There are TV actors, and there are movie actors. TV actors were second class talents who dreamed of making it through the glass ceiling into films. Many tried, most failed, and the few who made it off the small screen never even thought to go back. For decades this has been the gospel truth in […]
The third episode of The Newsroom is essentially a six-month montage detailing how Will, Mackenzie and Co. covered the events leading up to the November 2010 mid-term elections (they downplayed the Times Square bomb, shouted down anti-gay arguments, and went after the Tea Party). That’s all juxtaposed with the introduction of Jane Fonda as the […]
Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom is not exactly popular with people who talk about television- most are bugged by the hyperstylized idealism, the show’s nostalgic insistence, and Sorkin’s own contentious personality. But among the honest-to-god Sorkin fans who populate my life, This was more the feeling after the pilot episode last week (and I quote): “I think […]
First Things First: If you’ve been watching the show and thinking… “meh,” last episode was aptly titled because THE TIDE WAS TURNING, YO! The episode was nuttier, funnier, dramatic-er, stupidly schmoopier, and epic-er than those that came before it. If nothing else, it was NOT meh. It was anti-meh. It was insane hysterical laughter followed […]
I know. I’m late, I’m late for a very important date, blah blah blah. And I am sorry about that (despite the “blah, blah, blah’s,” my commitment to Korra is weirdly intense for an I’m-supposed-to-act-like-an-adult-now year old), but my heart is also in a hundred billion broken little pieces over the outcome of the Stanley […]
Matthew Weiner said that this season of Mad Men was about the unhappiness at the center of contentment. The season finale, “Phantom,” dealt with this idea explicitly – making that subtext text by having not one, but two characters explain exactly how little any of our characters’ success means to them. Pete, in a heart […]
For the newbs: Hi, nice to meet you! This is my Korra diary, where I journal all of my crazy capslocks THOUGHTS and FEELINGS about the latest episode of The Legend of Korra. I also have a lot of fun trying to predict what will happen next. I don’t always make a whole lot of […]
Okay Sherlockians. Holmies? Fans of BBC’s brilliant Sherlock, it’s time for the final episode of series 2, ‘The Reichenbach Fall’. We open with John sitting in a therapy session. His therapist wants to know why he’s there, since she hasn’t seen him basically since the pilot, ‘A Study in Pink’. John says it’s because “My […]
Last night’s Game of Thrones focused a lot on a character who I think gets thoroughly shafted in the books*: Robb Stark. Since he’s not a point of view character, we rarely really invest in Ned’s heir, even as he’s heralded as the great hope of the North and the only real option for the […]
This week’s episode of Mad Men (both amusingly and aptly named “Dark Shadows”) was concerned with hunger. Don’s lack of hunger at work, a byproduct of the complacency of happiness, causes him to fall behind the other pieces of his creative team. So he attempts to turbo charge it, working on an idea for the […]
This episode was almost entirely invented. It all works, obviously, within the confines of the book, but I found the fact that most of it was made up for the TV show distracting throughout. Which is absurd, since all of Game of Thrones was made up (that’s what fiction is, Nisenkier), but there you go. […]
I picked a hell of a week to be too busy to write. Last week’s episode was one of my all time favorites, a roller coaster ride of surprising highs for our cast and a thoughtful, bittersweet ending that challenged the rest of the episode considerably. And I didn’t get to write about it. This […]
Sherlock’s back in the US! After Peter’s awesome review of Series 2, everyone is excited, right? Here is a spoiler-heavy recap of “Scandal in Belgravia”. We pick up right where we left Series 1. Our heroes Sherlock and John are in a showdown with Moriarty. It’s a tense face off, when suddenly the Bee Gees […]
Dear Diary, It’s me (Borah. Just to clarify). I’m back to rant and rave about The Legend of Korra once more. With feeling (Yeah. Went there). This time it’s Episode 5: “The Spirit of Competition”. If you’ve just stumbled upon this and are thinking to yourself, “What’s a Korra?” you can read my little intro/catch-up/explanatoryramblefest […]
Yay! It’s time for another Korra diary entry! We’re on episode 4, btw. I dunno, it’s hard for me to keep up (what with the premier being eps 1 + 2). I just thought I’d mention it. Geez. Don’t have a cow (I’ve been having a randomly 80’s day). You know what Korra Diary means […]
For the first few episodes of their second season, Game of Thrones focused on one unifying theme to help bring their episodes cohesion. The last two, however, were pulled together much more chronologically. As such, they featured way more of the characters we know and love and way more of the expensive locations that really […]
This week’s episode of Mad Men was kind of a bummer. A beautiful, poignant, heart wrenching bummer. After last week’s Lane and Pete apalooza, this week focused on Roger, Don and Peggy, in three unbroken segments that detailed the same twenty four hour period. We start with Peggy, all primed to deal with the dipshits […]
What exactly terrorizes Westeros? Tonight’s episode focused on this question. I was kind of dreading tonight’s episode of Game Of Thrones, “Garden of Bones.” Like most weeks, I was excited to watch the show, but I knew that sooner or later an episode would end exactly how this one did: with Melisandre stripping down naked […]
Dear Diary, Today I watched the third episode of The Legend of Korra (it’s called “The Revelation”). Here were all my thoughts and feelings*: *WARNING: this is essentially going to be a live-blogging thing. Except … not live (dead blogging? Rehearsed blogging? …Undead blogging?) I’ll stop now. But see?! This is what it’s going to […]
Holy shit that was a beautiful episode, a carefully orchestrated tragedy punctuated by bouts of the absurd that made me snort with laughter. This week’s Mad Men, “Signal 30,” focused on Lane, Pete and Ken, and the result is the best episode of the new season. Pete Campbell starts out Mad Men as a character […]
This week’s episode of Game of Thrones is obsessed with the question of power. Saying that is kind of the equivalent of saying “this week’s Game of Thrones has a lot of boobs in it.” It’s true, of course, but it’s also true every week. This week, however, the question of power rises to new, […]
What makes a good man? What makes a bad one? And can a bad man become a good one? The latest episode of Mad Men, “Mystery Date,” tackles these questions head on. For four seasons we’ve watched our central characters struggle to wring happiness out of the lives they’ve chosen. By and large, these are […]
The second episode of Game of Thrones felt a lot more complete than the previous one. The renewed focus on Arya and Tyrion, currently the two best characters on the show, doesn’t hurt, but even new-to-TV Stannis and Melisandre, as well as a particularly icky scene with Theon Greyjoy, managed to set up events to […]
I am disappointed in the latest episode of Mad Men. It kind of makes me sad just writing that. For the past two seasons (and some change), I have felt that Mad Men could do no wrong. For the first time in a long time, though, I’m not sure. I sincerely hope that next week […]