Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Book to TV Adaptations

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies (or, on the last week of the month, TV shows) that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Sometimes, especially when dealing with a series of books, it makes more sense to adapt a book to TV than to a movie. The extra space gives the story the same room to breathe as it has in a book, and the episodic nature of TV mirrors that chapter structure of most books. And so, herewith, are two great adaptations and one terrible one, for contrast.

Game of Thrones (2011-present) OHMYGOD YOU GUYS THE FINAL EPISODES START IN JUST OVER A MONTH AND IT'S GOING TO BE OVER SOON AND WHAT WILL WE ALL DO WITH OURSELVES?!?!?!? In case you've been living under a rock for the past eight years, Game of Thrones is based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, detailing the events of the fictional country of Westeros, where seasons can last for many years, in the wake of the death of the King's advisor. The novels still aren't finished, meaning that for the past... three seasons or so, I think... creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have been working off an outline of events Martin gave to them. Some say that the series has gone down in quality of writing since then, and while I generally agree, I don't think the drop-off is as bad as they have said. Basically, Game of Thrones on a bad day is better than most other shows on a good day. The epic sweep of its stories, and its reckoning with storytelling conventions we have come to expect from stories like this, is unlike anything we have ever seen on TV, and it's downright stunning.

Younger (2015-present) Liza Miller has just turned 40, and has recently gotten divorced. Since her lout of a gambling-addict husband lost their savings and their house, she has to find a way to support herself, and her daughter's college education. So she moves to Brooklyn with her artist friend Maggie and starts hunting for jobs in publishing, as that's what she did before having her daughter. But twenty years out of the job market has put her right on the bottom, and no one wants to hire a 40 year-old intern or assistant. But after a smoking hot 26 year-old tattoo artist mistakes her for a fellow 26 year-old, she gets a brilliant idea. She lies about her age, and lo and behold, she gets a job as an assistant to chunky jewelry enthusiast Diana Trout at Empirical Press. If you can get past the absurdity of its premise, Younger is a fun show to watch, even addicting. Sutton Foster is a ray of sunshine as Liza, and Hilary Duff, of all people, is great as Kelsea, her ambitious young co-worker and new friend. The entire cast is fantastic, and the show is a well-appointed Sex and the City-style fantasy of New York life. The whole series is on Hulu, and you can easily binge it all in almost no time.

The Magicians (2015-present) Quentin Coldwater and his best friend Julia Wicker are a bit adrift in the end of their college days. Until, that is, they both end up taking an entrance exam at the mysterious Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. Quentin, a lifelong fanboy of the fantasy series Fillory and Further, gets in. Julia does not. The show follows their respective journeys as an official and unofficial student of magic, respectively. I was a HUGE fan of Lev Grossman's trilogy of novels, a sort of American version of Harry Potter where Hogwarts was college instead of boarding school, thus making the stakes much higher. But the show made a large number of changes to the novels that were unnecessary and much to the story's detriment. Most damningly, while the books are a deconstruction of the "chosen one" narrative, the series fully embraces it. I hate-watched the first season before coming to the conclusion that there are just not enough hours in the day to spend time on something I hate. But really, this show is a mess, and the things that made the novels interesting and exciting are so dulled that it has almost no value.

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Comedies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join the fun by picking three movies (or, once a month, TV shows) that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

I think we could all use a few good laughs after the dumpster fire that was 2018. So here are a few good comedies for you all to catch up on over the winter break:

Mom (2013-present) Single mom Christy is a recovering alcoholic whose mother, also a recovering alcoholic, moves in to help her take care of her two children. Yes, it's a comedy, and a pretty great one with geniuses Anna Faris and Allison Janney making gourmet meals out of very basic ingredients. The first season takes a while to find its footing, but once it does, this is a wonderful, heartfelt sitcom about the never-ending process of starting over.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-Present) Abducted in middle school by a wannabe cult leader and held with three other women in an underground bunker, Kimmy Schmidt has finally been rescued, and decides to make a life for herself in New York City! She manages to find a room for rent with legend-in-his-own-mind Titus Andromedon and together, they go after their dreams: her to be an independent career woman (starting off as a nanny to the ultra-wealthy Jacqueline Voorhees, and him to be a singing star! The premise is certainly dark, but Kimmy's joie de vivre is still that of her fifteen year-old self, and shows no signs of abating. This wild and wacky show is so dense with jokes that it's sometimes difficult to keep up, but the performances of Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess (the show's breakout STAR), Jane Krakowski, and Carol Kane keep everything grounded in reality even when it gets a little out of hand.

The Good Place (2016-Present) Eleanor Schellstrop has died, and has ended up in "the good place." The only problem is, it becomes immediately clear that there was some kind of mix-up, and she has taken the place of an Eleanor Schellstrop that was a MUCH better person than she was. Afraid that she will get found out and sent to "the bad place," she gets her soul mate - a professor of moral philosophy named Chidi Anagonye - to teach her how to be a good person. The Good Place is consistently hilarious and surprising, and has some of the most inspired storytelling of any show currently on TV. It's a must-watch.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Anthology Series

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

This week, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a special TMP TV Edition. Anthology series have grown in popularity in recent years thanks to the success of American Horror Story, which changed up the formula a bit: Instead of having every episode be completely stand-alone, as in traditional anthology series, now each season is its own story (except that it's not so stand-alone, since Ryan Murphy, et al. decided that the whole thing ACTUALLY takes place in the same universe and characters have crossed over between seasons, but WHATEVER).

But for the purposes of this week's pickings, I'm going with the more traditional, "a bunch of stand-alone episodes unified around a central theme but with no real connection to each other" definition.

The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) Not the first anthology series, but certainly the one that cast the longest shadow, Rod Serling's exploration of paranoia in mid-century America could be anything from episode to episode, and while there was often a touch of the supernatural, many episodes (including series best "Time Enough At Last") were perfectly quotidian. Often remembered as a horror series, and with good reason, it's worth noting that were comedic ("Mr. Bevis") and straight dramatic episodes ("I Sing The Body Electric") as well. More than anything, The Twilight Zone is science fiction, taking American fears about new technology and space exploration and placing them in a funhouse mirror. What's reflected back at us isn't always pretty.
Favorite Episodes: "The After Hours", "Mirror Image", "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Miniature", "The Invaders"

Faerie Tale Theatre (1982-1987) One of the first examples of original cable TV programming, Shelley Duvall produced this series that focused on one fairy tale per episode, with big stars acting in parts big and small. The design of the sets and backdrops were often inspired by famous artists like Gustav Klimt, Norman Rockwell, Pieter Brueghel, and even Jean Cocteau. My sister and I would take these videos out from the library so often as kids that we practically had some of the episodes memorized. There is a charm to Faerie Tale Theatre, cultivated by Duvall herself, that is lacking in a lot of children's entertainment, but gives the episodes a timeless quality, and the opportunity to see such stars as Robin Williams, Eric Idle, Anjelica Huston, Eve Arden, Teri Garr, Ned Beatty, Jeff Bridges, Gena Rowlands, Bernadette Peters, Carrie Fisher, and Christopher Reeve, among MANY others, perform in the glorified children's theater setting is a delight (favorite random casting: Klaus Kinski as the Beast in "Beauty & the Beast" opposite Susan Sarandon's Beauty).
Favorite Episodes: "The Frog Prince", "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Princess and the Pea"

Black Mirror (2011-Present) If ever there was a true heir to The Twilight Zone, Charlie Brooker's screed against the modern world and its technology is it. Science fiction that feels like either our current world gone sideways or far-too-possible futures, Black Mirror is far bleaker and more pessimistic than Twilight Zone ever was, but it is powerful and thought-provoking. I mean, when the first episode is about the British Prime Minister being forced by cyberterrorists to have sex with a pig on live TV, you get a pretty good idea about what the series thinks about the world. Some of the episodes are genuinely difficult to watch, but others are just ridiculously entertaining, and they are all executed with great care and craft at every level. It's maybe the most essential TV show about our current moment, and that's saying something.
Favorite Episodes: "White Bear", "Be Right Back", "Nosedive", "San Junipero", "U.S.S. Callister"

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Spies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies (or TV shows, as the case may be) that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Let's get down to business (to defeat the huns). TV spies... GO!

Get Smart (1965-1970) Maybe my favorite "classic" TV show, I used to live for whenever this would show up on Nick at Nite or TV Land. Maxwell Smart is the most bumbling secret agent who ever lived, but he still has a job because somehow he always ends up saving the day. There are so many wonderful gadgets in this show (who doesn't want a shoe phone?), marking it as a near-perfect parody of the James Bond movie franchise. It's just goofy good fun, and when I'm feeling really down in the dumps, an episode of this will always set me right.

Alias (2001-2006) I was OBSESSED with this show when it started. Sidney Bristow is just a regular college student, approached by the CIA with a job as an agent. Her job? A field agent for a secret "black ops" division of the CIA known as SD-6. But she (stupidly) tells her boyfriend that she's a spy, and SD-6 kills him. She then finds out that not only is her father, Jack, also an agent for SD-6, but SD-6 isn't part of the CIA at all! So she becomes a double agent, working to destroy SD-6 from the inside. The action sequences on Alias were unlike anything seen on TV before at the time, and most of them still hold up, mostly because of the driving force of star Jennifer Garner (who has rarely been better). The plotting got WAY more convoluted down the line, but the action sequences and amazing cast (Victor Garber! Ron Rifkin! Michael Vartan! LENA OLIN!), not to mention Garner's mind-blowing array of disguises, keep it entertaining.

The Americans (2013-2018) This year, we said goodbye to the best series on TV (with an episode fittingly titled "START"). Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell are superb as married Russian spies living undercover as model American citizens.... they own their own business (a travel agency), they have two kids, they have a nice house in Fall's Church, VA... and their new neighbor across the street just so happens to be an FBI agent. At height of the Cold War. Amazingly suspenseful, the series revels in "old-school" spycraft and period trappings, but at its heart is the story of a marriage, and how secrets can unite and destroy us. For such a thrilling show, it's often very quiet, but that's part of what makes the show work - those quiet moments cause us to feel for these characters even more, so that when the suspense sequences come, we're even more invested and on the edge of our seats. Superb on every level, The Americans is required viewing.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Spin-Off Series

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Partake in the fun by picking three movies (or TV shows, when the case calls for it) that fit the week's theme!

I was originally going to do a theme within a theme this week, but ended up deciding to just pick three of my favorite TV Spin-Offs. It's been a crazy two weeks surrounding Pride weekend here in NYC and I'm more than a little tired. But also very spiritually fulfilled.

The Jeffersons (1975-1985) Just take a moment to revel in that theme song for a bit. It's okay, it's one of the greats. This All in the Family Spin-off (of which there were four others) is every bit as good as its parent show, dealing with issues that people weren't really talking about in "polite conversation" like interracial relationships and... well... racism in general. Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford are perfectly matched as the titular couple who get to move to Manhattan's Upper East Side from Queens because of Mr. Jefferson's successful dry-cleaning business. Their fights are some of the funniest couple squabbles ever shown on TV. But it's Marla Gibbs as their maid Florence who really steals the show.

Frasier (1993-2004) One of the most Emmy-rewarded sitcoms of all time is a spin-off of one of the most successful TV shows of all time, Cheers. Famous for its witty, erudite scripts and sparkling chemistry between its leads, Frasier follows the titular radio psychiatrist as he takes care of his blue-collar father and clashes with his younger brother Niles, also a psychiatrist. I didn't much like this show as a kid when it was popular, but watching it in syndication as I got older, I came to really appreciate its smarts, which it never sacrificed even when it delved into farce and physical comedy.

Pinky and the Brain (1995-1998) GOD I miss great TV theme songs! Spun off from a recurring segment on the more variety show-esque Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain follows the titular laboratory mice as the genius grump Brain hatches convoluted plots for world domination and the idiotic but good-natured Pinky inevitably screws them up somehow. This show was a staple of my after-school viewing as a kid, and it's still a delight as an adult, thanks in large point to the inimitable voice work and the often brilliantly-conceived and executed parodies that were the show's stock in trade.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Entertainment Business

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies (or TV shows, as the case may be) that fit the week's theme.

Having worked for an Off Broadway theater company for five years, I can safely say that yes, there is indeed no business like show business. Which is why it's weird that there haven't been more great TV shows that use it as a backdrop (although perhaps other people's picks this week will prove me wrong on that). Here are three of my favorites.

Slings & Arrows (2003-2006) And why not just start with the best? One of the greatest television series of all time, this Canadian show takes place at a Shakespeare Festival, following the actors, directors, stage managers, techies, and office staff who make it run. Each season is centered around one particular production (Hamlet in the first, Macbeth in the second, and King Lear in the third), directed by actor/director Geoffrey Tennant (the magnificent Paul Gross), returning to the Festival after the death of the Artistic Director, despite suffering a nervous breakdown onstage at the festival years ago. Oh yeah, and the ghost of said dead Artistic Director starts haunting Geoffrey. The show is mostly about the tenuous relationship between art and commerce, in addition to being about Shakespeare, and mental health, and aging, among many other things. Each six-episode-long season is like a full five-course meal, with lots to savor. Of course, I watched the whole thing over the course of about a month for the first time because I was so engrossed in it. This is television at its finest.

30 Rock (2006-2013) Tina Fey's zany sitcom about the trials and tribulations faced by the cast and crew of a sketch comedy show is one of the fastest, funniest sitcoms ever written. With all-time great characters and performances from Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski, and Fey herself (just to name a few), this show is a treasure always ripe for rewatching.

Smash (2012-2013) Oh what high hopes we all had for this show. Lovers of musicals, I mean. And while Smash certainly had its pleasures, it was all a shambles when it came to episodic storytelling. But OH what talent in front of the camera! Debra Messing has never been better than as Broadway lyricist Julia, Christian Borle was a catty delight as her partner in music Tom, Anjelica Huston was Anjelica Huston, and Megan Hilty was a bundle of perfection as chorus girl turned Broadway star Ivy Lynn. And the songs by March Shaiman and Scott Wittman were pretty much all great. But unfortunately, it seemed that nearly everyone involved behind the scenes had a completely different vision of what the show was, and that came across in different ways in each of its two seasons: Season One was over the top, occasionally venturing into so-bad-it's-good territory, while Season Two (which had a new showrunner because of said OTT-ness of S1) was confused and uninteresting, with new characters who were were all either bland or aggressively awful. Smash is maybe the biggest TV disappointment I've ever witnessed in my lifetime, going from appointment viewing for most of the first season to forgetting that the Finale was even on and not really caring all that much about even watching it afterwards. But we'll always have those great musical numbers.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: One-Season Wonders

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies (or TV shows, as the case may be) that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them.

One of the most frustrating things about TV shows is that you never know how long they're going to last. You can put hours of time into watching them and get attached to the characters only to be rewarded by the show getting cancelled at the end of its first season - if it even makes it that far! And this week on Thursday Movie Picks: TV EDITION, that's what we're talking about - those weird, wonderful shows that not enough people loved as much as we did to stick around longer than one season.

So NoTORIous (2006) Yes, Tori Spelling had a sitcom. Yes, it aired on VH1 for one season. And YES, it is HILARIOUS. It's a funhouse mirror version of Tori's own life, complete with dad Aaron Spelling appearing as a disembodied voice a la Charlie's Angels and, in the most brilliant stroke of casting, Loni Anderson as her mother. The series is "about" how Tori wants to be taken seriously and for people to like her for her (as opposed to her daddy's money), as well as how her upbringing at the hands of her self-absorbed mother has affected her. Co-starring Cleo King as Tori's beloved nanny and Zachary Quinto as her gay best friend Sasan, So NoTORIous is far better than  you would ever imagine it being - constantly surprising and occasionally even surreally bizarre.

Ben and Kate (2012) Kate (Dakota Johnson) is a hard-working, practical single mom. Her brother Ben (Nat Faxon) is a free-spirited professional underachiever. When Ben comes back to town after a long stint away, the two realize that they each might be just what the other needs in order to be their best selves. Heart-warming and humorous, I am at a real loss as to why this show wasn't a bigger hit than it was. Faxon and Johnson have great familial chemistry, Kate's kid is ADORABLE and an utterly unprecious actress, and the supporting cast is full of ringers, none better than Lucy Punch as Kate's best friend BJ, who more than deserved some awards recognition for her absurd, hysterical performance.

No Tomorrow (2016) What if you met the perfect guy, and he turned out to be a doomsday prophet? That's the dilemma facing Evie, a fussy middle manager at a supply warehouse, in the hunky, British-accented form of Xavier, the free-spirited and otherwise pretty normal guy she meets at the farmers' market. Xavier has science to back up his apocalypse theory, and he also has an "apoca-list" of all the things he wants to do in the eight months before the world ends. Evie falls for him (and honestly, who WOULDN'T fall for Joshua Sasse?), and gets caught up in his world, making her own list and crossing off items with Xavier. Romantic comedy is tough to get right on TV (you can only believably keep the central couple apart for so long, and most rom-coms end when they get together), but No Tomorrow does a damn good job of it, in part because Tori Anderson and Joshua Sasse have incredible chemistry, and in part because as the series goes on, both are revealed to be far weirder and more interesting as people than they seem at first glance. It also helps that the supporting cast, while in many ways stock characters, get fun storylines and actors that make them feel like genuine individuals. And honestly, the ticking clock of the apocalypse helps too - the focus of the series isn't a "will-they-won't-they-OF-COURSE-THEY-WILL", but rather a "how do these two people affect each other, for better and/or worse," which is much more interesting.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Non-English Shows

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Look, I'm cheating this week. I am fully aware of that. But it's only because I don't watch foreign-language TV shows. #SorryNotSorry

Fanny & Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982) This Swedish miniseries is absolutely gorgeous, a testament to what a master of the visual form can do even on the small screen. The plot certainly doesn't sound like something that is worth watching for five hours: Fanny and Alexander's father dies, and their mother remarries a prominent bishop who naturally doesn't take too kindly to the boy's active imagination. But what Bergman does with that is just jaw-dropping. Some of the most beautiful sequences I've ever seen in movies or on TV are included here. There's a sense of childlike wonder that shows up in small doses that is just unmatched by anything else I've seen. There's a shorter film-length version, too, but the miniseries is absolutely worth your time.

Scenes From a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973) As epically intimate as Fanny & Alexander is intimately epic, Scenes From a Marriage is another Bergman miniseries that was later edited for a theatrical release. This one is pretty much a duet between the great Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson as Marianne and Johan, a couple that is not-so-slowly disintegrating before our eyes. These are two of the greatest performances in the history of the medium, captured in uncompromising detail. It's a tough sit, but pays off in spades.

French in Action (1987) Now this one actually was a TV series, shown on public television to teach French in an immersive program. There's a running romantic comedy story interspersed throughout the lessons about a French girl, Mireille, and an American student in France, Robert, that has developed a bit of a cult following over the years. I was introduced to this when I was really young through my father, who was a high school French teacher. And then when my own high school French teachers started to show it, I knew the storylines and lessons already, which was kind of fun.

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Legal Dramas

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. It's easy to join - just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!

WELL. Legal dramas, huh?

One could argue that there are too many shows on TV about lawyers, and one would not necessarily be wrong. However, that doesn't mean that they're all not great. On the contrary, there are lots of different directions you can take with legal dramas, which is perhaps why there have been so many! I wanted to be a lawyer for years, but ultimately decided it wasn't for me. But I still love watching lawyers in movies and on TV. These are some of my favorite legal dramas.

Damages (2007-2012) A scared, desperate young woman runs out of a building, covered in blood. Damages has one of the most instantly grabbing first scenes of any TV series in recent memory. And it followed through on that promise with a deliciously twisty rest of the season, following both the "past" (showing the buildup to that moment) and the "present" (showing the fallout of that moment). The young woman's name is Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne in her first big role), and she is a brand new first-year associate working for high-powered litigator Patty Hewes (Glenn Close, absolutely tearing up the screen and winning a well-deserved Emmy in the process), who has just taken on a class action lawsuit that is reminiscent of the Enron scandal. Patty is dedicated to justice for her clients, but she is ruthless in her pursuit of it. She thinks she has to be, because her opponents are just as ruthless, if not more so. But her questionable morality, and what happens because of the decisions she makes, prove difficult for Ellen to reconcile. The growing, complex relationship between the two women (and the tremendous performances of the actresses portraying them) is the heart of the series, but the ripped-from-the-headlines season-long cases - the second season is inspired by the 2001 California energy crisis, the third season by the Bernie Madoff scandal (with a terrific Len Cariou and Lily Tomlin), and the fourth by Blackwater - are smart and fantastically plotted. Damages is a legal thriller of the highest order.

The Good Wife (2009-2016) Another ripped-from-the-headlines plot, this one about the titular "good wife" of a politician caught having an extramarital affair, who decides to go back to work as an attorney, at a law firm run by a former law school classmate. Only she has to start at the bottom, as an associate. The series' seven season-long arc is TREMENDOUS, charting Alicia Florrick's growth, both as an attorney and as a person, as she starts to have more agency and control in her own life... and also goes from seeing things in black and white to seeing them in shades of grey. Juliana Marguiles won two Emmys for her lead performance, and they were both tremendously deserved. And she's not the only one - Archie Panjabi won for Supporting Actress for her brilliantly cagey, underplayed performance as the firm's bisexual investigator, and Martha Plimpton and Carrie Preston won Guest acting Emmys for two of the series' most memorable recurring characters (and The Good Wife is FULL of memorable recurring characters). The Good Wife was always wonderfully scripted and brilliantly performed, and really grappled with the modern use of technology and how the law has struggled to keep up with it. And among all that, it never lost sight of its characters and their evolving, complicated relationships - there are few single episodes of television better than the fifth season episode "Hitting the Fan" in which the weight of the entirety of the series comes crashing down on the characters in the most stunning way.

Drop Dead Diva (2009-2014) Maybe my favorite of all these series, Drop Dead Diva may have aired on Lifetime, but there's nothing "guilty" about the pleasure it provides. When kind, self-absorbed model Deb and brilliant plus-sized lawyer Jane die at the same time, Deb ends up returning to Earth in Jane's body. Turns out, she was, morally, a size zero - neither truly good nor truly bad, and gets a second chance at life. Yes, it's predictable and formulaic, but good lord, Brooke Elliott is a wonder in the lead role. The series's fizzy, breezy tone is a delight for what is essentially a drama, and the miniature morality plays of each episode are easier to take with Elliott's effervescent performance. She's never less than great at charting Deb's slow awakening to the possibility that she could do more with her life than just being a model on "The Price is Right", and she's a killer comedienne to boot. If you haven't seen it, give the pilot episode a try. It's the best kind of comfort food television.

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Book to TV Adaptations

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can take part too - all you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!

Well. Here we are again, back in TV Land for this week's Thursday Movie Picks. And we're talking about one of my favorite things: Adaptations of books! Novels actually lend themselves better to TV mini-series than they do to movies, in my opinion. The extra time allows you to include the full scope of the novel and paint in all the little details of the world. Films can be good for getting to the heart of a novel, but for my money, I'd nearly always prefer a TV mini-series. This week, I've picked one great mini-series, one great short-lived full series, and one absolutely terrible clusterfuck of a full series.

Big Little Lies (2017) What is there to say about Big Little Lies that hasn't already been said? I devoured each episode at least twice by the time the thing was over, and it was worth every second for these richly drawn, beautifully performed characters. It barely even needed the murder mystery framework, even if that was the supposed hook of the series. I can't believe they're doing a second season, let alone that they now have Meryl Streep(!!) and Andrea Arnold(!!!!) involved. This was so perfect as it is, I really hope they don't tarnish it with the next installment. I could heap praise on this for days, but in the interest of time, I'll just say this: Nicole Kidman's character arc, ESPECIALLY the therapy scenes, is the most compelling thing I've seen on TV in a long time. She deserved every award for it - and actually got them!

The Leftovers (2015-2017) The show that introduced The Great Carrie Coon to the world, The Leftovers is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta - or at least the first season is. The second and third seasons were written by Perrotta and series co-creator Damon Lindeloff as expansions of the world that Perrotta created in the novel, and holy WOW is this show tremendous. I get why people didn't want to watch it or stopped after the pilot episode: The premise and execution are downers: 2% of the world's population just up and vanished some time ago, and the people who remained are having a hard time dealing with it. Some go about their business like everything is fine. Some have a newfound death wish. Some are just doing their best to get through each day. And some have rebelled by refusing to speak, wearing only white, chainsmoking cigarettes, and accosting people as living reminders of what happened. And yes, the show is pretty depressing. But it is also utterly fantastic, producing several all-time great episodes. View each episode of the show as a short story set in this world, and its brilliance becomes more clear. I can't recommend it enough. Get past the first two episodes and OH what riches of writing and acting await you!

The Magicians (2015-Present) OH what wasted potential! Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy is stunning: Imagine if Harry Potter was an American high school student and Hogwarts was a college, and that gets you about halfway there. Grossman brilliantly deconstructs every single fantasy trope, making for a decidedly adult version of books like The Chronicles of Narnia. After the success of Game of Thrones, this could have been another great adaptation. But instead, it's listless, and most of the changes they've made to the novels make no sense and bear no fruit. I hate-watched three-quarters of the first season on Netflix before giving up because life is just too short to spend that much time watching something you don't like. Any fans in the house? Does it get any better? Or did I do the right thing?

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Friendship

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them.

It's the last Thursday Movie Picks of the year, y'all! Which is why it's kinda weird that it's a TV Edition, but hey, the calendar is what it is! And besides, we're all friends here, and what better way to celebrate the friendships this series has fostered than by picking great TV shows about friendship?

The Golden Girls (1985-1992) I mean, it's right there in the theme song, isn't it? "Thank you for being a friend." Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, and Sophia are THE super girl group of TV, and they bucked every trend in the book by being a top ten Nielsen-rated TV show for six out of its seven seasons. Even with major stars leading it, there was no guarantee that a sitcom about four "over the hill" women (three divorcés and one widow, no less) would be a hit with audiences. But the show's warm, gentle humor was put over with panache by Bea Arthur, Rue McLanahan, Betty White, and Estelle Getty. Watching The Golden Girls is to watch old pros doing what they do best: Setting up punchlines and knocking them out of the park as easily as you or I change channels. It's a delight.

New Girl (2011-Present) Curse the show all you want for foisting the word "adorkable" on us, but New Girl has been one of the most consistently hilarious shows on TV for the past few years. Once they realized that the chemistry between the cast members was bigger than any one of them (about halfway through the first season), and the show shifted Zooey Deschanel's titular Jess from being the main character to just another ensemble member, they also slowly started realizing that all the motley crew of characters were weirdos in their own way, and they just let the actors be weirdos. And really, that's the key to the show's success. It may have started off as a show about one weird girl getting her life back on track after a bad breakup, but it became a story about how five weirdos realized they could let their freak flags fly. Hilariously.

Red Band Society (2014-2015) This one-season wonder, based on an acclaimed Catalan series, is about a group of kids living in a hospital's pediatric ward, and the nurses and doctors who look after them. At times overly simplistic and obvious, but always touching, the show had a pretty great cast and a knack for perfectly used pop tunes. I got invested in the characters pretty quickly, and was disappointed when the show was cancelled after 13 episodes.

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Workplace

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them.

I'm at work writing this right now, which seems only appropriate given that this month's TV Edition is focused on the Workplace!

Herewith, my three picks for this evergreen setting for TV shows:

Boston Public (2000-2004) This was required viewing in my household, as my Dad was a high school foreign language teacher turned Assistant Principal and my Mom was a school social worker. The show from David E. Kelly (The Practice, Ally McBeal) was about the goings-on at a public school in Boston, MA, and in particular focused on the teachers. There were plenty of opportunities to address Important Issues (some of which were handled well, others that were NOT), and plenty of opportunities for soap operatics (some of which were just WAY too weird given the setting), but mostly, it was a chance to show that teachers have a fucking DIFFICULT job, and that school administrators often have it even worse. Just try having a personal life when your job lasts from 6 AM to 6 PM and you have to deal with teenagers who would rather be anywhere else all day. With a great ensemble cast including Chi McBride as the Principal, Fyvush Finkel, Jessalyn Gilsig, Nicky Katt, Loretta Devine, Sharon Leal, Michael Rapaport, and Jeri Ryan as the teachers.

Veep (2012-present) Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives the greatest comic performance ever seen on television as Vice President Selina Meyer. Surrounded by incompetents, idiots, assholes, and every combination thereof, Selina bravely trudges through each day dealing with whatever obstacles are thrown in her way with some of the most creative insults on TV. Those, of course, come from Armando Ianucci, genius creator of this and the similarly brilliant British TV show The Thick of It. You may think I'm being hyperbolic about Louis-Dreyfus's performance, but trust me. She is SUBLIME in this role, brilliantly showing every single one of Selina's many sides often simultaneously. It's a wonder of a performance, aided by one of the most talented ensembles on TV.

Fawlty Towers (1975-1979) Ladies and gentlemen, the Perfect Sitcom. John Cleese's towering performance as Basil Fawlty, the owner of the perpetually on-the-brink hotel that gives the series its title, is nothing short of utter perfection. The main joke of the series is that Fawlty runs a hotel but can't stand his guests, and will explode at them if they so much as breathe at the wrong time. The hotel staff - Spanish waiter Manuel, maid Polly, and Basil's wife Sybil - run the gamut from incompetent to unfailingly professional, both of which make Basil seethe with rage - always hilariously. If you haven't had the pleasure, sit down and binge the whole series - you can easily do it in a day, if you don't die from not being able to breathe because you're laughing so hard!

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Horror

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Halloween is drawing ever closer, and it's FINALLY starting to feel like Autumn here in NYC. Autumn is my favorite season, so this makes me sigh a great sigh of relief. Summer weather has just lasted WAY too long this year. There's now a slight breeze and chill in the air that I just love. It also means that every TV show is now trying to be a little bit spooky. Which is fine by me. Horror is easier to take in smaller doses, so I generally like horror TV shows a bit more than I do horror movies. The three below are two of my all-time favorites and one show that, frankly, should be so much better than it is, but is often still pretty good anyway.

The X-Files (1993-2002) It's true, classifying The X-Files as horror does it a bit of a disservice. After all, in its heyday, it could be just about anything from week to week. But there was usually an element of the scary, or at the very least the creepy, and the creepy-crawlies made multiple appearances. The basic premise is simple: Two FBI agents comprise in the bureau's "weird cases" division, one of whom is a true believer in aliens and the supernatural and one of whom is a scientist who is naturally skeptical of such things. But creator Chris Carter did so much more with it than that, creating a longer-term story arc deemed "the mythology" that had more influence on the state of TV programs today than most will admit. It's taken for granted now that the best episodes of the show were the "monster of the week"-style episodes, and the episodes focused on the "mythology" arc were lesser, but at the time, this was ALL truly thrilling stuff. On a personal level, The X-Files was basically my introduction to the horror genre. It was my mom's favorite show (next to ER), and when my sister and I reached the age when we were allowed to stay up late on Sundays to watch it, we were excited - we finally felt like grown-ups!
Favorite Episodes: "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", "The Post-Modern Prometheus", "Triangle", "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) Yet another show that it feels like a disservice to reduce to being a "horror" show, as well as another show that had more influence on today's TV shows than most are willing to admit, Buffy was basically my favorite show in high school. The story of a teenager who is the latest in a long line of Vampire Slayers - "chosen" ones who have been called by fate to fight the undead (and other monsters), her friends (and a frenemy or two), and her "Watcher" (her high school librarian, natch)... and the hunky vampire with a soul Angel. Creator Joss Whedon's stroke of brilliance to have Sunnydale High School literally sitting on top of a Hell Mouth (exactly what it sounds like) and use the demons as metaphors for the vagaries of teenage life is what allows the show to endure, but the show's whip-smart, ultra-quotable dialogue is what made it a huge hit among the teens of the '90s.
Favorite Episodes: "Doppelgangland", "Hush", "Restless", "The Body", "Once More With Feeling"

American Horror Story (2011-Present) Ryan Murphy's grand guignol anthology series is SO hit-or-miss, but at its best (unquestionably the second season, Asylum), it has a truly terrifying anything-could-happen brazenness that makes it required viewing. Given that each season is its own complete story, you an skip the seasons that don't seem like your thing. In addition to the aforementioned Asylum (in which Sarah Paulson's lesbian journalist commits herself to Jessica Lange's Catholic nun-run asylum for a career-making scoop), the best seasons are the first (Murder House, in which Dylan McDermott's psychiatrist and his wife Connie Britton move to the titular house in LA after a bout of infidelity on his part, only to find out it's haunted - by busybody next-door neighbor Jessica Lange as well as by ghosts both friendly and malevolent), and probably the absolutely demented sixth season, Roanoke (a "true crime"-style show within the show about a couple who move to a renovated home in the backwoods of North Carolina, supposedly on the spot where the infamous Roanoke Colony moved after its sudden disappearance). The third season, Coven, is wildly uneven and terribly scripted despite some entertaining performances; the fourth, Freak Show, is a wasted opportunity; and the fifth, Hotel is a gorgeous slog. American Horror Story is not a show that very much cares for silly things like logic and consistency, but in its best moments, that doesn't matter.

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Family

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join our lovely little blogging family by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them.

Well, it's that time of year again, the High Holidays, busy times spent with family celebrating and eating and singing and eating and fasting and eating... and on top of that, I'M MOVING! So to say I've been busy as all hell this past month would be an understatement.

All of which is to say, this will be a bit of a double week here, because last week, I would have picked the following Just Not Funny Comedies:

Old School (Todd Phillips, 2003)

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Adam McKay, 2004)

Step Brothers (Adam McKay, 2008)

Sorry, guys. I could barely do Will Ferrell on SNL.

And now that that's out of the way and I feel all caught up, let's get to the task at hand: TV Families. I'm going back in time a bit for my first pick, but if you haven't seen any of this classic sitcom, you owe it to yourself to watch. As for the others, if you're not watching... why the heck not?

All in the Family (1971-1979) The Bunkers are the most well-drawn sitcom family in TV history. everyone can see themselves and their family members in them, which is one of the reasons why the show was able to tackle so many social issues so effectively. Personally, my grandparents are practically dead ringers for Archie and Edith - he a loud-mouthed casual bigot of the working class, she a doting, slightly dotty near-martyr who just wants everyone to be happy. Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton brilliantly make both characters so much more than stereotypes, and Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner match them perfectly as their modern daughter and her "meathead" of a husband. Nearly every episode is a perfect one-act play, but none is better, or more famous, than the one where Sammy Davis, Jr. drops in and plants one on Archie.

Jane the Virgin (2014-Present) The Villanueva women are my favorite current TV family, for how grounded they are despite all the crazy going on around them. What crazy, you ask? Well, for starters, young Jane - the virgin of the title - gets accidentally artificially inseminated with her doctor's brother's sperm, and decides to have the baby. And things only get more telenovelistic from there, with ruthless crime lords, mistaken identities, secret twins, forced comas, love triangles, baby snatching, fantasy sequences, and marriages both fake and real becoming plot points. But through it all, Jane, her mother Xiomara, and abuela Alba (and her biological father, telenovela superstar and perfect comic creation Rogelio de la Vega) are always there for each other, to provide support and remind of what is truly important in life. Jane the Virgin balances wildly divergent tones better than any show currently on the air, with wacky comedy, soapy plot developments, and heartfelt tear-jerking all living side by side in perfect harmony. Gina Rodriguez is absolutely luminous as Jane, and deservedly won the Golden Globe for her performance in the first season, giving a beautifully memorable speech in the process.

One Day at a Time (2017-Present) I just started watching this VERY loose remake of the classic Norman Lear sitcom on Netflix, and totally fell in love with the Alvarez family. Nurse and Army vet Penelope is newly divorced and raising her two teenage children with her very Catholic Cuban mother (Rita Moreno, proving that Betty White isn't the only octogenarian legend who's still got it) while dealing with a little bit of PTSD (and other timely issues). While the situation only bears the slightest resemblance to the show on which it's based, the scripts all feel like they are from that era of socially-conscious Norman Lear megahits (like All in the Family), equal parts humor and heart.

BONUS

My other favorite TV family, but I couldn't pick the show because it was really just a recurring sketch on the Carol Burnett Show (yes, there was Mama's Family, but that was NOT the same).

Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: High School

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling us about them!

I'm off to my annual retreat in the woods this evening, so here's a quick run-down of three of my favorite high school TV shows. If you've ever thought "jeez, all high school shows seem the same!" well, then, you're kinda right. These shows couldn't be more different, but you just might see a formula somewhere...

Sabrina The Teenage Witch (1996-2003) What if you woke up on your sixteenth birthday to learn that you were the descendant of a long line of (good) witches, and that you were a witch yourself? This is what happens to Sabrina Spellman (the great Melissa Joan Hart), and as if high school weren't hard enough, now she has to learn lessons from her aunts Hilda and Zelda, as well as their familiar, Salem (a witch cursed into the body of a talking black cat for trying to take over the world). Caroline Rhea and Beth Broderick are sitcom perfection as the doting, adoring aunts, Nick Bakay makes Salem a maniacal delight, and Hart proves that her performance on Clarissa Explains It All wasn't a fluke, making Sabrina one of the most relatable teenage characters ever, despite her highly unrelatable situation. Due to Hart's popularity and the fun, satisfying quality of the show's humor and heart, it was the top-rated show of ABC's "TGIF" lineup for all of its four years on the network. After that it moved to The WB, also the home of...

Popular (1999-2001) What if you woke up one morning to find out that your mom/dad met and fell in love with the dad/mom of someone in a clique on the opposite side of the social spectrum from you? That's what happens to Brooke McQueen (Leslie Bibb) and Sam McPherson (Carly Pope), and as if weren't hard enough being a teenager, now each of they have to become sisters in a high school created by Ryan Murphy. Yes, this is the Crown Prince of Television's first series, and the template of all Ryan Murphy shows begins here: Great pilot, diverse casting, living on the cutting edge of social issues like obesity and homosexuality, a dash of surrealism... and the unfortunate tendency to go off the rails after a solid set-up. While Bibb and Pope hold the show together admirably as the leads, it's the supporting characters who really stand out, in this case the villainous Nicole Julian (the delicious Tammy Lynn Michaels) and her second-in-command, Mary Cherry (Leslie Grossman), one of the most original, flat-out hilarious TV characters ever created. To even describe what happens in one episode of Popular would be nearly impossible, given how many ingredients Murphy and co-creator Gina Matthews throw into it, but it's always entertaining, and very unique.

Veronica Mars (2004-2007) What if your popular best friend was violently murdered and your father, the town Sherriff, was crucified for going after one of the town's favorite sons, causing you to lose your social standing and your perfect boyfriend? Such is the tale of Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), junior detective for hire. And as if it weren't hard enough being a teenager, she has to balance school with work (her Dad's PI office), side jobs from her classmates, and solving her best friend's murder. Wise beyond her years, the once-popular Veronica is now a calloused, cynical version of her former self, struggling mightily to keep herself and her dad (the great Enrico Colantoni) afloat in a city that would rather they both just die. Bell gives one of the best performances of a teenager on TV, delivering creator Rob Marshall's quips with a keen ear for hard-boiled private dick dialogue but never ever losing Veronica's heart, and the relationship between her and Colantoni is one of the most sharply-drawn father-daughter relationships I've had the pleasure to witness. All that, and the mysteries - both episodic and season-long - are involving and just twisty enough to keep you guessing until the last moment. It's one of my all-time favorite TV programs, and now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch it all the way through again, for the third time.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV Edition: Medical Dramas

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme (which the last week of every month is TV shows) and writing a bit about them!

I'm really tired this week, so without further ado, here are my picks for Medical Drama TV Shows

Grey's Anatomy (2005-Present) While it's no longer making headlines the way it did in its first few seasons, the show that made Shonda Rhimes is indeed still on the air, and far better than a show in its thirteenth season should be. The story follows one Meredith Grey, daughter of a legendary surgeon, through her internship, surgical residency, and doctor-hood at the INCREDIBLY UNFORTUNATE Seattle Grace Hospital. I would say it's about Meredith and her group of fellow interns that we meet in the pilot episode, except that.... well, there are only two of them left now, and it was pretty much always Meredith's story, from the very first. Grey's has become highly influential for its patented indie music cues and over-the-top devastating emotional moments, so much so that sometimes the show can feel like a parody of itself if you just catch an episode in reruns. But watch it from the beginning and you'll be surprised at how quickly you get sucked in, because it's SUPER entertaining with a wide variety of characters performed by actors perfectly in sync with them... and each other. And then, watch through tears and splayed fingers as you reach the climaxes of episodes like "Into You Like a Train" and "Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response/Losing My Religion" (the second season finale). It's a soap opera through and through, but (mostly) a damn good one.

A Gifted Man (2011) Patrick Wilson plays a handsome, wealthy, cocky doctor with a handsome, expensive private practice in NYC. One day he randomly runs into his ex-wife, now working at a free clinic in the Bronx, and they share a wonderful evening together. Only when he goes to call her the next day, he finds out that she died two weeks prior. She is now appearing to him as a ghost - or a hallucination - and trying to get him to become a better person by giving of himself to the less fortunate. Filled to the brim with top-notch talent (Jennifer Ehle plays the dead wife, Margo Martindale the put-upon secretary, and ER vet Eriq LaSalle the medical partner; Oscar winner Jonathan Demme directed the pilot), A Gifted Man never quite rose above its premise and only lasted one season. But Wilson made the character's journey interesting to watch, and even though the plots at the free clinic were obviously manipulative, they worked more often than not.

The Knick (2014-2015) Ever wonder what hospitals were like before modern surgical techniques were invented? Turns out, it's probably not so far from what you might think, but also completely different. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Clive Owen, The Knick isn't quite like anything you've seen before, as we follow star surgeon Dr. Thackeray and the denizens of New York's Knickerbocker Hospital in the early 20th century. The attention to period detail is astounding, but it's Cliff Martinez's brilliant, anachronistic, completely electronic score that's the real stand-out.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV EDITION: Time Travel

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through The Shelves. Join us as every week, we pick three titles that fit the week's theme and tell everyone a bit about them!

We are traveling again this week, this time through time, on the small screen. And I'll be honest, there's really only one TV show about time travel that I really care about right now, and it took some time for me to think of two others. But think of them I did, and they had something rather surprising in common...

Life on Mars (2008-2009) Based on the UK series of the same name, this one season wonder starred Jason O'Mara as a present-day cop who gets hit by a car and wakes up in the '70s. He's still himself, and he gets flashes of his life via his TV set somehow, but he's living in the '70s, no doubt about it! Thankfully, he's still working as a cop. But the style of police work is much different from what he's used to, as exemplified by the police chief played by Harvey Keitel - which should be all I have to say about the character for you to get the picture. A bumpy ride, perhaps a bit too concerned with the mystery of the time travel (although the way they wrapped it up was very clever, I thought), but it's a lot of fun once you stop worrying about that.

Terra Nova (2011) The one season wonder starred Jason O'Mara as a cop in the year 2049, who travels back in time with his family to the Cretaceous period, as their world has become near-uninhabitable. But he almost gets detained for trying to smuggle their newborn baby with them, and once he sneaks through, has to convince the leadership on Terra Nova that his skills as a cop are vital. Thankfully, there's a rebel group of settlers working for a corporate interest causing all sorts of havoc, so he's allowed to stay. When it fully embraced the sci-fi elements at its core, Terra Nova was kind of thrilling, but it was too simplistic and nonsensical overall to really hold together - although LORD did Jason O'Mara REALLY try!

Doctor Who (1963-1989, 2005-present) The world's longest-running TV series (I'm PRETTY SURE), by virtue of its lead character: A time-traveling alien from the planet Gallifrey, known only as The Doctor, who can regenerate himself into a different body when he "dies". The original series is fun in a kitschy, almost-campy, Saturday morning show for kids kind of way, but the new series ups the stakes and the visual effects to create something truly thrilling. This is long-form, serial storytelling at its absolute best, with tremendous performances from each of the thirteen men who have stepped into the Doctor's TARDIS (that's "Time And Relative Dimension In Space" to you, and yes it looks like a British police call box, and YES it's bigger on the inside), as well as from most of the pretty young things who play his earthly "companions" in his travels. In any given episode, Doctor Who can go anywhere and be anything, from horror ("Blink") to romance ("The Girl in the Fireplace") to allegory ("Cold War") to slapstick comedy ("The Lodger") and absolutely everything in between. But mostly, it's just a lot of fun, with overarching plots that actually hold together on both the macro and micro levels, and consistently satisfying individual episodes littered with great performances from a veritable who's-who of great British thespians.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV EDITION: Period Drama

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're on every week - join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Wow, the month of March went by FAST, huh? We're already at the next TV Edition of Thursday Movie Picks, which means it's the last Thursday of the month! I can't believe it. Time is going by so fast, and this week we are looking at shows that take place in the past. I can't think of too many of those that I've watched, actually, so there's not so much a larger point I have to make here, other than "these are some period dramas I have watched, and probably enjoyed."

Downton Abbey (2010-2015) I mean... where did Downton even come from? It really seemed like, all of a sudden, millions and millions of people were watching PBS on Sundays and EVERYONE was talking about the new Upstairs, Downstairs. It was very strange. But anyway, how could you not fall in love with this show's first season, which took things as seemingly boring as inheriting titles and lines of succession and property ownership and made them sublimely entertaining? A brilliant cast leads us through the early 1900s in the life of a British manor house after the male heir dies on the Titanic and the next closest relative is a middle class (as in, "Oh, how VERY middle class...") lawyer who must be taught the ways of the British upper class. I know I just said the cast is great, and they ARE, every last one of them, but there's really no question who the star of the show is: Dame Maggie Smith, in what is hopefully not her last great role as Dowager Countess Violet Crawley. Not only does writer Julian Fellowes give her ALL the best lines, but she delivers like you would not believe. There are a million tribute videos to her on YouTube, and every single one of them is just absolutely delightful.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2013-2015) Miss Phryne Fisher is the most fabulous detective you will ever meet. And this Australian period mystery series is maybe the most fun you will ever have solving murders! Essie Davis swans about in the most insane 1920s clothing you have ever seen while solving murder after murder in the most stylish way imaginable. With her trusty maid, Dot, butler Mr. Butler, and drivers Bert and Cec, Miss Fisher constantly runs circles around local Detective Inspector Jack Robinson's official investigations, using a combination of women's intuition, keen eye for detail, and wickedly sharp wit. The whole thing may feel like just a lot of frothy fun, but there's a deeper level of feminism running through it all that adds quite a lot. Well worth seeking out!

Spartacus (2010-2013) You know how people say about TV shows all the time "you have to give it a few episodes, but trust me, it gets SO GOOD"? Well... you have to give it a few episodes, but TRUST ME. Spartacus gets SO. GOOD. You already know the story of the slave-turned-gladiator-turned-rebellion leader, so come for the male nudity and stay for the storytelling and surprisingly well-drawn characters. It's certainly not a show for the squeamish (although the blood in the earliest episodes really does look badly fake), but if you can stomach it, Spartacus is one of the most rewarding shows in recent years. In fact, it's incredibly easy to pinpoint exactly where the show got good (episode 6 of the first season), AND exactly where it got GREAT (episode 9 of the first season). That it rarely took any downturn after that is what makes it essential. Yes, the way of speaking may seem ridiculous, and yes, it's incredibly bloody, but you've never seen ancient history like this - and by all accounts, it's pretty damn accurate to how the Romans actually lived. Plus: Lucy Lawless, better than she's ever been as the mistress of the house run by character extraordinaire John Hannah. The entire arc of the four season show is nearly flawlessly done, and the performances by everyone (including original Spartacus Andy Whitfield, who died of cancer after the first season and was replaced with the just as good Liam McIntyre) are strong. I really can't recommend this show enough, especially since it looked in the early going like it was going to be a bad 300 rip-off. Boy, did it ever transcend that!

Thursday Movie Picks - TV EDITION: Superheroes/Super Powers

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling everyone a bit about them!

Another month, another TV Edition of Thursday Movie Picks, so my apologies if you were coming here looking for movie recommendations. They're not on the menu at the moment. Please, though, come back soon!

This week, we're looking at the small screen's superheroes. And it took me about five seconds to come up with my favorite:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) It's one of the stranger things in recent memory that an utter failure of a forgettable teen movie was later turned into one of the All-Time Great TV shows by the film's own writer. But that's just what happened with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the story of a butt-kicking California blonde who is a mystical "chosen one" who was chosen to rid the world of vampires (and other supernatural beasties). Setting our heroine's high school on top of something called The Hellmouth (trust me, it's exactly what it sounds like), was a stroke of genius, allowing creator Joss Whedon and his writing staff to externalize all the myriad internal adolescent issues we've all experienced as quite literal demons. And he set the template for every other great serialized drama that was on air after. All hail.
Favorite Episodes: "Hush" (S4.e10), "The Body" (S5.e16), "Once More, With Feeling" (S6.e7)

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997) Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher were the Clark Kent and Lois Lane the '90s needed, okay?!? This probably isn't a great show, really, but good lord I wouldn't have been caught dead missing an episode back when I was ten years old!

Arrow (2012-present) Darker and more emotional than your average superhero tale, this television adaptation of the Green Arrow comic was appointment television for a while for me, and not just because of star Stephen Amell's body of work. The hook (bilionaire playboy returns home after having been thought dead for years, bent on taking revenge on those who wronged his father and his city) is pretty irresistible, and the quality of each episode is outstandingly high. Complex characters and brilliant performances made me keep tuning in long after the storyline itself changed focus and lost my interest.

Thursday Movie Picks - TV EDITION: Science Fiction

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

PLOT TWIST!

This year, Wanderer has decided that the last Thursday Movie Picks of each month will be a special Television Edition! While I'm excited for the diversity, I'm also kind of annoyed, because I've watched WAY less TV shows than I have movies, and I hate to pick things more than once. This might get difficult when we get to December...

But anyway, let's focus on the here and now, shall we? This week, we're talking Sci-Fi TV shows. I have to admit, the first two shows I immediately thought of I ended up discarding for various reasons, one of which being I'm sure everyone else will pick them. Bonus points if you can guess what they were. The ones I did pick this week are two shows from my childhood that honestly may not have been very good at all, and one SciFi Channel Syfy show that I really love.

Land of the Lost (1991-1992)  I'm SO SORRY. But I remember really loving this Saturday Morning TV Show as a kid. An update of the old Sid & Marty Krofft show from the 70s but with (slightly) better special effects, Land of the Lost is the story of a Dad and his two kids who get accidentally sucked back in time (or something) to a world where dinosaurs and cavemen run rampant, and have to survive or find a way back home. I remember liking the Swiss Family Robinson living-off-the-land survival elements the best, but other than that I really don't remember much. Except that I liked it.

SeaQuest DSV (1993-1996) My grandfather is a seafarer. He came to America from England working on a boat, and jumped ship when they got to New York, and he's been on or near the water ever since. Both of my grandparents volunteered at a local aquarium (my grandmother basically built their education program from the ground up), and they had a boat on Long Island Sound that we would go out on in the summer. So when this show, which is basically Star Trek under water, aired, it was appointment viewing for my family. Again, I don't remember practically anything about it, except that I looked forward to it every week. And that the cast, led by Roy Scheider, is pretty much all REALLY good-looking.

Eureka (2006-2012) The newest and BY FAR best of my picks this week, Eureka is the story of an average cop, who (along with his teenage daughter) stumbles across a city populated entirely by geniuses and, through circumstance, ends up becoming the town Sheriff. Naturally, since the town factory is a high-tech corporation run by the Department of Defense, something life-threatening (or at least, VERY weird) happens on a pretty regular basis, so Sheriff Carter has plenty to keep him busy. And while everyone around him may have a (much) higher IQ, Carter's street smarts and ability to connect with others makes him far better at the job than anyone expected, himself included. What started out as a more serious, mythology-and-mystery-driven show ended up becoming much more lighthearted in its middle-to-later seasons, so much so that even the objectively bad episodes were enjoyable just because the characters were so pleasant to spend time with. It's an incredibly endearing show, and I actually miss it quite a bit.