BuzzFeed: "Why Season 5 Of Parenthood Is The Perfect Jumping On Point"

The season opener of NBC’s 300-hanky drama is everything you want it to be: joyful, uplifting, and emotional. But, for those of you who have missed out on television’s most underrated show, this episode offers the perfect opportunity to get hooked. Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Why Season 5 Of Parenthood Is The Perfect Jumping On Point," in which I review the fifth season opener of NBC's Parenthood, which will satisfy longtime fans of this remarkable show while also providing the perfect access point for new viewers.

It’s no surprise that the fifth season opener of Parenthood — which airs Thursday, September 26 on NBC — generates some tears. Parenthood, overseen by Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights) and revolving around the sprawling Braverman clan of Berkeley, California, is now virtually synonymous with emotional catharsis, after all.

As I stand on the precipice of my own impending parenthood, it’s the show that compels me to confront my own feelings on a weekly basis, realistically and perfectly capturing the highs and lows of American familial life, rendering each moment, whether it be the heartbreak of first love or the familiarity of old lovers, as something tenuous and all-too-brief.

In fact, if you haven’t been watching Parenthood, however, you’ve missed out on some of the very best writing and acting on television today, a true ensemble of adults and children who imbue their characters with such nuance that it’s often difficult to remember that the Bravermans aren’t real people with real lives. In an era of Scandal, Game of Thrones, and Homeland — collectively, Big Twist Television — the subtlety of this emotionally resonant drama is too often overlooked in favor of more overtly dramatic fare. Which is a mistake: Parenthood might be subtle but it’s also brutal, packing an emotional wallop in each installment that has millions of people reaching for the Kleenex, whether it’s a beautifully wrought moment of nostalgia, pain, or beatific joy.

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "25 Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 4"

The cast and crew spill some details about what’s coming for the Crawleys and their servants. Julian Fellowes’ British period drama returns to ITV in September in the U.K. and to PBS’ Masterpiece on Jan. 5 in the U.S. Warning: minor spoilers ahead!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "25 Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 4," in which I sit down with executive producer Gareth Neame and cast members Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Phyllis Logan, and Joanne Froggatt to glean some details about what's going on in Season 4 of Downton Abbey.

When Downton Abbey returns with its fourth season, it’s February 1922 and six months will have passed since the death of heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) — who perished after driving off the road shortly after the birth of his son, George — and the Crawley household is still in a state of mourning. But, fortunately, the mourning period won’t last all season, for life must go on for Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and the other members of her well-heeled aristocratic clan.
“Series 4 brings in humor, drama, grief, romance, backbiting between characters, and underhand happenings,” series star Joanne Froggatt — who plays lady’s maid Anna Bates — told BuzzFeed. “It’s got everything in there.”

Season 4 will also have to reassure the audience after the shocking deaths of not one, but two beloved characters, which came on the heels of the horrors of World War I and the Spanish flu in the second season. The show’s executive producer Gareth Neame said Season 4 contained the “spirit of rebirth,” both for the Crawleys and for the Julian Fellowes-created British period drama itself. “Clearly, there’s a change of direction,” said Neame, speaking to BuzzFeed earlier this week. “In Mary’s life particularly, because she is so much a central figure in the show and Mary and Matthew were so central. When we rejoin the show, several months have passed, just as several months have passed in real life for the audience.”

So what lies ahead in the fourth season of Downton Abbey? BuzzFeed spoke with Neame as well as cast members Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Joanne Froggatt, and Phyllis Logan to glean some secrets about what will happen in the halls of Downton.

1. When Season 4 begins, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is in a fragile state.

“Since Matthew’s death, Mary is really in such a living death at this point,” Neame told BuzzFeed. “She has completely given up on life and one of the central thrusts of the new season is really the rebirth of Mary and the way that her family and all the staff encourage her to turn back to life and find a new reason to carry on… As a beautiful, highly eligible young widow and mother of a baby son, there is a huge amount of potential of new stories for her.”

It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by many cast members as well. “At the start of Series 4, Mary is in a place of trapped grief,” Froggatt said. “She can’t bring herself back into the present. She’s just very closed off in her own pain. And so Anna is walking a bit of a tightrope with Mary to start off, because she sees that but, for the sake of her son George, she needs to come back into the present and start interacting with her child and not closing herself off from the world. She has to start to move forward in a way. It’s very difficult for Anna because she can only really hint at that to Lady Mary; she’s still within the constraints of being her servant and not allowed to overstep the mark.”

Dockery herself sees Matthew’s death as regressing Mary in many ways. “She’s reverted to that very cold exterior that she had in Series 1 and she says at one point that she’s not sure who she’s most in mourning for: Matthew, or the person that she was when she was with him,” Dockery told BuzzFeed. “That saddens her even more because she’s lost who she was; he brought out that sensitive, vulnerable side to her, the much more caring and loving side, and now it’s shattered. She had everything at the end of Series 3: she finally got her man, she gave birth to a son, perfectly wrapped up the legacy of the Granthams, and then she didn’t even realize that… her life had been turned upside down.”

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Just As Awesome As You Suspected"

Marvel’s cinematic universe gets a television tie-in as the Joss Whedon-led spinoff — the pilot episode of which ABC screened for critics earlier this week — launches on September 24.

Over at BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Just As Awesome As You Suspected," in which I offer my first impressions of ABC's pilot for Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Agent Coulson lives!

Well, sort of, anyway, if the sensational pilot episode of ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — a bit of a mouthful, not to mention a clutch of extra periods — is any indication. While Marvel’s studio bosses are keeping mum about the truth behind the revelation that Clark Gregg’s Coulson, who was last seen on the receiving end of a vengeful Asgardian god’s pointy stick in The Avengers, firmly under wraps, longtime fans of Marvel Comics can pretty much figure out what’s going on here. (Cough, LMD, cough.)

But that’s really more than okay, because the Agent Coulson plot is just one of several at play within Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., created by Joss Whedon (who directs the pilot episode), Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen. It masterfully blends together the high stakes action, quivering emotion, and deft humor we’ve come to expect from Joss and Co. The latter element is perhaps the most significant, because the show doesn’t live in the shadows all of the time; while there is more than enough death and destruction within the pilot episode, there is also a lot of genuinely funny beats and some snappy banter to satisfy any Whedon fan craving that delicate interplay of serious, soulful, and sarcastic.

However, the pilot for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which revolves around the team’s mission to track down the mystery man played by former Angel mainstay J. August Richards, does feature its share of tough moral dilemmas. Perhaps most wisely, it also depicts the high-flying adventures of this motley group as exciting and bracing. It does, however, skirt the issue of whether a powerful espionage agency — so far above the common man that it floats in the sky aboard a helicarrier — engaged in tracking down unregistered “supers” are truly “the good guys.”

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Broadchurch: Olivia Colman Is Britain’s 'Finest Export'"

The BAFTA-winning actress stars opposite David Tennant in BBC America’s spellbinding murder mystery Broadchurch. She talks about jumping from comedy to drama, Peep Show, working with David Tennant and Matt Smith, and more.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Broadchurch: Olivia Colman Is Britain’s 'Finest Export,'" in which I interview the incomparable Olivia Colman, who stars in the sensational British murder mystery Broadchurch — which heads Stateside to BBC America on Wednesday evening — about Peep Show, David Tennant, ricocheting between comedy and drama, and more.

Olivia Colman is late to our interview.

A nervous publicist explains that the star of Broadchurch, which plunged the U.K. into a full-blown obsession when it aired earlier this year, is making her way on foot to our location, deep within the caverns of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. (Colman is slated to appear to next day on a panel for BBC America at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.) When Colman does turn up, she’s barefoot, clutching a pair of wickedly high-heeled Louboutins in her arms and apologizing for her tardiness.
Apparently, the BAFTA winner — who stars opposite David Tennant in BBC America’s murder mystery Broadchurch, which begins Wednesday, August 7 (it aired earlier this year to huge ratings on ITV in the U.K.), and can be seen in everything from Tyrannosaur to Peep Show — can do comedy and drama well, but finds walking in heels a real challenge. (It may be her rare flaw, in fact.) Hugs, however, are something she excels at. Colman and Doctor Who star Matt Smith embrace briefly as she passes by him, shoes in tow; she appeared in Smith’s very first Doctor Who episode (“The Eleventh Hour”).

“She’s amazing,” Smith tells me. “She’s great fun. Especially when you go and have a beer with her. She’s a riot.” And no one, I say, can cry like her. “Yeah, no one! And as a comedy actress as well, she’s incredible. She’s one of our finest exports.”

Colman is, in fact, a cottage industry unto herself, turning out highly nuanced performances from both ends of the comedy/drama divide. The Telegraph called her “the next Judi Dench.” Meryl Streep referred to her as “divinely gifted.” But Colman doesn’t wear those accolades comfortably. Bring them up and she laughs uneasily.

“It all seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? I did rewind the Meryl bit quite a few times,” Colman says, shifting in her chair. “That was amazing. I don’t know. It’s lovely and I’m aware that I’m lucky and there are many, many people who can do what I do. I’ve just been given an opportunity to do it, and I’m very grateful. It might all dry up. I’m making hay.”

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Peter Capaldi Named As The New Star Of Doctor Who"

Yep, it's true. After much speculation, BBC has finally named Number Twelve. Peter Capaldi will take over as as the Doctor from Matt Smith, who will depart the role in this year’s Christmas Special.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest post, "Peter Capaldi Named As The New Star Of Doctor Who," about the casting of Peter Capaldi as Number Twelve.

The TARDIS is getting a new inhabitant in the form of 55-year-old veteran actor Peter Capaldi.
After weeks of speculation (and much interest from London bookies), BBC finally announced on Sunday just who will be taking over as the Time Lord at the center of long-running British science fiction drama Doctor Who once current series star Matt Smith leaves in December’s Christmas Special.

“The decision is made and the time has come to reveal who’s taking over the TARDIS,” executive producer and head writer Steven Moffat had teased ahead of the broadcast. “For the last of the Time Lords, the clock is striking twelve.”
The news of Capaldi being cast as the Doctor was announced on a live BBC One special, Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, which lifted the shroud of secrecy surrounding the highly anticipated casting news. The live special featured live and pre-recorded appearances from Smith, Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor), and Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), as well as Bernard Cribbins and former companions Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Anneke Wills (Polly), Janet Fielding (Tegan), and Bonnie Langford (Mel). Asked for three words to describe the new Doctor, Moffat said, “Different from Matt.”

Capaldi is most definitely different to Smith — at least in age, as like Smith, he’s male and white. (For those hoping that the Doctor would regenerate into a woman, you’ll have to wait. It won’t be happening on Moffat’s watch, as he oddly made a joke about it not happening anytime soon.)

Capaldi walked out on stage (during what appeared to be a Time Tunnel-like laser light show) to much fanfare from the audience. “It’s so wonderful to not keep this secret any longer, but it has been absolutely fantastic in its own way,” said Capaldi. “So many wonderful things have happened. For a long time, I couldn’t tell my daughter, who would be looking on the internet and seeing that so-so should be Doctor Who and so-so should be Doctor Who and they never mentioned me.”

As for preparing for the role, Capaldi said that it was a bit of a challenge, though he has been a huge fan of the Time Lord for most of his life.

“It was quite hard because, even though I’m a lifelong Doctor Who fan, I haven’t played the Doctor since I was nine on the playground,” joked Capaldi, who said that he missed the call from his agent with the news of his casting (he was filming BBC’s Three Musketeers in Prague). “She rang me up and said, ‘Hello, Doctor!’ and I just started laughing and I’ve been laughing ever since.”

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "The Doctor Is In: Matt Smith On Leaving Doctor Who, A Female Doctor, And More"

The 30-year-old actor will depart cult British sci-fi drama Doctor Who after this year’s Christmas Special. Here's what he told BuzzFeed about his decision to leave, the possibility of a female Doctor, stealing socks, and more.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest story, "The Doctor Is In: Matt Smith On Leaving Doctor Who, A Female Doctor, And More," in which I sit down with Doctor Who star Matt Smith to discuss his decision to leave the British science fiction drama, the possibility of a female Doctor, and what's next for him.

Matt Smith is wearing bright turquoise socks. The 30-year-old star of Doctor Who is lolling around on a leather couch deep within the cavernous confines of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, a day before he’s set to appear on a panel celebrating the 50th anniversary of the British science fiction drama at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.

When I draw attention to his socks (they coincidentally match the shirt I’m wearing), Smith proudly draws up his trouser leg to take a closer look. “They’re a similar color to your shirt!” he says, enthusiastically in a fashion not unlike the Doctor himself. “I always steal a pair of socks on every photo shoot I do.” He pauses. “It’s my thing.”

Smith looks drastically different from his on-screen persona as the Doctor, having transformed himself to play a tough guy in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, How to Catch a Monster, which will be Smith’s first appearance after he wraps up his tenure on Doctor Who later this year. There’s the 50th anniversary special airing November 23rd (on BBC One in the U.K. and BBC America in the U.S.) and then the Christmas Special, where the Doctor will regenerate into… Well, who knows who he’ll become yet? Neither Smith nor executive producer Steven Moffat are giving us any clues about which actor (or actress?) might step into the role and play Number Twelve. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation between Smith and BuzzFeed.

How liberating is it to leave behind that Doctor Who coif and the bowties?

MS: I’ve got to be honest, it is quite liberating. Although I’m putting Miracle-Gro on it because I need to get it back for September to go and shoot the regeneration [scene]. But it is freeing, shaving it off. Walking round at Comic-Con, people didn’t recognize me as much. Just generally, people recognize me much less, and that’s quite nice as well, because you can be more anonymous.

It helps when you’re walking around Comic-Con wearing a Bart Simpson mask. Was that surreal, walking around surrounded by some of your biggest fans?

MS: I went up to the BBC America booth and I tried to talk to people, but I put on an American accent. I was like, “Hey, how’s it going, man? I like your TARDIS thing,” and whatever and no one wanted to talk to me! There was one girl in particular who had a backpack on with Tom Baker-y straps like a scarf. And I was really trying to talk to her and she was just not interested.

At what point did you know that it was time to move on from Doctor Who?

MS: It’s something that I was considering for a while. It’s one of those jobs where there’s never a right time, because part of you just wants to do it forever. It’s such wonderful storytelling and it’s the most wonderful character and it’s the most wonderful cast and crew, and so much about it is right. I think you have to keep challenging yourself and keep challenging the show. For the show, it’s the right time and it will re-galvanize it. The show will get bigger and better, and I’ll become a fan and look back on my time and just go, “I’ve had the most wonderful journey.”
What was the conversation like that you had with Steven Moffat about your decision?
MS: To be honest with you, it’s, that’s something that I’d like to keep private, because it’s a private conversation and Steven is a dear friend of mine. It was something that we talked about a while ago as well, in rough terms. In my head I just knew that, after the 50th anniversary, I’d look at retiring the bow tie, as it were.

But Steven was supportive, I imagine.

MS: Yeah, yeah, he was. But obviously as well, it’s one of those things. It wasn’t easy for both of us because we’ve worked together for three years, and creatively and personally, we’re close. Part of me would have liked to have continued and finished the journey with him, but also, for me, I just felt like it was time for a change of lifestyle.

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Why You Need To Stop What You’re Doing And Watch Orange Is The New Black"

Netflix’s latest is one of the year’s best offerings on any platform. Why Jenji Kohan’s gripping prison drama makes for essential, addictive viewing.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Why You Need To Stop What You’re Doing And Watch Orange Is The New Black," in which I review Netflix's latest original series, one of the year's finest television offerings.

The year’s best television series have so far emerged from some very unlikely places, whether it’s the searing Sundance Channel drama Rectify, BBC America’s upcoming gut-wrenching murder mystery Broadchurch, or Netflix’s superlative prison drama Orange Is the New Black, from Weeds creator, Jenji Kohan. (That two of these shows deal with issues of crime and punishment — and specifically imprisonment — is not surprising, given our societal preoccupations at the moment, though these weighty issues are handled extremely differently within Rectify and Orange.)

Orange Is the New Black, released by the streaming platform under its now standard pattern, which incentivizes binge watching, is the first Netflix show that truly warrants such obsessive speed viewing. The important choice you have to make is whether you want to burn through the 13-episode first season in a weekend (comedian Patton Oswalt said of the show, “Now I know how mid-70’s NYC heroin addicts felt.”) or space them out over a few weeks. But regardless of which viewing method you employ, what is certain is that you will fall under the spell of Orange fast and hard. It’s the type of television show that comes around rarely these days, one that exerts an almost gravitational pull on the viewer, so authentic and funny and poignant and tragic that it’s impossible to look away from the screen. Or, indeed, to forget about the well drawn characters — carefully and exquisitely crafted from different races and ages — that exist within the drab walls of this rundown prison environment.

The reaction to Orange Is the New Black — based on the memoir by Piper Kerman — has been intense, from among both viewers and critics. But its place of origin is not the thing that is most surprising about the show. Orange, after all, is a show that features a primarily female cast — made up of mostly unknown actors, with a few exceptions — and a protagonist in Taylor Schilling’s Piper Chapman. She is often selfish and unlikeable, but she provides an entry to a world that (I hope) few of its viewers will ever see: inside a New York women’s prison.

Prison in this case is a microcosm for the outside world, a place of tribes and alliances, of enmity and secret assignations. It is a world of extreme harshness and yet also of unexpected beauty, where a small act of kindness can seem like an enormous thing. Piper, the sort of naïve hipster who makes artisanal bath products for a living and who loves to tell anyone who will listen that her products are carried in Barney’s, is instantly out of her depth. She’s a newcomer to an incredibly rigid system that doesn’t allow for pushback and which, in an almost Victorian sense, rewards those who know their place in the machinery. That Piper — who once carried a suitcase full of drug money for her then-girlfriend, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) — has voluntarily surrendered, choosing to relinquish her freedom, makes her initially an object of curiosity among her prison mates and of scorn.

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

BuzzFeed: "Clueless Comes of Age"

When Amy Heckerling set out to make a modern day retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, few imagined that the director would create a new classic and one of the most quoted films ever. The Alicia Silverstone comedy turns 18 years old today, but, let’s be honest, Clueless is timeless.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my first feature for the site, "Clueless Comes of Age," in which I write about Clueless turning 18 years old today, which is horrifying on so many levels.

Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, inspired by the winking spirit of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma, was released in theaters 18 years ago today, which means that it has officially reached adulthood. For a movie about the vapidity of adolescence, the fact that nearly two decades have come and gone since Clueless first hit theaters cuts through me like a knife.

I was nearly 18 years old when the Alicia Silverstone film came out, and I saw it on opening weekend, a hot July night in 1995, the summer before I went to college. I don’t think anyone anticipated that the film would become a sleeper hit (it grossed $11 million on its opening weekend, way ahead of estimates), nor that it would go on to spawn a lexicon of its own — with its “Barneys” and “Bettys,” the use of “As if!” as a viable rejoinder to any argument — but for those of us who discovered the film in those days, it was like a bright light was being shined directly into the inner chambers of our hearts.

Clueless, first and foremost, was smart. It may have traded Regency-era England for 1990s Beverly Hills, but it managed to retain the spark of both Austen’s titular heroine and the flintiness of the novel’s romantic comedy plot, which presents naïve Emma Woodhouse as a self-made Cupid who is, in actuality, a selfish meddler who needs to learn what love really is, even as she plays at making couples out of those around her. A few broken hearts and a sudden realization — that she loves her romantic sparring partner, Mr. Knightley — later, and Emma is both humbled and bowled over by love. She is transformed by the experience, and her romantic adventure mirrors her psychological development. Emma moves into adulthood, and so too does Austen’s “gentle reader” in a way.

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

The Daily Beast: "Fall-Winter TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2013–14’s New Shows"

Summer TV got you in the doldrums? See what’s coming up with my and Kevin Fallon’s first impressions of 30-plus broadcast network pilots, from Resurrection and Believe to Ironside and Dads.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my last story for the site (yes, you read that correctly!), entitled, "Fall-Winter TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2013–14’s New Shows," in which Kevin Fallon and I offer our first impressions of 40 or so broadcast network pilots coming to television next season.

Your summer vacation may have involved lounging by the pool or traveling to Europe, but we’ve spent the first few months of hot weather sorting through the broadcast-network pilots for nearly 40 new scripted shows that will likely air next season. (A caveat: the networks have been known to yank a few before they even make it on the air.) We’ve come out the other side more or less unscathed and can now offer our first takes on the dramas and comedies that are headed to the fall and midseason schedules of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and the CW.

Every year the networks present their usual takes on the familiar doctor-lawyer-cop tropes, and this year is no exception. But there are also a few bright spots. Supernatural thrillers Resurrection and Believe are pretty damn engaging. Lottery-winner drama Lucky 7 is surprisingly alluring. And there are quite a few comedies—Brooklyn Nine-Nine, About a Boy, Trophy Wife, and even (surprisingly) CBS’s Mom—that actually make us want to watch another episode or 10.

So what did we think? First, a few more caveats: (1) our opinions should be considered “first impressions” of the pilots that were made available by the broadcast networks and not reviews. (2) All pilots—from music and dialogue to casting, etc.—are subject to change, so what airs next season may be drastically different from what we saw. (3) We reserve the right to change our initial opinions upon seeing final review copies of these pilots—not to mention a few more episodes. (4) Not all the fall and midseason pilots were sent out by the networks: ABC opted not to send out the pilot for its highly anticipated superhero espionage drama Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or those for Mind Games, Mixology, and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland; NBC didn’t send out Crossbones, Dracula, Undateable, or Chicago PD, to name four; and CBS isn’t letting us see Reckless or Friends With Better Lives just yet, while it picked up Bad Teacher to series after the upfronts. (Quite a few pilots weren’t available to press this year.)

ABC

Back in the Game (Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.)

Log line: A former All-Star softball player, smarting from a recent divorce, moves back in with her curmudgeonly dad and her young son and ends up coaching her son’s misfit Little League team.

Cast: Maggie Lawson, James Caan, Lenora Crichlow, Ben Koldyke, Cooper Roth, Griffin Gluck, J.J. Totah, Kennedy Waite.

Jace Lacob: While watching this, I kept thinking to myself that the grumpy, trigger-happy dad should be played by James Caan. What’s that, you say? The dad IS played by James Caan? Oh. It seems that even Caan tries too hard to play a blue-collar James Caan type called the Cannon, and the results are creaky and stiff. The boozy British mother, played by Lenora Crichlow (Being Human)—and her dynamic with Maggie Lawson’s Terry—is a rare highlight in this otherwise drab, lackluster comedy pilot, in which nearly every single joke fails to connect with the bat.

Kevin Fallon: There are elements here that should work. James Caan should be able to play a curmudgeonly drunk grandpa in his sleep and still get laughs. Writers Mark and Robb Cullen aren’t afraid to tread into slightly politically incorrect and sometimes even weird humor. (A friendship builds between Maggie Lawson’s Terry and another school mom that’s delightfully odd and crass.) Each member of the Bad News Bears of a team Terry ends up coaching has what should be a chuckle-worthy quirk. Yet in spite of all this, nearly every joke grounds out. With few laughs to reward an otherwise talented cast, the series is ultimately a swing and a miss.

Verdict: Strike out.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "The Bridge: FX’s New U.S.-Mexican Border Thriller"

FX’s The Bridge, about a serial killer investigation that entangles both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, is very good. If you haven’t seen the Danish-Swedish series it’s based on, you might even think it’s great.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest story (one of my very last ones, in fact), "FX's Border-Killer Thriller," in which I review FX's The Bridge, based on the Danish/Swedish drama Broen, which begins tonight at 10 p.m. on FX.

Borders are complex signifiers, reinforcing both national and cultural identities as well as distinguishing between outsiders and insiders. Where you are, how you see yourself, depends largely on what side of the wall—visible or invisible—you’re standing on at the moment. Few modern-day national borders are as fraught or as psychologically charged as that between the United States and Mexico, a nearly 2,000-mile line in the sand that is the most frequently crossed international border in the world.

It’s this international way station that acts as the backdrop for FX’s provocative new mystery thriller The Bridge, which is based on the Danish/Swedish drama Broen and which begins its 13-episode run Wednesday night at 10 p.m. The American adaptation of the hit drama series (a ratings success in the Nordic region as well as in the U.K.) moves its crosscultural concerns away from Scandinavia, instead exploring the socioeconomic, psychological, and cultural effects of the border between the U.S. and Mexico and two detectives from either side of the divide.

When the corpse of a woman is discovered in the middle of the Bridge of the Americas (also known as the Cordova Bridge), which links El Paso, Texas with Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, each country claims jurisdiction over the incident. As the bridge is shut down while the identity of the victim is ascertained, detectives Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) and Marco Ruiz (Demián Bichir) square off over whether an an ambulance—carrying a wealthy American citizen in the throes of a heart attack—should be allowed to cross the border.

It’s the first time that these two disparate people—American and Mexican, female and male, introspective and gregarious—have met, and the collision between Sonya and Marco informs much of the drama to come as they are forced to work together to track down an insidious and intelligent killer. The woman on the bridge, as the detectives come to learn, isn’t just a single corpse: the top half and the bottom half belong to two separate victims, one an American judge and the other an unknown female, one of former murder capital Juárez’s hundreds of slain women in the last 20-odd years, whose continued disappearances and deaths now register barely a mention in the American media.

The killer, it seems, has a need to bring to light some of the shocking inequalities between the U.S. and Mexico, but he is no crusader. Instead, he—or perhaps she—delights in causing mayhem on both sides of the border, illuminating the travesties facing those trapped by the border while simultaneously perpetuating them. He has a drive to create both carnage and impact, and he reaches out to Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard, appropriately smarmy here), a drug-addicted newspaper reporter working well below his potential, in order to cast his message even wider.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

Press

Here's the Variety story on my hiring by BuzzFeed.

Every now and then I'll post some links to some news stories in which I've been asked to comment on some recent trend, television show, or subject matter, a radio program I might appear on, or similar.

The below collection of links is far from exhaustive, but here are some news stories, etc. in which I appear:

Radio Times: "The Americans: A New Homeland"

The New York Times:: "Netflix's House of Cards Redefines the Spoiler Alert"

KPCC/Take Two: "TV Upfronts: Which shows got axed and which are coming back?"

KPCC/Take Two: "The 2013 TV Upfronts come to an end"

The Observer: "New York revels in the return of Mad Men"

TV Worth Watching: "Mad Men in England: One if by Land, Two if by Sky, and Why to Be 'Mad as Hell' at Rupert Murdoch"

Newser: "Mad Men's Back With a Bang"

The Observer: "American TV dramas take aim at amoral super-rich elite"

Time: "Dead Tree Alert: Smash: Broadway’s West Wing, or Its Studio 60?"

WNPR/Colin McEnroe Show: "Downton Abbey - PBS's Water Cooler Phenomenon"

Eater: "Tired of Top Chef"

Radio Times: "Sofie Grabol to appear in US version of The Killing"

Vulture: "The Cast of Community Will Be Just As Sad As You If It Gets Canceled"

Think Progress: "Community’s Yvette Nicole Brown on 'Sassy Black Women' and Rage"

Ethics Alarms: "Luck, Causation, and the Complex Computation of Mixed Motivations"

The Atlantic: "A Glimmer of Hope for Community Fanatics"

Bravo's The Dish: "The Daily Beast Hearts Work of Art"

Ology: "Early Reviews Call 'A Dance with Dragons' a 'Masterpiece'"

The Independent: "George R R Martin: Tolkien for the 21st century"

American Way: "Chevy Chase: He's All Right"

Vulture: "Community’s Chevy Chase Problem"

Atlantic Wire: "Fans Split on Masterful, Frustrating Lost Finale"

About Jace

Televisionary was Jace Lacob’s television blog from its inception in 2006 to roughly 2013. It focused on U.S. and U.K. television programming, news, reviews, and exclusive interviews and attracted a wide swath of industry readers.

During his career, Jace Lacob has worked as a writer, editor, television critic, interviewer, podcast host, consultant, and television executive. His journalistic work has appeared in Newsweek, The Daily Beast, BBC.com, The Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Film.com, TVWeek, Sky.com, and West Hollywood Lifestyle.

Jace is currently the host of MASTERPIECE Studio, the four-time Webby Award-winning companion podcast for PBS' long-running drama anthology series MASTERPIECE. To date, the podcast has been downloaded more than 17 million times. He is also the host of the recently announced Making MASTERPIECE documentary podcast, which will explore the history of the venerable cultural touchstone and which will be released in 2021 to coincide with MASTERPIECE’s 50th anniversary.

Both a Twitter hashtag and a television character have been named after him.

As a screenwriter, his work has won or placed in more than 25 script competitions, including the Austin Film Festival.

Jace was the entertainment editorial director of BuzzFeed, where he oversaw the editorial direction of the site's film and television coverage, and the deputy west coast bureau chief for The Daily Beast/Newsweek, where he also served as the site's chief television critic. Before moving into that position in 2012, he was the TV Columnist for The Daily Beast/Newsweek, writing for both the online and print divisions of the media company.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature from Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences and a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from New York University. He also studied Literature at Oxford University (Wadham College, to be precise).

Before embarking on a career in journalism, Jace worked in the television industry for more than seven years, both on the domestic and international sides — in development, co-productions, and acquisitions for such companies as British Sky Broadcasting and Lionsgate Television.

He is a member of the Podcast Academy.

Jace is based in Los Angeles.

Yep, It's True: I'm Heading to BuzzFeed

A change is coming and I'm going to get personal right now.

I haven't posted anything personal on this blog in quite some time, probably ever since I was promoted to West Coast Deputy Bureau Chief at The Daily Beast back in October 2012 and stepped way back from the blog. When I founded Televisionary in the blogging hinterlands of February 2006, I did feel like a bit of an outsider, a television blogger who approached the medium and the work as though I were doing it full-time. It was a lark, something I did while I was also working in television development (and later in acquisitions/programming for a British television network), a chance to exercise my writing muscle while slaving away in the industry. Later, I would pour my heart and soul into this site, after I was pink-slipped, seeing it as less of a diversion and more of a means to an end.

More than seven years later, it's astonishing to me to see where those first steps have led me. First, to freelancing gigs with the Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast and then to a contract position with the latter, where I became their television columnist and then moved to a full-time staff position covering television. When my editor, Kate Aurthur, left the company last fall, I was quickly moved into a management position, into the role of deputy bureau chief for the the Beast's West Coast operations. There, I juggled editorial duties on the entertainment side with overseeing a team of young writers, bringing in dynamic freelancers (including Ken Tucker, Jason Lynch, and Alyssa Rosenberg), and also covering television as the site's critic. It was a fantastic opportunity, one that I embraced, and I foresaw myself staying at the Beast for quite a while longer.

And then BuzzFeed came calling.

If you haven't yet heard the news, you can read this Variety story about my recent hiring. I've been poached from The Daily Beast and am heading to BuzzFeed, where I will step into the newly created role of Entertainment Editorial Director, beginning in mid-July. There, I will be overseeing the entertainment coverage--editing, writing, and making cohesive, overall decisions about BuzzFeed's nascent entertainment brand--for a site that I think is one of the most exciting, dynamic, and far-reaching on the web right now. This was not an easy decision to make, and I thought about what it would mean to leave behind The Daily Beast after four years. But I'm excited to see what this next chapter of my career will hold, and I think that BuzzFeed is at the forefront of the socially-driven web.

Despite the fact that the site has been around for years (positively decades in "Internet time"), it feels like a start-up, and I love that vibrancy and energy. BuzzFeed Entertainment is still somewhat of a newbie in the entertainment journalism field and I look forward to taking the brand into some new places. It's thrilling and scary and intense, and I'm really chuffed to see what I can do with their entertainment coverage.

I want to thank everyone who has read Televisionary over the years and who has been part of this story. Your support and encouragement means the world to me.

The press release that BuzzFeed prepared, which announces my hiring, can be found below:

Jace Lacob Joins BuzzFeed As Entertainment Editorial Director

Revered Television Critic And Pioneering Blogger To Oversee BuzzFeed’s Expanding Entertainment Coverage

New York, June 27, 2013
– Social news site BuzzFeed announced today it has hired Jace Lacob as its Entertainment Editorial Director. Lacob, who is currently the deputy West Coast bureau chief and television critic for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, will head up BuzzFeed’s Los Angeles and New York entertainment teams and shape the site’s television, film and industry coverage. He will be responsible for editing all entertainment coverage and will write regularly for the site.

"I am thrilled to be joining the BuzzFeed team. I look forward to working closely with Doree Shafrir and Ben Smith to make the entertainment vertical a dynamic and exciting destination for entertainment news and opinion with a strong emphasis on television and film. BuzzFeed has such a strong grasp on the socially-driven
pulse of pop culture today and I couldn't be happier to set forth on this next step with them," said Lacob.

"Jace a great journalist who is native to the social web and who has the vision to take entertainment coverage to the next level," said Doree Shafrir, BuzzFeed's Executive Editor.

“BuzzFeed is committed to expanding our Los Angeles Bureau, which has become a real center of gravity for our organization. BuzzFeed’s young, social audience is hungry for more sophisticated and fun entertainment coverage and we’re aiming to be the premier national outlet covering Hollywood,” said Ben Smith, BuzzFeed
Editor-in-Chief.

Lacob was most recently the deputy West Coast bureau chief and television critic for The Daily Beast and Newsweek. He has written about television and culture at large, including food and cocktails, books, film, and even the real-life sport of Quidditch. Prior to joining The Daily Beast in 2009, his work appeared
in the Los Angeles Times, TV Week, AOLtv, and Film.com. He also founded Televisionary, an award-winning television-criticism website, in 2006. Jace was previously a Programming Executive for British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) and the manager of longform development at Lionsgate Television. He is a member of the Television Critics Association and lives in Los Angeles.

Lacob begins at BuzzFeed on July 17.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Mad Men Creator Matthew Weiner on the Season Finale"

The AMC series’ season ender offered upheaval in the lives of SC&P’s employees. I speak with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the finale and what’s next. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men Creator Matthew Weiner on the Season Finale," in which I speak with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the sixth season finale, going overboard, that look, California, and much more.

Not since the end of Season 3 has AMC’s Mad Men—created by Matthew Weiner—ended a season with as much physical, emotional, and psychological upheaval as it did in Sunday night’s episode (“In Care Of”), which closed out the period drama’s sixth and penultimate season.

Written by Weiner and Carly Wray, the final episode restructured some of the show’s key underpinnings: Don Draper (Jon Hamm) spilled the truth about his awful childhood in front of his partners and clients; Megan (Jessica Paré), Pete (Vincent Kartheiser), and Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) decamped to California; Don was told to take a break from the agency; Betty (January Jones) pondered the consequences of “a broken home” on her children; Joan (Christina Hendricks) allowed Roger (John Slattery) to form a relationship with their shared son; Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) sat in Don’s office, cleaning up his mess; and Don took Sally (Kiernan Shipka) and her brothers to see the house in which he grew up.

Alternately shocking and elegiac, it could have been a series finale, but instead set up compelling and invigorating new possibilities for Season 7 of Mad Men, the show’s final outing. There is a deep and tangible sense that the characters’ relationships (or lack thereof) with their children are hugely significant, as several storylines examine the ramifications of our actions upon our offspring and the cost of remaining silent. Given our workaholic contemporary society, there would seem to be enormous implications at play here for those who prioritize their professional lives ahead of their familial ones.

The Daily Beast spoke with Weiner about the season finale, Don’s unforeseen departure from SC&P, the murder of Pete’s mother, whether Megan and Pete will be back next season, and much more. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

At the start of Season 6, you said that the opener was about “how [Don is] seen by the outside world, and how we all are seen by the outside world.” How does the finale complete that exploration?

Matthew Weiner: This season was about the identity crisis going on in the culture, the chaos that’s being brought on the United States, the revolution that’s underway, and the turning inwards that happens that, for Don, is hopefully the beginning of kind of a reconciliation with who he is. He says, “I don’t want to keep doing this,” and we see him acting impulsively, struggling through—with worse consequences than ever—his demons. And what I wanted to do was show, at the end of 1968, the revolution is stopped, mostly by force and by votes and people turning to what they hope is a gentler time. Which we know it isn’t. Don, Pete, Roger, and Peggy to some degree, all of them are facing what they can control in their life and what’s good in their life, which is their children. And the children were a big part of the season.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Under the Dome Is One Eerie TV Show"

From Stephen King and Steven Spielberg comes Under the Dome, a weird, scary, and potentially great excuse to stay inside this summer. I dissect tonight’s premiere.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Under the Dome Is One Eerie TV Show," in which I review CBS's eerie new drama Under the Dome, based on Stephen King's 2009 novel of the same name, which begins tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

In the not-too-distant future, the inhabitants of Chester’s Mill—a small and seemingly idyllic town in Anywhere, U.S.A.—suddenly discover their town is trapped inside an invisible barrier of unknown origin. Birds fall from the sky, numerous vehicles crash, and a blood-red handprint on this transparent dome becomes a sigil of awe and fear.

This is the basis for CBS’s intriguing new “event” drama series, Under the Dome, which begins its 13-episode summer run tonight at 10 p.m. (While some have referred to it as a “miniseries,” it is most definitely an ongoing series, with the strong possibility of future seasons should ratings take off.) Based on Stephen King’s 2009 novel of the same name, Under the Dome imagines a scenario that is both rife with possibility and nightmare. Trapped and with nowhere to turn, Chester Mill’s residents must either work together to survive or succumb to the terror and uncertainty of their new situation, one that has cut them off from both loved ones and the outside world. So, live together, die alone then?

If that reminds you of the now-famous words uttered by reluctant leader Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) on Lost, you’re on the right track. Under the aegis of executive producers Steven Spielberg, Neal Baer (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, ER, and far too many other credits to list here), and Brian K. Vaughan (Lost), the series imagines a terrifying “what if” scenario that positions the inexplicable as a backdrop for the intimate.

Much like Lost before it, Under the Dome presents a life-altering occurrence as a crucible by which to view a group of disparate characters. Barbie (Mike Vogel), a former soldier, is passing through Chester’s Mill on some illicit business when he’s trapped inside. Local newspaper editor Julia Shumway (Rachelle Lefevre) has a nose for news but seems oblivious to what’s going on inside her own home. Angie (Britt Robertson) is a local nurse who is desperate to escape Chester’s Mill even before the dome, but finds herself trapped inside with her emotionally unstable boyfriend, Junior (Alexander Koch). Local bigwig Jim Rennie (Dean Norris), a used-car salesman and councilman, looks to use the dome to seize control of the town. A lesbian couple from Los Angeles, Carolyn (Aisha Hinds) and Alice (Samantha Mathis), taking their troubled daughter (Mackenzie Lintz) to a “camp,” find themselves stuck as well.

Elsewhere, there are a pair of local radio DJs (Nicholas Strong and Joelen Purdy), the stoic town sheriff (Lost’s Jeff Fahey) and his trusted deputy, Linda (Natalie Martinez), and a subplot that indicates that the financial stability of the town may be based on less-than-legal solutions. It’s this latter element that is perhaps the most timely, given the recent economic downturn and its similar handling over on A&E’s Bates Motel: how does Small Town America remain viable? How creative do towns like Chester’s Mill have to be in order to survive in the 21st century?

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "James Gandolfini the Great"

James Gandolfini, the hulking star of HBO's acclaimed The Sopranos, has died. My piece on the legacy the actor and producer leaves behind.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "James Gandolfini the Great," my appreciation of the late, great Sopranos star James Gandolfini, who passed away yesterday at age 51 while traveling in Italy.

HBO has confirmed the unexpected death of actor and producer James Gandolfini, who passed away at age 51 while traveling in Italy. At press time, the cause of his death was unclear, with several outlets reporting a heart attack or a "sudden stroke." He was due to appear at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, where he was slated to paricipate in a panel discussion with director Gabriele Muccino.

While Gandolfini appeared in countless film and television roles, ranging from comedies (like Armando Iannucci's wickedly skewering Washington satire In the Loop) to hard-hitting dramas like Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, it was his visceral turn as deeply troubled mobster Tony Soprano, the pater familias of a New Jersey crime family and a domestic one, on HBO's The Sopranos, which won him accolades from critics and viewers alike. During the drama's acclaimed six-season run, Gandolfini would win three Emmy awards for Best Actor for The Sopranos (he was nominated six times), widely regarded as one of the best television shows ever to air—it was recently named the best written show in history by the Writers Guild of America—and one that ushered in a new Golden Age for television.

"We're all in shock and feeling immeasurable sadness at the loss of a beloved member of our family," said HBO in a prepared statement. "He was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect. He touched so many of us over the years with his humor, his warmth, and his humility. Our hearts go out to his wife and children during this terrible time. He will be deeply missed by all of us."

With his death, Hollywood has lost one of its finest veteran actors. With The Sopranos, Gandolfini delivered a searing and deeply complex performance that captured the rage, sorrow, and frustation of the modern American male. As played by Gandolfini, Tony Soprano was full of contradictions, a complex man whose struggles with depression and panic attacks humanized him despite the violence he perpetrated on those around him. (It was hard not to love him when even his desperate, harried mother wanted him dead.) Prone to violence, Tony Soprano represented the unfettered darker impulses of the id, while also remaining intriguingly relatable. Even as the character plotted for control of a New Jersey criminal enterprise, he struggled to keep his own family together.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Mad Men: Who Is Bob Benson?"

The truth of who Bob Benson is was finally revealed on Sunday’s episode of Mad Men. My take on the revelation and how it connects to Don Draper. Warning: spoilers ahead!

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men: Who Is Bob Benson?" in which I offer my take on this week's episode of AMC's Mad Men and what the true identity of Bob Benson (James Wolk) means for the show and Don Draper.

“I used to wonder how you were so expertly servile.”

On Mad Men, James Wolk’s eager-to-please ad man Bob Benson—a sort of golden retriever in an impeccably preppy suit who was always ready with an extra cup of coffee or a deli platter for a funeral—offered one of the season’s most hotly discussed mysteries, second only to whether Jessica Paré’s Megan Draper would be murdered. Theories were rampant. Was the perpetually chipper up-and-comer, who inexplicably seemed to materialize at SCDP (later renamed SC&P), a spy from a rival agency, an undercover reporter, Don’s love child, or a government agent?

Last week’s episode, “Favors,” seemed to indicate that Bob was gay, as he appeared to make an advance at Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) by gently touching his boss’s leg with his own and seemingly making a declaration of his love. When I asked Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences panel I moderated last weekend whether Bob Benson was gay, he demurred, saying what passed between Bob and Pete didn’t necessarily indicate that. So, then, the question hovers in the air like smoke from one of Don’s cigarettes: just who is Bob Benson?

But Bob Benson isn’t a spy, an undercover reporter, or a G-man. (Nor is he Don Draper himself, as some have confusingly guessed.) The truth is far more mundane, in a way: Bob Benson is anyone he needs to be.

In this week’s episode of Mad Men, “The Quality of Mercy,” Bob’s secret history came tumbling out from a most unexpected source. Headhunter Duck Phillips (Mark Moses) discovered, when tasked by Pete with finding leads for Bob, that Bob’s personnel file “might as well be written in steam.” Every bit of information we’ve learned this season about Bob—the blue-blood connections, the dead father, his work experience, etc.—was a fiction cleverly created by a cunning social climber, one who wanted to leave his West Virginia roots behind and reinvent himself as a slick go-getter.

Does that sound like anyone else we know?

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Oxford's No. 1 Sleuth: Inspector Lewis's Kevin Whately on Morse, John Thaw, and the End of the Series"

Kevin Whately has been playing gruff, sensible detective Robbie Lewis on Morse and Lewis for 26 years. I speak to him about the possible end of the Oxford copper.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Oxford's No. 1 Sleuth: Inspector Lewis's Kevin Whately on Morse, John Thaw, and the End of the Series," in which I speak with Kevin Whately, star of Inspector Morse and Lewis (which returns to PBS' Masterpiece Mystery on Sunday) about playing Robbie Lewis for 26 years, whether this is the end for the Oxford-set drama, and what's next.

Inspector Lewis is due for a vacation.

After more than 20 years playing Detective Inspector Robert “Robbie” Lewis, actor Kevin Whately has earned a well-deserved break from investigating murders beneath the Oxford spires. Introduced in Inspector Morse’s first episode (“The Dead of Jericho”), Whately’s Robbie Lewis was the Geordie sidekick of the late John Thaw’s erudite and perpetually cranky Inspector Morse before becoming the lead of his own spinoff, Lewis.

While Whately has a slew of roles on his résumé—he also starred in British drama Peak Practice and comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, as well as countless other projects, including The English Patient—Robbie Lewis is the role still most closely associated with the 62-year-old actor. He has played the gruff detective from 1987 to 2000 on Morse and from 2006 to the present on Inspector Lewis.

The much loved show returns for its sixth (or seventh, if you’re going by the ITV ordering), and possibly final, season on PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery on Sunday, a season that finds Lewis and his partner, Cambridge-educated Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), grappling with change, uncertainty, and possibly even a happy ending of sorts.

The Daily Beast caught up with Whately earlier this month during his protracted hiatus from Inspector Lewis to discuss the challenges of playing a role for more than two decades, the romance between Robbie Lewis and medical examiner Laura Hobson (Clare Holman), why he tried to turn down Lewis, and what’s next for the Oxford sleuth.

You've been extremely outspoken about your need for a potential hiatus from the series. What are the challenges of playing Robbie Lewis for 26 years?

Kevin Whately: Every now and then, you suddenly realize you've asked the same question probably 50 times before: “Where were you last night?” We have wonderful writers, but you can't think of a different way to do it, or a different corner to come out of, and you do need a break. I've just recently worked out that I haven't had a summer off for 31 years, which is half my life. So I want a year off for real. And it happened to coincide with Laurence [Fox] saying he wanted to come over and do pilot season over here, but he's actually doing a lot of fathering instead.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Emmy Awards’ Dark Horse Nominee: Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black"

If you didn’t watch BBC America’s clone drama Orphan Black, you missed one of the year’s best dramatic performances. My take on why Tatiana Maslany deserves an Emmy nod.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Emmy Awards’ Dark Horse Nominee," in which I offer a look at one of the year's best television performances, that of Tatiana Maslany on BBC America's Orphan Black, and state why this dark horse deserves at least an Emmy nomination.

If you don’t regularly tune in to shows about global conspiracies, illegal medical research, and genetically identical clones, you may be forgiven for not watching Orphan Black, the serpentine Canadian-American science fiction drama that wrapped up its first season earlier this month on BBC America. (Season 2 will air in 2014.)

But not watching this compelling and surprisingly emotional cult drama—created by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett—means that you missed out on one of the year’s most intense and astonishing television performances. In Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany delivers a daredevil turn, playing no less than seven different roles, each one with their own mannerisms and secrets.

It’s no surprise that Maslany, a 27-year-old Canadian actress, has already been racking up accolades for her electrifying acting. On Monday, she was awarded the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series and, on the same day, nominated for a Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama. While roughly two weeks remain before Emmy nomination ballots are due back from voting members, Maslany is already receiving buzz as a dark horse contender for a Best Actress spot. And with good reason, as Maslany’s versatile performance in Orphan Black would be a staggering feat for a veteran actor, much less for one recently starting out.

Maslany plays Sarah Manning, a sharp-tongued British grifter who sees an escape from her problems when a woman—one who looks identical to her—jumps in front of a moving subway train. Desperate to escape her abusive drug dealer boyfriend Vic (Michael Mando) and reclaim her young daughter, Sarah assumes the identity of her lookalike, slipping into her life in order to start a new one. But the dead woman—Beth Childs—is a cop under investigation for the shooting death of a civilian, and by assuming her identity, Sarah is drawn into a conspiracy that reveals her own true nature: that she and Beth are clones, closely monitored by their creators, and that someone is trying to kill them off. (The result is something akin to Ringer crossed with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s La double vie de Véronique with some Alias thrown in for good measure.)

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...