“Doppelgangland”

After the Xander-defining showcase of “The Zeppo,” it was high time for Willow to grab the spotlight. I know from my past Buffy-related reading (including the comments on this column) that “Doppelgangland” ranks right up there with “The ...

First of all, a thousand apologies for abandoning you all for two whole weeks, and a million thank yous to Todd and Donna for filling in as your SYTYCD guides while I was on various planes and boats in the ...

Did you know there was a commemorative plate made for the original Trek? Probably more than one, I guess, but the one I remember had Kirk in a pile of tribbles, in a painting inspired by one of the series ...

To me, the second season of Deadwood is the greatest achievement of the televisual form. As far as sheer consistency of quality, there are a few seasons that can match it (the fourth and fifth seasons of The Simpsons, perhaps ...

“Torch” is one of the best hours of Rescue Me ever and one of the better hours of TV drama I’ve seen in a while. Everything in the episode, from its central device, to its comic relief scenes, to ...

I worry sometimes that I over-praise the TV shows I love, creating a false impression that they’re somehow flawless and exalted, and that anyone who doesn’t “get” them is a dolt. (And then I worry that I worry ...

Ah, holidays in sitcom land.  Networks demand themed episodes.  And generally they're lame.  In fact, I approached "Christmas" without much excitement, possibly because "Stocks" is a bit on the choppy side.  But it turns out this is the rare ...

Weeds has apparently just decided to completely turn itself over to Justin Kirk and hope for the best. I’m not entirely sure this is such a bad plan either. On his own, Andy Botwin isn’t the world’s ...

It's not too hard to figure out how Dance Your Ass Off came to exist: dance shows and inspirational transformation programs both seem to be big reality TV payoffs, so it could be a natural, if not cheesy, fit ...

It has taken four episodes, but one of Jackie's other shoes (and by my count she has at least three, each from different pairs, perched on the precipice) has finally dropped. Jackie and her terminally bland husband are summoned ...

"Enemies"
If there's one common thread I'm noticing about The West Wing, it's that, deep down, everyone working together genuinely likes each other. There wouldn't be much of a show were that not the case—Josh ...

Just in case you thought Bon Temps might be getting a little boring, the True Blood writers have decided to throw another dart at the mythology-inspiration dartboard. Let's see, we've already got a maenad, a shapeshifter, a telepath ...

Hung debuts tonight on HBO at 9 p.m. CDT.

There’s maybe no TV creator better at charting America’s uneasy relationship with its money than Dmitry Lipkin. His shows almost always have over-obvious elements or brutally stereotypical characters ...

I wasn’t terribly looking forward to Virtuality, a little side project Battlestar Galactica superhero Ron Moore and BSG producer Michael Taylor have been futzing around with for what seems like seven years now. The whole premise of it sounded ...

“The Zeppo”

What does it mean to be “cool?” That’s the question that runs throughout “The Zeppo” a fan-favorite (and now me-favorite) Buffy episode that in and of itself kind of defines what "cool" is. The episode is ...

Genevieve's coming back from vacation today, so I'll be your guide to this week's dancing and results.  I'm glad to have this chance, because I have a theory about the difference between American Idol and SYTYCD ...

After waxing so complimentary about last week’s Burn Notice—both here and on my Twitter feed—I decided to go back and re-watch “End Run” over the weekend, to see if it held up to my heady claims. In ...

Listen, I’m not the world’s most politically correct guy, but when I heard that NBC’s new series The Philanthropist would focus on a billionaire playboy white guy traveling the world and helping disadvantaged minorities and poor people ...

A couple of notes first before getting down to business:

• Finally, for the first time since I’ve started watching the show, I can say I’ve actually tasted food from a competitor. Here in Chicago, you can’t avoid ...

Episode 10. “Mister Wu.”

It’s tempting to just write about the final three episodes of Deadwood’s first season as one unit. In many ways, they’re the most cohesively plotted episodes as a story unit, presenting three central ...

The new Bravo series NYC Prep has been touted as the real-life Gossip Girl, an intimate look into the lives of privileged Upper East Side snobs with absentee parents, fake IDs, and limitless credit card accounts. But based on the ...

“Disease” perks up from the last few Rescue Mes, which have been good but haven’t quite hit the highs earlier episodes this season managed to hit. “Disease,” however, is at that level again, save for one scene late ...

I may be showing my age here, but I grew up watching The Superstars on Sunday afternoons on ABC.  It was appointment television at my house.  Kyle Rote Jr. may have been the ultimate Superstars competitor, but as an Oakland ...

“Without bosses, we’d be like these worms. Disgusting.” –Veridian Dynamics

Is it possible for employees to be friends with their bosses? I can’t think of too many times when I didn’t socialize with my supervisors, editors or ...

“Su-Su-Sucio” is probably the best Weeds yet in this young season, if not the best Weeds in a while. It’s sharply funny in quite a few spots, it offers up some good plot development, and none of the characters ...

This episode of Nurse Jackie, far more than the previous two, revealed a common drawback of this nebulous genre known as the half-hour TV dramedy, namely, picking a side. Considering that a show can't be precisely 50% comedy/50 ...

Back in 2006 I was addicted to Cheerleader Nation, a reality show on Lifetime that followed an elite high school cheer squad working toward a national championship.  Just as interesting as the injuries, rivalries, and routines were the relationships between ...

"Mr. Willis Of Ohio"
Who lives in America? What are all these people like? What do they all have in common? And, most importantly, what do they want? When The West Wing devotes an episode to a budget surplus, we ...