Primetimely

As always, there’s too much good TV to watch, let alone wedge into a top-ten list. So for this, the revered yearly pantheon of television shows selected by America’s most cherished TV critic — ha! — I’m also noting a few honorable mentions, as well as recognizing the shows that might have elbowed their way onto this ranking had I actually had time to watch them in 2012. I can only imagine the heart-wrenching cuts [...]

Along with all the hoopla about the broadcast networks’ new shows, upfront season is also the day of reckoning for their existing lineups.  And this month’s renewal and cancellation news has been nothing if not surprising.  Here are my thoughts.

• The vultures were already circling when Cougar Town returned to ABC in February to even worse ratings than before, but then—huzzah!—TBS [...]

or, A Television-Related Word Association Experiment With the Love of My Life

Here’s a list of every current show I watch, and my boyfriend’s instant reaction to each.

• 30 Rock “Oh, Tina Fey…” (smiles)
• American Horror Story ”Thrills me.”
• Boardwalk Empire “Costumes…”
• Breaking Bad “Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t know.  Come back to me with that one.”
• Burn Notice “Never saw it… oh, but that guy is hot.”
• Californication [...]

My year-end accolades (or year-beginning ones, as the case may be) always come with a disclaimer: I haven’t watched all the awesome TV out there. There’s no Boardwalk Empire on this list, no Homeland, no Game of Thrones… and I can’t even award Breaking Bad because I’ve only seen three episodes of this year’s season! But, c’mon, every [...]

We all watch television in eager anticipation of those watercooler moments—those moments so shocking, so emotional, so incredibly awesome that we have to a) rewind to watch them about twenty times and b) rehash them to death with all of our fellow watchers. And I honor my picks for those moments here, along with video clips of each [...]

Because it’s already February of the next year and I’m feeling sheepish, let’s just speed through this! Here is the pantheon of shows which, in my opinion, made television a bit more divine in 2010. (Note: I have not yet seen Boardwalk Empire or Downton Abbey—forgive me.)

1. Mad Men (2010: #2)
2. Lost (2010: #3)
3. Breaking Bad (2010: #1)
4. Modern Family (2010: #7)
5. Community
6. Fringe (2010: [...]

It’s often hard to remember all of the television I watch every year, but some episodes make themselves impossible to forget. The following hours or half-hours of television were exemplary in some way, whether it was for the writing or the direction of the episode; for the way they ended [...]

In the waning hours of 2010, allow me to kick-start the Second Annual Primie Awards. Below are my favorite fifteen characters from the past year of television, again listed in descending order of awesomeness. (One could only dream of a context that would bring all of them together to share the screen!)

1. Kalinda Sharma (The Good Wife) If mystery [...]

Yes, this installment of The Prime Times is chock-full of fortifying TV scoop. Yumm-o!

• Steven Spielberg is in talks with FOX to develop a dinosaur drama! (That sentence begged for an exclamation point.) The project, tentatively titled Terra Nova, would see a family from the future travel to prehistoric times. But obviously, [...]

Because I’m theoretically on vacation, let’s just speed through this! Here are my picks for the ten best programs on the boob tube for the year of 2009. (Hint: AMC takes the cake!)

1. Breaking Bad
2. Mad Men
3. Lost
4. Battlestar Galactica
5. 30 Rock
6. True Blood
7. Modern Family
8. Fringe
9. Glee
10. Dollhouse