Syfy, Monday, Jan. 25, 9 p.m. Lev Grossman’s series of novels that begins with The Magicians is not terribly original; he clearly combined Harry Potter with The Chronicles of Narnia. At an invisible school in Upstate New York, college students study magic and a few of them discover that the beloved novels about the mythical…
Syfy, Monday, Dec. 14, 10 p.m. Possibly the best show since Syfy’s beloved Battlestar Galactica,The Expanse is another space opera, this time about the conflicts caused by humanity’s colonization of the solar system 200 years into the future. Earth is run by a ruthless United Nations, Mars is an independent military power, and the asteroid…
dvr this Streaming on Netflix Marvel’s team up with Netflix produced last winter’s Daredevil, easily the best television show about a superhero ever made, and now they’ve given us the remarkable Jessica Jones. Jessica (Krysten Ritter) is a private investigator living and working in the same New York neighborhood as Daredevil and his alter ego…
dvr this Starz, Sundays, 8 p.m. One of the writers of Breaking Bad decided to make a dark drama about ballet dancers, and the comparison to Black Swan are obvious. But Flesh and Blood is not about madness; it’s about struggle and ego. Sarah Hay plays Claire, destined for greatness on stage but harboring a…
CBS, Mondays, 8 p.m. CBS’s Supergirl is based on Superman’s cousin’s heroic adventures in Los Angeles-like National City. Avoiding the darkness of the DC heroes’ films, Supergirl, like The Flash, is bright and cheery, positive and inspiring. As Kara Danvers and Supergirl, the titular Kryptonian refugee who becomes super-powered under the Earth’s yellow sun, Melissa…
dvr this Pivot, Friday Oct. 16, 10 p.m. A few weeks ago, I instructed my readers to catch up on Please Like Me before the third season premier, which is Oct. 16. The Australian comedy about the comedy of star Josh Thomas is a gay love child of Girls and Louie, both brilliantly funny and…
dvr this Josh Thomas’ Please Like Me is what HBO’s Girls would be if it were gay, Australian, and not irritating. Thomas is preternaturally talented and very young (like Lena Dunham), and he has written every episode of Please Like Me’s two seasons. Thomas plays Josh, who in the first episode gets dumped by his…
dvr this HBO, Sundays, 10 p.m. The tech bros of the Bay Area are lovingly satirized in Mike Judge’s fantastic sitcom Silicon Valley. Now in its second season, the show has figured itself out after a shaky beginning, and it is now one of the funniest on TV. Thomas Middlemarch plays Richard, a delightfully awkward…
dvr this Showtime, Sunday, May 3, 10 p.m. The season premiere of the postmodern horror drama introduces a new big bad: witches, led by mystic Evelyn Poole (Helen McCrory). She becomes the nemesis of our heroine, the disturbed medium Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), who I think is the most exciting character on television right now….
dvr this The CW, Tuesdays, 9 p.m. After the success of Arrow, the CW and DC Comics created a spin-off focused on the red-suited speedster superhero called the Flash, whose real name is Barry Allen. Played by the appealing and sweet Grant Gustin, this version of the Flash is a forensic investigator who is struck…
