[Televisionary]

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 ...

The hotly anticipated British mystery drama returns with the revelation of just how Sherlock Holmes faked his death two years ago. Warning: Minor spoilers ahead! At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " Sherlock Is Back From The Dead And Better Than Ever," in which I review the spectacular third season opener of Sherlock ("The Empty Hearse"), which airs Jan. 1 in the U.K. and on Jan. 19 on PBS' Masterpiece . Just how did Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) fake his own death? When Sherlock picks up — two years after the action of the 2012 Season 2 finale, “The Reichenbach Fall” — the facts surrounding how the master sleuth pulled off the seemingly impossible are kept firmly under wraps for much of the ingenious 90-minute season opener, “The Empty Hearse” (which airs Jan. 1 on BBC One in the U.K. and on Jan. 19 on PBS’s Masterpiece). This is not to say that viewers are denied a revelatory sequence in which the truth about just how Sherlock f...

From Borgen to Downton Abbey to Girls , Jace Lacob and Maria Elena Fernandez pick the 10 best TV shows of the year. Warning : may contain spoilers if you are not entirely caught up on the shows discussed here. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The 10 Best TV Shows of 2012," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer up our individual Top 10 TV Shows lists for 2012. My list, not surprisingly, contains shows like Borgen, Mad Men, The Good Wife, Louie, Parks and Recreation, Shameless , and others. What was on your list this year? Now is the winter of our (TV) discontent. After a fall season that largely failed to deliver on the promise of new shows—and, in some cases, returning programs as well—it’s time to take a look back at the year in television as a whole, as we try to remove such canceled shows as Partners, The Mob Doctor, and Made in Jersey from our collective memory. But rather than dwell on the very worst of the year (ABC’s Work It!), ...

Well, that's it. For now, anyway. Last night brought the season finale of PBS' addictive Sherlock ("The Great Game") and what an installment it was. For a season composed of just three installments, it delivered quite the requisite bangs and thrills, particularly in this final act, which I rate as strong as the first episode ("A Study in Pink") in the series. (I reviewed the first three episodes of Sherlock here , and spoke with Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Martin Freeman in a feature over here at The Daily Beast .) It contained all of the elements that make Sherlock just gleeful fun: Mark Gatiss' Mycroft, the banter between Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman), creepy criminals like the Golem, a fantastically deranged performance from Andrew Scott as the terrifying Moriarty, and one hell of an intricate mystery. Or in this case, no less than five interconnected mysteries designed to test Holmes' mettl...

Now that Sherlock has premiered Stateside on Masterpiece Mystery , I'm curious to know what you thought of the modern-day version of Sherlock Holmes, from creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I reviewed the first three episodes of Sherlock here , and spoke with Moffat, Gatiss, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Martin Freeman in a feature over here at The Daily Beast . But now that the series premiere--"A Study in Pink" (so clearly an allusion to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet")--has aired last night, I want to hear what you thought of the mystery series. What did you think of the partnership of Cumberbatch's Holmes and Freeman's John Watson? Did you like the way that Mssrs Moffat and Gatiss updated elements of both characters and included such technological advances such as iPhones, text messaging, and blogging? Did you love the way that director Paul McGuigan visually translated these elements to the screen with thought bubbles and the li...

Sherlock Holmes has an iPhone, Watson blogs: The 21st-century version of Sherlock , a BBC phenomenon, begins Sunday on Masterpiece Mystery . Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Sherlock Comes to the U.S.," in which I talk to Sherlock creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman about Sherlock and Watson, the similarities and differences between Holmes and Doctor Who 's The Doctor, The Hobbit , and more. Meanwhile, you can read my glowing advance review of the three Sherlock installments here . Sherlock begins tonight at 9 pm ET/PT on PBS' Masterpiece Mystery . Check your local listings for details.

Mention Sherlock Holmes and there are a great many things that immediately come to mind for most: that dearstalker hat (which the great detective never actually wore) and a magnifying glass, 221B Baker Street, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (a conflation of two separate quotes, actually), and that damned hound running around on the moors. Of the seemingly infinite literary characters ever created, the human imagination has latched onto Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in a way that very few other creations have. Scores of adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective have been launched in the years since Holmes was first created. We've see young Sherlock, Nazi-fighting Sherlock, and bare-knuckle brawler Sherlock, courtesy of Guy Ritchie. We also now have a truly modern-day Sherlock Holmes (and I'm not counting House 's Gregory House here, though the comparison is apt and the homage intentional) in Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' sophisticated an...

My fall TV preview--or at least part of it, anyway--is finally up. Head over to The Daily Beast, where you can read my latest feature, "Nine Shows to Watch, Six Shows to Shun," where I offer up nine new series to watch this fall and six shows to avoid like the plague. Just which ended up on which list? Hint, The Event ended up on my worst-of list, while things like Boardwalk Empire, Terriers, Nikita, Sherlock, Luther, Undercovers and others ended up on my watch list. (While The Walking Dead is on there, I still--like every other critic--have not seen a full episode, so there's that to consider.) But while this is my list, I'm also extremely curious to find out what you're looking forward to this autumn. What are you most excited about watching this fall? Head to the comments section to discuss, debate, and tear into my list.

Yes, I'm back from my holiday-slash-birthday-weekend-extravaganza and catching up on what I missed while I was gone, including news about three of my favorite series, all of which happen to hail from the other side of the pond, and a fourth that is likely to become a new favorite when it launches next year. (Hint: it involves the creators of Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes and novelist Kate Atkinson.) Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has indicated that Season Six of the time-travel drama series will be split into two separate segments, with seven episodes to air in the first half of 2011 and six episodes to air in fall 2011. What comes between? Well, a "game-changing cliffhanger," according to Moffat, speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival . (You can watch video of the session over at The Guardian as well.) "Looking at the next series I thought what this show needs is a big event in the middle," said Moffat. "I kept referring to a mid...

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Sue Sylvester, SNL host? Moveline is reporting that Glee 's Jane Lynch will be hosting the October 9th episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live . No word yet on whether Lynch--who is nominated for an Emmy Award in the Supporting Actress in a Comedy category--will be packing Sue's ubiquitous track suits for the hosting gig. What is certain, however, is that Lynch will be bringing her acute comic timing to the host role for SNL 's 36th season. ( Movieline ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that the CW is planning to launch a crossover between One Tree Hill and Life Unexpected this fall, with One Tree Hill 's Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti) and Mia (Kate Voegele) dropping by the October 12th installment of Life Unexpected , where they will perform at a Portland music festival that's sponsored by the radio station where Shiri Appleby's Kate works. "Haley and Cate are surprised to lear...

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Now that the ink has dried on Damages 's DirecTV deal, Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello talks to executive producers Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman about whether the format for the serpentine legal drama will be altered for its fourth and fifth seasons, whether the budget will be affected, why Ellen has gotten past the fact that Patty tried to have her killed, who will be returning, and a host of other issues. "DirecTV wants us to do the show that we’ve been doing," said Zelman. "If anything, they want us to push what we’ve been doing even further . They’re encouraging us to be as bold as possible, which is something we strive for anyway. There have been no discussions about altering the show in any fundamental way." Except for the fact that the episodes will be longer, that is. "What’s exciting for us as creators is that on the 101 Network there are no commercials, so it’ll...

"My name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street..." The details might be the same but this is most definitely not your great-grandfather's Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective is given a modern-day makeover courtesy of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss with the new Sherlock , which launches on Sunday in the UK on BBC One and Stateside at the end of October on PBS as part of Masterpiece Mystery . Starring Benedict Cumberbatch ( The Last Enemy ), Martin Freeman ( The Office ), and Rupert Graves ( Death at a Funeral ), Sherlock deposits the titular master sleuth and his trusted companion Dr. John Watson to contemporary London, where they will use their deductive skills to solve all manner of bizarre, surprising, and just plain weird cases. "Conan Doyle's stories were never about frock coats and gas light," said Moffat. "They're about brilliant detection, dreadful villains and blood-curdling crimes... and, frankly, to he...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Katherine Heigl will be departing Grey's Anatomy for good this time, citing unnamed sources. "Series creator Shonda Rhimes has agreed to release the fast-rising movie star from her contract. It’s now up to ABC Studios and Heigl’s reps to hash out a final exit agreement," writes Ausiello. "After taking more than half of the current season off to make another movie and connect with her adopted daughter, Heigl was scheduled to return to the Grey’s set on March 1 to begin work on the five remaining episodes of the season. There’s just one problem: March 1 came and went and there was no Heigl." Long story, short: Heigl's final episode as Izzie has already aired and Heigl will not be returning to the set of Grey's Anatomy . ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) UK network E4 has commissioned two additional seasons of teen drama Skins , ...