It’s not often that Chicago sees itself on television. Sure, there are a couple of notable shows “set” here: the American remake of Shameless, RIP The Good Wife, cult favorite Happy Endings, the oh-that’s-still-on? CBS sitcom Mike & Molly (which actually isn’t on anymore). But these are the types of shows that shoot…

The relationship between the sketch-comedy show Portlandia and In Other Words, the feminist bookstore that features prominently in the ongoing “Toni and Candace” sketch, has apparently soured. The Willamette Week reports that the bookshop placed a sign in the window that reads, “Fuck Portlandia! Transmisogyny – Racism…

Now in its eighth season, ABC sitcom Modern Family makes a significant move in terms of casting diversity. The show will feature eight-year-old Jackson Millarker, television’s first openly transgender child actor.

In the first episode of Amazon’s Fleabag, the titular character (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) bangs on the door of her father’s house at an unreasonable hour. “I have a horrible feeling that I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist,” she…

Until watching the series premiere of Fox’s new drama Pitch, my interest in the beloved and boring sport of baseball began and ended with an affinity for Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own, and Moneyball (the movie, not the book). But I may have to add a fourth entry to that list, because here I am, enjoying…

“What with Poldark on one side and Victoria on the other, maybe we chaps just aren’t needed in front of the TV on Sunday nights anymore,” a columnist for the Spectator recently lamented.

Your boyfriend Rami won the Emmy and deservedly so, but Season 2 of Mr. Robot has been spotty, relying too heavily on the surrealism that defined its first season and then twisting the plot so hard it was, in retrospect, totally obvious to begin with. That said, Wednesday night’s season finale was excellent, full of…

“Why does it have to be about Maura all of the time? Maura’s transition? Maura’s surgery? Maura, Maura, Maura!” says Vicki (Anjelica Huston) in one of several emotional crescendos that occurs during the just-released third season of Transparent. She has a point, and it’s supported by none other than the show itself,…

I was promised tears, but the pilot of NBC’s much-hyped This Is Us left me dry. “Must-Weep TV,” said The Atlantic. “This Is Us will give you something to cry about,” said Salon. “Watching This Is Us is like getting beaten up with a pillow soaked in tears,” said The New York Times. Bullshit, I say.

On the second episode of E!’s six-part limited series and pseudo KUWTK spinoff Rob & Chyna, the two expecting parents make up over a fight about trust issues they had in the premiere, fight about something else (Rob not attending a birthday party at Chyna’s house), make up, fight a little more (Rob not attending a…

Piper Perabo doesn’t command much attention these days. You might, however, remember her moment in the early aughts when she starred as Violet Sanford in Coyote Ugly (2000) and as Rachel in the sweet lesbian romantic comedy Imagine Me & You (2005). She’s still making movies, but ABC has enlisted her for a small-screen…

I cannot freakin’ believe that another season of Dancing With the Stars has begun, and yet I haven’t aged a day.

After Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte finished his first dance on Monday evening’s season premiere of Dancing With the Stars, the broadcast cut to a splitscreen of prerecorded footage and judge Carrie Ann Inaba’s shocked expression as something went down on the ballroom floor.

During the finale of The Night Of, HBO’s compelling eight-part miniseries based on a similar British program called Crimnal Justice, it was hard not to wonder what would have been different if James Gandolfini had played attorney John Stone. Would Gandolfini, who executive produced the project and was set to star in…

HBO has released a new trailer for Westworld, its much anticipated android-apocalyptic-western drama series. With voiceover from the elegantly chilling Anthony Hopkins, the clip indicates that Westworld will tackle fraught, recurring questions surrounding artificial intelligence and what it means to be human.

“Is it weird that this is not at all what I expected?”

It’s finally come to an end. The eighth season of the Real Housewives of New York wrapped up Wednesday night and it lived up to the magnificence that was this entire season. If we’re talking about the New York franchise, every season must be compared to Season 3—when Bethenny and Jill’s relationship fell apart and, of…

Close your eyes and think back to your early years of sexual activity, where every finished basement was also a hand job den; every Law & Order marathon an invitation to wet kiss. Back then, sex and sex-related situations weren’t things you could just plan for—when they presented themselves you embraced the…

It’s almost September, which means it’s almost time to pack the kids off to school, get out the coats (oh god, please let this heat finally recede), and get ready for the new TV season to begin. Some of these shows even manage without time travel!

The week I spoke with actor Adrienne C. Moore was a tough one, not long after the murders of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and five Dallas police officers. Yet in her role as “Black Cindy” Hayes in Orange Is the New Black, Moore’s creative life has become increasingly intimate with explorations of systemic racism…