[Televisionary]

Adult Swim’s surreal satire of sitcoms subverts our expectations of nostalgia. You might be able to go home, but it will never be the same. "Too Many Cooks" began as an Adult Swim parody that aired on Cartoon Network's late-night block for a week or so at the end of October, but since then, the surreal and twisted 11-minute video has gone viral in a way that even its creators,  Chris "Casper" Kelly ( Squidbillies ) and Paul Painter, have been gobsmacked by . What is it about this short that has exerted such a magnetic pull on so many? "Too Many Cooks" is, on the surface, initially a parody of 1970s and 1980s sitcoms that once populated the television landscape. These are the types of shows you might recall watching from the couch of your grandparents' house, shows like  The Brady Bunch ,  Three's Company ,  Family Matters , and  Perfect Strangers  with their familiar theme songs and title sequences, once hallmarks of the sitcom form. They'r...

The CBS legal drama, now in its sixth season, continually shakes up its narrative foundations and proves itself fearless in the process. Spoilers ahead, if you’re not up to date on the show. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " The Good Wife Is The Best Show On Television Right Now," in which I praise CBS' The Good Wife and, well, hail it as the best show currently on television. (Yes, you read that right.) There is no need to be delicate here: If you’re not watching The Good Wife, you are missing out on the best show on television. I won’t qualify that statement in the least — I’m not talking about the best show currently airing on broadcast television or outside of cable or on premium or however you want to sandbox this remarkable show. No, the legal drama is the best thing currently airing on any channel on television. That The Good Wife is this perfect in its sixth season is reason to truly celebrate. Few shows embrace complexity and risk-taking in t...

The new Showtime drama joins movies Gone Girl and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby in its exploration of gender wars, a topic that’s currently heating up the pop culture landscape. Warning: Minor spoilers for both films and the series ahead. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " The Affair Advances Hollywood’s Heated War-Between-The-Sexes Conversation," in which I review Showtime's The Affair and examine it in the context of the similarly themed battle-of-the-sexes dramas Gone Girl and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby . While we can attempt to empathize, it’s impossible to truly ever know every crevice of someone’s psyche, whether it’s the stranger you pass in the street or your own spouse. Other people are innately unknowable. Gone Girl, whose gender politics have been hotly debated, takes this notion to an operatic and hyper-intense place as the audience is forced to contend with the unreliability of two narrators — Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), the...

Damn fine news: After 25 years, Twin Peaks is headed to Showtime with a nine-episode limited series. BuzzFeed News spoke to Frost about the revival and what fans can expect. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Twin Peaks Co-Creator Mark Frost On The Series’ Return To Television," in which I talk to Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost about the series' resurrection as a limited series on Showtime in 2016. Earlier this summer, deleted and extended scenes from the Twin Peaks follow-up film Fire Walk With Me were unearthed for the series’ complete Blu-ray release. But that was nothing compared to what happened on Oct. 6, as the impossible suddenly became a reality: Co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost announced that Twin Peaks would be returning to television 25 years after it went off the air, its resolution as hazy and unclear as a fever dream. Nine episodes of a Twin Peaks revival series will air on Showtime in 2016 as a limited series, one that promise...

The Shonda Rhimes-executive produced legal thriller might be pushing some boundaries, but its over-reliance on a wonky narrative device is leaving something to be desired. Warning: Contains spoilers if you are not up to date on the show. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " How To Get Away With Murder Doesn’t Quite Get Away With Its Framing Device," in which I examine the Shonda Rhimes-executive produced thriller and look at the way in which the show constructs its framing device... and falls short as a result. There are many things for which How to Get Away With Murder — from creator Peter Nowalk and executive producer Shonda Rhimes — ought to be celebrated. ABC’s new legal thriller, which has aired two episodes to date, follows the Rhimes-ian ideals of its forebears, resulting in a show that is thoroughly modern and diverse, brimming with complicated characters who are inherently flawed and yet innately watchable. Likewise, the show has already challenged ...

“Guys, where are we?” At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Lost Changed My Life In More Ways Than I Can Count," in which I revisit the 10th anniversary of Lost 's premiere and look at how my life has changed in the time since the show first began. I saw the pilot episode of Lost a few months before it premiered on ABC exactly 10 years ago today — on Sept. 22, 2004. I was working in television development at the time, and a box of pilots — they may have even been on VHS tapes — had just arrived from a talent agency. My co-workers and I gathered in a tiny, cramped office to sort through the 30–40 screeners, most with titles and premises now forgotten, to find our copy of Lost. Damon Lindelof was an unknown name to us then, but we were addicted to Alias, the trippy espionage drama from Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams, who had also won our hearts with the wistful Felicity. Twitter and social media as we now know them did not yet exist and, while we had followe...

Julian Fellowes’ costume drama begins its fifth year with a slew of domestic intrigues in place, as well as some new tensions. WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Downton Abbey Season 5 Begins With A Jolt," in which I review the fifth season premiere of Downton Abbey , which launches on ITV in the U.K. (Sorry, U.S. readers!) Period drama Downton Abbey had begun to show signs of wear and tear, particularly in its fourth season, where the creakiness of the subplots began to match that of the house’s ancient stairs. It was, simply put, not the best year for the drama, which had come off the narrative highs of its third season, including the highly emotional deaths of two linchpin characters, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay). But, in its fourth, Downton sagged into overt melodrama with storylines involving murder, blackmail, and the shocking and highly controversial rape of Anna Bates (Joanne Fr...

Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech, Laura Carmichael, and Joanne Froggatt share details about the new season with BuzzFeed. Warning: SPOILERS ahead if you haven’t finished Season 4. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "18 Gasp-Worthy Secrets About Downton Abbey Season 5 From The Cast," in which I interview the cast of Downton Abbey about what's coming up on the fifth season of the British costume drama. 1. Reinvention is very big this season. Judging from how often word “reinvention” itself came up among the cast members. “There’s big social change in this season,” Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, told BuzzFeed. “You can tell by the clothes, it’s very, very modern. And Mary really embraces those changes. Reinvention is a good word.” That spirit of renewal is perhaps nowhere more apparent than within the character of Lady Mary herself. “It’s the new Mary,” she said. “Because she’s through the grief now and she’s moving on with her life and embracing a...

David Lynch unveiled nearly 90 minutes of deleted and extended scenes to his 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me at a Los Angeles theater last night. It was intense and weird. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces Makes You See Fire Walk With Me In A Different Way," in which I look at the so-called Missing Pieces from Twin Peaks — the deleted scenes from David Lynch's Fire Walk with Me — unveiled by Lynch last night at the world premiere in Los Angeles. WARNING: The following contains information about the identity of Laura Palmer’s killer. If, by some chance, you are reading this and haven’t finished the more than two decades-old series, stop reading before you are spoiled. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me , David Lynch’s follow-up prequel to cult classic television series Twin Peaks , has always been an odd beast. It recounts the final seven days of the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose inexplicable and brutal...

After a sterling first season, expectations were high for the sophomore season of Jenji Kohan’s female prison drama. Fortunately, Season 2 proved to be just as juicy, sweet, and tart as you’d want it to be. (MAJOR SPOILERS ahead.) At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "The Whole Of Orange Is the New Black Season 2 Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts," in which I review the entirety of the incredible second season of Netflix's Orange Is the New Black . Orange Is the New Black ’s stunning second season manages to be ambitiously large and somehow intimate. It’s the equivalent of a pointillist painting: from up close each dash and dot has its own individual identity and meaning, but when viewed at a distance, they coalesce into something altogether different and dependent on its parts. In its deeply complex and magnificent sophomore year, Jenji Kohan’s Orange Is the New Black offers a scathing indictment of a broken system, using Litchfield Penitentiary as a ...

The second season of the Netflix prison drama is a gripping, beautiful, majestic thing. Warning: Spoilers for Season 2 ahead! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Orange Is the New Black Continues The Dickensian Tradition Of The Wire ," in which I review Season 2 of Netflix's Orange Is the New Black , which returns June 6 on the streaming platform. There are the television shows that you love to watch but that drift from powerful and provocative to comforting background noise, and then there are those that arrive with the momentous force of a revolution, issuing a clarion cry that is impossible to resist. Women’s prison drama Orange Is the New Black , which returns for its second season on June 6, is most definitely the latter, a groundbreaking and deeply layered series that explores crime and punishment, poor circumstance, and bad luck. (At its heart, it is about both the choices we make and those that are made for us.) It constructs a gripping narrativ...

The Lee Pace–led Halt and Catch Fire , set in 1983 Dallas, offers up a pitch-perfect pilot about ambition, greed, and visionary dreamers at the heart of the tech revolution. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "AMC Has Found A New Don Draper And He’s Ginsberg’s Worst Nightmare," in which I review the pilot episode of AMC's new period drama Halt and Catch Fire , which begins Sunday at 10 p.m. Mad Men has made the world safe for period dramas: Nearly every cable network seems to be launching a time capsule program (and quite a few broadcasters have tried and failed) designed to penetrate our cynicism and trap a bygone era in amber. As Mad Men, the blue chip iteration of the period drama, wraps up its seven-season run, Showtime’s Masters of Sex and even Penny Dreadful, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, and AMC’s Turn have sprung up in its shadow. Which brings us to AMC’s latest deep dive back in time, the ’80s–set computer drama Halt and Catch Fire (which begins June 1...

Don’t be fooled: Matthew Weiner’s period drama has always been about the future. Warning: contains spoilers for “Waterloo.” At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "The Midseason Finale Of Mad Men Is One Giant Leap Forward," in which I review the midseason finale of AMC's Mad Men ("Waterloo"), which represents a giant leap forward for the characters and for the show itself. For a show about the past, Mad Men has always been about the desperate pressing of the future against the figurative glass. In looking back to the 1960s, the show has held up a tarnished mirror to our own society, our own failings, our own future. A moon landing is full of promise; an old man lives just long enough to see the impossible made possible. Old ways — and the literal old guard — slip away. Companies perish and new ones are formed. Alliances, once fractured, are renewed. This dance is eternal, the combustive pressure between the past and the future, between cynicism a...

Lee Pace in an ’80s computer-programming drama, a Victorian horror mash-up, sex researchers, Jack Bauer, Louie, and female prisoners? Check, check, check, check, check, and check. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "16 New And Returning TV Shows Worth Watching This Summer," in which I round up 16 new and returning shows that are worth watching (or at least checking out) this summer, including Penny Dreadful, Halt and Catch Fire, 24: Live Another Day, Rectify, Last Tango in Halifax , and more. Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

Creator Matthew Weiner prepares for the end game with the first of 14 episodes that start to tie up the AMC period drama. Warning: Minor spoilers ahead! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Mad Men Returns With An Intoxicating Beginning Of The End," in which I review the seventh season premiere of AMC's Mad Men , which I loved. The first episode of Mad Men ’s final season is an outstanding installment, offering up new beginnings for several of Sterling Cooper & Partners’ employees while pushing the series inexorably towards its ultimate end. And given the list of potential plot points that critics were forbidden to share with readers about the first episode of the final season of Mad Men, it even feels like a bit of a spoiler to say that much about the Season 7 premiere, which airs on April 13 on AMC. Much discussion has already been made about creator Matthew Weiner’s stern warnings about disclosing information about the plot, characters, setting, a...

David Lynch and Mark Frost’s grand opus celebrates nearly a quarter century of influencing television. Damn fine show. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Twin Peaks Is 24 Years Old And It Still Haunts Your Dreams," in which I (very briefly) explore just why Twin Peaks continues to hold a special allure nearly a quarter century after it first premiered. Nearly 25 years after it first premiered on ABC, Twin Peaks — the brainchild of David Lynch and Mark Frost — continues to exert an inescapable gravitational pull on the imaginations of viewers and on the television landscape as a whole. Yes, there is still the totemic power of such influential series such as The Wire , or Six Feet Under , or The Sopranos , but Twin Peaks remains a powerful shorthand for ethereal, riveting mystery, and for good reason. Nominally about the investigation into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the serialized drama was responsible for creating the night...

Shonda Rhimes’ political thriller always leaves you guessing, but entertainment editorial director Jace Lacob and staff writer Emily Orley take a stab as to what might happen by the end of the third season. Let the wild speculation begin! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "53 Possible Ways Season 3 Of Scandal Could End," in which Emily Orley and I come up with, yes, 53 ways that this season of Scandal could end, from the possible to the highly absurd. 1. Maya’s bomb explodes on the campaign trail, leaving the fates of several characters — including Fitz — unclear as the show goes on its summer hiatus. CLIFF-HANGER! 2. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off, widowing Mellie in the process. Olivia is understandably distraught, as her actions lead to Maya being able to plant the bomb. 3. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off and Cyrus runs in his spot on the Republican ticket. He becomes the first openly gay man to win the presidency. 4. Adnan turns on May...

Besides the number of times this period drama makes you sob like a baby. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "7 Reasons Call The Midwife Is One Of The Best Shows On Television," in which I extol the virtues of Call the Midwife , which returns for its third season on Sunday, March 30. The third season of BBC’s Call the Midwife — which wrapped up last month in the U.K. and begins on March 30 on PBS in the States — attracted an audience of more than 10 million viewers when it aired across the Atlantic, a figure that puts it on nearly equal footing with Downton Abbey . But that series gets far more attention than this subtle and superb period drama. Set in 1950s East End London and based on Jennifer Worth’s memoirs, Call the Midwife tracks the lives of a group of young midwives and the sisterhood of nuns with whom they work at Nonnatus House. Babies are born, labors — both real and figurative — undertaken, and love blossoms and fades. It is an extraordinary sho...

No one saw that coming, not even BuzzFeed Entertainment Editorial Director Jace Lacob and Senior Editor Louis Peitzman, who discuss the shocking reveal on the legal drama. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, if you haven’t watched. Over at BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Was That Good Wife Twist Cheap Or Profound?" in which Louis Peitzman and I debate whether the twist in this week's episode of The Good Wife was warranted or manipulative. The March 23 episode of The Good Wife (“Dramatics, Your Honor”) pushed the critically acclaimed legal drama into new directions, courtesy of an unexpected plot twist that somehow stayed under wraps until it unfolded on-air. (If you haven’t yet seen Sunday’s episode, stop reading right now. I mean it. STOP. Just stop. There are MAJOR SPOILERS ahead and if you’ve somehow managed to avoid finding out what happened, this is your last chance to do so.) On this week’s episode, Will Gardner (Josh Charles) was shot and killed by his cl...

BuzzFeed’s Entertainment Editorial Director Jace Lacob (that's me!) and Chief Los Angeles Correspondent Kate Aurthur sat down to discuss the sequel film. They agreed on one thing. Maybe two. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "A Lover And A Hater Debate The Veronica Mars Movie," in which I sit down with Kate Aurthur to debate the merits of the new Veronica Mars movie, which opens on March 14. Jace: Ah, Veronica Mars. A long time ago, we used to be friends… And I’m honestly happy that the former teenage sleuth is back in the Veronica Mars feature film, which I quite enjoyed. Yes, I’m one of those people who has watched all three season of the UPN-CW drama several times over, and that may have played a role in my feelings about the film. But I feel like, while you loved the show, you didn’t feel the same way about the film? Kate: Yes, I loved the show — or at least the first season, which I thought was close to perfect. After that, I found it sporadical...

The mastermind behind AMC’s period drama tells BuzzFeed what to expect from the final go-around with the ad men and women before the April 13 premiere. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Mad Men Creator Matthew Weiner On The Show’s Jet-Setting Final Season," in which I talk to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the seventh and final season of the AMC period drama. Over the course of its last six seasons, AMC’s period drama Mad Men has taken the audience into the inner lives of the damaged ad men and women who glide through the 1960s often on a volatile mix of booze, self-loathing, and bad behavior. In the hands of its creator, Matthew Weiner, the show has offered a window into the souls of these characters, offering up their flaws and their virtues, their successes and their losses. With the show concluding next year, it does feel as if it’s the end of an era, both for its network AMC and for the television landscape as a whole, as well as Weiner, who ...

Don’t forget to tweet using the hashtag #iwasinthepool. #MustSeeTV indeed. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest post, "What If Seinfeld Had Used Suggested Hashtags?" in which I imagine a world in which Twitter existed when Seinfeld was on the air and if NBC had used suggested hashtags on-screen for some of the show's most memorable moments. What a world indeed. Seinfeld creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld may have claimed that the show — which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1998 — was about nothing, but devotees of the beloved comedy know that that’s not exactly true. Individual episodes centered around some facet of everyday life (from marble rye to a cologne that smells like you just came from the beach) and many of those so-called nothings have since become iconic moments in popular culture. While Twitter didn’t exist when Seinfeld was on the air originally, imagine a world in which NBC could have guided our social media-based thoughts with those now-ubiquitous...

After Sochi, the wolf, the bitter protests, and human rights violations, the second season of the FX Cold War drama arrives at the perfect time to look back at failed Soviet ambitions. Minor spoilers ahead. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " The Americans Season 2 Arrives Just As U.S.–Russian Relations Turn Icy," in which I review the second season of FX's The Americans . With the closing of the Sochi Olympics earlier this week, Russia is on our collective minds once more: FX has rather cannily picked the perfect time to launch the second season of its gripping Cold War drama The Americans, which revolves around a set of married Soviet sleeper agents, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys), in suburban 1980s Washington, D.C. Yes, The Americans has car chases and street brawls, silly wigs and costume changes (not to mention one scene in particular that pushes the boundaries of basic cable depictions of sexuality), but these elements...

The always buzzed about HBO comedy returned tonight and BuzzFeed’s Entertainment Editorial Director Jace Lacob, who’s looked forward to watching every episode of the series, and Deputy Entertainment Editor Jaimie Etkin, who’s begrudgingly watched every episode of the series, discussed the back-to-back episodes. They agreed on one thing. Maybe two. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "A Girls Lover And Hater Debate The Season 3 Premiere," in which Jaimie Etkin and I hotly debate the two-episode third season premiere of HBO's Girls . SPOILER ALERT if you have not yet seen the Season 3 premiere of Girls ! Jaimie: I am simultaneously excited and nervous about this. My Girls rage is about to become public knowledge. I mean, I don’t have negative feels about Lena Dunham as a human or woman, but her show just makes me really frustrated. HOWEVER, I must say it was eye-opening to see how people talk to her, as exhibited by the TCA debacle last week. Dunham hand...

Looking to get caught up on Veronica Mars before the movie comes out on March 14? Turns out, the only place you can do so now is on Amazon Prime Instant. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "9 TV Shows You Can Only Stream On Amazon Prime," in which I run nine shows that you can only watch on Amazon Prime. 1. Veronica Mars A long time ago, we used to be friends… and you used to be able to stream Veronica Mars on Netflix. But those days are long gone and on Jan. 9, Amazon Prime Instant announced that it had secured exclusive streaming rights to all three seasons of the UPN/CW sleuth series. And what perfect timing to get caught up (or refresh yourself) on all of the intrigues in Neptune: The feature film sequel opens on March 14, marshmallows. 2. Downton Abbey Episodes of Julian Fellowes’ well-heeled period drama — which airs Stateside on PBS’ Masterpiece Classic and centers on the Crawley clan and their servants — can only be seen on Amazon Prime Inst...

Girls is back on Sunday and the onslaught of returning shows is just beginning. Set your DVRs now! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "13 Returning TV Shows To Get Excited About," in which I run down 13 returning television series worth watching this winter. (And, yes, I know that Game of Thrones isn't on there: We still don't have an airdate.) 1. Justified (FX) Season 5 of Justified finds Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens tangling with some Florida lowlifes, relatives of Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman), one of Harlan County’s sleaziest denizens. Plus, Boyd (Walton Goggins) tries to find a way to get Ava (Joelle Carter) out of prison… and he exacts a bloody revenge against those who put her there in the first place. Along the way, wisecracks are exchanged, along with gunfire. Season 5 premieres on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 10 p.m. 2. Girls (HBO) The stellar third season of HBO’s Girls finds the quartet struggling with new challenges and the first two ...

Has the bloom gone off this English rose? Warning: Minor spoilers ahead! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Season 4 Of Downton Abbey Is A Bit Of A Downer," in which I review the fourth season of Downton Abbey . After the shocking events of last season’s bloody finale — in which heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) was unceremoniously killed off — Season 4 of Downton Abbey , which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece on Sunday, Jan. 5, sees an awful lot of restructuring in the wake of not one but two major character deaths. Yes, there are plots aplenty for both upstairs and downstairs as the series is now firmly entrenched in the changing times of the 1920s, when estates like Downton were in even greater jeopardy. When the series returns, the relics of privilege and luxury teeter unsteadily on a knife’s edge as the world advances without them. (There is an electric whisk in the kitchen!) Season 4 of Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey picks up six months after Matthew’s...