Kerry Washington
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Question: [SPOILER ALERT for anyone who's fallen behind on Scandal] I'm a loyal reader of your column, and always enjoy hearing your well-thought-out and articulate opinions on TV's hottest topics. I'm writing to you for the first time now because I wanted to know your take on the latest installments of Scandal. I saw in your last column the tag line "Scandal is the new Revenge," and I agree Scandal has been far more gripping lately than Revenge.
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Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz
Soul searching doesn't come easily for a character as clinical, rational and emotionally aloof as Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel), but near-death experiences have a way of waking people up to what's important in life. Doesn't hurt that this is a Big Sweeps Month dictating Big Stunts on long-running shows, an opportunity for Fox's Bones (8/7c) to try its latest change of pace: a mystical trip into a heaven-like netherworld for this non-believer, prompted by a shooting in the lab that leaves Bones fighting for life.
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Lena Dunham
Singing or screaming? It's your choice on one of the busiest Sundays in a while. While CBS' standards-and-practices watchdogs are apparently keeping a close eye on any potential wardrobe malfunctions, the show goes on at The 55th Annual Grammy Awards (8/7c) from L.A.'s Staples Center, where it's probably easier to name who isn't performing or presenting than listing the full talent roster. (One star not on CBS' list: Justin Bieber, who's busy hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend.)
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Jim Rash and Joel McHale
This class will not be easily dismissed. "Did you know you can major in antics?" marvels Troy (Donald Glover) as NBC's class-act sitcom underdog Community returns from a too-long recess for an odds-defying fourth season (8/7c). There are new showrunners taking over from the show's ignominiously ousted creator...
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Nashville
How odd that Nashville somehow picks up steam when its dueling divas put Music City in the rear-view mirror. After struggling to establish momentum in the first half of the season, ABC's musical drama has grown quite a bit juicier since throwing the veteran Rayna (Connie Britton) and the pop-tart upstart Juliette (Hayden Panettiere) together on the road in a high-profile and high-tension concert tour. (More music = better show, by the way.)
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Katharine McPhee, Jeremy Jordan
Someone should make a musical about the remaking of Smash between its first and second seasons. Let's call it Phantom of the Rewrite.
Or maybe The (New) Producers, seeing how NBC replaced the original creator/showrunner in hopes of calming this elaborate backstage drama's own behind-the-scenes creative turmoil, which manifested on screen in turgid and oft-ridiculed soap opera between the splashy production numbers (which are still mostly terrific). Smash 2.0 (Tuesday, 9/8c) wastes no time addressing, while slyly commenting on, the show's problem spots, many involving Debra Messing's character, insecure lyricist-librettist Julia Houston. Her dull husband, cloddish son and needy lover? History. Her hideous scarves? Mocked. Also soon to be gone. Along with reviled characters like the scheming, lurking Ellis and Karen's cheating ex, Dev.
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Matthew Rhys
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Question: What's your take on the new FX drama The Americans? I'm sort of cautiously optimistic because I love several FX shows, but this one didn't grab me like Justified and the others have. I thought there was way too much action before I got any sort of character development — it drove me nuts to have to follow the opening sequence for so long without any context. I also found myself fascinated by the next-door neighbor/FBI agent (what is the story with his undercover assignment?!) and less so by Phillip (the husband), but Elizabeth (the wife) left me sort of cold. I hope it improves with more episodes. — Amy
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Jamie Bamber, Jennifer Finnigan
Last week, NBC's ludicrous insta-flop Do No Harm (about a Jekyll-Hyde neurosurgeon) pushed TV's medical genre beyond its melodramatic limits. Taking the completely opposite tack, and likely to get a much longer leash (this being cable), TNT's Monday Mornings (Monday, 10/9c) is a surprisingly mellow drama set at a hospital, about doctors forced to face up to their shortcomings, with an ensemble led by (trend alert?) gorgeous and flawed — though decidedly not bonkers — neurosurgeons, played by Jamie Bamber and Jennifer Finnigan.
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Beyonce
If only they'd blacked out the ads.
What a bizarre Super Bowl Sunday it was, from the oddly imbalanced game to the 34-minute Superdome power outage that separated the Ravens blowout of the first half from the 49ers blowout of the second half, pushing a fairly gripping Elementary episode past prime time on the East Coast.
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House of Cards
"I have no patience for useless things." The Machiavellian politician making this pronouncement, in the sinister opening scene of Netflix's instantly gripping shot-across-the-bow miniseries House of Cards, is Francis Underwood (a perfectly reptilian Kevin Spacey). On the surface, he's a team player, a powerful House of Representatives leader in the cynical snake pit of Washington, D.C. The conceit of House of Cards, as it was in the brilliant Emmy-winning 1990 British classic this is based on (first seen in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theater), takes us behind Underwood's mask to reveal the manipulative monster within, a voracious tyrant who doesn't suffer fools gladly and takes no prisoners in his predatory pursuit of power.
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