Mar. 23, 2012
It’s Different for ‘Girls’ Lena Dunham’s new show is like nothing else on TV.
Oct. 28, 2011
The Rebirth of the Feminist Manifesto Come for the Lady Gaga, stay for the empowerment.
Oct. 27, 2011
Shock Value American Horror Story is an allegory of worst-case scenarios, all visceral enough to work.
Oct. 7, 2011
76 Minutes With Marlo Thomas Backstage and out on the town with the feminist TV pioneer, now in the limelight again, as a “dumb blonde.”
Sept. 22, 2011
Under the Boardwalk Why does HBO’s mob period drama often feel like a beautifully tailored empty suit?
Sept. 9, 2011
What to Feed Your DVR Pilot-surfing through the latest network offerings. (Don’t get too attached.)
Novelist Laura Lippman on Her New Book and Morbid Imagination “I think I’m part of a generation of crime writers, all of whom woke up independently and recoiled with horror at the fact that we’d chosen this very conservative genre.”
Aug. 27, 2011
Television News The last days of intermediation.
Aug. 26, 2011
Sex and the City Was it still okay to drink cosmos?
Aug. 19, 2011
She-Runners An encouraging wave of chick-created comedies.
July 22, 2011
My ‘Breaking Bad’ Bender And the cold hard truths of the morning after.
Why You Should Have Been Watching Treme Instead of The Killing ’The Killing’ claims to be a “holistic journey” that doesn’t “tie things up in a bow,” but ‘Treme’ really is.
May 27, 2011
What Was She Thinking? The irresistable inscrutability of the betrayed political wife.
May 13, 2011
Emily Nussbaum on the New Interactive Showrunner “You don’t have to love the work of every showrunner to see what they have in common: When you watch their shows, you know who set their stamp on it.”
May 12, 2011
One-Man Show No, really. Profane comic Louis C.K.’s unique experiment in television making.
TV Review: Is United States of Tara the New Dexter ? ’Tara’ has many of the strengths of ‘Dexter,’ not so many of its weaknesses.
Mar. 17, 2011
Depression Modern Todd Haynes’s Mildred Pierce is a visually luscious tale of obsession—a mother’s with her daughter.
gender studies
Feb. 25, 2011
Community ’s Chevy Chase ProblemCan the show find a satisfying way to deal with his — and his character’s — unlikablity?
Jan. 27, 2011
Don’t Write Off ‘Skins’ Just Yet It’s got greasy, amoral potential.
Jan. 6, 2011
Falling in Love Again The grown-up charm of Episodes.
Jan. 6, 2011
Constant Cravings Men behaving badly on Lights Out, Shameless, and Californication.
Nussbaum: An Ode to Cop Rock , TV’s Unsung Procedural (and Glee ’s Secret Sauce) I’ve always thought back fondly on the 1990 Steven Bochco attempt at a musical procedural. It makes me wonder at the TV experiments we haven’t seen yet.
Nussbaum: Betrayed by Dexter Season five of the show had lots of things that made no sense, and, worse, felt exploitative — something I’d rarely thought about the show.
Nussbaum: The Office Christmas Episode Made Me Love the Show Again Until “Classy Christmas,” I’d thought that, with a few exceptions, this season had gone off the rails.
Dec. 9, 2010
15. Because We Keep Finding New Ways to Make Our Big, Anonymous Metropolis Feel Like a Lost-Bunny-Finding Small Town To listen to the doomsday pundits, one might assume that social networking is the death of the neighborhood: so cold, so virtual, so alienating! […]
Nussbaum: A Fantastically Strange Magazine About TV The beautiful television issue of ‘Esopus’ could be the first designed for people who never watch television.
Dec. 2, 2010
The Year in TV I t’s conventional wisdom that the antenna of a TV top ten—the selection that gets the fat print and the pretty illustration—should be a drama. […]
Nussbaum: Giving Thanks for Parenthood ’Parenthood’ could easily be condemned for its yuppie navel-gazing. I say, bring on the navels. Let us gaze.
Nussbaum Flashes Back to a Very Special, Very Molester-y Diff’rent Strokes It has the Very Special Episode’s uniquely cringe-worthy meld of earnest edutainment and laugh-track yuks.
Nussbaum’s Critical Speed Round: Men of a Certain Age , Dexter , HIMYM , and More I’m a longtime fan of ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ but this season is bumming me out.
Nussbaum: The Good Wife ’s Bait and Switch ’The Good Wife’ is the first show about politics on a psychological level.
Nov. 15, 2010
Special Victims Unit What does it mean to dramatize rape on television?
Nussbaum: Reconsidering Two and a Half Men ’Two and a Half Men’ isn’t dirty ha-ha, it’s dirty depressing.
Nussbaum on Last Night’s Private Practice Rape Episode “They pulled it off — mostly. In the terms of the show, anyway.”
Nussbaum: Some Après-Election Cheer, Courtesy of Dwayne Wayne My favorite clip from that highly political (yes, highly political!) eighties sitcom ‘A Different World.’
Why Is Hawaii Five-0 So Inexplicably Popular? I can just sum this up in one line: Please watcher ‘Terriers’ on FX instead.
The New Age of the Family Sitcom (and Where Louis C.K. Is Taking It) If all the best parenting sitcoms have ‘Roseanne’ DNA, ‘Louis’ has it the most purely.
TV Review: In Treatment Is Back on the Couch Romantic and agitating in turns, the HBO drama has, in its stealthy way, become one of the most experimental series on television.
Nussbaum: Do We Want Too Much From TV’s Creators? The Just Jealous! thesis and the I’m Rubber, You’re Glue school of thought.
Oct. 21, 2010
All Ears How Gabriel Byrne turns listening into eloquence on HBO’s In Treatment.
Our Recapper and Critic Debate the Mad Men Finale “That was like one of those situations where you’ve been hoping for a sex scene between two characters and then it finally happens.”
Why do the Mad Men Writers Make Betty Draper Such a Monster? While the ladies around her bloom, Betty hardens, her character getting ever icier, vainer, more alien.
Don’t Be Afraid of Dexter , He’s Killing in Season Five Showtime’s drama about a serial killer is disturbing, sure, but also one of the most brilliant dramas on TV.
TV Review: The Stealthy, Noir-y Charms of Terriers ’Terriers’ has pulled off a neat trick: looking like a procedural, then sneaking in something much more interesting.
Emily Nussbaum on the Curse of the Ghost TV Fan Why even bother falling in love with a TV show when there’s a good chance it will be canceled?
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