I think we can all agree that a show about a group of gay sci-fi fans is a fairly niche product, even in an era where The Big Bang Theory is a significant hit. I also think, even given its niche nature, that it’s a reasonably good idea for a television show. Identity, these days, comes not just from race and church and sex and nation. We define ourselves based on our politics, our interests,... 

As year-end lists have poured in, it’s been nice to see Community top or near the top of so many rankings of the best thing on television. I’m in something of withdrawal over the show’s hiatus already, and my thoughts are turning, rather grimly, of what it’s going to take for the series to survive. In some ways, Community reminds me of 30 Rock. Like its network sibling, Community... 

It really is remarkable how tipping points work in Hollywood. Sam Worthington stars in Avatar, and without any particular consideration of his performance, he suddenly has to be in everything. Tom Hardy, despite years of solid British movie and television work, including a critically acclaimed arty turn in Bronson, shows up in Inception, and suddenly he’s in everything from a Prohibition movie... 

Well, it’s not a full-on superheroine movie, and it’s not the She-Hulk television show I sometimes dream that Joss Whedon and David Kelley will get drunk and try to create. But I’m glad to see the CW is making a series about a superpowered teenage girl. The fact that the dude helming the show has done work on the intriguing combination of Buffy, The Shield, Without a Trace and... 

Last night’s post about the Real Housewives of Atlanta got me to thinking about reality television in general. It’s easy to watch these people as part of a “cast,” as opposed to plain old regular folks, because they’ve bought into the adage that all the world’s a stage. In Kim Zolciak’s mind, she is a talented, stunningly beautiful woman whose charms are finally... 

One of the reasons British shows and movies about journalists are so great is that the English accept a raffishness in reporters and editors that we Americans normally only deem acceptable in cops. Which is the main reason I’m so excited to hear that Dominic West is playing a journalist in a high-end British television series. Take Dan Foster from State of Play: Add some muscle mass, and subtract... 

I have a slightly irrational thing for Jonathan Rhys Meyers (so cute! and with those dead eyes and the alcohol problem, so scary!), so in the course of skimming through a number of television shows that have been languishing in my Netflix Instant Watch queue, I figured I might as well try out The Tudors. It’s a vastly silly show, or at least the couple of episodes I watched seemed rather vastly... 

David Brooks is right that there are an exceptional number of very good sitcoms about friendship on television these days. Emily Nussbaum is also correct that the last several seasons of television have breathed new and energetic life into the family sitcom. But I think where both of them are somewhat wrong is that they’re drawing distinctions between friendship and family that are less relevant... 

I understand that Emily Nussbaum’s column about what we demand from television creators is more about the creative process and the way folks incorporate feedback. But puzzlingly, she’s ignoring a huge benefit of online fan communities and a greater interaction between fans and writers and creators: it creates new sources of revenue for creators, and in some cases, keeps alive careers that... 

Apparently, there’s a reasonable possibility of two live-action superhero television shows in the near future—an Incredible Hulk show that might have some continuity with Joss Whedon’s Avengers movie and a Cloak and Dagger show. I don’t mean to beat this horse entirely into the ground, but they’ve got the wrong Hulk here. It’s true that either a Hulk or a She-Hulk show...