“Am I bad for you,” Jimmy McGill asks his wife and personal moral center Kim Wexler in the fifth season finale of Better Call Saul. If he’d asked that question at any other point in the series, the answer would have been a resounding yes. After all, Kim was the one thing keeping Jimmy from […]
TV Articles
Schitt’s Creek: A Look Back at Canada’s Greatest (Recent) Export
Last night, TV lost another one of its brilliant, loving, kind, and smart comedies, as Schitt’s Creek, the Canadian series with a heart of polished gold, aired its final episode. While the series ran for six seasons, those of us here in the States were a bit slow on the uptake, only truly embracing the […]
Reality TV Meets Real-World Tragedy: The Ethics of (Not) Knowing
There is a haunting Ray Bradbury story from 1950 set in 2026—haunting only because it’s yet another one that seemed so far-fetched that seemingly has become true—about a technologically advanced house that lived on well past its owners. In “There Will Come Soft Rains,” the main character of the story is the house. It’s run […]
The Good Place, BoJack Horseman, and What We Owe To Each Other
What do we owe to each other? A loaded question, to be sure. But two exquisite comedy series tried their darnedest to answer it, each coming up with essentially the same response: Everything. If you haven’t had the chance to watch The Good Place or BoJack Horseman, this is the part of the piece where […]
Netflix: The King of the College Sports Documentary Series
Over the weekend, social media blew up with post after post lauding the new Netflix docu-drama Cheer. Before long, the Navarro Bulldogs’ coach Monica Aldamo was being favorably compared to both Coach and Tammy Taylor from Friday Night Lights (and yes, she is the perfect amalgamation of the two), people were comparing Gabi Butler’s parents to Kris […]
Top 10 TV Shows of 2019
The temperature has plummeted (to shockingly low depths here in Chicago, starting my annual ritual of wondering why I continue to subject myself to this weather), the holidays and 2020 are just around the corner, which means it’s time for that time-honored annual tradition: The Critic Best of List. 2019 was an interesting year for […]
Surviving Survivor 39: Why CBS Bears Responsibility and How to Move Forward
I don’t just watch TV (gasps aloud). I teach English. I frame AP Literature as a study of gender through works such as Ethan Frome and Anna Karenina. Jane Eyre and Medea. Beloved and King Lear. If I eavesdrop on a conversation a group is having, I may ask an essential question like “Is Bronte […]
The Top 10 TV Shows of the Decade
With the 2010s coming to a close, it’s my duty as a TV critic to create a Top 10 List of the best TV shows of the decade. Seriously. Check all the other entertainment sites. We’re all doing it. (And, if I’m honest, we’re all putting a lot of the same shows on our lists […]
Succession: Television’s Most Relatable Unrelatable Series
Remember when Game of Thrones went off the air back in May and everyone wondered if HBO would ever have another hit show that captured the cultural zeitgeist? Well, who would have thought it would only take them a few months to clean-up once again? For those of us who fell in love (or fell […]
For the People: Reviving the Emmys by Honoring ALL of Television
TV itself has never been stronger. It’s diverse. It’s powerful. It’s funny. It shows the depth of our achievements and highlights our worst tragedies. We can celebrate any genre and be inspired and amazed by performance after performance. And there is truly too much to watch. But the Emmy Awards are broken. They’ve alienated most […]