Is it really fair to evaluate a cable show (say, Mad Men) against a network show (say, The Good Wife) for an awards season?

Little bit of controversy in the TV world recently, because The Good Wife (CBS) is out stumping for Emmy love and decided to run a campaign basically attacking the differences between cable shows and network shows. (There’s more context here.) From a logic standpoint, the… Continue Reading

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Walter White, Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Jimmy McNulty (and Hannah Horvath) … what’s up with our love of the anti-hero?

Think about this for a second: in general, the best TV shows of the past 10-15 years or so are believed to be The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and some combination of other shows you like (Walking Dead, foreign… Continue Reading

Megan Draper, Bob Benson, and of course Don Draper … what might happen in Mad Men Season 7?

We don’t know much about Mad Men Season 7, although we know a little bit. Let’s try to piece some stuff together, no? 1. For sure: the premiere date is April 13th.  2. For sure: the final season will be divided into two parts,… Continue Reading

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Todd from Breaking Bad (i.e. Jesse Plemons) as a young Luke Skywalker in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars movie? Sure.

Depending on your particular streaming video obsession, you know Jesse Plemons as either Landry from Friday Night Lights or Todd from Breaking Bad. I watched both shows, although I was a lot more into Breaking Bad all told, and I think Plemons has one… Continue Reading

Why isn’t Rian Johnson doing more TV?

Rian Johnson is a director/writer/editor. You may know him from Brick, The Brothers Bloom, or Looper, which are some of his main films (the latter, Looper, did pretty well at the box office). If you were a fan of TV in 2013, though, you… Continue Reading

Let’s talk about The Michael J. Fox show for a second (and broader problems with NBC)

NBC Thursday nights used to be the thing — now it’s kind of a train wreck. They had a show called Welcome to the Family, with people you might remember from Yes, Dear and Desperate Housewives and West Wing; they cancelled it. The Michael J. Fox Show has some seminal… Continue Reading

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Ross Ulbricht, or ‘Dread Pirate Roberts,’ is the real-life Walter White

No, he didn’t get cancer and start cooking meth. But in the grand scheme of what it means to ‘break bad’ — and Jesse Pinkman’s eternal question, which is ‘Can that really be done?’ — Ross Ulbricht did it all.  We still… Continue Reading