Salon.com > televison

“The Good Wife” finishes a fantastic season

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:48:00 +0000

“The Good Wife” finished its fourth season last night, overshadowed as always by TV’s other blockbuster Sunday offerings, from “Homeland” to “Game of Thrones” and “Mad Men.” This season had a rocky start— Kalinda and her implausible, raunchy ex-husband, he of the perverse ice cream— but boy did it recover. The last two thirds of the season have been fantastic, a sprawling, entertaining, tightly plotted, non-didactic (yes, that is a “Mad Men” dig), razor sharp examination of power, ethics, and corruption, as serious and seriously entertaining as anything on cable.

Ke$ha and Ryan Lochte get the reality TV treatment

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:38:00 +0000

‘Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life,” a reality show about the glitter-loving, jack-swishing pop star, began last night on MTV. “What Would Ryan Lochte Do,” a reality show about the grill-wearing, ab-having Olympic swimmer, began on Friday on E! Both shows are about people with physically demanding, time-intensive, all-consuming work lives. On tour, Ke$ha spends her days going from place to place so at night she can sprint around stage covered in body paint. While training, Lochte gets to the pool before most people are awake. Both shows are also about people who have cultivated — or, in Locthte’s case, maybe wandered into — reputations as partiers. Ke$ha’s songs are anthems to drinking and misbehaving. Lochte has convinced many that he’s a dim, brotastic douchebag. (Don’t ask him what that "douchebag" means, though: As he explained in his show, he really has no idea.) These shows are built around the second aspect of their stars' personas — that they are wild and vibrant and fun — when it’s the first that's worthwhile.

Liz Lemon’s happy ending

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:38:00 +0000

When Jack Donaghy met Liz Lemon in the very first episode of “30 Rock,” he took one look at her and delivered his verdict: “New York third-wave feminist, college educated, single and pretending to be happy about it, over-scheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says healthy body image on the cover, and every two years you take up knitting for ... a week.”

Jack’s assessment was actually a bit soft. Compared to the series’ future loopy heights, “30 Rock’s” pilot was a grounded affair. A few episodes in and Jack might have added that Liz was not just undersexed, she didn’t like sex. Tina Fey's character wasn’t just a third-wave feminist, but a third-wave feminist with no meaningful relationships with other women except her narcissistic frenemy Jenna Maroney. Liz wasn’t just single and pretending to be happy about it, she was single and willing to settle for a string of duds — and the occasional Carroll Carroll – that would strike fear in the heart of even a prolific and unlucky Internet dater.