The Wire

A newbie and a veteran debate what Alan Ball’s “show about death” is really about. 

The TV season ended officially last night (though we’ll still have a few stragglers hanging on for a week or two), and we’re in for a few weeks of bumpiness before everybody’s summer favorites—and True Blood—come back ...

The A.V. Club's Erik Adams counts down the best moments from the past week in television. (Warning: There will be spoilers.)   

Live, from New York (again): It’s 30 Rock! Also: The return of Wil Wheaton and turning back the clock in Mystic Falls.

What do we mean when we call something “too white” anyway? 

A thorough, fascinating breakdown of the visual style of The Wire

David Simon recently heated up an already-fraught conversation between TV creators, critics, and fans. Maybe it’s time to cool it down. 

A staff writer who doesn’t love Community talks it out with one who does.

David Fincher’s conspiracy movie The Game isn’t merely an underrated thriller, it’s a platform for brilliant, sneaky messages.

TV history is available at our fingertips. So why do people ignore it while swooning over the history of film and music? 

A folk singer focuses on the seedy underside of American life. 

What is a GCB, anyway? Also: Russian hurlers, YouTube sensations, and neutered Tarantino.

Sometimes loathing a character can be even more satisfying than rooting for a hero. This week, we look at fiction’s most enjoyable ire-magnets. 

The key writer-producer of Homicide: Life On The Street and creator of Oz talks about the new Borgia: Faith And Fear and laying the ground for serialized TV and connecting the dots between his work. 

Television has shifted focus to the big picture, and that’s not always a good thing. 

Just a dumb action movie? Maybe. Or maybe it’s a clever commentary on the passing of time and its star’s anxieties about aging.

Director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) follows a sewer worker and petty thief as he makes his way through a Nazi-occupied Polish city. 

The veteran actor talks about a career that stretches from Peyton Place to Cooley High to Showtime’s House Of Lies. 

An expert and a newbie weigh in on David Milch’s mud-and-dust-caked Western. 

In the last of a four-part series, one of the co-creators of Homeland guides us through the show’s first season. 

TV on DVD makes it easy to binge on acclaimed series, but sometimes it’s better to resist that urge. 

Producer George Lucas and his collaborators give the Tuskegee Airmen the Remember The Titans treatment. 

David Milch had a lot of ideas for his follow-up to Deadwood, and they didn’t always make sense.

Sure, the year we just left behind always gets a lot of attention in entertainment circles. But what about all the great stuff from every year before that?

Our annual call for resolutions about the pop-culture decisions we want to make—or stop making—in the year ahead.