Given the fanfare with which NBC is closing The Office after nine seasons (at least two too many), you'd think it was a Cheers or Seinfeld-sized hit from the "must-see" glory days, instead of the show that presided over the slow fade of a once-powerful comedy brand on the back of too many same-seeming niche comedies specializing in preciously arch irony. At its best (the Steve Carell and early Jim-Pam years), The Office had heart as well as range, as it found comic magic in its ensemble once the show emerged from the large shadow cast by the classic Ricky Gervais original series. But now it just hits the same beats over and over to lesser effect, which hasn't stopped NBC from pulling out the stops. The celebration (eulogy?) begins with an hour-long behind-the-scenes retrospective (Thursday, 8/7c) produced by NBC News — which didn't have more pressing business? — featuring interviews from cast members and producers. The main event is a super-sized finale (9/8c) that has swelled to an hour and 15 minutes, staged as a mock reunion of the Dunder Mifflin gang several months after the airing of the mock documentary that took nearly a decade to finish.
read more
[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Thursday's penultimate episode of Scandal. Read at your own risk!]
Are you still screaming at your television over the unmasking of the mole? Understandable!
Thursday's Scandal shocked viewers with the long-awaited reveal of the identity of the mole after OPA — Huck (Guillermo Diaz) in particular — forced Charlie (George Newbern) to give up the information. Unfortunately...
read more
[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Monday's episode of The Carrie Diaries. Read at your own risk.]
Carrie Bradshaw finally had the perfect life — that is, as long as she was able to keep her suburban teenager/glamorous career gal personas separate. But during Monday's episode of The Carrie Diaries, her two worlds collided and the lies came to an end.
Ditching her high school life in Connecticut to celebrate closing her first issue as an intern at Interview, Carrie (AnnaSophia Robb) accidentally...
read more
Is Billy Chambers really dead?
Scandal fans have been asking that question since the Season 1 finale, when the vice president's chief of staff got on an elevator with assassin Charlie (George Newbern)... never to be seen or mentioned again.
Scandal Postmortem: Josh Malina cautions that David Rosen may not be (gulp!) safe
Sure, most fans actually hope that Billy...
read more
How will the CW's The Carrie Diaries, a prequel to a series based almost entirely on having and talking about sex, handle the topic in a way that both honors Sex and the City and follows the rules of network television?
Winter TV Preview: Get scoop on the must-see new shows
On the series premiere, a young Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) returned to high school after a summer of grieving the death of her mother. On the first day, she "meets" the new guy in school, Sebastian Kydd (Austin Butler), who was actually Carrie's first kiss the summer before. But now that the pair is together, how long will it be before the 16-year-old virgin starts down the path to becoming the Carrie viewers fell in love with on the HBO series? Executive producer Amy B. Harris is OK taking her time.
read more