Rachael Nisenkier

My second viewing party of The Handmaid’s Tale was, if anything, more horrifying than the first. It was also, inexplicably, more hopeful. This week, we’ll take ourselves episode by episode, so I can focus more on the individual episode’s brilliance and plot development than on the (still terrifying, still awful) political resonance. But fine one […]

  Kelly Bedard

*spoilers throughout* The second season of Rachel Bloom & Aline Brosh McKenna’s wacky, honest, fun, moving, groundbreaking, silly, progressive gem of a musical comedy moved fast. Really fast. Like, a full series worth of plot and character development in 13 episodes kind-of-fast. The ensemble was re-shuffled with one major character exit, one major character addition, and […]

  Vyasar Ganesan

The season finale of The Night Of is coming around the bend. It’s so soon, it seems unreal, despite how long the individual episodes run (one hour and twenty minutes, roughly, for those of us keeping score at home). So, in an attempt to provide a penultimate, final-feeling examination of the plot, I took a […]

There is a book, by Amitava Kumar, called “A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His …

  Vyasar Ganesan

Perhaps more telling of our generation than the procedural crime drama is the prison story. Jailbreaks, great escapes, masterful duels between the jailed and the jailers are sources of endless fascination for us. My theory? Imprisonment is a narrative that allows anyone to be a protagonist. We can side with the heroes of The Green […]

  Robin Lempel

Should the magical creatures at the Fantasy Hospital start treating mortals? That’s the big debate following episode 5 of Fantasy Hospital “LIVE from the Opal Office.” I’ve really enjoyed the new webseries Fantasy Hospital so far. It has an amazing cast including Emma Caulfield, Wil Wheaton, Pete Holmes and Kunal Nayyar. It’s a funny parody of […]

This may have been my favorite episode of the show. Granted, it’s only the 2nd airing of The Night Of, and granted, John Turturro steals the show every chance he can get, and granted, this episode moves the point of view back and forth faster than a shuttlecock, but it’s still my favorite. Let’s not […]

  Vyasar Ganesan

In the long and decorated history of the procedural crime drama, there have been shows, movies and series which go far and beyond the standard pale. In our recent era, Law and Order reigns supreme in terms of broadcast history, the first season of True Detective ranks as most ethereally horrifying, and Twin Peaks probably […]