of Swords, a hefty 1,000-page tome that is by far the most complicated and intricate of the five books in the series to date. It is a sweeping saga that flits between dozens of narrators and across continents—from the sultry heat of Slaver’s Bay to the raw iciness beyond the Wall—as alliances are formed and broken, lives taken, and conspiracies hatched.

ranslating such a monumental work of fiction to the screen is no easy feat, and executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have done an incredible job thus far in balancing the needs of diehard fans, the demands of the story, and a sense of accessibility to those viewers who don’t detect the nuances between the Dothraki and High Valyrian tongues. Adaptation, particularly of an ongoing series, is a fluid, mercurial thing, and the show’s executive producers have proven largely capable of shifting content, paring it down, and inventing new material in order to make the narrative fit within the confines of a weekly television series.

Season 3, which will depict roughly the first half of Martin’s A Storm of Swords, will present Benioff and Weiss with their greatest challenge yet, as both sides attempt to pick up the pieces after the last season’s climactic Battle of the Blackwater. The first four episodes of the new season, provided to critics ahead of its premiere, demonstrate a canny ability to fuse the literary with the visual, resulting in an exhilarating and magnificent thing of beauty, particularly in those scenes that make full use of locations as diverse as Iceland, Croatia, and Morocco.

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The Daily Beast: "Joelle Carter's Ava Crowder: The Most Badass Woman on TV"

She’s wielded a skillet, a rifle, and—in last night’s episode of Justified—nearly ignited a man. Joelle Carter talks to me about the evolution of Ava Crowder, empowerment, and last night's explosive episode of the FX drama.

One choice quote: “We wanted to see them on top of a mountain before the fall,” said Carter.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The Most Badass Woman on TV," in which I sit down with Joelle Carter to talk about playing Ava Crowder, empowerment, and more.

FX’s Justified, based on characters created by novelist Elmore Leonard, revolves around criminals and lawmen who collide in a never-ending bloody battle. Unfolding largely in the backwoods of modern-day Harlan County, Kentucky, the show is grounded in a rough-and-tumble man’s world, one containing a very specific code of honor among the hairy-chested set. It’s a show about how we often stumble upon the path of darkness, how violence defines our worldview, how a gun can represent the law or criminality.

But it’s also a show that features one of the strongest women on television in Ava Crowder, one-time battered wife-turned outlaw who has emerged as a force to be reckoned with over the course of the last four seasons. As magnificently played by Joelle Carter in a tightrope performance, she’s a character who engages the viewer’s sympathies while indulging in all sorts of bad behavior: whacking uppity men with skillets, slaying vicious pimps, punching whores, and in Tuesday’s episode of Justified (“Decoy”), nearly setting a man on fire with little more than a cigarette lighter and a snifter of high-proof booze.

Ava’s behavior here is, well, absolutely justified. Her very much NSFW scene is fueled by a desire, both on the part of Ava and the audience, to see Mike O’Malley’s Nicky Augustine pay for treating the Harlan businesswoman as nothing more than a common whore. As Ava uses her sexuality—just one of the many weapons in her deadly arsenal—to get closer to Nicky, the audience cheers her on, wanting Nicky go up in flames, to be punished for his awful misogyny, and for reducing Ava to a simple girl who turns tricks.

Carter, 40, said that the scene is intended to be a “slow burn,” a taut sequence where Ava waits to discover if Boyd (Walton Goggins) has been killed, only to turn her attentions on the man jeopardizing her lover. “Ava reacts before she thinks, sometimes,” she said, laughing.

In person, Carter barely resembles Ava Crowder. Perched on a chair in a corner of a Beverly Hills bar on an unseasonably dreary Los Angeles day, her blonde hair is cut short and her eyebrows dyed for a futuristic short film that she’s producing and starring in. Gone is Ava’s Kentucky drawl, replaced with a rounded accent that could be from Anywhere, U.S.A. (“It’s always in my repertoire,” she said. “When I get drunk or lazy or something, you’ll hear the twang.”)

Last night’s explosive scene displays Ava at a high-wattage intensity, a dangerous cocktail of boiling rage and violent, sometimes unpredictable, self-empowerment.

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Breaks Records"

Season 3 of beloved British costume drama Downton Abbey has broken a number of ratings records, becoming the highest-rated PBS drama of all time, according to PBS. Plus, Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton reacts to the day-and-date broadcast issue.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey Breaks Records," in which I talk to Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton about the same-day broadcast issue and whether the show will be affected by the departure of Dan Stevens.

24 million viewers tuned in to watch the third season of Downton Abbey.

Just think about that for a second: 24 million viewers. In an age of increasingly fragmented television viewing, those numbers are even more staggering when you compare those figures next to say, a recent episode of NBC's Smash, which garnered roughly a tenth of that audience. Those numbers are huge for broadcast and cable, but considering that they're associated with a costume drama airing on a public broadcaster, even the Dowager Countess might choke on her tea upon seeing them.

In fact, Season 3 of Downton Abbey, which wrapped up its run last month, broke all records among households, according to finalized national ratings obtained from PBS, making Downton the highest-rated PBS drama of all time.

The third season of the British costume drama—which airs Stateside as part of Masterpiece Classic—had a season average rating of 7.7 and an average audience of 11.5 million across the seven week run. Compared to the second season, those ratings are up a stunning 64 and 65 percent respectively. Even more shocking: the overall cumulative ratings for Season 3 of Downton Abbey—that 24 million figure—show an increase of 7 million viewers from the sophomore season.

In fact, the controversial third season finale of Downton, which aired on February 17, was the highest-rated show on any network that night, posting a 8.1 national rating and an average audience of 12.3 million, numbers that placed it well above any other show on broadcast or cable that evening.

Online streams of the show share a similar story: On the PBS Video Portal and PBS mobile apps, Downton Abbey video content was viewed 13.9 million times since January 1, with full Season 3 episodes comprising the lion's share at 9.7 million views, an increase of 2.1 million streams from Season 2.

"We are so pleased with the loyalty and support U.S. audiences have shown Downton Abbey throughout this season," said Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton in a statement. "We look forward to more great drama and new challenges for the Crawley family in Season 4."

Reached via email for a comment, Eaton said that the success of Downton Abbey couldn't be reduced down to just one element. "I wouldn't pin this kind of success on just one thing,” she wrote in an email to The Daily Beast on Monday. “It is a combination of word of mouth, great reviews and massive press coverage, social media chatter, and award recognition. This is an audience that we've been building up over the last three seasons."

Still, said Eaton, no one at PBS or Masterpiece could have predicted that the show would become the highest rated PBS drama of all time: "No. None of us did. A good solid hit was in our sights, but one for the record books? No. Lucky us!"


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

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

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

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

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

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The Daily Beast: "Gone Girl: Inside ‘Top of the Lake,’ Jane Campion’s Haunting New Thriller"

A missing girl. A shocking crime. A town full of secrets. Welcome to Top of the Lake, from creators Jane Campion and Gerard Lee.

At the Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Gone Girl: Inside ‘Top of the Lake,’ Jane Campion’s Haunting New Thriller," for which I sit down with Jane Campion (The Piano), Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men), Holly Hunter (Saving Grace), and Gerard Lee (Sweetie) to discuss Top of the Lake, Campion's haunting and spellbinding new thriller, which launches on Monday evening on the Sundance Channel.

Jane Campion is missing.

The Oscar-nominated director of such films as The Piano and Bright Star is in Los Angeles for a quick stop before the Sundance Film Festival, where her seven-part mystery drama, Top of the Lake, will be screened in its entirety over one day. We’re scheduled to meet for a drink at the Polo Lounge in the historic Beverly Hills Hotel, but Campion has vanished from the hotel, and publicists can’t locate her.

Considering the subject matter of her gripping Sundance Channel limited series—a missing girl and the effort to locate her by a dogged female detective running from her own past—Campion’s disappearance seems almost too fitting. When the 58-year-old auteur does turn up, along with co-creator Gerard Lee, she’s full of heartfelt apologies, her unexpectedly cheerful nature creating an instant intimacy. We settle into a booth in a corner of the restaurant and order a round of gin and tonics, chatting as though we’ve been friends for years.

Top of the Lake, which begins March 18, revolves around the disappearance of Tui (Jacqueline Joe), a pregnant 12-year-old girl, in a remote area of New Zealand and the detective (Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss) tasked with locating her and unmasking the man who impregnated her. It begins with Tui walking into a frigid lake, only to be found by a concerned teacher. After the authorities and her father, Matt Mitcham (Peter Mullan), a bloodthirsty local crime lord, discover that her odd behavior is due to the fact that she is pregnant, Tui vanishes. Moss’s Detective Robin Griffin, a local girl who escaped from Laketop to Sydney years ago, returns to care for her cancer-stricken mother, only to be roped into the investigation. Robin discovers that in trying to find Tui, she must delve deep into her own history: she too is running from something dark and dangerous.

“Robin’s history is kind of a crime scene,” says Campion. “She has to solve it for herself, and she has to become aware of it first. She’s in denial ... and Tui is triggering it, her disappearance mirroring something for her.” It’s a classic novel structure, argues Lee. “The character, by following the case, goes into herself and her own psyche and her own past,” he says. “They’ve got to solve that before they can solve this thing.”

As directed by Campion, Top of the Lake is an atmospheric and moody piece, both haunted and haunting, a gritty look at what lies beneath the surface of a seemingly idyllic lakeside town. As in many of Campion’s films, the inner lives of the characters are as rugged and wild as the landscape itself, and Top of the Lake is no exception. Numerous story strands—Robin’s dark past, the venomous Mitcham and his ne’er-do-well sons, a New Age women’s camp run by the mysterious guru GJ (Holly Hunter)—all coalesce into a taut and provocative thriller about damage, vengeance, and escape.

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The Daily Beast: "Girls Gets Graphic"

This week’s episode of Girls graphically depicted the results of a male character’s climax. Why the scene has outraged some, and why it’s a watershed moment for the HBO comedy.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Girls Gets Graphic," in which I write about Girls, viewer responses, graphic content, and why THAT scene from this week's episode was a watershed moment for the Lena Dunham comedy.

HBO’s Girls has always been a lightning rod for critical reaction, whether it be allegations of nepotism, privilege, or racism. It’s impossible to imagine a week going by without someone, somewhere, having an adverse reaction to the Lena Dunham-created comedy.

And that’s okay: art is meant to trigger emotional responses. I’d far rather watch a television show that stirred up feelings within its viewers—that challenged them to watch something complicated and often uncomfortable—than a show whose main goal was simply to please the most people, across all demographic swaths, week after week.

Girls is the most definitely the former rather than the latter. It’s a show that revels in its own complexity, in the often-unlikable natures of its characters, in the comedy of the awkward that follows. This week’s episode (“On All Fours”)—written by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner and directed by Dunham—expectedly led to all sorts of responses from its viewers, many of which was of the outraged variety.

Joe Flint at the Los Angeles Times yesterday penned a reaction to this week’s episode of Girls, focusing in particular on the graphic sex scene between Adam (Adam Driver) and his new girlfriend, Natalia (Shiri Appleby), which was challenging to watch: after making her crawl to his bedroom on all fours, he proceeded to engage in some disconnected, rough sex with her and then finished himself off on her chest.

“But Sunday's episode was graphic even for those fans used to seeing creator and star Lena Dunham's no-holds-barred approach to story-telling,” wrote Flint. “This was not a first for cable TV, or the movies. An episode of HBO's Sex and the City showed fluid but played it for laughs, as did a well-known scene featuring Cameron Diaz in the comedy There's Something About Mary.”

“However, this time it was a jarring end to a violent and hard-to-watch scene,” he continued. “Even theatrical movies with sexually explicit material and adult pay-per-view channels typically steer clear of such displays, especially if it's not for comic relief."

Flint is right in saying that this was not “a first” for cable television. But he (and an HBO spokeswoman quoted in the story) seem to have a short memory, as HBO’s short-lived drama Tell Me You Love Me featured an even more graphic scene involving “fluids” that was most definitely not played for comic relief.

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The Daily Beast: "Revenge: What Went Wrong with ABC’s Once-Daring Thriller?"

Last year, Revenge was a thrill-a-minute vengeance fantasy but now, in its second season, it’s a convoluted mess. My take on the show’s head-scratching fall from grace.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Revenge: What Went Wrong with ABC’s Once-Daring Thriller?" In it, I ponder just what went wrong with ABC's Revenge that caused its shocking second-season drop in quality.

What a difference a year makes, particularly in the life of a serialized television narrative.

At this time last year, ABC’s Revenge—Mike Kelley’s modern-day retelling of Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, set among the Hamptons polo set—was a dazzling vengeance fantasy, reveling in its dark nature and the even darker journey of Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp), a woman scorned who was out for payback against the wealthy clan who destroyed her life and shattered her family.

It functioned on several levels and tapped into the zeitgeist of 2012; it could be seen (as I had written) as “not only winking noir … [but also as] a retribution fantasy for the 99 percent,” as Emily looked to take down the conspirators who ruined her life and set up her father (James Tupper) as a fall guy for a terrorist-funded financial scheme that resulted in the downing of a passenger plane. Her vast fortune—acquired from a tech mogul, Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann), whom her father had helped when he was starting out—was used in service of her holy mission of vengeance.

And each week, Revenge found Emily immolating her sense of morality as she concocted yet another grandiose revenge scheme, caring little about the collateral damage she was causing around her. She was entrancing, as I wrote last year: “Emily—criminal mastermind, computer hacker, cat burglar, and willing arsonist, not to mention a ronin in Giuseppe Zanotti stilettos—recalls Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander as much as she does Dumas’s Edmond Dantès.”

Where did that character disappear to? Season 2 of Revenge has seemed, in comparison to its deftly (and magnificently) plotted first season, a convoluted mess. Rather than further the central conceit—Emily’s quest for revenge against the Grayson clan, headed by femme fatale Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) and robber baron Conrad (Henry Czerny)—the show has meandered into all manner of narrative trouble: plots about a broader conspiracy, psychotic mothers, vengeance buddies (see: Barry Sloane’s Aiden), computer programs, kidnapped sisters, waterfront shakedowns, lazy double-crossings, and a ruthless terrorist organization called The Initiative, whose operative (Wendy Crewson) appears to do little besides be chauffeured around New York all day long.

In the first season, Stowe’s Victoria provided a menacing nemesis for Emily, but her role has been usurped by The Initiative, which is more evil and ruthless than even Victoria. But that’s a problem: by making Victoria the puppet of people even worse than her, it’s taken away much of her power. Additionally, Crewson’s Helen Crowley proved to be not half as interesting, complex, or scary as Victoria Grayson. The balance of power didn’t just shift in Season 2, it fell right off the scales.

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The Daily Beast: "Five Facts About the New Doctor Who Companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman"

Her two previous Doctor Who characters all look alike... and they've all died. Jace Lacob rounds up five facts about new Doctor Who companion Jenna-Louise Coleman.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Five Facts About the New Doctor Who Companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman," in which I round up five facts about the new Doctor Who companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman, who joins Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor when the show returns to BBC America and BBC One on March 30.

Clara... who?

The Doctor—the centuries old time-traveler whose 11th incarnation is played by Matt Smith—has had his fair share of companions over the last 50 years, but the Time Lord is about to get yet another in the form of 26-year-old British actress Jenna-Louise Coleman, who steps into the TARDIS officially when Doctor Who's seventh season returns for its back half on March 30.

Coleman has turned up on Doctor Who twice already in the past year, playing very different characters with the same appearance and a similar name. There she is in "Asylum of the Daleks" as Oswin Oswald, the starship Alaska's junior entertainment manager whose soul is trapped in the body of a souffle-loving killing machine. There she is again as Clara Oswin Oswald in 2012's Christmas Special, "The Snowmen," playing a 19th century governess who gets caught up in one of the Doctor's plots. (It involves killer snow, memories, Richard E. Grant, and the disembodied voice of Sir Ian McKellen. Don't ask.)

Coleman's characters have a tendency to die, but the last sighting of Coleman—wandering around the graveyard where her 19th century doppelganger is bured in the 21st century—points towards an undeniable truth: they are all, somehow, the same woman, echoing across time and space.

Coleman is no stranger to television, even if American audiences aren't that familiar with the actress, who has appeared in ITV/ABC's Titanic miniseries (written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes), Captain America: The First Avenger, and Stephen Poliakoff's Jazz Age period drama Dancing on the Edge. But for those who want to know more about the actress who is taking over as the Doctor's official companion, a role last played Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill's Amy and Rory, below are five facts about Jenna-Louise Coleman.

1. One of her first television roles was on the long-running British soap Emmerdale, where she played Jasmine, one half of the show's "groundbreakingly ‘normal’ lesbian couple," alternately a troubled student, barmaid, and journalist. And a murderer, as it turns out. The character was written off the show when Jasmine was sent to prison for manslaughter after she bludgeoned her would-be rapist to death with a chair leg and then dumped the body in a lake. "As a first job I'm grateful for it," she told The Guardian earlier this year. "Though by the end I was quite restless. It was a brilliant experience. But I was ready to leave when I did."

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The Daily Beast: "At the Bottom of The Staircase"

The story of crime novelist Michael Peterson, convicted of murdering his wife Kathleen in 2001, takes yet another strange turn as he gets his shot at an appeal and a possible overturn of his guilty verdict, captured in the two-part sequel to the riveting documentary The Staircase. Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade offers his take on Peterson’s story and the possibility of justice finally being served.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read a feature that I had a hand in bringing to life, "At the Bottom of The Staircase," in which Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, the director of Sundance's addictive documentary series The Staircase, writes about Michael Peterson, the owl theory, justice, and more.

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade is an Academy Award–winning documentary filmmaker and the director of the riveting 2004 documentary The Staircase (a.k.a. Soupçons), currently airing on Sundance Channel. The eight-hour cinema verité series recounts the serpentine trial of crime novelist Michael Peterson, accused of murdering his wife Kathleen, whose body was discovered at the bottom of a narrow staircase in their Durham, North Carolina, home in 2001. The Staircase returns with two new episodes, entitled “The Staircase: Last Chance,” beginning March 4 on Sundance Channel, and follows Peterson’s latest appeal attempt. What follows is a first-person piece written by de Lestrade for The Daily Beast.

When I finally completed The Staircase in September 2004, I felt as emotionally drained as David Rudolf did at the end of the film. I told myself that I would stop making documentary films—just as David had vowed that the Peterson trial would be his last criminal-defense case. It was wrenching to watch as Michael Peterson, bound at the wrists, was swept into the car that would take him to prison for the rest of his life. I couldn’t bear Martha and Margaret’s endless tears. It was harrowing to try to comfort a family shattered by a tragedy that seemed so senseless.

Since 2004 I have directed three fictional films, each as thematically and formally distinct as the next. Regardless, I never forgot the characters from The Staircase. The sheer force of their reality kept that family's memory at the fore of my mind. I visited Michael Peterson four times in prison, and the mystery of Kathleen Peterson's death haunts me to this day.

I knew that this was the only story that could lure me back into documentary filmmaking. It had to wait eight years. Eight years Michael Peterson spent in a cell that he shared with 27 other prisoners. Eight years of rejected appeals and crushed hopes. Eight years I waited for fate to bring a new twist to this extraordinary saga.

Maybe this most recent turn of events will give the story an epilogue—and me some peace of mind.

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The Daily Beast: "ABC Family’s Switched at Birth ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest"

Almost 25 years to the day after the student protest at Gallaudet University began in 1988, ABC Family’s ‘Switched at Birth’ features a storyline about a deaf student uprising in an episode, airing March 4, that’s told almost entirely in American Sign Language.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Do Not Adjust Your TV: ABC Family’s Switched at Birth ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest," in which I offer praise of ABC Family's extraordinary Switched at Birth, which presents a nearly all-ASL episode on Monday, a landmark installment that connects both to Deaf culture/history and to the seminal 1988 Gallaudet student protests (DPN). Not to be missed.

A generation has passed since the weeklong act of protest known as Deaf President Now, and its influence on deaf culture is likely a distant memory for the hearing community. That may change, however, thanks to a pivotal and landmark episode of ABC Family’s Switched at Birth, which will present a television first: an installment that is enacted nearly entirely in American Sign Language (ASL).

For the deaf community, the Gallaudet University students’ uprising was a metaphorical crossing of the Rubicon, just as vital and significant as Stonewall or Rosa Parks. It was a momentous act of revolution that has remained a critical cultural and social touchstone, reaffirming deaf identity, culture, and pride.

In 1988, Gallaudet, the world’s first higher educational institution for the deaf and hard of hearing, had just announced as its seventh president yet another hearing appointee. Elizabeth Zinser, assistant chancellor at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, had been the only hearing candidate for the job. Jane Bassett Spilman—chairwoman of Gallaudet’s board of trustees, largely made up of hearing individuals—announced Zinser’s appointment and defended the board’s decision by allegedly saying, “The deaf are not yet ready to function in the hearing world.”

Furious, deaf and hard of hearing students barricaded Gallaudet’s gates, refusing to leave and denying anyone entry until a deaf person was appointed as university president. Effigies of both women were burned during Deaf President Now (DPN), which received national coverage in the media.

In the end, Zinser would resign from her position, the university’s first deaf president, I. King Jordan, would be appointed after 124 years, and more than 2,500 protesters would converge on Capitol Hill, holding banners that read, “We still have a dream!”

Today, outside the deaf community, pioneers and crusaders like I. King Jordan; Laurent Clerc, America’s first deaf teacher; and Jean-Ferdinand Berthier, a deaf intellectual and political organizer who wrote about deaf culture and history, are sadly all but unknown.

But the ASL episode of Switched at Birth—titled, fittingly, “Uprising,” and airing March 4—will bring fresh attention to the Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet, recalling a time of deaf activism that continues to inspire a new generation of students today.

For those not familiar with Switched at Birth, the show, created by Lizzy Weiss and now in its second season, charts the collision of cultures, identities, ethnicities, and classes when two teenage girls (Vanessa Marano’s Bay Kennish and Katie Leclerc’s Daphne Vasquez) discover that they were switched at birth and their respective parents convene in a blended family to become reacquainted with their biological children.

The drama, which won the Television Critics Association award for youth programming last year, isn’t just about the drama that ensues after the switch is discovered. It is a deft and sophisticated look at the way we communicate and express ourselves; whether through ASL, street art, or music. Switched at Birth is also the most nuanced and complex depiction of deaf culture and individuals ever to air on television. It’s all the more astounding that what unfolds before us—intelligent, emotionally resonant, and even profound—is packaged in what is nominally a teen drama.

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The Daily Beast: "Southland: Television’s Most Underrated Drama"

TNT’s gripping police drama Southland is back for a fifth season, but hardly anyone’s tuning in. My take on television’s most criminally overlooked show.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Southland: Television’s Most Underrated Drama," in which I take a look at a superlative yet underrated drama: Southland, which returned last week for a fifth season.

Why aren’t more of you watching Southland?

Created by Ann Biderman (NYPD Blue) and executive-produced by John Wells (ER), TNT’s uncompromising cop drama returned for a fifth season last week to only 1.16 million viewers, down 34 percent from last year. In a television season that has given us dreck like Zero Hour, Mob Doctor, and Do No Harm, Southland should be a hit.

That it’s not is a shame, as Southland remains one of the most morally complex and insightful dramas on television today. It deftly juggles multiple crimes and incidents, as well as the private lives of these LAPD officers and detectives, played by an extraordinary cast that includes Ben McKenzie, Regina King, Shawn Hatosy, and Michael Cudlitz.

Southland shines at showing these officers as both heroes and flawed individuals whose psychological issues are often magnified by carrying a badge and gun. The battles they face—pregnancy, drug addiction, custody, the death of a loved one, a fallen comrade—are often just as dangerous as gunfire in the line of duty.

Season 5 of Southland continues the slow moral erosion of Ben Sherman (McKenzie), who began the series as a naïve rookie officer and who slowly has been transformed into a decorated, hardened cop whose motivations are often now less than altruistic. McKenzie, best known for his role as Ryan Atwood on Fox’s The O.C., carries himself completely differently than he did when Southland began back in 2009, the weight of what Officer Sherman has seen and experienced etched on his forehead in visible lines. As an actor, the maturity does McKenzie good; he’s cast off the “pretty” label that plagues many former teen drama actors, exchanging his adolescence for a tempered adulthood.

When Ben asks his barber to cut off his blond locks in the season premiere, it isn’t just a physical transformation for the character but a deeper psychological one. It is another manifestation of Ben’s colder, harder persona and his unexpected lack of empathy, one that manifests itself in surprising ways. When, in last week’s episode (“Hats and Bats”), he takes a phone call from his sister while standing feet away from an elderly woman whose sister has been brutally murdered in the home they shared, it’s a shock to Sammy Bryant (Hatosy), yet more evidence of his poster boy partner’s disregard for anyone but himself.

Is it that protecting the innocent—being granted powers and responsibilities beyond mere ordinary folk—sets you apart from humanity? Does power, in its insidious way, corrupt even the most noble of hearts?

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The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey Crashes" (Or My Thoughts on the Controversial Season Finale)

My take on the frustrating finale of Downton Abbey, which ended its spectacular third season with heartbreak. WARNING: Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen Sunday’s episode.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Downton Abbey: Why Last Night’s Season Finale Has Fans Seeing Red," in which I offer my thoughts about the controversial Season 3 finale, which aired last night on PBS's Masterpiece Classic.

He had to die.

There was no other way for Dan Steven’s Matthew Crawley to leave Downton Abbey other than in a body bag. As the heir to the grand estate and the title, it would have been impossible for sensible, responsible Matthew to shirk his responsibilities and head to America to start a career on the New York stage, or—to borrow from Monarch of the Glen, a Scottish Highlands-set drama that featured Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes as part of its cast—to go climb a mountain somewhere.

No, Matthew Crawley was not only wedded to Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) but to the great house itself, and there was no getting around the fact that, in order to accommodate actor Dan Steven’s desire to leave the show, Matthew had to be killed off in some fashion.

It’s the means in which Matthew was unceremoniously dispatched that I take some umbrage with, however. I raised this point in a vague fashion in my advance review of Season 3 of Downton Abbey back in January, giving the season a glowing recommendation while criticizing the heavy-handed finale.

After a season that was particularly top-heavy with death—the gutting demise of beloved Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay)—and disappointment, Matthew’s death threatens to topple the entire show with its melodramatic weight. And, let’s be honest, the minute that Lady Mary gave birth to a son, ensuring the continuation of the dynasty and a rightful succession (lest we be plunged right back into another entail drama like Season 1), Matthew was a goner. He had served his purpose, ensuring that the Crawley line would continue and that Downton Abbey—which he had absolutely and completely saved by dragging it and Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) into the 20th century—would not only remain in the family, but also turn a profit.

Matthew was, in essence, a stud bull. His only purpose was to father a son. With that act completed and Downton saved, what was Matthew’s future importance within the narrative? Other than potential squabbles with Mary—serving again to prove how headstrong she is—where would the drama have come from? His plots were tied up way too neatly for him to survive, in other words.

The rabid fans of Downton Abbey wouldn’t accept another actor playing the dashing and modern Matthew, nor would they have accepted a flimsy excuse for why Matthew had decamped to other climes. But what I found frustrating was how Fellowes orchestrated his demise, having Matthew run off the road by an errant milk truck after joyfully greeting his baby boy for the first time. It was maudlin and too predictable, especially compared to the way in which Sybil had just been sent out of the world a few episodes earlier. Sybil’s death rocked both the audience and the show itself, a brutal reminder of how far medicine and childbirth have come in the last 100 years and also how wealth and privilege don’t always insulate families from loss and harm.

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