Television

How the Real Estate Sales on Selling Sunset Actually Work

There is something endlessly enticing about watching real estate shows featuring multi-million dollar mansions. The imported marble countertops, the elevators, the infinity pools with a view of the city—it’s so unattainable for the average person...

By Hannah Lynn November 24, 2021

The Mean-Girl Dynamics of Selling Sunset Don't Quite Work in Season 4

There is a reason certain reality TV show feuds remain etched in our minds, even as pop culture has moved on. From Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari in Laguna Beach to Lauren Conrad (again) and...

By Morgan Jerkins November 24, 2021

How Amazon's The Wheel of Time Stacks Up Against Its Source Material

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Amazon Prime Video series, The Wheel of Time The Wheel of Time, a fantasy TV show based on the novel series of the same name by Robert Jordan, premiered Nov....

By Leigh Butler November 19, 2021

The Strange Shortsightedness of Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson

Even as it pushes back on the demonization of Jackson, the film never steps outside its surprisingly conservative frame.

By Judy Berman November 19, 2021

Welcome to TV’s Era of Peak Redundancy

The good news is, streaming overload can’t last forever

By Judy Berman November 19, 2021

What to Know About The Wheel of Time Books Before Watching the Amazon Prime Series

There’s a lot of TV coming our way this holiday season, and one of the most buzzed-about shows out there is Amazon’s new fantasy series The Wheel of Time, developed by Rafe Judkins and starring...

By Leigh Butler November 18, 2021

Everything to Know About the Original Cowboy Bebop Before You Watch the Netflix Adaptation

The Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop, which premiered in 1998, is widely regarded as director Shinichirō Watanabe's magnum opus. Set in 2071, in a post-apocalyptic world where Earth has become largely uninhabitable, the story follows...

By Kat Moon November 18, 2021

If You Like Sex Education, You’ll Love Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls

Like so many young women in real life but so few in current pop culture, when they get hurt, they get right back up again.

By Judy Berman November 18, 2021

Sesame Street Welcomes its First Asian American Muppet

The latest addition to the show will be heavily present throughout the show's 53rd season airing next year

By Terry Tang/AP November 15, 2021

Netflix's Live-Action Cowboy Bebop Misunderstands What Made the Original a Classic

'Cowboy Bebop' is a mood.

By Judy Berman November 15, 2021

The True Story Behind The Shrink Next Door

Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell star in the new Apple TV+ series adapted from a podcast

By Mahita Gajanan November 12, 2021

Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd's The Shrink Next Door Is a Major Disappointment

It's rarely a good sign when characters based on real people strain believability

By Judy Berman November 8, 2021

Showtime Survival Thriller Yellowjackets Is the Best New Show in Months

“Women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men,” Lord of the Flies author William Golding once opined. “They are far superior and always have been. But one thing you can’t do with them...

By Judy Berman November 5, 2021

An Elegy for Dickinson, the Weirdest, Most Wonderful Show on Apple TV+

The anachronisms aren’t an empty gimmick. They recontextualize the poet and her work, scribbling over those stiff black-and-white portraits to reveal a truly colorful character.

By Judy Berman November 5, 2021

The 5 Best New TV Shows Our Critic Watched in October 2021

As October nears its spooky, sugar-saturated end, one thing is clear: it hasn't been a very good month for new TV shows. Maybe you were too busy bingeing on horror movies or wolfing down HBO's...

By Judy Berman October 29, 2021

After a Limp First Season, William Jackson Harper Revitalizes HBO Max Rom-Com Anthology Love Life

Harper's Marcus Watkins is lost in the woods, not just single, but also fundamentally confused about who he is and what he wants out of life.

By Judy Berman October 28, 2021

These Numbers Show How More Diversity on TV Leads to Increased Viewership

The trend reflects the nation's increasing racial and ethnic diversity

By Cady Lang October 27, 2021

How Insecure Became a Talent Pipeline

As "Insecure" starts its final season, a constellation of power player alumni are fanning out across the Hollywood landscape

By Andrew R. Chow October 22, 2021

How Only Murders in the Building Grapples With the Thorny Ethics of True-Crime Podcasting

The Hulu series is savvy in its depiction of true crime podcast hysteria, ethical quandaries and all

By Eliana Dockterman October 19, 2021

"Succession" According to Corporate Lawyers

'Succession' is headed towards legal drama territory. Three corporate lawyers analyze the ongoing action and offer legal advice to the characters

By Andrew R. Chow October 17, 2021

Suddenly, Everyone We See on TV Is Very Rich or Very Poor. What Happened?

There’s something ominous about the prospect of the vast majority of the population—everyone who lives above the poverty line but will never own an aircraft—disappearing from our screens. Where have TV’s middle classes gone?

By Judy Berman October 13, 2021

The Only Succession Recap You Need Before Season 3 Starts

Season 3 picks up with the fallout from a Kendall Roy bombshell. Here’s where the major characters stand going into a new season of corporate warfare.

By Andrew R. Chow October 12, 2021

What Happened, Brittany Murphy?, Britney Spears and the Gendered Perils of Child Stardom

Taken together with everything we’ve learned about the other Britney these past several months, this two-part HBO Max documentary raises questions about the lifelong perils of early fame, for women in particular

By Judy Berman October 11, 2021

Jung Ho-yeon on Squid Game's Runaway Success

The first-time actor on being cast for the hit Netflix show, relating to her character Sae-byeok and where she hopes her career goes next

October 6, 2021

The Problem With Jon Stewart Could Be Great, If It Ever Catches Up to the Present

“I remember your march,” a guest says, referring to Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s jokey Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, held on the National Mall in 2010. “I think it was against insanity.” Stewart: “Yeah, we won.”

By Judy Berman September 30, 2021

How Big Brother Finally Got Its First Black Winner After More Than 20 Years on the Air

After 23 seasons and more than 20 years, the long-running CBS reality competition show has its first Black winner ever, Xavier Prather

By Mariah Espada September 30, 2021

The 5 Best New TV Shows Our Critic Watched in September 2021

From Mike Flanagan's annual horror show to a hit Korean thriller

By Judy Berman September 30, 2021

Three New Britney Spears Documentaries Tell a Chilling Tale About the Bystander Effect

For years, it seemed that no one knew what was going on with Britney Spears. In fact, many people knew, but nobody managed to stop it

By Judy Berman September 28, 2021

HBO's 'Nuclear Family' Shows A Gay Family Fighting To Exist

Filmmaker Ry Russo-Young turns the camera on her own life, documenting how her two lesbian mothers were sued by her sperm donor in 1991

By Madeleine Carlisle September 23, 2021

Netflix’s Catholic Horror Story Midnight Mass Is One Hell of a Halloween Binge

After a slow first two episodes, the show’s alchemy of spectacle, suspense and storytelling starts working. A binge becomes not just inevitable, but also unexpectedly satisfying.

By Judy Berman September 20, 2021

Pour One Out For the Network Comedy

The broadcast sitcom is more than just a casualty of the streaming wars. Its death is a sign of a fragmented society

By Judy Berman September 17, 2021

How Reservation Dogs Is Opening Up a Crucial Conversation About Suicide in Indigenous Communities

Actor Devery Jacobs writes about how the comedy series takes on the issue in a way rarely seen in pop culture

By Devery Jacobs September 14, 2021

American Rust Sounds a Lot Like Mare of Easttown. Sadly, It Isn’t

Jeff Daniels stars in a Rust Belt crime drama too mired in small-town misery to say anything new

By Judy Berman September 10, 2021

FX’s Epic Y: The Last Man Adaptation Gets Off to a Shaky But Intriguing Start

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. So goes the old feminist slogan. But that doesn’t mean life on Earth would continue as normal if every mammal with a Y chromosome suddenly dropped dead.

By Judy Berman September 8, 2021

HBO's Scenes From a Marriage Remake Is Trying to Break Your Heart, All Over Again

HBO casts Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac in a loosely gender-flipped remake of Ingmar Bergman's classic miniseries.

By Judy Berman September 4, 2021

Impeachment: American Crime Story Frames the Clinton Scandal as a Case of Women Sabotaging Women. Is That Really So Revolutionary?

If there’s a point to this exercise, it gets lost amid so many scenery-chomping reenactments of scenes we’ve seen replayed on the news and parodied in late-night comedy for more than two decades

By Judy Berman August 31, 2021

Best New TV Shows Our Critic Watched in August 2021

From Spike Lee's controversial love letter to New York to Sandra Oh's satire of life in academia.

By Judy Berman August 31, 2021

Steve Martin’s Only Murders in the Building Is a Droll, Cozy Mystery for Modern Manhattan

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez team up on murder podcast in this charming trifle from Hulu

By Judy Berman August 30, 2021

The 33 Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2021

From Impeachment: American Crime Story to Midnight Mass, here are the buzziest fall TV releases

By Eliana Dockterman August 27, 2021

'The Chair' on Netflix Hits Home for Academia's Women of Color

I’ve been an English professor for nearly 20 years, but people still tell me I don’t look like one. Not because I’m young (I’m not), but because I’m Asian American. Whenever professors are depicted in...

By Beth Nguyen August 23, 2021

New Jeopardy! Host Mike Richards Steps Down Amid Criticism. But He's Not Leaving the Show Entirely

Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards has officially stepped down as incoming host of the long-running game show

By Megan McCluskey August 20, 2021

Netflix’s Sharp Satire The Chair Throws Sandra Oh Into the Politicized Powder Keg of Higher Ed

This perceptive, perfectly cast, if rushed, comedy follows the first female chair of a chaotic college English department

By Judy Berman August 19, 2021

Alexandra Daddario on the White Lotus Finale and Rachel's Big Decision

The actor and key member of the ensemble of Mike White's breakout HBO series talks about her character's climactic decision in the finale

By Andrew R. Chow August 15, 2021

Two Feminists Who Love Reality TV Wrap Their Minds Around the FBoy Island Finale

FBoy Island was far better than it had any right to be. But was it more feminist than other dating shows?

By Judy Berman August 13, 2021

Netflix Horror Noir Brand New Cherry Flavor Tastes Terrible

What little the showdoes contribute to the post-#MeToo discourse around predatory men, vulnerable women and the price of fame falls somewhere between reactionary and obvious

By Judy Berman August 6, 2021

Amazon’s Divine Period Romance The Pursuit of Love Gives Classic Social Satire a Modern Twist

Writer-director-actor Emily Mortimer hits all the sweaty, swooning highs and melancholic lows of Nancy Mitford's roller-coaster plot, with a particular eye for comedy

By Judy Berman July 30, 2021

9 Clues That Set Up Kendall’s Big Cliffhanger on Succession

The 10 Best TV Shows of 2021

The Director of Hellbound and Train to Busan Wants to Emphasize That Korean Entertainment Didn’t Merely Explode Overnight

The 5 Best New TV Shows Our Critic Watched in November 2021