Shameless: Season 8 — a review

Whenever I talk about the series Shameless with another human being, the question that I logically expect to hear at some point is, “What’s the show about?” This question is easy to answer for some series. Take a look at these answers. “Lucifer is about Satan—Lucifer Morningstar—who has bored of ruling Hell and has chosen […]

Sex Education: Series 1 (Netflix) — a review

People I love have told me that I’m terrible at keeping secrets. This isn’t true. In fact, I’m excellent at keeping secrets. I have a couple that I’ll take to the grave with me, in fact. Your hair would instantly turn white if I told you my secrets. No, that’s a lie. At this point, […]

Weeds: Season 8 — a review

The series Weeds aired on premium cable channel Showtime between 2005 and 2012. This means that this review is for a series that ended about nine years ago. While it’s not uncommon for me to get around to watching a series long after it went off the air, the truth is I began watching this […]

Shameless: Season 5 — a review

This season takes place two to three months after the events of Season 4. Take heed: I’m going to spoil the hell out of it, so skip down to the bottom if you haven’t watched the series yet. As always, we deal with the aftermath of the story threads from the previous season. Ian Gallagher […]

Shameless: Season 4 — a review

Season 4 of Shameless dares to go a little dark. We never expect things to go smoothly with the Gallaghers, our favorite family in Chicago’s South Side. And, they don’t this season either. We do expect things to remain entertaining, however. They do continue to entertain, but the drama this year, as I said at […]

GLOW: Season 1 — a review

My maternal grandparents were wrestling fans. This means wrestling was playing on their television whenever I visited them, and since we lived in the same smallish town, that was often. They swore that wrestling wasn’t fake. Even when the WWE (or maybe it was still the WWF in those days) had to admit that what […]

Shameless: Season 3 — a review

You don’t need additional reasons to hate the character Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy). You’ll still get more reasons during Season 3, anyway. In most real ways, this Showtime series is about the Gallagher children, not about their father. Frank is more of a force of nature, existing primarily to complicate plots. Seldom are the […]

Shameless: Season 2 — a review

I doubt that I will ever suggest that I’m growing more fond of Frank Gallagher. He remains one of the most reprehensible television characters I’ve ever seen. I am, however, a fan of William H. Macy, the actor who portrays him. He’s conducting an acting clinic every time he appears on the screen. There’s a […]

New Girl: Season 2 — a review

Some writers, and some showrunners, get it. It’s about the characters. If you allow the characters you create to come to life, whether on the page or on the screen, the stories that develop from them will be more engaging, on one hand, and less important, on the other. Character-driven stories are the best kind, […]

Gilmore Girls: Season 5 — a review

Amy Sherman-Palladino and the other great minds behind Gilmore Girls know how to write characters that you grow to care about. That’s what keeps me watching this series, which is a veritable Masters class on characterization. Towns such as Stars Hollow, Connecticut, do not exist. They’ve probably never existed except on shows like this one, […]

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