Category Archives: TV

The AMC network greenlit another series, based on the Danish show Forbrydelson (Crime), adapted by Verna Sud (Cold Case), and with the network’s track record, it’s at least worth a look.

AMC: trying to catch lightning in yet another bottle.

Following the leads of Mad Men (amazing), Breaking Bad (currently my favorite show on television for scenes like this), Rubicon (which I’m going to watch once I’m back at school and have cable again), and The Walking Dead (October can’t come soon enough), this currently untitled American version could be more icing on the cake for the network, which keeps hitting home runs with everything it produces.

The show, which stars Michelle Forbes, Billy Campbell, and Mireille Enos, follows the investigation of the murder of a young girl named Rosie Larson.  One crime sets the entire series in motion.  Clearly, this isn’t just another CSI procedural.

With the focus on a single crime and its Pacific Northwest locale (it takes place in Seattle), the show even has shades of Twin Peaks, although I doubt there will be any Red Rooms or mystical killer Bobs walking around.  With the child crime themes and “gripping character based story,” this is also very reminiscent of Gone Baby Gone, a gut punch of a movie, but one of the most engrossing movies I’ve seen in a long time.  If the show follows that film’s lead, I think AMC’s going to have another winner on its hands.  Of course, they need to name it, though.

One of the coolest special features on the upcoming Lost season six DVD set is a 12-minute vignette called “The New Man In Charge,” starring Ben Linus and Hurley, which occurs after the events of the series finale, and Access Hollywood has a really cool preview of it.

After a few months off from watching Lost, spending my time working out and watching slightly more realistic things like Breaking Bad and Mad Men — both of which are amazing — this has me jonesing for the escapist genre qualities of the sci-fi drama again, and I’m excited to rewatch the series, particularly with the extra mystery solving promised in “The New Man In Charge.”

As for those dangling mysteries left by the show, it’s apparent by this one minute clip that one of the big season two questions is answered (for those of you who haven’t seen the show, I’m not going to ruin, or spend a ton of time explaining, which mystery that was), so I’m pumped for what other fun reveals the show’s creators have in store for us.

Dexter, Showtime’s blood spatter analyst/secret serial killer series, has been one of the top shows on television for some time.  Its ability to mix disturbing, gritty stories with dry humor never fails to entertain the hell out of me, and it appears the show is turning everything up a notch for its upcoming fifth season.

After the events of last season’s show stopping finale, Dexter’s (Michael C. Hall) world has gone haywire.  He now has three kids to deal with and that giant monkey on his back of being a closeted serial killer.  It almost sounds like the premise for a goofy family comedy, but going out on a limb, I’d be willing to bet that’s not the direction the producers will go.

Season 5 looks amazing.

Show runner Clyde Phillips says he and the other writers are going to try mixing things up this season after last year’s “big bad,” John Lithgow, knocked his guest starring performance out of the park.  There will be a few mutli-episode arcs involving different antagonists for Dexter, and, as the trailer indicates, the A-story will involve Dexter dealing with his wife Rita’s (Julie Benz) murder at the hands of Lithgow’s Trinity Killer and learning to be a single father.

As much as I love Dexter, I hope the producers plan on this being its final season.  If they play their cards right, they can wrap up every major character arc, allowing Dexter’s detective sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter, Hall’s real-life wife, the oddest kissing co-star siblings since The Brady Bunch) to come to terms with their deceased father’s demons, her partner, Quinn (Desmond Harrington), to realize his suspicions about Dexter are founded, and most of all, it allows Dexter to either give in to his “dark passenger” or to give it all up in the name of protecting his family.

But then again, nobody saw Rita’s death coming, so the Dexter writers might be able to produce another couple seasons after this “logical” conclusion.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Buscemi stars in HBO's new fall series, 'Boardwalk Empire.'

Boardwalk Empire, the 1920s period drama about prohibition in Atlantic City, from writer-producer Terrence Winter (The Sopranos) and one of my idols, Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Goodfellas), and starring the always great Steve Buscemi (Fargo), debuts on HBO September 19, and I will absolutely be watching for all the corruption, political and literal back stabbing, and acting gravitas this series promises.

Watch this trailer to see what I mean.

Despite its television budget, this show looks beautiful.  The period clothing and those lush exterior shots of the boardwalk of old are mind blowing.

But, of course, it’s the talent involved, both behind and in front of the camera, that will get me watching.

If Scorsese, one of the greatest living filmmakers was drawn to this project, then Winter — who, I’ll admit, is an unknown to me as I’ve never seen The Sopranos — must have written one hell of a script, based on the book by Nelson Johnson. Scorsese directed the pilot, but his role as an executive producer indicates he’ll be involved with the series well beyond the first episode, and that is certainly something to get excited about.

Taking a look at the cast, it’s apparent the show is going for mostly talented character actors to surround their star, Buscemi.  This allows his wiry neuroses and magnetic charm to take over and carry the show.  It will be interesting to see what he can do as a man of power instead of the odd bit player.

I wish this was on right now.  But I guess I’ll have to wait.

Showtime released a new trailer for the sixth season of their suburban mother/pot dealer comedy, Weeds, and I’m excited about what could be the show’s final year.

This trailer shows the family on the run after li’l brother Shane’s misguided attempt to protect the family in the season five finale.  It looks nuts, and I wouldn’t take the show any other way.

Say what you will about the show “not being good since season (insert whichever one you want here),” but I watched the entire series last summer during the spat of boredom in which I also began this website, and it never failed to make me laugh.

The show may have lost any semblance of reality, but that’s freed it to become TV’s leading example of absurdist humor, as Nancy’s (Mary-Louise Parker) devolution from well-meaning-but-failing mother to perhaps the worst television mom ever has been hilarious every step of the way, from getting her California suburb burnt to the ground to marrying a Mexican politician/drug lord.  The supporting characters, like Justin Kirk’s Uncle Andy and Kevin Nealon’s pot-smoking accountant, Doug Wilson, never fail to disappoint in their dialogue or their half-baked schemes to make extra money.

Weeds is still funny and I’m looking forward to season six.