On Media

While Gravity doesn't pass the Bechdel test, it does feature a female lead in a story that isn't about romance or sex. But is it her story or Everyman's?

In case you haven't noticed, Duck Dynasty is ruling the world. And the popular reality show has a prayer in every episode.

Orange Is the New Black is so refreshing, honest and funny that "prison drama" is hardly the right category.

My school-aged self was intrigued by the Purple Pie Man. Since then, kids' TV has spun off in two directions: more violence for boys, threatless universes for girls.

The Newsroom is a great show that presents a noble sentiment. But it occasionally rings false.

Fruitvale Station is a powerful, meditative exploration of one ordinary life that met an extraordinary and tragic end.

I wanted to hate Preachers' Daughters without reserve. But the reality of this reality show proves more complicated than the scripts.

Lloyd Rediger's "clergy killer" premise is, in some senses, indisputable. Yet put so baldly, the kvetch seems odd.

Joss Whedon's adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing is an enchanting modern take on the 16th-century romance and a nearly perfect movie.

The Americans is more than a spy show. It explores how a hidden identity is hard to nourish—and an identity embodied in habit is harder to disavow.

Star Trek has long been insistently nonreligious. But in the end it has not replaced religion, just repurposed it.

Arrested Development is back, and family dysfunction is on display. But family may also be the characters' chance to break free from paralyzing narcissism.

Diehards may not like Lizzie Bennet Diaries' changes to Austen. But the fun lies in considering the choices involved in cultural translation.

The hardest review to write is the B- review. And the History Channel’s five-part miniseries The Bible is neither excellent nor miserable.

How can we imagine a world that counters the one that the Don Drapers helped create?

St. Francis and St. Clare's witness was possible only in a world full of grace. Frank and Claire Underwood's story is plausible only in a world stripped of it.

The show Homeland puts viewers in a moral vice and squeezes.

The act of sacrifice central to Beautiful Creatures works only because the characters' story is not entirely their own.

Parents are committed to keeping children safe. But the reality is closer to Benh Zeitlin's vision of chaos than we care to admit.

I don't like family sitcoms, so I long avoided Modern Family. But the show catches the way family can be both loathsome and life-giving.