What’s coming out of the idiot box.
Louis C.K. has his fingers in a lot of pies these days. The great auteur figure of 21st-century comedy maintains, in addition to a robust touring schedule as a stand-up comedian, a production company that shepherds his own television projects. These include straight-up documentaries, stand-up specials by himself and some …
Today’s question: how good can a show about wrestling be if the wresting in the show isn’t very good? The answer, at least if the show under discussion is Netflix’s new series GLOW, is…well, pretty good, actually! Maybe that’s because of the show’s many other strengths, or maybe it’s because of …
Showtime’s new dramedy series, I’m Dying Up Here, is definitely a product of its time. The question is, what time is that? Is it the early 1970s, when the series is set? Is it the mid-1980s, when any schmuck with a colorful shirt and a rap about bad drivers could get …
There is a school of thought which says that an artist, to do truly effective work, must always keep the audience — any audience, even an imaginary one — in mind. I’ve never quite believed this to be true. Except in the case of explicitly commercial work, an artist can (I …
Neil Gaiman is in the news again. Some concatenation of dullards is trying to raise half a million dollars for charity, in exchange for which the dreamer of dreams and seller of stories will – and, I am not, I can assure you, making this up, though I wish I …
I’ve always been a little distrustful of the critical language of rejection when it comes to our current wave of ‘difficult men’. Sure, there’s no doubt that the last thing in the world we need is another story about misbehaving white males; it’s not like there’s a dearth of them. …
One of the most common — and accurate — criticisms of the Netflix series based on Marvel comics characters is that they’re so dreadfully long. At a baker’s dozen episodes, each clocking in at an overstuffed hour, even the best of them can become a terrible slog. (Netflix seems to have …
It is a canard often, and falsely, leveled at Hollywood that it has no new ideas. In fact, Hollywood has innumerable new ideas; they’re just all bad. If you’re in the television or film business and have a really shitty idea that nobody asked for or could possibly want, you …
When the announcement was made a few months ago that Netflix would be shepherding a new series entitled The Santa Clarita Diet, I didn’t exactly mark my calendar, because that name is terrible. I was even less inspired when it was announce that the show would be a zombie comedy, a …
It can be extraordinarily difficult to write about mental illness, in fiction and in reality. Even now, as I write this, I select my words with care when I say that the current trend in television to try and make entertainment out of mental illness — intelligent and empathetic entertainment, …
Ever since the early days of film and television, the question has been asked: how much fidelity does an adaptation owe to its source material? I don’t think there’s any one useful answer to this question. there have been exceedingly faithful adaptations that have been wonderful (John Huston’s version of The …
My origin story with hip-hop still burns in my brain like it happened yesterday. Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell had just been released, and for me — a white suburban kid who’d been raised an only child in a house full of outlaw country and ‘beautiful music’ — it seemed like something being …
Say, did you know that television has gotten really good now? You bet your ass you did, because you’re alive and reading the internet. You could no more be ignorant of the rise of Quality Television than you could of the existence of Pizza Rat, or of how Donald Trump is …
Earlier this year, in a burst of post-holiday optimism, I signed up for one of those ‘reading challenges’ on GoodReads and set myself the goal of reading 25 books this year. There was a time when this would have been simplicity itself; I used to read at least 50 books …
From the very first episode of HBO’s newest — and most talked-about — prestige series, Westworld, I was convinced of two things. The first thing that went through my head as the closing credits rolled on Ramin Djawadi’s haunting theme music was “I really, really like this show.” The second thing was …
