Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys
It's whack-a-mole time on a terrifically taut episode of FX's The Americans (10/9), as the uneasily married Philip and Elizabeth learn just how treacherous these spy games can get, while Agent Stan of the FBI concocts a gem of a plan to try to take the focus off the real mole, the lovely but understandably terrified Nina. Even a subplot involving the Jennings' kids Paige and Henry, stranded miles away from home when the parents are suddenly otherwise occupied, isn't as annoying as these things tend to be (think Kim Bauer or Homeland's Dana Brody). For what it's worth (to me, a lot), Keri Russell has her finest did-she-just-do-that badass moment yet when she realizes the level of mistrust she's dealing with at work and at home.
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Theo James, Chi McBride
Midseason scheduling can be so confusing. If I had a dollar for every reader e-mail wondering where the heck Vegas disappeared to — the answer: It's off for two weeks to allow the new Golden Boy to benefit from an NCIS lead-in, but will return next Tuesday — I could afford another vacation. Which is where I was when Golden Boy premiered, so here are a few thoughts on the second episode (10/9c) before the show moves to its regular Friday time period (9/8c) this weekend.
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Switched at Birth
Alarms are sounded several times, but we never hear them, in a tremendously effective and thematically overdue episode of ABC Family's best-of-network Switched at Birth (8/7c), which unfolds almost entirely in American Sign Language. By necessity, actions speak louder than words — all in subtitles, or sometimes tweets — as the deaf and hard-of-hearing students at Carlton School for the Deaf rally to protest the school board's decision to shutter their campus. (The hearing students, whose integration into the student body has caused some friction this season, also pitch in.)
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Zero Hour
Question: Zero Hour canceled. OK. I get it. The ratings were too low in that time slot. But then I don't get it. This was, what, a planned 10-episode season? Three down, seven to go. It was always planned to be a mid-season short-run program. Aren't all the episodes already filmed and ready for broadcast? So the ratings are so low that they are willing to call it a complete loss? And execs think that reruns will generate more revenue in that same slot against the same competition? If you are losing the time slot ratings already, how does airing reruns change that result? And why not move shows like this to Saturday? They have already given up on Saturday programming as it is. At least let seasons like this run their course. — Joe
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Seth MacFarlane
The trend of so-called "hate-watching" is hardly a new TV phenomenon. We've been doing it with the Oscar show for years: picking apart the fashions, groaning at the witless banter, griping as we drift through the seemingly endless midsection where no awards of major consequence are presented, and nearly always regarding the unlucky host as a piñata ripe for the bashing.
This year's tuneful but torturously overextended production (ending just past the three-and-a-half-hour mark) was much the same. With one major exception: The musical numbers were no joke, especially when mighty divas as legendary as Barbra Streisand and Shirley Bassey and as electrifyingly current as Adele and Jennifer Hudson took the stage. No Rob Lowe-Snow White fiascos this time.
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Connie Britton
Send questions and comments to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: I've never written to you before, but I'm hoping you can look into a crystal ball for me and reassure me about the fate of Nashville. I'm totally hooked by this show, which is saying a lot since I haven't watched anything regularly on the big three networks for about 10 years or so. I'm extremely worried that Nashville is doomed for cancellation, since it appears that the ratings are pretty lackluster. Any gossip or buzz that you can pass on to reassure me?
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Julianna Margulies
With back-to-back Sundays devoted to the Super Bowl and the Grammys, CBS has enjoyed a spectacular February so far. This Sunday, the only week in February with no major TV event — next Sunday belongs to ABC and the Oscars — the network's ratings will no doubt come back down to earth. But two of CBS' Emmy-winning crown jewels take center stage, and in one case shouldn't be missed.
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The Big Bang
Anyone who's been following CBS' powerhouse The Big Bang Theory — and judging by the ratings, that's just about everyone — knows what a hard time Sheldon (Jim Parsons) has when it comes to deciphering the formula of personal gift-giving. (A series highlight was his reaction to Penny's gift of a napkin used by THE Leonard Nimoy.) His dilemma...
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Michael Cudlitz
Drama, comedy, reality: This is one of those nights where TV is firing on all cylinders.
Let's start with the heavy lifting. One of TV's most encouraging survival stories returns with the fifth-season premiere of TNT's uncommonly gritty police drama Southland (10/9c), a network reject (from NBC's darkest period) that thrives on cable, with a sharper focus and a determined avoidance of procedural cliché.
Each episode is like a graphic tour of duty on the streets of Los Angeles, and in the opener, it's not always immediately clear if the patrol cops and detectives in the line of fire are witnessing a real crime or make believe or some other sort of scam. (One vignette involving a brawl between naked men in a sauna looks like an outtake from Spartacus.) "Treat it like a circus," seasoned training office John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) advises his latest ride-along, an Afghan War vet with too much attitude. The media circus threatens to consume Cooper's former partner Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie), newly decorated and enjoying the attention a bit too much. Grounding these characters in the mundane distractions of unblemished real life, Detective Lydia Adams (Regina King) is adjusting to single motherhood with...
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Timothy Olyphant
Most of television does its civic duty and turns to Washington, D.C. for State of the Union coverage (9/8c), as President Obama presents his first address of his second term. (As a curtain raiser, PBS' Frontline — check tvguide.com listings — relives those fun times when the White House sparred with the opposition over the deficit, taking the nation to the brink of the "fiscal cliff" in an installment appropriately titled "Cliffhanger.")
A different sort of dog-and-pony show — emphasis on dogs as show ponies — unfolds on USA Network...
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