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Hokum and Hoodlums to Delight You This Holiday Season

I hope that one of the tasks you are making time for during the holidays is some binge TV watching. One friend is just now catching up with “Breaking Bad.” (By the way, if you haven’t seen this series, which…

Dec 27, 2014

Time for What May Well Be the Final Awards Show of 2014

With awards season poised to take a break for the holidays after the recent nomination announcements from the Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes and SAG, along comes what is to the best of our current knowledge the very last awards show…

Dec 18, 2014

Jimmy Smits Offers Insights Into ‘Sons of Anarchy’ — Including Tonight’s Series Finale

If you’re not among the 6 million people who regularly tune in to “Sons of Anarchy” or its 8.2 million Facebook fans, you may possibly be excused for not knowing that Tuesday night, Dec. 9, 2014, marks the end of…

Dec 9, 2014

‘Peter Pan Live’ Was ‘Oddly Awful.’ What NBC Needs to Do to Have These Musical Spectaculars Grow Up

TV Critic Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch nailed it when she wrote of last night’s “Peter Pan Live” on NBC, “Christopher Walken, whose casting seemed a stroke of genius, was oddly awful as Captain Hook. At points, he…

Dec 5, 2014

‘Not Really Just a Chick Show’: The Inside Story on ‘Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce’

In the past decade or so on cable television, Bravo has launched many popular shows that have become part of the pop-culture zeitgeist, from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” to the “Real Housewives” franchise to “Inside the Actors’ Studio,”…

Dec 2, 2014

Can ‘Sons of Anarchy’s’ Gemma Find Redemption? Katey Sagal Opens Up

As “Sons of Anarchy” hurtles at high speed toward its series denouement on Dec. 9 after seven adrenalized seasons, the drama and speculation around the fate of one lead character is fiercer than ever. That would be Gemma Teller Morrow,…

Nov 24, 2014

CNN Documentary Asks Whether College Is Worth the Price

What used to be taken as generally accepted wisdom — that the path to success in our society includes a college degree — is called into question in a thought-provoking documentary, “Ivory Tower,” which asks the burning question of whether…

Nov 20, 2014

The One Question Angela Bassett Has Never Been Asked — Until Now

Angela Bassett has had a long and diverse career on television and film, but there’s something she’s never been asked about any of the characters she’s played: Is she or isn’t she a she? Until now. As Desiree Dupree on…

Nov 14, 2014

Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The Newsroom’ Returns on HBO. How the Series Finally Won Us Over

While waiting for the third and final season of “The Newsroom” to begin — which happened last night — many of us were surprised in April to hear that the creator of the show, Aaron Sorkin, had apologized for it….

Nov 10, 2014

HBO Gives Fans of ‘The Comeback’ Something New to Cherish

Sunday nights are about to get very interesting again on HBO. The pay cabler is about to launch the third and final season of its drama “The Newsroom,” followed by the comedy comeback of “The Comeback,” which ran for one…

Nov 7, 2014