[Televisionary]

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

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

From Breaking Bad ’s stevia packet to Girls ’ Q-tip, here are some of the pivotal objects that sum up scripted television in 2013. SPOILER ALERT for a ton of shows if you’re not caught up. You’ve been warned. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "12 Objects That Defined The Year In Television," in which I look at the 12 objects that roughly define 2013 in scripted television, from a Q-tip on Girls and a Sharpie on Homeland to an automobile on Downton Abbey and that Cytron card on Scandal . 1. This Q-tip. Where It Appeared: Girls What It Was: A seemingly innocuous Q-Tip, used repeatedly by Hannah (Lena Dunham), whose OCD was quickly spiraling out of control, to clean out her ears. But she inserted it too deeply into her inner ear canal. What It Did: It punctured her eardrum (“I heard hissing,” she later said), leading Hannah to seek medical attention at the hospital. What It Meant: That Hannah had truly hit rock bottom with her psychological condition

The fifth season of the CBS legal drama continues to shake up its narrative foundations. In next week’s episode, everything changes. Everything. At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, " The Good Wife Isn’t Just On Fire, It’s A Narrative A-Bomb," in which I review next week's extraordinary episode of CBS' The Good Wife ("Hitting the Fan"). No joke: next Sunday’s episode of The Good Wife (“Hitting the Fan”) might just be the very best hour of television you’ll see this year. I’m not one of those Good Wife adherents who qualifies their passionate engagement with the Robert and Michelle King-created drama by adding “on broadcast television,” as the show shouldn’t be forced to carry such a backhanded compliment. Even within the FCC-driven parameters of network television, The Good Wife manages to shatter audience expectations and consistently deliver a provocative drama that is both contemplative and incredibly taut. This is particularly apt, giv

The season finale of The Good Wife was full of dramatic bombshells. I talk to creators Robert and Michelle King about rebooting the show, the start of a ‘civil war,’ Alicia and Kalinda’s dynamic, and what’s next. WARNING: Spoilers galore. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " The Good Wife Creators Tell All," an exclusive Season 4 postmortem interview with The Good Wife husband-and-wife creators Robert and Michelle King, in which we discuss the Alicia (Julianna Margulies)/Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) dynamic (or lack thereof), what really happened between Kalinda and Nick (Marc Warren), the year of Cary (Matt Czuchry), Robyn Burdine (Jess Weixler), and much more. (Seriously, it's a long interview and I had to cut a lot for space.) With two simple words (“I’m in”) the fantastic fourth season of CBS legal drama The Good Wife came to a staggering conclusion on Sunday evening with the revelation that Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), Illinois’s n

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!),

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

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

Set your DVRs! I review Season Two of Showtime’s Homeland and Season Four of CBS’s The Good Wife , finding common ground in their deft and subtle explorations of identity. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TV's Kick-Ass Women Return," in which I review Season Two of Homeland and Season Four of The Good Wife , tracing the way that both shows explore their characters' shifting identities. In the season opener of Homeland, which airs on Sunday, Claire Danes’s Carrie Mathison smiles. If you’ve been watching Showtime’s Homeland, the newly crowned winner of the Emmy Award for Best Drama, this seems entirely contrary to her character, a bipolar and deeply disgraced CIA officer who underwent electroconvulsive therapy in the first season finale. Carrie isn’t prone to happiness: she has been misunderstood, mocked, and kicked out of the intelligence community. For all of that, Carrie was also right that Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Emmy Award winner Damia

Can’t remember how Revenge, Homeland, The Good Wife , or Dexter ended? Refresh your collective memory about the cliffhangers for 27 returning shows—and previews of what’s to come. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Fall TV Preview: Where We Left Off," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I refresh your memory about how 27 shows--from Revenge and Homeland to The Good Wife and Boardwalk Empire --ended last season... and offer a glimpse about what's to come. Carrie remembered stuff! Leslie was elected! Sheldon took Amy’s hand! Gloria is pregnant! Nucky whacked Jimmy! Victoria Grayson’s plane blew up! Dexter…oh, Dexter! The fall TV season is officially here, which means we can all breathe a sigh of relief and pull ourselves up from the cliff-hanging precipice. Sure, there’s a bunch of new TV shows across the dial champing at the bit for your attention. But we want to focus on your returning old favorites. What’s next on Scandal—will we find o

2012 Emmy nominee Christine Baranski’s character on The Good Wife , Diane Lockhart, is coming off a fierce season. She tells Jace Lacob what lies ahead for the show and addresses those crazy (and untrue) Brady Bunch rumors. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Christine Baranski on The Good Wife Season 4, Diane, and Brady Bunch ," in which I talk to Baranski about what lies ahead in Season 4, playing Diane Lockhart, her binary romantic choice this season, those bizarro Brady Bunch /child actor rumors, and more. In the third season of CBS’s The Good Wife, Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart found herself on the defense, fending off attacks from the equity partners after the suspension of her partner, Will (Josh Charles), a grand jury investigation, uppity clients, and vengeful adversaries. In the process, Emmy and Tony Award winner Baranski, 60, showed Diane at her fiercest, as she kept a strong hand on the firm’s figurative tiller, even as, in her

The nominations are out: Homeland, Downtown Abbey , and Girls get their shot at the awards, while The Good Wife, Community, Louie, Justified , and many others are shut out. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "2012 Emmy Nomination Snubs & Surprises," in which I discuss which shows and actors were snubbed by the TV Academy as well as a few surprise nominations. Plus, view our gallery of the nominees . The Television Academy has today announced its nominations for the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards and, looking at the list, you may be forgiven for thinking that every single member of the casts of Downton Abbey and Modern Family had walked away with nominations. (It just seems that way.) AMC’s Mad Men and FX’s American Horror Story tied for the most nominations, with 17 apiece, while PBS’ cultural phenomenon Downton Abbey—which shifted from the miniseries category into Best Drama this year—grabbed 16 nominations (tying with History’s Hatfields &

In honor of July 4, I picked my 11 most beloved politicos on television, from Leslie Knope ( Parks and Rec ) and Clay Davis ( The Wire ) to David Palmer ( 24 ) and Sigourney Weaver’s Elaine Barrish in USA’s upcoming miniseries Political Animals . Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "11 Best TV Politicians: Parks and Rec, The West Wing, 24 & More," in which I pick out 11 of the best, most memorable, or all-around unforgettable fictional politicians on television (plus one out there bizarre choice). While Garry Trudeau and Robert Altman’s short-lived mockumentary Tanner ’88 may have been one of the first television shows to focus squarely on the democratic process in action, shows as diverse as The Wire, Parks and Recreation, 24, Veep, and The Good Wife have dived into political action at its best and worst. With the Fourth of July upon us, it’s time to look back at some of television’s most memorable politicians, from Parks and Recreation’s new

Auteur Hal Hartley once said, "A family is like a gun. You point it in the wrong direction and you could kill someone." The message therein, and the parallels between the potential explosive energy of a family and that of a loaded gun, was keenly felt in this week's outstanding season finale of CBS' The Good Wife ("The Dream Team"), written by Corinne Brinkerhoff and Meredith Averill and directed by Robert King, which posited two parallel situations between Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi) that will fuel our imagination during the long summer. The Good Wife is one of a very small handful of television shows that can take innately simple moments--those that may seem quotidian or mundane, such as a knock at the door or a look through an open window--and make them transformative. This has been the case in the past as well: look at Alicia and Will (Josh Charles) opening a hotel door at the end of last season. While t

71-year-old Mary Beth Peil is stealing scenes for her work on CBS’ The Good Wife . Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " The Good Wife 's Bad Mother," in which I talk to the former opera singer and Dawson’s Creek star about playing Jackie Florrick. While The Good Wife’s title refers, rather cheekily, to Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick—who found herself embroiled in a political and sexual scandal at the start of the series’ run—the show explores both individuals’ and society’s definitions and expectations of wives, mothers, and career women. Margulies’ Alicia juggles work, children, and romance, often without much regard for her own well being, perhaps outside of a solitary glass of red wine at the end of a day in court. Yet Alicia’s outlook, behavior, and mores are constantly commented on or outwardly attacked by her mother-in-law Jackie Florrick, played by 71-year-old Mary Beth Peil, who began the series as a babysitter for Alicia’s teena

After a few missteps at the beginning of the season, Season Three of CBS' The Good Wife has settled into its groove. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " The Good Wife Gets Back on Track," in which I sit down with the show’s husband-and-wife creators, Robert and Michelle King, and discuss the highs and lows of the season, the Alicia/Kalinda dynamic, the handling of various romances, Will, Cary, Wendy Scott-Carr, Caitlin, renewal prospects, and what’s to come. (Along with much more, including the answer to "What ever happened to Imani?") Coming off of a taut and provocative second season, CBS’s The Good Wife reset itself in many ways when Season 3 began in September: pushing together prim Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies)—who had struggled to remain faithful to her husband, Peter (Chris Noth)—with her boss and former flame, Will Gardner (Josh Charles), while creating a chasm in what might be the drama’s most central dynamic, the f

At The Daily Beast, it's finally time for my Best and Worst TV Shows of 2011 list: with 10 shows up for recognition as the best (including Justified, Homeland, Downton Abbey, Community, Parks and Recreation, Game of Thrones, The Good Wife , and more) and five for worst of 2011. (Plus, you can also compare my Best/Worst picks to my colleague Maria Elena Fernandez's.) Head over to The Daily Beast to read my latest feature, " Homeland, Justified, Downton Abbey and More: The Best and Worst TV Shows of 2011," which--as the title indicates--rounds up the best and worst television that 2011 had to offer. Warning: the story may contain spoilers if you are not entirely caught up on the shows discussed here. What is your take on our lists? Did your favorite/least favorite shows make the cut? Head to the comments section to discuss and debate.

The wait is over. After months of waiting breathlessly for the repercussions of Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and Will (Josh Charles) entering that hotel room together (with Alicia taking control of the situation), The Good Wife returned for the start of its third season ("A New Day"), written by Robert and Michelle King, with a new night and timeslot, a new haircut for Alicia, and a new office for our erstwhile good wife, who proved this week just how bad she can be. Among other areas, The Good Wife has excelled in its handling of female sexuality, particularly in terms of how it's handled within the confines of a primetime broadcast network drama. This hasn't been a show featuring much bed-hopping from its main character, who spent the first two seasons coming to terms with her husband's infidelity, her passion towards her boss, and her decision to kick said husband to the curb after learning that he had slept with one of the few friends she had (that would

There is an emergency session underway within the writers’ room of CBS’s critically acclaimed drama, The Good Wife , which returns for its third season on Sunday, Sept. 25. With 48 hours to go, the writers—overseen by husband-and-wife creators Robert and Michelle King—must rewrite the latest script and untangle a Gordian knot to come up with a new procedural case for hotshot lawyer Alicia Florrick (recent Emmy Award winner Julianna Margulies) and the firm to tackle. In the second season of the critical and ratings hit, the personal loomed large for all of the show’s characters. Alicia gave into temptation and slept with her boss, Will (Josh Charles), after years of having bad timing. Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) went to great lengths to conceal a long-buried secret—that she had, years before, slept with Alicia’s husband, Peter (Chris Noth)—in a storyline that involved baseball bats, smashed-out windows, and assaulting rival investigator Blake (Scott Porter). With its deft plotting an

While the Primetime Emmy Awards aren’t typically known for offering gasp-inducing surprises, last year’s ceremony did make an instant star out of The Good Wife ’s Archie Panjabi, who walked off with the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, even as most of the crowd gathered said, “Who?” (Those of us who know and love The Good Wife, however, cheered for Kalinda’s win.) Anything is possible, particularly in some key races (like Panjabi’s category again this year) that are going neck-and-neck as we move into the days leading up to Sunday’s telecast, which will air—for the second year in a row—live from coast to coast. The winners will be announced on Sept. 18’s live Primetime Emmy Awards telecast on Fox. But, in the meantime, over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Our Emmy Picks!," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer their predictions of who and what will take home the top prizes in 10 key Emmy races. Will stealth frontrunn