Network drama: ABC tells a tense story with ‘American Crime’
The new anthology drama by John Ridley, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave, is an intense, poignant look at issues of race and class in contemporary American society.
Government inaction: ‘House of Cards’ season three is a beautiful disappointment
House of Cards spends so much time trying to prove its importance that it forgets to actually do the work. For all its moody cinematography and (executive producer) David Fincher sheen, it’s just a campy soap opera whose sum falls far short of its pretty, pretty parts.
Lawyer up: Gilligan, Odenkirk return to AMC with ‘Better Call Saul’
Pre-Heisenberg Saul is a far cry from the slick, confident shyster we’ve come to know. Here he’s a disheveled, sad sack public defender just barely scraping by with an office is in the back room of a nail salon and a canary yellow Suzuki.
Resurrected: Season 5 brings new life to ‘The Walking Dead’
The Walking Dead is a show that works best when the characters are on the move, and there is a clear objective. So far, season five has given us both.
Identity crisis: Can ‘Gotham’ fly without Batman?
Two episodes in, and it’s still unclear exactly what Fox’s Gotham wants to be. A Batman prequel? A police procedural set in a comic book universe? A gritty character drama? Ultimately, it’s all those things, without doing any one of them particularly well.
