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Luck: Season 1, Episode 9
Go back to the first episode of Luck and you'll see how much is made of a little goat (known for his giant testicles) that hangs out in Turo's (John Ortiz) barn. Though the goat is mostly used as a...
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Justified: Season 3, Episode 11, "Measures"
An episode like "Measures" seemed inevitable at this point in Justified's third season. Its role is simple: to set up the bloodshed coming in the final two episodes. This isn't a criticism: There may...
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Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 1, "The North Remembers"
The most exciting thing about the season-two premiere of Game of Thrones is its refreshing sense of focus. Several episodes from the show's first season reached the cusp of greatness, but the show's...
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Justified: Season 3, Episode 12, "Coalition"
If Justified feels plot heavy of late, it's out of necessity given the premise of the third season: A disparate bunch of criminals, lawmen, and mobsters fight it out for control of Harlan County crime...
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Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 2, "The Night Lands"
After last week's remarkable season premiere of Game of Thrones, "The Night Lands" is a bit of a letdown. Show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss scripted both episodes, so comparisons are...
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Justified: Season 3, Episode 13, "Slaughterhouse"
The major criticism of Justified's third season is that it's included a few too many plot elements. Especially in its latter half, season three has been a nonstop cavalcade of conniving and double...
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Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 3, "What Is Dead May Never Die"
With tonight's episode, the writers of Game of Thrones continue the trend of organizing each episode of season two around a different theme. Every episode seems to revolve around a Lebowski rug quote...
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Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 4, "Garden of Bones"
The second season of Game of Thrones really hit its stride tonight with "Garden of Bones," an episode that heightens the tension in a number of major inter-related conflicts to great effect. It's...
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Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 5, "The Ghost of Harrenhal"
With "The Ghost of Harrenhal," David Benioff and D.B. Weiss try too hard to introduce an elemental aspect to Game of Thrones's focus on the nature of power. A veiled, unidentified woman tells Jorah...
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Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 6, "The Old Gods and the New"
After last week's thematically spastic episode, it's refreshing to see that a simple and direct, albeit unambitious, theme unites the various plot strands in "The Old Gods and the New." In this...
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Desperate Endings
Over the course of Desperate Housewives's eight-year run, the behind-the-scenes drama has often threatened to overshadow the series itself. I'm not referring to Nicolette Sheridan's pending lawsuit,...
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Portlandia: The Brunch Special
"What I'd like to show you now is a full meal," Kyle MacLachlan (as himself) intones in his ironic introduction to Portlandia's hour-long Brunch Special. The speech is one of the high points of this...
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Doctor Who: Season 7, Episode 1, "Asylum of the Daleks"
Opening a new season with the Daleks—pitting the Doctor against his oldest and most famous adversaries—has always been a temptation for the producers of Doctor Who. The audience-grabbing potential is...
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Doctor Who: Season 7, Episode 2, "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"
In one of the more blatant cases of Doctor Who using a B-movie style episode title to pull in the viewers, "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" lets us know up front that this is going to be a "romp"—big, loud,...
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Doctor Who: Season 7, Episode 3, "A Town Called Mercy"
Once upon a time, stories of the Old West were the epitome of straightforward, uncomplicated adventure storytelling. Then, in the last two decades or so, the long out of fashion genre was revived,...
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Doctor Who: Season 7, Episode 4, "The Power of Three"
Two weeks ago, writer Chris Chibnall presented "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," an episode which I felt started poorly but became steadily more interesting and enjoyable as it went along. Regrettably, the...
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Doctor Who: Season 7, Episode 5, "The Angels Take Manhattan"
Over the course of its original run, Doctor Who seldom used to make a big deal of the times when one or more of the Doctor's companions departed the series. There were exceptions, of course, but the...
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The Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 1, "Seed"
The Walking Dead's season-three premiere suggests that the program's showrunner, Glen Mazzara, and writing team have listened to everyone's gripes about season two's frequent and labored...
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The Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 2, "Sick"
If last week's season premiere of The Walking Dead teased the promise of a rebound from the choppy second season, this week's episode pivots forward into more fruitful dramatic terrain. It articulates...
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The Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 3, "Walk with Me"
"Do you think they remember anything? The person they once were?" a man asks in the latest episode of The Walking Dead. This is the kind of question you'd expect from someone in a George A. Romero...
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