Willa Paskin
Television
The Conners Is the Roseanne Revival We Should Have HadInstead of making hay of culture war flashpoints, the spinoff stays focused on the family’s bleakly circumscribed reality.
Television
ManiacWhat kind of series gets young movie stars to TV? One that’s like a bunch of movies at once.
Television
The Creators of Forever Don’t Want You to Know What It’s Actually AboutBut “spoiling” this Amazon series means revealing it’s not nearly as surprising or adventurous as it thinks it is.
Wide Angle
The Hidden Queer History of Paper DollsInfinitely adaptable and easy to conceal, these toys were surprisingly appealing to gay men in the 1950s.
Television
The Hosts Make Making ItThis new reality show about crafting benefits from the best hosts you could ask for: Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman.
Television
Netflix Broke HBO’s 18-Year Emmy Nominations Streak. What Does That Mean for the Future of TV?In the game of Emmys, you grow or you die.
Brow Beat
Did Anyone Understand Westworld?Four critics discuss Westworld’s Season 2 in spoiler-filled detail.
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
The Romanoffs Is Prestige TV at Movie LengthSome episodes merit Mad Men–style dissection, but others are just bloated and lethargic.
Brow Beat
The Emmys Were an Island of Boredom in a Sea of ChaosA ceremony that touted the TV industry’s diversity largely failed to reward it.
Television
The FirstSean Penn’s space drama may take place in zero gravity, but it’s obsessed with gravitas.
Television
Watch Succession NowI didn’t get HBO’s genre-bending drama at first. Now I realize it’s amazing.
Television
Reality TV as Performance ArtWhy would a sane person want to appear on a TV dating competition?
Decoder Ring
Clown PanicDecoder Ring investigates the history of clowns, phantom-clown panics, and the rise of the horror clown.
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.