Is “American Horror Story” the future of TV?

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 21:56:00 +0000

RYAN MURPHY SEEMS to have something against HBO’s Treme, and it’s not hard to see why. As was observed by Vulture a few weeks ago, Murphy’s characters on both The New Normal and Glee have recently been throwing barbs at David Simon’s notoriously slow series as one that is either hate-watched or not watched at all. Last month, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jonathan Alexander more charitably described Simon’s epic drama about post-Katrina New Orleans as a “long, slow, sometimes beautiful, sometimes tedious argument for itself.” Murphy, whose numerous hit series include FOX’s Glee and FX’s Nip/Tuck, would appear to ascribe to a different aesthetic philosophy. Advocating melodrama over studied observation, inspirational musical numbers and pockets of shriek-inducing violence over meandering narrative, and broad social statements over minute ethnography, Murphy, for his part, is likely the kind of maximalist auteur that would give David Simon heartburn. Though occasionally tedious, Murphy’s shows are rarely slow, and they never, ever make arguments for themselves. Murphy’s characters presumably hate-watch Treme because even they can’t imagine a world in which they would move with so little noise and so much meditation. Sometimes, especially on HBO, nothing terribly significant will happen in the space of a single episode; in a Ryan Murphy episode, sometimes everything happens all at once.

Ted Danson gambles comeback on “CSI”

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:22:00 +0000

Sometime after the end of the modestly enjoyable "Becker" and before the short run of the more modestly enjoyable "Help Me Help You," Ted Danson disappeared -- only to reemerge with completely white hair. Like the bleached reincarnation of Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" or Richie Tenenbaum's prodigal hawk in "The Royal Tenenbaums," it was evident that something profound had happened, that the actor has attained some new wisdom. Joining the chorus of angry (celebrity) gods punishing Larry David on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," we began to see a new Danson: no longer the affable Sam from "Cheers," he became at once looser, less predictable and touched with something resembling gravitas.

Salon.com > Phillip Maciak

Is “American Horror Story” the future of TV?

Ted Danson gambles comeback on “CSI”