Willa Paskin
Television
The Case of the Fractured FandomFans say Holmes and Watson are a couple in the BBC’s Sherlock. The creators deny it. Who’s right?
Television
PoseRyan Murphy’s new series is an admirable model of representation. It’s not yet a great TV show.
Brow Beat
Asymmetry Is About as Loving a Eulogy as You’ll Find for Philip RothLisa Halliday’s novel did more to make me fond of him than his books.
Family
Art or Babies?In extolling the limitlessness of a life without children, Sheila Heti ends up making the case for writerly limits.
Television
The Long Shadow of ScandalOver seven seasons, the show sometimes lost the (insanely complicated) plot, but it changed TV for good.
Culture Gabfest
The Culture Gabfest “Neo-Maxi-Zoom-Dweebie” EditionSlate’s Culture Gabfest on Roseanne, Kacey Musgraves, and The Breakfast Club.
Television
Back to the ShoreJersey Shore Family Vacation finds reality stars trying to mature without changing their bankable personas.
Television
Roseanne Is More Than Just Its PoliticsLike most good art, it cannot be reduced to a single message.
Television
Well-Funded FearWealth makes people fascinating targets in a miniseries about the John Paul Getty III kidnapping.
Television
The TV Show We Need Right NowDietland and Succession show it’s surprisingly hard to develop an urgently relevant show in the age of the lightning-fast news cycle.
Decoder Ring
Decoder Ring: The Johnlock ConspiracyThe BBC insisted that John Watson and Sherlock Holmes aren’t gay lovers. Fans disagreed.
Television
The End of The AmericansWhat did it mean to root for these murderous antiheroes, whose moral struggles were so like our own?
Brow Beat
Michelle Wolf’s Netflix Show Is Funniest When She’s ViciousWhen she’s not, it suggests Netflix isn’t as revolutionary as it likes to think it is.
Television
Patrick Melrose and the Long Afterburn of TraumaBenedict Cumberbatch stars in an adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn’s novels.
Television
The Man Who Perfected the Laugh TrackCharlie Douglass changed the way TV viewers watch comedies.
Television
The New Episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale Suggest It Should Have Ended After Its First SeasonBut it’s still as good as ever at making you feel bad.
Television
Killing Eve Makes Murder Dangerously FunPhoebe Waller-Bridge’s BBC America series tracks the hunt for a gleeful contract killer, but underestimate her, and it, at your peril.
The Goods
I Tried to Re-Create That Miraculous Needle-Threading Video From Twitter and Guess What: It’s Not So Miraculous
Television
The New Roseanne Proves It’s Still the Ultimate White, Working-Class SitcomBut what that means, two decades later, is much more complicated.
Television
The Musical Drama Rise Takes One Step Forward, Two Steps BackIt’s not blind, but it can’t quite see.