[Televisionary]

The Munsters return from the dead. I review the spooky, dark reworking of the TV classic, which is airing tonight, from the brains behind Pushing Daisies and The Usual Suspects . At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Mockingbird Lane : NBC’s Munsters Remake Offers Eerie Charms," in which I review the backdoor pilot for NBC's Mockingbird Lane , a remake of classic sitcom The Munsters from Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller, which airs tonight. The Munsters are back from the dead, though possibly for just one night. The supernatural clan was the subject of the 1964–1966 sitcom (and its syndicated sequel, The Munsters Today, which ran from 1988–1991), notable for a few things: the show aired at the same time as that other spooky family sitcom, The Addams Family; the original series is still a cultural touchstone despite only lasting 70 episodes; and the show juxtaposed the supernatural—embodied by iconic characters from Universal’s library of ho...

Dior! Proenza Schouler! Vivienne Westwood! Prada! Jace Lacob talks to The Good Wife costume designer Daniel Lawson about how Alicia, Diane, and Kalinda’s evolving high-end styles showcase their character development. Plus, take a deep dive into a bonus gallery interview with Lawson in which we discuss drawing inspiration from the set’s design elements, the show’s use of color, Jackie Florrick’s ‘Elizabethan’ styling, political iconography, Matt Czuchry’s Cary, menswear, and more. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Inside the High-End Fashion Sensibility on CBS’s The Good Wife ," in which I talk to The Good Wife costume designer Daniel Lawson about all of the above and much more. If you've ever wanted to see me get technical with peplum jackets, this story is for you. (And the bonus gallery can be found here .) Within the cavernous warehouse that is home to the costumes for CBS’s sophisticated legal drama The Good Wife, there are apparently ...

The Great British Bake Off is a comforting show about baking—and it makes for truly addictive TV. Ahead of Tuesday night’s season finale, I explore the show’s charms and what it can teach the recently lackluster Top Chef . At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "BBC Two’s The Great British Bake Off Is the Best Reality Show on TV," in which I explore the deliciousness of BBC Two's culinary competition series The Great British Bake Off , my latest television obsession. The best reality show on television this year doesn’t involve wannabe singers, “real” housewives, or Honey Boo Boo, but rather a bunch of Brits baking cakes in the countryside. The insanely addictive culinary competition show The Great British Bake Off, which wraps up its third season tonight in the United Kingdom on BBC Two, isn’t remotely salacious or controversial, and that’s part of its inherent charm. (U.S. viewers, you can get your fix on YouTube for the time being.) Bravo’s hom...

Has the legal drama’s steamy Kalinda/Nick plot gone too far? Maria Elena Fernandez and I debate the merits and flaws of this season’s most polarizing storyline on The Good Wife . At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " The Good Wife : Has Season 4’s Kalinda Storyline Gone too Far?" in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer up a he said/she said-style discussion on the Kalinda/Nick storyline on Season 4 of The Good Wife . Archie Panjabi’s Emmy-winning turn as Kalinda Sharma has been one of the highlights of CBS’ stellar legal drama, The Good Wife . But something happened on the way to fleshing out the fiercely independent investigator’s storyline—and not everyone is thrilled about it. Entertainment Weekly’s TV critic Ken Tucker last week criticized the show’s handling of the twisted dynamic between Panjabi’s Kalinda and Marc Warren’s Nick. “The intrusion of Nick, Kalinda’s ex-husband and played by State of Play ’s Marc Warren as though he’d wandered in fr...

Can’t get that song out of your head? Jace Lacob offers five facts about the stunning duet, a cover of The Civil Wars’ “If I Didn’t Know Better,” in ABC’s Nashville pilot. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Nashville : 5 Facts About Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio’s Stunning Duet," in which I offer up five facts about the gorgeous duet in the pilot episode of ABC's Nashville last night. If you watched Wednesday night’s premiere of Nashville—or caught the series opener on iTunes or elsewhere—you know that you don’t need to be a country-music fan in order to appreciate the soapy and seductive Callie Khouri–created drama, which revolves around the battle for dominance between a country-music veteran (Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton) and a young upstart (Hayden Panettiere). While the two musical adversaries all but threw daggers at each other in the series opener, Nashsville is not just about the Grand Ole Opry but a canny exploration of gender an...

I explore NBC’s decision to hold Community until an undisclosed later date, which arrives during a television season that lowers the bar on expectations and on success. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Community : The NBC Comedy is Shelved Until Later, But Why?" in which I explore some of the reasons why NBC opted to hold Community until a later date. Community will not be returning on Friday, October 19, and will instead remain in limbo for the foreseeable future. While the news left Greendale fans panicking, the network claims it has made the late decision because NBC had focused promotional support on the network’s Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday lineups, apparently forgetting about the existence of Community and Whitney, which were meant to return next Friday. The two low-rated comedies may instead end up filling in for the network’s other trouble spots in the coming weeks or months. While this sort of network scheduling second-guessing is onl...

Are you watching PBS' Call the Midwife ? If not, you're missing out. In an effort to lure you, I explore the charms of the delightful ’50s drama and its breakout character, Miranda Hart’s awkward and hilarious Chummy Browne. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Call the Midwife : Miranda Hart’s Chummy Browne Steals the Show," in which I praise both the British period drama and specifically, fall's breakout TV character, Miranda Hart's Chummy. Miranda who? Miranda Hart might not be well known in America, but that is about to change, thanks to her role in PBS’ period drama Call the Midwife, which airs Sundays at 8 p.m. (Check your local listings for details.) In fact, her disarming performance turns clumsy midwife Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne (or Chummy for short) into this season’s breakout character. Based on the memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth, Call the Midwife centers on a group of young midwives and the nuns of nursing ...

Everybody loves Raymond, after all. I praise Ray Romano’s stunning performance as grumpy photographer Hank Rizzoli on NBC’s Parenthood , and declare myself a fan. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Parenthood : In Praise of Ray Romano," in which I do just that: praise the outstanding performance of Romano on NBC's underrated drama Parenthood , and discover that I am a Romano fan, after all. I have never been a Ray Romano fan. That seems like a good place to start. I couldn’t stomach Everybody Loves Raymond, Romano’s long-running CBS sitcom and, despite the coaxing of many critic friends, I never got into his short-lived TNT drama Men of a Certain Age. Romano has always seemed far too nebbishy and whiny for my liking. While that’s worked for him, I had never fallen for the comedian’s charms. That has changed irrevocably with Romano’s fantastic turn on Parenthood, which airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Thanks to his performance on the Jason Katims-c...