Modern Family Review: Series Premiere

This off-beat half-hour single-camera comedy looks at the extended family of patriarch Jay, played by Married With Children’s Ed O’Neill. Much of the humor is supplied by Jay’s uptight son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Mitchell’s flamboyant partner Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) with their “sports-guy chest bump” and prepared speech anyone who would judge their adoption of a young Vietnamese girl. But there are enough laughs to go around....  read more

2009 Emmy Awards Results and Review

Apparently the Emmy Award show tonight was a repeat. In the eight main categories, seven winners—30 Rock, Mad Men, The Daily Show, The Amazing Race, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cranston and Glenn Close—also won Emmys in 2008. The only new blood was Toni Collette upsetting Tina Fey for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy. The other winners of the night were Neil Patrick Harris, who did more than a respectable job hosting, and Jimmy Fallon, whose AutoTuned awards presentation provided for the night's funniest moment....  read more

Torchwood: Children of the Earth Review

Tonight, on the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon, the five-part Torchwood miniseries "Children of the Earth" begins on BBC America. It's a dark, epic, near-masterpiece of science fiction that far exceeds the series' first two seasons....  read more

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor Review

The best thing about the latest version of the long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who is how much fun it is. That's why the show's 10th Doctor, David Tennant, has been so adept at playing the good Doctor. His zest for life—as he's saving London or Earth or some far off race or the entire universe—sets the whole tone of the show, even as it masks the sorrow and loneliness of being the last of his kind....  read more

Sanctuary review. Episode 6—"Nubbins"

Sanctuary has borrowed liberally from the sci-fi shows that preceded it. Creators Damian Kindler and Martin Wood are veterans of Stargate SG-1, and the two shows' mythologies—the reality of fabled aliens kept in secret from the general populace vs. the reality of fabled creatures kept in secret from the general populace—are extremely similar. Watching the beautiful, young Ashley Mangus (Emilie Ullerup) fight a gang of crypt keepers quickly calls to mind the heroine of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And the latest episode, "Nubbins," is a tribute to the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles."...  read more

Life on Mars Review. Episode 5—"Things to Do in New York When You Think You're Dead"

Whoopi Goldberg was the much-publicized guest of this week's Life on Mars, but while it was fun seeing her as Brother Love Butter, the voice of the Black Liberation Army, she wasn't what made this the show's best episode yet. (In fact, her motives for helping Sam were the muddiest thing about the show.) Part of the fun of any time-traveling fantasy is to ponder how someone with the knowledge of 2008 would briefly react to other eras. But Life on Mars digs deeper as Sam Tyler is stuck in 1973 and settling into his life there....  read more

True Blood review. Episode 9—"Plaisur D'Amour"

Vampires are just the beginning. One of the underlying mysteries of the first eight episodes was what Sam was hiding. Circumstantial evidence and a glimpse of his temper with Sookie made him a suspect in the murders around town, but too much else pointed to him being a genuine decent fellow. But his surprise was much more interesting, and I missed all the clues until just before the big reveal at the end of Episode 9....  read more

True Blood Review: "The Fourth Man in the Fire" (Episode 8)

Either Alan Ball or his source material, Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries series, has had no problem killing off what seemed to be main characters (Sookie's grandmother, one of waitresses at Merlotte's and the three wicked vampires who moved to town). But Bill Compton was certainly off limits—he wasn't the fourth man in the fire. At the end of episode seven we saw the hold other vampires have over Bill, taking him away from his Sookie, but they couldn't keep him inside their den....  read more