Mary McNamara, Television Critic

November 6, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'The People v. Leo Frank'

On April 27, 1913, the body of 13-year-old Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the National Pencil Co. factory in Atlanta, where she worked. She had been raped and strangled.

November 4, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin: a couple of savvy insiders

What? Did Tina Fey turn them down?

November 3, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'V' on ABC

Some story lines just never get old -- star-crossed lovers, mistaken identity, lizard men from outer space.

October 31, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew'

According to its own news release, the point of VH1's new "Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew" is "to examine one of society's most taboo topics, sex addiction." I don't like to quibble over a news release, but is sex addiction truly a taboo topic, i.e., forbidden by social law? Or is it just something best discussed in the privacy of a therapist's office or a 12-step program?

October 30, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

An inevitable surrender to 'Dexter'

It's difficult to explain to someone who has never seen Showtime's “Dexter” why it is currently the most riveting and addictive show on television. When you try, you tend to sound a tiny bit psychotic.

October 23, 2009

Video review: 'White Collar' on USA Network

Just when you thought bromance was dead, here comes "White Collar," a crime drama premiering on USA tonight that lifts the genre to a new and dazzling level.

October 25, 2009

AN OPEN LETTER

Some ideas for the next Oscars show

To: Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman, producers of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards

October 15, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'30 Rock' starts its fourth season

At this year's Emmys, Tina Fey went out of her way to thank not only "30 Rock" executive producer Lorne Michaels but also NBC for keeping her show on the air even though "we are so much more expensive than a talk show." In case you missed it, that was a dig at the network's decision to forgo scripted drama and comedy in its 10 p.m. slot and run "The Jay Leno Show" five nights a week.

October 14, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Jane Lynch, long on talent and short on significant roles, is having a breakthrough year

Jane Lynch is having a very big year, and it's tempting to believe that this is a sign, perhaps from God, and that things will soon be turning around for the rest of us. The Dow will regain its previous high, the ozone layer will close, Congress will pass healthcare legislation of which everyone approves, the entire population of the United States will learn how to pronounce "nuclear" -- all will be right with the world. Because many of us have doted on Lynch for years, it's about time she hit the mainstream.

September 26, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'The Cleveland Show'

The folks behind "Family Guy" have been saying some of the most alarming things. Like "sweet and funny" and "sense of family." They are using these words to describe "The Cleveland Show," a "Family Guy" spinoff that premieres Sunday night.

September 25, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

Ken Burns' 'National Parks' pays tribute to the men behind the idea

For Californians, Ken Burns' gorgeous and exhaustive six-part documentary on the National Parks poses something of a dilemma. In the 12 hours it takes for "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" to unfold, an Angeleno could easily visit any of a half dozen national parks. Without traffic, you could conceivably get to Yosemite, where it all started, tour the valley floor and be back before narrator Peter Coyote stopped talking.

September 27, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Don't be afraid of the sex on 'Glee'

Lulled into a sense of family-friendly excitement by the first installment of "Glee," which Fox sent out like a tantalizing test balloon this summer, some parents subsequently expressed shock and concern over the overtly sexual nature of the show's formal premiere. Which is a bit strange, considering that the show is on Fox, not the Disney Channel, airs at 9 p.m., not 8, and is about, you know, high school.

September 21, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'House' returns to get his house in order

Fox's top medical drama “House” returns tonight with an innovative two-hour season premiere that follows up on the final scene of last season: Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), plagued by Vicodin addiction and hallucinations, checks himself into a mental institution.

September 19, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Georgia O'Keeffe'

"Work doesn't become art until some rich person comes along and buys it," Alfred Stieglitz tells his about-to-become-famous wife in “ Georgia O’Keeffe,” which premieres tonight on Lifetime. And one has to wonder if the corollary might be "and an artistic career isn't all it could be until someone does a biopic."

August 28, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Inspector Lewis'

PBS pretty much invented smarty-pants television, and it's still the best place to find shows that are both entertaining and literate, with story lines that will allow you to drop bits of fascinating knowledge about, say, Charles Dickens or Anthony Trollope into any conversation. Throw in a little murder and it's the best of both worlds, and nothing mixes up the higher mind and the baser nature better than the “Inspector Lewis” series, which returns to "Masterpiece Mystery!" on Sunday night.

August 16, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

TV: It's good for you

First it was the Oscars. Following a broadcast in which the host and presenters openly mocked the low box office numbers of best picture nominees, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that the number of those up for the award this year would be doubled. If 10 films were nominated, presumably one or two of them would have a fan base that extended past, say, La Brea Avenue. ¶ A few weeks later, in a similar effort to draw more viewers to their show, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences decided that certain Emmy winners should receive their awards and make their (edited) speeches off-stage. That way precious broadcast minutes that might be wasted watching writers and producers struggle to the stage could be used to acknowledge popular shows that weren't nominated. ¶ Call it the "Mad Men" Effect. Yeah, sure the AMC period drama with its gazillion nominations is good, but what about " CSI?" What about "The Bachelor"? According to the folks at CBS, which will carry the Emmys this year, their many fans deserve to feel part of the telecast too. ¶ In the end, the television academy and the network recanted; pressured by outraged members, and the Writers Guild, last week they reversed their decision to "time-shift" certain awards. Even so, let us pause for a moment and consider what this sort of conversation implies -- the medium that was once considered low-brow by definition now has to cope with criticism that it's gotten too snooty. ¶ Forget red states and blue, the battle shaping America right now is the one between quantity and quality, between popularity and worth. (Which, of course, are not always mutually exclusive.) Newspapers scurry to compete with TMZ and news breaks on Twitter, bestsellers lists are sub-divided into Fiction and Mass Market Fiction, but nowhere is the tension more visible than on our personal and public screens.

June 26, 2009

AN APPRECIATION

Fawcett leaves a legacy larger than her roles

The slightly soft-porn Wella Balsam ads notwithstanding, the infamous appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman" aside, it is impossible to overstate Farrah Fawcett's cultural influence.

April 19, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Tony Soprano and those other tough guys are muscled out

Somewhere, in a prop warehouse owned by HBO, there is a big pile of guns. Dusty, unused, bewildered perhaps by their strange and sudden obsolescence, they can only wait and wonder why premium subscriber television, a business they created, built by God out of nothing, has simply abandoned them.

April 10, 2009

MOVIE REVIEW

'Hannah Montana' takes Miley Cyrus on a (safe) voyage of discovery

" Hannah Montana: The Movie" is not so much a movie as it is a trial balloon to see if Miley Cyrus, with her big blue eyes, exceptionally white teeth and increasingly long limbs, can hold the big screen as effectively as she has the small screen. The answer is yes.

April 6, 2009

SERIAL STORYTELLING

'Money Walks,' Chapter 1

This is the first chapter in an experiment in serial storytelling called "Money Walks" that we will publish in Calendar during the next three weeks. Every weekday and Saturday between now and April 24, we will bring you another installment, first by our own Mary McNamara, and then by Los Angeles fiction writers including, among others, Seth Greenland, Marisa Silver, Aimee Bender, Denise Hamilton and Jerry Stahl.

March 29, 2009

THE EPISODE: LOVE'S LABOR LOST

Haunting first season show leaves a lasting impact

I remember the moment when I realized film could make horror beautiful and thus even more horrifying ("Apocalypse Now") or a stage actor could be so mesmerizing you forget he's on a stage ( Derek Jacobi in "Breaking the Code"). But not like I remember the moment I understood how powerful and long-lasting an hour of television could be.

March 9, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Castle'

The detective tale is like yellow cake -- at some level everyone likes it, and with a little imagination you can do pretty much anything with it.

February 27, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Jesse Stone: Thin Ice' Sunday on CBS

While most crime series today rely on some sort of technical or psychological twist -- the wonders of forensics, the special knowledge of a reformed fake psychic or a good-guy serial killer, “Jesse Stone: Thin Ice," which debuts on Sunday, sticks with the fundamentals.

February 23, 2009

REVIEW

The Oscars show itself was puttin' on the fritz

Somewhere in New York, a huge weight has been lifted from David Letterman's shoulders. As Sunday night's Academy Awards began, Hugh Jackman's opening number (pardon me, but did he sing the words "pubic hair"? At the Oscars?) has surely obliterated all memory of the Uma-Oprah thing. Not to mention taking years off the lives of the poor folks preparing to launch publicity for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." They can only hope those teenage boys were too miffed that "Iron Man" wasn't nominated to watch.

February 21, 2009

Review: HBO's 'Taking Chance'

If you want to understand the over-cited concept of the electronic hearth or see proof of the power and significance of television as a medium, then you must watch “Taking Chance,” which debuts tonight on HBO.

February 20, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Mistresses' on BBC America

“Mistresses,” which premieres tonight, takes itself pretty seriously considering its title. Yes, the one-hour BBC drama is a sexual soap opera in which a quartet of lovely and complicated women negotiates alarmingly fraught romantic lives, but honestly, there's not a "mistress" among them.

January 24, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

'The Diplomat' is on a road less traveled

"The Diplomat," which premieres tonight on Ion, is one of those character-driven, complicated miniseries thrillers the British are so fond of, the kind of story in which a highly significant plot point is revealed by the way a person purses his mouth when he gets off the phone.

January 23, 2009

TELEVISION REVIEW

Review: 'The Last Templar'

Forget boy meets girl, boy loses girl, etc. Knight finds holy relic, knight hides holy relic, modern archaeologist/art historian/guy on the street races Dark Forces to get holy relic --that's the way to go these days. Think "The Da Vinci Code," “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” or even "National Treasure: Book of Secrets."

Obama: This could be the start of something big

September 23, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

Review: 'The Mentalist'

The Sherlock Holmes template has worked so well on “House" that really it was only a matter of time before it was reclaimed by a detective show.

September 22, 2008

REVIEW

Emmys a night to salvage

SOMEONE at ABC should just cut Ricky Gervais a check. For 35 minutes the 2008 Emmys seemed well on the way to being the Worst Awards Show in the History of Television, including this year's Golden Globes, which happened in the middle of the writers strike and wasn't really a show at all.

September 21, 2008

Emmys race comes down to old or new

It's a race to decide what we value most: the vibrant and new or that which is mellow with experience. Shall we surrender to the seductive nature of callow youth or the guaranteed satisfaction that only maturity can provide?

September 17, 2008

THE WATER COOLER

Emmy strands 'Lost' actors

" LOST" IS the only nominee for this year's Emmy for dramatic series that doesn't have a corresponding nomination in the lead actor or actress category. Michael Emerson, who plays the chillingly deadpan Ben, is up for supporting actor but that's it for the acting categories. Which is a little strange considering that "Lost" is pretty much crawling with actors.

September 6, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

'The Locator' finds raw human emotions

The title of "The Locator,” which premieres on WE TV tonight, is a bit misleading.

September 5, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

Review: 'DogTown': 'The Michael Vick Dogs'

It has been a summer of awe-inspiring, thought-provoking spectacle on television. First the Summer Olympics, then the Democratic and Republican national conventions and now the return of "DogTown." If that sounds sarcastic or snarky, it isn't meant to. The two-hour season premiere of the popular National Geographic Channel show is titled "Saving the Michael Vick Dogs," and if there were such a thing as an Olympics for animal rescue and rehabilitation, this would be it.

August 18, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Americans sport a laid-back style in Beijing

"One world, one dream" may be the official motto of the Summer Olympics, but the Americans have been running more with "The power and politics of mellow."

August 18, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

Review: 'Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House' on HBO

Helen Thomas, longtime member of the White House press corps, certainly qualifies for national icon status. For many Americans, she has been a permanent fixture of presidential press conferences, the lady in the front row who not only opened and closed the event but who also often asked the pushiest questions. Not surprisingly, where some see a grand dame, others see a crank -- but no one can deny her significance.

August 4, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

Luke Campbell's 'Parental Advisory' is too square to shock

Whatever value there ever was in glimpsing the "real lives" of marginal celebrities was long ago leeched from the likes of the Osbourne family and Anna Nicole Smith. And yet the shows keep coming, one after the other, reality nonchalantly surrendering to banality until the TV grid begins to read like the invitation list to some C-lister bash at the Playboy Mansion.

August 6, 2008

THE WATER COOLER

Tom Wilkinson and Bob Balaban are MVPs

TOM WILKINSON had better win an Emmy this year. Me, I'd go with the leading role in a miniseries or movie nomination -- his portrayal of James Baker in HBO's "Recount" -- over the supporting one -- as Benjamin Franklin in HBO's " John Adams" -- although there's really no good reason why he couldn't win both. Playing two such disparate Americans (and Wilkinson is British for gosh sakes) should put a person in the running for some sort of congressional medal and heaven knows the man is due.

July 21, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Date My Ex'

It's not often a show about modern "dating" brings to mind the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s, but watching Bravo's new reality series "Date My Ex," I found myself inexplicably flashing back to Ralph Fiennes as scholar turned disgraced contestant Charles Van Doren in "."

June 16, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Weeds'

When "Weeds" premiered on Showtime, it seemed the quintessential suburban satire: Widowed stay-at-home mom accidentally becomes pot dealer and finds her inner gangsta amid the manicured lawns and granite-countered hypocrisy of a Southern California planned community.

June 16, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

TV: 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl'

If I had known prostitution was so much fun, I certainly wouldn't be wasting my billable hours writing television reviews.

May 29, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Rocking with the Police at Hollywood Bowl, kids in tow

When you take your kids to a rock concert, it's a good idea to bring cookies. Because kids don't understand about opening acts. So while you are grooving to, say, the aged-in-wood tones of Elvis Costello and the Imposters and remembering that British boyfriend who made all those tapes for you in the late '80s, they are wondering who in the heck this guy in the glasses is and when, exactly, the Police are going to show up.

May 19, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Reality TV shows tough people doing the rough jobs

Remember when fishing was television of last resort, revered by dedicated anglers but glimpsed only occasionally by others, perhaps as a joke or during a visit to Grandpa's? These days, fishing is officially hot: Discovery Channel recently announced that men ages 18 to 49 ranked "The Deadliest Catch" No. 3 among all prime-time television on Tuesday night, beating out "Dancing With the Stars" and "Shark" in the demographic. (How hilarious is it that a show called "Deadliest Catch" beat out a show called "Shark"?)

May 5, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Sidekicks are second bananas no more

It's not often that box office-numbers send such a clear message to the electorate. But last week's top movies -- "Baby Mama" and "Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay" -- make two things perfectly clear: Americans are desperate for a good laugh, and we'd better be very careful about who's running for vice president this year because sidekicks now officially rule the world.

May 4, 2008

FAMILY & KIDS

Great gear when traveling with children

After almost 10 years of traveling around the country and to Europe with children, I have learned this: Less is more.

April 16, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

'Under One Roof'

MyNetworkTV chose not to send out any early screeners of its new Flavor Flav sitcom, "Under One Roof," which is never a good sign. But I managed to see a rough cut of an episode anyway, though I quickly wished I hadn't. "Under One Roof" loosely follows the template of the 1990s NBC hit "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air": A streetwise con man winds up living with his rich relations, dragging his gangsta cred and connections through their posh life to general hilarity.

April 4, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

It's not too late to climb onboard the good ship 'Galactica'

The premiere of the fourth and final season of Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" is Friday, and if you think I am going to write anything like a review of it, you are crazy.

March 18, 2008

TELEVISION REVIEW

REVIEW: 'Miss Guided'

Pity the poor high school guidance counselor. Long the victim of a murky power base -- not a teacher, nor an administrator -- guidance counselors too often must fight daily battles for respect. And now they have to cope with "Miss Guided," ABC's new comedy that debuts tonight before moving to its regularly scheduled time slot on Thursdays.