Happy Festivus, everyone!

To celebrate today (in addition to the feats of strength and airing of grievances), I rounded up the top 10 nontraditional Holiday television episodes over at The Daily Beast, from Community and Seinfeld to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who. (And, yes, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's direct-to-DVD special--which just aired on FX for the first time this month--made the list, naturally.)

An aside, I could have filled the entire list with just British television shows, from The Vicar of Dibley and Doctor Who (which both made the list) to Gavin & Stacey, Blackadder, Catherine Tate, Absolutely Fabulous, and about a zillion others.

But I am curious to know: what is your favorite nontraditional holiday episode/special? Putting aside the traditional Rudolph and Charlie Brown Christmas, what are some of the more out there holiday episodes or specials that add that extra spike to the eggnog?

Or make that Festivus aluminum pole shine a little more, anyway?

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It's that time of year when we bid farewell to the last twelve months and start looking toward the future, but it's also a chance to reflect, to catalogue, and to reminisce as well.

My selections for the Ten Best (and, cough, five worst) TV shows of 2010 have now gone live over at The Daily Beast.

The series selected represent the very best that television had to offer the past twelve months and include such shows as Mad Men, Community, Terriers, Parks and Recreation, The Good Wife, Fringe, Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Friday Night Lights, and Modern Family.

It wasn't easy to whittle down the competition to just ten shows as, despite the overall drain in creativity this calendar year, there were quite a lot of fantastic series. (In fact, one of the very best of the year didn't even air on American television at all: Season Three of BBC One's Ashes to Ashes--including its breathtaking and gut-wrenching series finale--would have made this list if it had been open to overseas programming that hadn't aired within the US during 2010. Additionally, Downton Abbey would have made the list but it's set to air in January on PBS, so will be held until the 2011 list.)

As for other runners-up, that category would include (but wouldn't be limited to) such series as Damages, Party Down, Nurse Jackie, Sherlock, Bored to Death, Better Off Ted, Doctor Who, True Blood, Treme, Big Love, Archer, The Choir, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The IT Crowd, The Life and Times of Tim, Luther, and 30 Rock (for the current season, at least).

But now that the list is (finally) live, I'm curious to hear what you had to say:

What's your take on the best of 2010? Do you agree with my picks for the best of the year and the worst? Head to the comments section to discuss, debate, and analyze, as well as share your own best-of list for 2010.

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What defines a man and a player? Is it grace in victory as well as defeat?

That's always been the view of Eric Taylor, a coach whose love of the game has often meant that he has allowed his team's opponents the ability to score a few points so they don't walk off the field at zero. Or who tells his team, after a particularly brutal victory, to "take a knee" rather than unnecessarily run them into the ground. There's no gain to be had from kicking a man when he's down.

Unfortunately, the Lions--or at the very least, Vince, under the guidance of his crafty father Ornette--doesn't see things quite that way. His decision to make a 65-yard throw and win the team another touchdown, acting against the instructions of Coach Taylor, was an opportunity to not score another goal or even conquer the Panthers, but rather to put the spotlight squarely on himself. While there might not be an "i" in team, Vince is trying his hardest these days to squeeze one in there.

I'm not to proud to admit that I teared up at the very start of this week's episode of Friday Night Lights ("Perfect Record"), which saw the return of Jason Street (Scott Porter) to Dillon. For too long, I've wondered just what Street had been up to and his sudden and unexpected return took me by surprise.

But for all of the changes in Street's life, he is most definitely Coach's protege, a man who was formed by Eric in his own image, with his own innate sense of sportsmanship, honor, and courage. The difference between Street and Vince became all the more clear this week.

First, I'm happy to see that Street has made a place for himself in the world, one that allows him to work within the sports world that he knows and loves. And that Street did in fact marry the mother of his child. There's a nice sense of closure there, of knowing that despite everything that befell Jason over the course of the series, that he's out there living his life and that things have fallen into place for the former Dillon Panthers quarterback.

I've missed the dynamic between Jason Street and Eric Taylor, something that blended both the mentor/protege dynamic as well as that of father and son. Eric's pride at Jason's achievements and his hurt that he didn't know that he was married were palpably felt in this episode, as the two caught up over a meal. Jason's life may not have gone according to plan, but he's still the man that he ought to have been, a man who was molded in the heat of battle by Eric.

It's been clear throughout the nearly five-season run of Friday Night Lights that Eric cares deeply for these kids, that he takes his role as coach seriously and dutifully, that he's there as much to push the kids towards a better life of promise and potential as he is to improve their game.

Eric plucked Vince off the street and gave his life purpose and direction. It's interesting to look back at Vince at the beginning of Season Four and to see how far he's grown and changed since then. While he was always mature--he did, after all, have to care for his junkie mother and keep their lives chugging along--he was headed towards criminality, jail, or death. In pushing Vince towards the Lions, Eric saved his life.

Which is why it's all the more upsetting that Vince is being swayed by Ornette, by a father who just a few weeks ago Vince couldn't stand to look at. Ornette may have Vince's "best interests" at heart, but they're short-term best interests rather than long-term ones, goals motivated by dollar signs rather than what's right for Vince.

Eric's feelings on the matter are echoed by Jason, who urges Ornette to find a college that's a "right fit" for Vince rather than chase after the biggest pile of money. I do believe that Ornette does care for Vince but it's a father's love that's twinned with the need to cash in on his son's arm and his future. Eric's utter dismay at Ornette stepping between him and the recruiters was one of shock and anger; he's always had these kids' "best interests" at heart and he was looking to do right by Vince. While he's aware that Ornette is (as Street put it) a "problem," the breadth of that issue becomes all the more clear as the episode goes on.

I don't want to wish any ill-will on Vince but I do want him to wake up and see that the Lions aren't just a platform for him and his skill, that Ornette might not want what's best for him overall, and that he gets knocked down a few pegs. After all, we saw what all the glory and guts got poor Smash; it was only through perseverance and the help of Coach Taylor that he was able to play again and get his life back on track.

I can't help but wonder whether a similarly eye-opening experience is in the cards for Vince. After all, it wasn't just Vince who shown on the field in the game against the Panthers: Luke Cafferty was also a star in that game and I can't help but wonder if there isn't an ironic twist in the works in which Luke sneaks ahead once more of Vince.

As for Luke, he should know better than to ever take the advice of Billy Riggins. I loved the workout sequence between the two as Billy looks to Luke as Tim 2.0, training him in the same way that he trained his brother (lifting fenders and propane tanks). But by ignoring Becky and giving her the cold shoulder, Luke risked alienating her altogether. However, I was pleased that the two finally had some words after the game and Luke came clean about his "plan" to win her over and how he was surprised that she liked when he was nice to her. (Oh, Luke, you've got a lot to learn about women.)

And the two--FINALLY!--shared a kiss. It's been an interesting rollercoaster between the two of them, a the start of a real relationship between Luke and Becky after last season's pregnancy and abortion and the thawing of the iciness between them. Plus, the two of them are just adorable together.

Elsewhere, Julie Taylor continued her shame spiral, as she still refuses to return to school, or really to even leave the house. I'm glad to see that last week's drag-out fight between the Taylors didn't permanently damage Eric and Tami's relationship, as they both seem to be on the same page about their daughter now. Julie needs some tough love but she also needs support. If she's unable to go back to school right now, she'll at least complete her coursework and finish the semester. Tami believes in forcing Julie to take on responsibilities at home (dropping off and picking up her sister, cleaning up, and running errands) and Tami herself drives to Julie's college to get her books and work, where she runs into Derek himself.

I was stunned to see just how cool Derek played his scene with Tami, inquiring about Julie but never once apologizing or expressing any guilt in her decision not to return to school after the encounter with his wife. No real emotion, at all. And I was glad to see that Tami kept things business-like and civil, though her true venomous feelings towards Derek were written all over her face. No smiles, no friendliness, no questions.

Meanwhile, Eric and Tami are fine, thankfully. I loved the scene where she climbed into bed with him and he asked if she wanted to fool around... only to have her fall asleep on him within seconds. Ah, married life.

But it was Tami's sadness and her line ("You need to study") to Julie upon returning that stuck with me long after the episode ended. It's a Tami that we haven't seen much of lately, a nearly defeated one, a mother trying to do best by her daughter, trying to push her towards fulfilling her potential. Just as Eric's own sadness, the loss of grace in their victory over the Panthers, as he watched Ornette and Vince chatting up those recruiters in the parking lot, revealed just how disappointed he is in someone he cared for as well.

Our pasts might not matter (those released criminal records), but what does is what we do next, how we roll from adversity, how we carry ourselves when we lose and when we win. And that lesson was, most depressingly, lost on Vince and on the Lions.

New episodes of Friday Night Lights will return on Wednesday, January 5th at 9 pm ET/PT on DirecTV's The 101 Network. On the next episode ("Fracture"), Coach fears he's beginning to lose his grip on the team; Tami worries that one of her students is being neglected; Vince alienates his teammates; Becky enters a beauty pageant.

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Looks like FOX is being more than a little tongue-in-cheek with this new video, touting the move to the traditional Friday night death-slot for Fringe:

Fringe moves to Fridays beginning January 21st at 9 pm ET/PT on FOX.

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THE PALEY CENTER FOR MEDIA ANNOUNCES PALEYFEST2011
THE TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL WILLIAM S. PALEY TELEVISION FESTIVAL

March 4–18, 2011, at Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, CA

Evenings Honoring True Blood, The Walking Dead, 10 seasons of American Idol and a reunion of the casts of Judd Apatow’s Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared are the first four honorees revealed from PaleyFest2011’s 12-Event Lineup

Los Angeles, CA—The Paley Center for Media will present the twenty-eighth annual PaleyFest: The William S. Paley Television Festival (PaleyFest2011) from March 4 to 18, 2011, returning to the historic Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, California. The Festival is also revealing four of its 2011 honorees: HBO’s True Blood, AMC’s The Walking Dead, FOX’s American Idol, which will be honored for its ten seasons on the air, and the seminal cult classics Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared, which will be jointly honored on one special evening.

PaleyFest is an extraordinary interactive pop culture event, connecting fans with the casts and creators of their favorite series as well as the icons who have changed or are changing the face of media. Named for William S. Paley, founder of both the Paley Center and CBS, annual Festival celebrates television’s rich and diverse programming and the creative process behind the medium. During each evening, the audience views episodes or highlights of the featured work and has the opportunity to ask questions of the cast and creative team or the individual involved in its production.

The complete schedule for PaleyFest2011 will be announced on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, first on the Paley Center twitter feed (twitter.com/paleycenter) and available on paleycenter.org with additional details. Starting today, the all-inclusive Festival Pass is available for purchase at ticketweb.com—just in time to give the perfect holiday gift to the ultimate TV fan. The Festival Pass includes one guaranteed ticket for premium seating each night, access to Festival events, free parking, concession stand vouchers, a one-year Paley Center general Membership, and other benefits. Starting January 19, several PaleyFest2011 Ticket Packages will be announced and available, also at ticketweb.com. Individual tickets will go on sale to Paley Center Members on Friday, January 21, and to the general public beginning the following Sunday, January 23, 2011.

Since the first Festival in 1984, the Paley Center has honored more than three hundred programs, including 24, Alias, American Idol, Battlestar Galactica, The Big Bang Theory, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cheers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Damages, Desperate Housewives, Dexter, Entourage, Family Guy, Friends, Friday Night Lights, Glee, Grey’s Anatomy, The Golden Girls, Gunsmoke, House, The Honeymooners, Laugh-In, Lost, Mad Men, M*A*S*H, Modern Family, My Name Is Earl, The O.C., The Office, Roots, Route 66, Sábado Gigante, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Six Feet Under, South Park, thirtysomething, True Blood, Ugly Betty, The Untouchables, The West Wing, and The X-Files, along with such personalities as Judd Apatow, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, John Frankenheimer, Jim Henson, Bob Hope, Angela Lansbury, Jack Lemmon, George Lucas, Mary Martin, Carl Reiner, Garry Shandling, Flip Wilson, Jonathan Winters, and many others. PaleyFest panels are recorded and are available for viewing at the Paley Center in New York and Los Angeles.

PaleyFest2011 is made possible in part by a grant from the William S. Paley Foundation.

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Oh, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, you do love to make me laugh.

The HFPA this morning announced their nominations for the 68th Annual Golden Globes, which will be telecast on Sunday, January 16th. Among the recipients, such worthy nominees as Mad Men, The Good Wife, Modern Family, Boardwalk Empire, and others.

But as always, the voting board--which tends to be relentlessly populist and/or follows certain Emmy trends--went off-track completely in some categories, such as the nomination of Piper Perabo.

Yes, Piper Perabo.

The star of USA's espionage drama Covert Affairs was nominated for Best Actress in a Drama Series, where she will be competing against the likes of The Good Wife's Julianna Margulies, Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss, Sons of Anarchy's Katey Sagal, and The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick. It's really a case of which one of these things just doesn't belong?

It's not a slam against Perabo or her USA series, but it's also indicative of the fact that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association often determines their nomination process in a method that would confound most of us.

Surely, there were other dramatic performances this year that stood out over that of Perabo? Where was the nomination for, say, Connie Britton? For January Jones? For Anna Torv? For Anna Paquin? Glenn Close? Rose Byrne? The sister-wives of Big Love?

(Then again, this same voting body also gave three nominations to the cinematic trainwreck that is The Tourist, so all logic has sort of flown out of the window by now.)

The musical or comedy category contained not a risk at all. No mention made of Community, Parks and Recreation, or Party Down.

I don't want to appear ungrateful because there were some pleasant nominations to be had. I'm extremely chuffed that Elisabeth Moss received recognition for her amazing performance this season on Mad Men ("The Suitcase" alone should have locked this), that Luther's Idris Elba landed a nom, that some love was given to HBO's Temple Grandin and Return to Cranford, and that The Good Wife also received some love as well. (I'm a little amused that The Walking Dead managed to crack the best drama series after its ratings success, but that they opted not to recognize, say, Lost's final season as a result.)

And then there are the categories in which the same names come up time and time again: Best Actor, I'm looking at you. I'm pleased that Steve Buscemi cracked the category for his turn as Nucky Thompson on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, but it does get repetitive to have largely the same names crop up year after year. (I love Buscemi, but my support goes again to Jon Hamm.)

And the categories that smush together a panoply of supporting actors from various genres to compete against each other: Eric Stonestreet competing against Chris Noth and David Strathairn? Only at the Golden Globes, really, where head-scratching is just part of the package...

The full list of television-related nominees can be found below.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

a. BOARDWALK EMPIRE (HBO)
Leverage, Closest to the Hole Productions, Sikelia Productions and Cold Front Productions, HBO Entertainment
b. DEXTER (SHOWTIME)
Showtime, John Goldwyn Productions, The Colleton Company
c. THE GOOD WIFE (CBS)
CBS Television Studios
d. MAD MEN (AMC)
Lionsgate Television
e. THE WALKING DEAD (AMC)
AMC

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

a. JULIANNA MARGULIES - THE GOOD WIFE
b. ELISABETH MOSS - MAD MEN
c. PIPER PERABO - COVERT AFFAIRS
d. KATEY SAGAL - SONS OF ANARCHY
e. KYRA SEDGWICK - THE CLOSER

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

a. STEVE BUSCEMI - BOARDWALK EMPIRE
b. BRYAN CRANSTON - BREAKING BAD
c. MICHAEL C. HALL - DEXTER
d. JON HAMM - MAD MEN
e. HUGH LAURIE - HOUSE

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

a. 30 ROCK (NBC)
Universal Media Studios in association with Broadway Video and Little
Stranger Inc.
b. THE BIG BANG THEORY (CBS)
Warner Bros. Television
c. THE BIG C (SHOWTIME)
Showtime, Sony Pictures Television, Perkins Street Productions, Farm Kid, Original Film
d. GLEE (FOX)
Ryan Murphy Television, Twentieth Century Fox Television
e. MODERN FAMILY (ABC)
Twentieth Century Fox Television
f. NURSE JACKIE (SHOWTIME)
Showtime, Lionsgate Television, Jackson Group Entertainment, Madison Grain Elevator, Inc. & Delong Lumber, Caryn Mandabach Productions

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES –COMEDY OR MUSICAL

a. TONI COLLETTE - UNITED STATES OF TARA
b. EDIE FALCO - NURSE JACKIE
c. TINA FEY - 30 ROCK
d. LAURA LINNEY - THE BIG C
e. LEA MICHELE - GLEE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

a. ALEC BALDWIN - 30 ROCK
b. STEVE CARELL - THE OFFICE
c. THOMAS JANE - HUNG
d. MATTHEW MORRISON - GLEE
e. JIM PARSONS - THE BIG BANG THEORY

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. CARLOS (SUNDANCE CHANNEL)
Sundance Channel
b. THE PACIFIC (HBO)
Playtone and DreamWorks in association with HBO Films
c. PILLARS OF THE EARTH (STARZ)
Starz, Tandem Communications, Muse Entertainment Scott Free Films
d. TEMPLE GRANDIN (HBO)
A Ruby Films, Gerson Saines Production, HBO Films
e. YOU DON’T KNOW JACK (HBO)
Bee Holder, Cine Mosaic and Levinson/Fontana Productions, HBO Films

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. HAYLEY ATWELL - PILLARS OF THE EARTH
b. CLAIRE DANES - TEMPLE GRANDIN
c. JUDI DENCH - RETURN TO CRANFORD
d. ROMOLA GARAI - EMMA
e. JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT - THE CLIENT LIST

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. IDRIS ELBA - LUTHER
b. IAN MCSHANE - PILLARS OF THE EARTH
c. AL PACINO - YOU DON’T KNOW JACK
d. DENNIS QUAID - THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
e. EDGAR RAMIREZ - CARLOS

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. HOPE DAVIS - THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
b. JANE LYNCH - GLEE
c. KELLY MACDONALD - BOARDWALK EMPIRE
d. JULIA STILES - DEXTER
e. SOFIA VERGARA - MODERN FAMILY

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

a. SCOTT CAAN - HAWAII FIVE-O
b. CHRIS COLFER - GLEE
c. CHRIS NOTH - THE GOOD WIFE
d. ERIC STONESTREET - MODERN FAMILY
e. DAVID STRATHAIRN - TEMPLE GRANDIN

What's your take on the Golden Globe nominations? Which category surprised you the most? Who deserves to win? And who should go home empty-handed? Head to the comments section to discuss.

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"I don't want to be with you."

In a series where there is more than one of everything, where a shadow separates two similar worlds, what defines us as individuals? If we are identical on a cellular level with our twin from an alternate reality, are we the same or different? Do the little differences--being more quick to smile, still being married--separate us or are we still inherently the same underneath the surface?

This week's sensational and eerie episode of Fringe ("Marionette"), written by Monica Owusu-Breen and Alison Schapker and directed by Joe Chappelle, examined the fallout from Olivia's return to her universe and the emotional destruction left in the wake of her alternate reality counterpart. But it was the way in which this week's heartbreaking installment dealt with matters of animus, of soul, of life force, that left me asking those questions.

Peter didn't notice that the woman he was romantically involved with was someone else. Yes, they were identical and, yes, Alt-Olivia had done her homework exceptionally well. But the truth is that when Peter looked into her eyes, he saw his Olivia reflected back at him rather than her doppelganger, a woman who lived a different life, a life that wasn't based in the hardships that our Olivia has had to face. The differences in their personalities was explained away by what "Olivia" saw over there, embarking on a new outlook on life, a happier and more relaxed attitude.

Peter saw what he wanted to see, really.

He saw a happy, well-adjusted Olivia who was quicker to smile, who laughed and shrugged off the stuff that got under the other Olivia's skin because he believed that he was responsible for this change in her. That together, he had given her the same happiness that she gave to him.

But that's not the case. Olivia, trapped in a world not her own, clung to her memories of Peter, using her love as a means to get home, to return to the man she loved, to the world she left behind. She came back to a world that had gone on without her, to someone else having lived in her life.

Olivia is a ghost in her own life, returning to a story that someone else had picked up. Her clothes, her apartment, her life, all props in someone else's story. The heartbreak that she experiences is that she was forgotten, her friends all fooled by someone who wore her face but didn't share her soul.

Kudos to Anna Torv for the remarkable scene in which the weight of what has happened to her comes crashing down on her, after learning that Peter engaged in a relationship with her doppelganger. Standing in front of her closet--containing all blacks and greys--she begins to rip down her clothes, tear off her sheets, and discovers that in her washing machine is a reminder of the domesticity that Peter and Alt-Olivia shared, a faded MIT t-shirt that belonged to Peter mixed up in the laundry.

The entire sequence plays out without a single line of dialogue, as Olivia eradicates the visible signs that someone else has been playing house in her life. It's a more emotional Olivia than we've seen to date on the series, a woman wounded by the realization that's she's perhaps lost more than she's gained by returning home and that her life was so easily stolen from her. She's marked by the experience, emotionally as well as physically; that neck tattoo a visible indicator of the swap.

I am glad that Peter came clean and told Olivia about what had happened, the way that he was duped by Alt-Olivia, but it's never just as simple as a confession, no matter how heartfelt and mature. The scene that plays out in the back garden between the two reveals the full extent of the damage done. Olivia doesn't want to be with Peter; whatever trust or love existed between them has been shattered because Peter didn't hold onto Olivia. He didn't see her reflected back at him.

It's the realization that the organ thief makes as well, crafting a Frankenstein's monster out of poor Amanda, returning her donated organ to her corpse and resurrecting her. But what he discovers is that he was able to reanimate her body but not bring back what made Amanda Amanda: her soul. When he looks into her eyes, it's not Amanda who looks back at him, not the dancer, but an empty husk. Without her soul, she's just a walking cadaver, a marionette on strings that can be jerked around to make dance. (Which, just as an aside, was a terrifying and beautiful scene.) But it's not the girl. It's not anything.

If this mad scientist can see this, why couldn't Peter? Why did he not recognize what he saw before him? An imposter who looks like Olivia, sounds like Olivia, who wears her clothes and her hair just so? Because the heart wants what it wants.

And that might be the most terrible thing of all.

Fringe returns with new episodes and a new night on Friday, January 21st.

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What did you think of last night's episode of Community?

This week marked another go on AOL Television's Skype Second Opinions, where I connected via Skype to ramble on for a few minutes about this week's episode of Community ("Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"), which included stop-motion animation, sad quick Christmas songs, actual humbugs, a gorgeous (seasonal) theme song, a trip to Planet Abed (where the atmosphere is 7 percent cinnamon), Christmas pterodactyls, the best Lost gag anywhere, and so much more.

(You can read my advance review of "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" from earlier this week over here.)

You can watch the video in full over here at AOL Television or right below.

Community returns with new episodes in January.

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If you saw last night's episode of Top Chef: All-Stars, you saw just how competitive and cutthroat this competition has gotten, just in the second week alone.

There's more on the line for these returning chefs than there was the first time that they were on the reality competition series. The cash prize is bigger than ever, there are cash prizes sprinkled throughout the challenges, but most importantly, there's an aspect of honor for the winners and a sense of embarrassment for those packing their knives early.

No one ever wants to go home early, especially in the first few weeks. In any other season of Top Chef, these first few episodes are dedicated to sending home the sacrificial lambs, the culinary cannon fodder whose presence in the competition seems more of a fluke than anything else. But that's not the case here with Top Chef: All Stars, where the chefs competing are of a naturally high caliber. But that doesn't make defeat any easier to swallow. In fact, it's even more of a bitter pill.

Which brings us to last night's episode ("Night at the Museum"), in which the chefs were put through the ringer, forced to help someone else win a Quickfire Challenge, forced to work on little or no sleep, and forced to throw together a breakfast buffet with limited resources at their disposal.

In other words: Pressure + heat + lack of sleep = explosion.

Which is exactly what happened here. What I would never have expected is which chef was the one doing the exploding.

I was upfront about the fact that I was pulling this season for Richard Blais and Jennifer Carroll to go far and make it all the way to the end. Hell, Richard even singled Jennifer out as his chief competition in the first episode of the season. So I was surprised when she seemed to crack under pressure and aggressively confronted the judging panel at the end of this week's episode.

First, it's inherently clear to anyone watching that Jennifer is a culinary force to be reckoned with, a creative chef with strong conceptual and execution abilities. She's a natural leader, fearless, and strong. But while she can cope with pressure in her own kitchen, where she has control over the ingredients, her sous chefs, the mise-en-place, and the timing, she's out of her element on Top Chef, as proven from the last two times she was eliminated.

Because, let's be honest, Top Chef is really a test of one's adaptability under extreme circumstances at the end of the day. When Jennifer had control of the situation, her dishes sang. When she lost control and could adapt to what the producers were throwing at her, she crumbled.

I'm glad when a chef stands behind their dish and doesn't throw a teammate under the bus. Hell, Jennifer even acknowledged that Jamie's disappearance--the result of a trip to the hospital for two (TWO!) stitches--made no difference on the outcome. She was proud of her dish and she stood behind it and the seasoning. If she was going to be the one sent packing, she wasn't going home without a fight.

Which is where that heretofore unseen side of Jennifer Carroll emerged. That sort of anger and aggression, that rigid posturing and defiant attitude smack of defense mechanisms, deflections to conceal the true hurt and embarrassment bubbling under the surface. Throughout the episode, from her repeating of her father's haunting words about losing to her arrogance towards the judges, Jennifer put on a brave face in order to distract the cameras from what was really going on: she was coming apart at the seams.

Deprive anyone of sleep and they're liable to be cranky. As we saw from this episode, several chefs descended into childish behavior after getting 0-45 minutes of sleep in the North American Mammals section of the Natural History Museum, their demeanor changing from polished chefs to whiny brats over the course of the challenge, moaning to the judges about the unfairness of the situation, the advantage the other team had, blah, blah, blah. Nerves were frayed and tempers simmering before the losing team even stepped foot into the judging room.

Jennifer and Jamie had wanted to do a Scotch egg, a sausage and breadcrumbs-wrapped hard-boiled egg which is deep fried. Lack of sausage and a lack of flour from their side of the kitchen scuppered those plans. Jamie, as already mentioned, bowed out after cutting her finger and needing medical attention, further adding complication.

And then there was the dish itself. Forced to stick solely within the realm of meat, eggs, and dairy (I do think that Quickfire winner Tiffani made the wrong call there), Jennifer decided to offer a play on bacon and eggs with what she deemed "braised bacon and hard-boiled eggs."

A few things: calling something "bacon" brings to mind some very specific connotations, including crispiness and saltiness, neither of which this dish had. Instead, it was closer to a pork belly that was braised and then served with its own braising liquid on the plate, rendering an already wet dish even more soggy. The egg condiment was--according to Tom and vehemently denied by Jennifer--underseasoned. As soon as she mentioned that she was doing egg mimosa, I had a feeling this dish would crash and burn and when I saw the meat in the liquid, I had a feeling that she would not be able to nail the texture, even though she argued--passionately--that it was precisely how she had envisioned the dish.

Which might be the problem, as the dish was conceptually flawed from the start. The blandness of the egg was only half of the problem but the other half was the entire dish, start to finish, that liquidity and that textural issue with soft plus soft, with steaming liquid on top.

It might not have been a good dish (it did seem more edible than Casey and Tre's salmon with shrimp and apple-smoked bacon sauce, which was over-reduced and over-salted) but it wasn't going to kill anyone, unlike, say, Antonia and Tiffany's trio of frittatas, many of which were undercooked and even RUNNY. Serving that to anyone with compromised immune systems could have resulted in some widespread illness if the eggs carried salmonella. A real problem, considering there were kids eating the food. Yet this seemed to be less of an issue for the judges than Jennifer's bland dish.

Also, I did agree with the team's assessment that several of their competitors' dishes were inappropriate for breakfast. Say what you want about the quality of the dishes, but I didn't think that gnocchi or gazpacho were ideal breakfast offerings, particularly for kids and their parents. I love gnocchi but there's no way I'm going to eat that for breakfast. Sorry!

As for the winners, I do have to say that Richard, Marcel, and Angelo's dish, the banana parfait with seasonal fruit and tandoori maple, was not only appropriate but looked delicious and absolutely gorgeous. Easily the most well-plated and beautiful of the dishes offered (even after Angelo cut the plums in half, against Marcel's wishes), this dish looked the most befitting a Top Chef: All-Stars challenge.

As for returning judge Katie Lee? She didn't add anything to the proceedings. But then again, she didn't the first time she was on the series...

But I'm curious to know what you thought of this week's episode. Was Jennifer's outburst--and the off-camera breakdown--justified? Should she have been sent home? Did Jamie skate by too easily for adding nothing to the challenge? Did the judges make the right call? Head to the comments to discuss and debate.

Next week on Top Chef: All-Stars ("New Yorkb's Finest"), the chefs pull knives for four teams which will cook in four of the city's best restaurants, but first their knives will be put to use in a Quickfire relay race.

Top Chef: All-Stars Preview: Speed Kills



Top Chef: All-Stars Preview: Starting to Sweat

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And that's how you do a pitch-perfect episode of Friday Night Lights.

I've been on the writers' case this season for the handling of the Julie Taylor storyline, or more specifically from the, er, swerve it made into the territory of cliche. I can only hope that it was a case of taking a shortcut to get Julie to the here and now as quickly as possible because the ramifications of Julie's actions have proven infinitely more exciting and provocative than the actual commission of her affair with married head TA Derek Bishop.

This week's fantastic episode of Friday Night Lights ("Swerve") delivered an installment that offered a look at the sacrifices and frayed bonds of family, contrasting the fallout from Julie's transgression--and its effects on Eric and Tami--with the way that Vince handled his own plight, turning to Ornette for help out of a terrible situation.

The way Ornette may have handled Vince's situation might not have been what Vince had intended, as Ornette not only resorted to violence but may have placed himself and their entire family at risk from retaliation. I watched the rest of the episode expecting gunfire to erupt as Vince and Jess' families came together in one perfect moment of unity. Even though the episode ended without any violence, I'm not entirely sure that the other shoe won't drop yet...

Vince has of late been all about honesty, even when it has a nasty way of backfiring, from Ornette's violent outburst (in defense of his family) to Luke's crushed feelings upon learning that Vince was the object of TMU's interest and not him. It was interesting to me that Vince nearly went to Coach Taylor with his situation but instead chose to keep the problem within the family, coming clean to his father about what had happened and asking for help.

It's something that Julie hasn't been able to do. While the episode split the focus between Vince, Luke (and Billy's ascension to the role of Coach Taylor, Jr.), and Julie, it was the latter's storyline which had the most searing impact. Julie's behavior this season has been out of character entirely; she slept with Derek knowing fully that he was married, despite his line about being emotionally disconnected from his wife. Her attempt to flee Dillon wasn't a result of a broken heart but rather embarrassment at being called out by Derek's wife in front of her dorm mates.

In fleeing to her parents' home, Julie attempts to run away from her problems. Her arrival last week was an act of denial, an attempt to delay the inevitable. But Julie takes her denial a step further this week, intentionally crashing her car into a neighbor's yard and lying to her parents in an effort to buy some more time. But Julie doesn't want to go back to college; she's been humiliated but she's also not accepting responsibility for what she's done, nor the gravity of the line that she's crossed.

When she does come clean to her parents, it's through Tami that she unburdens herself and receives a mother's unconditional love. Tami believes that they need to support Julie and offer compassion; Eric disagrees. He believes that what Julie needs is tough love. But what Tami doesn't know--or doesn't want to accept--is that Julie compounded her transgressions by lying to them. She did intentionally crash her car. She did lie about it. She does offer up platitudes that she believes her parents want to hear ("I'm sorry I disappointed you") rather than words of sincerity. Or words that prove that she is aware of the damage she's caused.

Julie's actions have driven a wedge between the Taylors. The scene in which Eric attempts to drag Julie--literally kicking and screaming--down the hall and into her car was painful to watch in the best possible sense. As Eric physically grabbed Julie and pulled her, Julie's childlike tantrum echoed through the narrow hall, as Tami screamed out at her husband.

It was a side of the Taylors that we've not seen up until now. They've faced their problems as any married couple have and despite disagreements, they've always been a unified front, a single entity locked together against the world. Here, we're seeing them come apart at the seams. That separation symbolized solemnly in the scene where Eric comes home to find Tami, half-empty wineglass by her side, asleep on the couch. He doesn't wake his wife nor does he talk her. It's the first major communication breakdown between the two we've seen.

What Eric does do is go to sit beside Gracie, to see his younger daughter in her innocence and namesake grace, unsullied by the world, undamaged by the choices she might later make in life. For this child, anything is still possible and he desperately wants to believe in her innate innocence and beauty. Julie's aforementioned words to her father, spoken softly from the doorway, receive no reply.

Eric, Kingmaker though he might be, that molder of men, has failed to raise his oldest daughter properly.

That realization its home in a major way for the Lion's coach, though he's guilty of walking away from an uncomfortable situation (Luke Cafferty) just as much as his daughter. But what Eric doesn't see is that Julie is an adult and that both he and Tami are right in a way. Julie DOES need to accept responsibility for her actions and to accept what she did was wrong but she also does need her parents' love and support in order to get through this.

Eric is a good father--no one, after all, can ever strive for perfection at that particular job--and a damn good coach. He is a molder and a motivator of men both on and off the field. The fact that Billy stepped in at the last minute to deliver an Eric Taylor-style motivational speech to the players--and took a drunk Luke under his wing--proved that Eric's moral fiber has rubbed off on those around him.

Julie's actions aren't the result of bad parenting or of a lack of discipline. She's an adult and she's going to fail. She will make mistakes and her parents have to hope that she's able to pull herself up again afterward and that she realizes the errors she's made.

What concerns me is that the fallout from Julie's actions will affect Eric and Tami's marriage directly. (Connie Britton told me a few months ago that we would see the two involved in a dynamic that we haven't seen so far. This would seem to be the beginning of just that.) I don't believe that this will be the end of the Taylors but I do think that their marriage--and perhaps, temporarily, the way they view one another--will be challenged by their reactions to Julie's behavior.

Complex, emotionally resonant, and grounded, "Swerve" is not only the very best of the fifth season to date, putting it on par with its fantastic season opener. It's one installment that will stay with me for quite some time to come and one with lasting repercussions for the residents of Dillon and for the families at the series' heart.

What did you think of "Swerve"? And was Eric's reaction toward his daughter's actions justified? Did you side with him or Tami? And did you love that scene between Luke and Becky at the post-victory party that Mindy orchestrated? (I did.) Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on Friday Night Lights ("Perfect Record"), rivalry week stirs up controversy; Vince is caught in the middle between Coach and Ornette; Billy takes Luke under his wing.

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“Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.” - Ambrose Bierce

A house might be a home, but it can also serve as an apt metaphor for an entire country. Numerous writers have offered portraits of the changing face of their nation in such condition-of-England novels as Charles Dickens' "Bleak House," Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited," and Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford" and "North and South."

In the case of Julian Fellowes' extraordinary period drama Downton Abbey, launching January 9th on PBS' Masterpiece Classic, the titular country estate, home to the well-heeled Crawley family, is in turmoil. Great houses such as these are both relics of bygone eras as well as living, breathing organisms of their own right, humming along as they employ a staff of hundreds.

Everyone--from the lord and lady to the humblest footman and scullery maid--has their function and their duty to maintain. That holdover mentality from Victoria's reign--everything in its place and in its place everything--is what keeps estates like these running. Just as the servants have their duties, so too do the family, maintaining the spirit of noblesse oblige that marked the many centuries of England's aristocratic rule.

Set in the period between the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of World War I, Downton Abbey's first season--here presented as four episodes rather than the seven installments of this fall's UK run--offers a detailed representation of life both above and below stairs in the early 20th century, focusing on the lots of both the Crawley family and their servants.

Beginning just after the destruction of the unsinkable ship, Downton depicts the tragedy of the Titanic, keenly felt by the Crawleys as it claimed the lives of the two heirs next in line to inherit both the estate and the title of Earl of Grantham.

The current lord of the manor--that would be Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville)--has three daughters, which sets up the central conflict of succession and inheritance, as the daughters cannot inherit Downton and Robert has no direct male heirs. Furthermore, the estate and the fortune that Robert's American wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) brought into the marriage are all tied up in the entail. And the whole lot will, upon Robert's death, will be inherited by a distant cousin, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), a middle-class solicitor from Manchester whom none of them know.

The fates of everyone at Downton Abbey rests squarely on the shoulders of a distant relation who doesn't want the responsibility thrust at him. What follows is a most remarkable series which took the UK by storm when it aired this fall.

The unfairness of the Crawleys' position is keenly felt as they attempt to fight the entail with tooth and nail. This is especially felt by Robert's mother, Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith), whose husband created the legal bind that they're in today. Cora's vast fortune cannot be separated from the estate, which means that the family will be ruined and lose their home should Matthew inherit. Their hope lies in a legal battle and in a matrimonial one: if their eldest daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), should make an ideal match with a man of wealth, their fortunes could be reversed.

In an ideal world, Mary would marry Matthew and the estate and the fortune would stay in their immediate family. But Mary has no taste for the modern Matthew, who is brought to the estate with his mother Isobel (Penelope Wilton) and set up at Crawley House. Their lives are immediately transformed as they must adapt to a life of wealth and privilege... and leisure. The two are given a staff, including a gentleman's valet, Molesley (Kevin Doyle), and told to settle in for the long haul. But Matthew isn't a gentleman: he's a middle class professional with a more modern way of seeing the world.

Matthew doesn't need a valet to dress him or pour him his tea, not can Isobel--a doctor's wife--simply sit idly. But their intrusion into life at Downton shatters the ordered and rigid way of doing things, testing the social structure of the village and the estate, even as they represent a very real threat to Downton Abbey. (Progress is always viewed with uncertainty and suspicion.)

Not everyone at Downton is stuck in the past. Youngest daughter Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown-Findlay) is a progressive firebrand, a politically motivated woman who strives for equality and change in everything that she does, seeing a housemaid as no better or worse than herself, a chauffeur as an equal, and the future as something malleable. (Middle daughter, Laura Carmichael's Lady Edith, is less interested in politics and more interesting in snaring a husband, overlooked by all as she is.)

The atmosphere downstairs is no less fraught with conflict. Butler Carson (Jim Carter), housekeeper Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), and cook Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol) attempt to keep their staffs in order, running a tight ship below stairs, but change is seeping into life downstairs as well. Housemaid Gwen (Rose Leslie) is secretly studying to be a secretary, wanting to leave a life of service forever; chauffeur Tom Branson (Allen Leech) is a socialist; and then there's the arrival of valet John Bates (Brendan Coyle), an acquaintance of Lord Grantham himself, who fought alongside him in the Boer War and was injured.

His arrival, echoing that of Matthew upstairs, sets in motion a series of intrigues, plots, and jealousies, as many take umbrage that this disabled man would be appointed as the lord's valet, rather than the First Footman Thomas (Rob James-Collier), who was angling for the job. Opportunistic Thomas and his partner in crime, sullen lady's maid Sarah O'Brien (Siobhan Finneran), are dangerous and cunning; they see an opportunity to send Bates packing and set in motion a series of events that has disastrous consequences for everyone at Downton, even as the secretive Bates is drawn towards Head Housemaid Anna (Joanne Froggatt).

It's fitting that things cut both ways at Downton: just as the family's lives--their sins, sexual dalliances, and failures as well as their triumphs--consume those below-stairs, so to do the goings-on with the servants spill over onto the family; each half is part of a greater whole, mirror-images of each other. (This upstairs/downstairs focus is summed up in the title's logo, which depicts the reflection of the Abbey below it.) Throw a spanner in the works of either, and you'll see the entire machine start to break down.

I don't want to spoil too much of the plot (there are some gasp-inducing plot twists ahead), because is really is one of the most exceptional and original period dramas ever to grace the small screen. Petty crimes mingle with great transgressions, romances flare up as do bitter rivalries, love and betrayal walk through these halls together, secrets and scandals bubble up. What follows is engaging, surprising, and intoxicating as well as beautifully crafted. Special attention must go to directors Brian Percival, Ben Bolt, Brian Kelly, the production team and designers, and the phenomenal cast.

Downton Abbey is not your standard costume drama. For one, it's not an adaptation of a period novel, which might explain the modern viewpoint despite the period settings. While the action might be unfolding circa 1912-1914, Downton Abbey is a modern creation concerned with modern mores and perspectives. As the year moves on for the Crawleys and their servants, the threat of doom and war hangs over the proceedings as the viewer knows just what the next chapter of life in England holds for these men and women.

Can Downton Abbey be saved? And should it? Has the era of the aristocrats come to and end? Just who should rightfully inherit the estate--and by dint England itself--its rule? Are the old ways or the new modernity necessarily better than one another?

Under the pen of the great Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), life at Downton Abbey springs to life with astonishing vivacity and depth, as he depicts in precise detail the lives of the aristocrats and the servants with equal weight. Each member of the sprawling cast gets their own storyline, their own burden to bear, their own moments of joy and grief.

Ultimately, Fellowes' Downton Abbey is transcendent television, offering both a creatively accomplished portrait of life at the turn of the last century and a timeless human drama. Once you fall under this series' rich and intoxicating spell, it is impossible to leave. Thank the Queen there's another season on tap.

Downton Abbey begins January 9th at 9 pm ET/PT on PBS' Masterpiece Classic. Check your local listings for details.

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There's something both innately comforting and deliciously off-kilter about this week's stupendous Christmas-themed episode of Community ("Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"), which uses the stop-motion animation of holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to offer an imaginative and emotionally resonant episode that explores the true meaning of Christmas (or any holiday, really).

Community has thrived at both satirizing and embracing certain comedic tropes, twisting them together into a malleable and winning format in which anything and everything is indeed possible, from a zombie attack to an all-out paintball war, transforming broadcast network comedy into an infinitely elastic form.

In this case, it's quite easy to accept that the Greendale gang would be portrayed as plasticine personages, as the episode unfolds from the perspective of meta-embracing Abed himself, who claims to have woken up that morning seeing everything in stop-motion animation.

Rather than see this as an adorable eccentricity or some holiday-related mirth, Jeff and Britta decide to get Abed some psychological help (or at least the closest thing: psychology professor Ian Duncan), even as he departs into a world of singing toys and frozen memories.

But this isn't just an out-there episode with no emotional stakes. Quite the contrary in fact.

By utilizing the familiar format of stop-motion animation, Dan Harmon and Co. take the viewer on his or her own individual journey back to childhood, even as Abed himself is forced to contend with some hard truths about growing up. The use of the Rudolph-style animation and seemingly traditional Christmas special storyline belie the true aching heart and bittersweet nature of the installment.

Just as last week's episode ("Mixology Certification") dealt with Troy seeing his friends not as adults but as equals (and just as inherently flawed and human as himself in the process), here Abed learns some valuable lessons about the adults in his life and about the true spirit of the holidays, forging a new tradition out of an old one.

The stop-motion animation isn't superfluous to the story but rather the raison d'etre. There's a reason why both the writers and Abed have chosen this style to tell this particular story, one that fits into both Abed's backstory and the psychology behind his so-called break with reality, embracing a child's fantasy vision of the holidays that is at odds with the truth of his situation.

The result is sweet, funny, magical, and slightly crazy and this winning Christmas special also contains one of the all-time great Lost-related gags ever on television. Our favorite Community characters, here rendered as an assortment of Christmas special archetypes: jack-in-the-box (Jeff), toy soldier (Troy), robot (Britta), wind-up ballerina (Annie), wizard (Professor Duncan), teddy bear (Pierce), baby doll (Shirley), and snowman (Chang). Fittingly, Abed's choice of role for each study group member is deliberate and apt and the gang attempts to decipher his logic in their own way.

Along the way, there are some songs in keeping with the traditional Christmas special theme as each of the cast members gets a chance to sing, with Danny Pudi's Abed offering an array of original holiday tunes. ("Sad, Quick Christmas Song" might be an out of the blue new favorite.) Yes, everyone from Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs to Yvette Nicole Brown and Alison Brie--whom I heard sing on stage just the other night--join in the Christmas cheer, with a series of alternately adorable, poignant, and hilarious songs.

The result is touching without being treacly, sweet without becoming saccharine, and perfectly within keeping with Community's penchant for fusing together humor and heart in equal measure. By the time the credits have rolled (after an adorable visual that I won't spoil here), one would have to be a Grinch to not to feel that we've been watching a true Christmas miracle in the making.

After all, Christmas is about more than just "Santa Claus and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls," as Lucy Van Pelt once said. The spirit of Charlie Brown's scrawny little tree is alive and kicking right here.

Community airs Thursday evening at 8 pm ET/PT on NBC.

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Critics and audiences alike were disheartened--if unsurprised--by FX's decision to cancel the critically-adored but low-rated freshman drama series Terriers this morning.

The announcement about the fate of Terriers, created by Ted Griffin and executive produced by Shawn Ryan, was made via a PR email to press members, which promised further information and a statement from FX president John Landgraf at an unprecedented telephone press conference later today.

Many of us were curious to see just what Landgraf had to say about the network's decision not to bring Terriers back for a second season (and why he was willing to host this conference call), though the writing was on the wall for the drama, considering the ratings chart that FX sent out this morning, which compared Terriers's thirteen-episode run with that of fellow FX series Dirt, Damages, The Riches, and Over There, all of which were canceled by FX yet all had significantly higher ratings than Terriers (more than two times), particularly in the key Adults 18-49 demographic.

(It's worth noting that Damages was rescued from the scrapyard by DirecTV's The 101 Network, which will air the next two seasons exclusively.)

Landgraf said that he had met with Ted Griffin, Shawn Ryan, and Tim Minear on Friday to have a "postmortem" for the show and told them that the network would not be picking up Terriers for a second season. Landgraf called New York Magazine's decision to name Terriers as the third best show of 2010 "bittersweet."

The reason behind the call with press? An effort at transparency, which is something that Landgraf believes in both internally and externally. Given the support the show received from the creative community, Landgraf didn't want press to speculate about why the show was axed.

Landgraf did take some umbrage at the notion that the terrier-centric billboard campaigns in New York and Los Angeles affected the ratings (he went as far as saying that FX's marketing team had unfairly taken the blame for the series' failure), particularly as the on-air campaign tested well with the network's 600-person focus group, who felt that it captured the tone, setting, and plot of Terriers.

"For whatever reason the show didn't work, it wasn't because the promos didn't show Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James..."

So what did the postmortem findings show about why Terriers failed?

"People felt the show was compatible with the FX brand but dissimilar to other FX shows," said Landgraf about the postmortem he had with the series' producers. "The things that were wonderful about the show were subtle... It had a subtle charm that crept up on you. [But] I don't know if subtlety is something that the American public is buying in droves today."

(Interestingly, the focus group testing showed that the perception was that Terriers was "less sexy [and] less edgy" than FX's other programming.)

The numbers, according to Landgraf, further supported this: Terriers was losing 47 percent of its lead-in audience an dropped an average of 16 percent over the course of its hour run.

"What would I have done differently? At a minimum, I'd probably call it 'Terriers: PIs," said Landgraf, chuckling.

"The show failed to launch," he continued. "It was the weakest premiere that FX has ever had... One of the luxuries that cablers have that broadcasters don't is that we could leave it on-air... You put things out there, you give people the opportunity to find it and sample it, and talk to their friends."

He pointed out that FX's upcoming drama Lights Out is unique in the respect that it's the only show featuring an ex-boxer trying to make it, whereas there is a lot of familiarity with buddy private detectives. Clearly, FX couldn't make the public feel that Terriers was innately different or superior to those similar series that came before.

"There's a relatively low correlation between excellence and commercial success," said Landgraf, who went on to say that FX is committed to finding the overlap. "We just try to make really good shows."

"Part of what was great about Terriers was its integrity and its subtlety. Season Two would have been great and it would have been better than the first. But the question was, can we at FX justify [a second season] as a business?"

Despite being heartbroken about FX's decision, I do applaud Landgraf for taking the time to make the network's decision-making process transparent and speaking to press about the reasons and rationale behind the cancellation. Series, even beloved ones, get axed all the time without the sensitivity and grace shown by FX in this case. ("I'm glad that some people saw it and loved it," he said courteously thanking members of the press for supporting the show and writing about it. "That's not nothing.")

"One of the things we've done well is take risks and continue to put shows on the air," said Langraf. "The reality is that this is hard when you're aiming for creative excellence... and commercial success," said Landgraf, somberly.

"This isn't the first really good show that we've had to cancel and it won't be the last."

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It's official: FX has opted not to move ahead with Ted Griffin and Shawn Ryan's brilliant PI drama Terriers.

The news of the cancellation was announced this morning by FX SVP of Media Relations, John Solberg, in an email to members of the press which invited us to participate in a conference call with FX president John Landgraf later this morning, in which Landgraf would discuss the network's decision not to order a second season of Terriers.

The cancellation hits amid a fall season that hasn't generated too many hits, either critical or audience ones. (In fact, the only two new series that I fell in love with this fall season were Terriers and Boardwalk Empire, which should say something about the lackluster nature of the offerings this season>.)

Hank and Britt's tagline may have been "too small to fail," but in the end it seems that Terriers itself was too small to succeed. Despite its creative triumph, the series was undone by low ratings, a terrible title, an even worse marketing campaign, the FX/Dish carriage dispute, and audience apathy.

Which is a real shame, as the public missed out on a remarkable series that those of us who tuned in week after week had fallen head over heels in love with. I've already written about the joys of watching this beautiful, introspective, and genre-busting series over in another post, "Don't Put This Dog Down: TV Needs FX's Terriers," so I won't reiterate my thoughts again here. (Though I urge you to check it out as it will be, tragically, a eulogy for the already mourned show.)

If I'm being honest, I'll say that it was a longshot for Terriers to get renewed, given the ratings that it had achieved in the 13-episode run but it would also have been a triumph of the medium--and of creative achievement--if FX had given the show a reprieve and allowed it time to grow... and time for the audience to discover it on DVD.

Alas, it was not meant to be. The cancellation shows once again that television might be a medium but it's also a business, even in the more creatively charged waters of cable.

I loved Terriers and I was continually astounded and impressed with what Griffin, Ryan, the writers, and the series' talented group of actors, was able to achieve in the thirteen episodes allotted to them. Even if this is the end for this amazing series, I did relish every minute of those thirteen episodes, every pithy line of dialogue, every hard moment of emotion, and every smile that passed between Hank (Donal Logue) and Britt (Michael Raymond-James).

Ultimately, Terriers might be too small to fail, but it's not small enough that it will fade from memory any time soon. You and your maverick spirit will be missed, my scrappy friend.

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No better time than Monday morning for a mega-video roundup.

In this case, you find below a roundup from last night's gorgeous selection of HBO goodies, including the 15-minute behind-the-scenes look at the pay channel's upcoming Game of Thrones, two trailers for Season Five of Big Love (including the somber "Winter" trailer with the wives and Bill in the snow), the teaser for Kate Winslet-led miniseries Mildred Pierce, and the HBO 2010 Imagine campaign, which itself has some scenes from their upcoming series.

Whew. Look at it as the perfect holiday present in video form.

Inside Game of Thrones



Big Love Season Five "Winter" Trailer



Big Love Season Five Tease



HBO 2010 Image



Mildred Pierce

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Not exactly a shocker: Showtime has officially renewed its top-rated drama Dexter for a sixth season.

The current season will wrap up its run on Sunday, while Season Six of Dexter will go into production in Los Angeles in the spring. No word on when the next season will launch on the pay cabler, but another fall launch--such as the one for the current season--is more than likely.

“Dexter is the best suspense drama on television,” said Showtime President of Entertainment David Nevins. “To grow its audience so significantly in its fifth season is an enormous accomplishment by this amazing cast and crew. This is the easiest decision I’ve made since I got to Showtime.”

The full press release from Showtime can be found below.

SHOWTIME SLICES INTO A SIXTH SEASON OF DEXTER
Network’s Top-Rated Drama Series Renewed

DEXTER On Pace To Post Its Highest- Rated Season Ever
LOS ANGELES, CA — (December 6, 2010) — As season five of SHOWTIME’s top-rated drama series DEXTER, starring Emmy®-nominated and Golden Globe® award-winning actor Michael C. Hall, heads toward another powerful, suspense-filled finale on Sunday, December 12th at 9 PM ET/PT, the network has renewed the series for a sixth season. The announcement was made today by David Nevins, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks. Season 6’s episodes will go into production next spring in Los Angeles.

“DEXTER is the best suspense drama on television,” said Nevins. “To grow its audience so significantly in its fifth season is an enormous accomplishment by this amazing cast and crew. This is the easiest decision I’ve made since I got to Showtime.”

One of the most acclaimed series on television, DEXTER received seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations this year, including Outstanding Television Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Michael C. Hall and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for John Lithgow, which Lithgow won. Additionally, director Steve Shill won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. The series has received numerous Golden Globe nominations, as well as a prestigious Peabody Award in 2008 and was twice named one of AFI’s top ten television series.

DEXTER had its second highest ratings ever with this season's tenth episode (Nov. 28), delivering 2.54 million viewers, up 43 percent versus the season five premiere (1.77 million). The telecast was the second-highest delivery in the series’ history, behind the season four finale (2.57 million).‬

DEXTER stars Michael C. Hall (Golden Globe and SAG Award winner) as a complicated and conflicted blood-spatter expert for the Miami police department who moonlights as a serial killer. Season five of the series also starred Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee, Lauren Vélez, David Zayas, and James Remar.

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Ah, how the child becomes the parent.

Last night's sensational and heartfelt episode of Community ("Mixology Certification"), written by Andy Bobrow and directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, brought us Troy's 21st birthday and took the group out of the study room for a night of debauchery that gave us a glimpse into Shirley's dark past, Annie's home life, Troy's state of mind, and Abed's, um, love of Farscape.

Now in its second season, Community has proven that it's adept at conflating genres and smashing expectations about what's possible within the confines of a broadcast comedy: it's a workplace comedy, thriller, horror survival story, romantic comedy, mystery, buddy comedy. An episode jam-packed with jokes and sight gags can give way to an episode like this one, that's higher on the heart quotient and lighter on overt humor. And that's a Very Good Thing for a thoughtful and contemplative episode like this one.

The series' innate unpredictability gives Community a vital edge over multi-cam comedies; one show can be all things, within reason, given the flexibility of Community's overall premise, the skill set of its writing team and its talented actors, and the absurd nature of the show itself.

That absurdity, granted by creator Dan Harmon, gives the show the ability to be both untethered from reality and emotionally grounded. The situations the gang at Greendale might find themselves in might invite disbelief, but the relationships between these characters and their emotional bonds keep the series from flying off into outer space. (Literally, once.)

This week's episode was no exception, offering us a night at The Ballroom, in which Troy's expectations of his first legal drink were dashed on the rocks when he saw the behavior of his friends influenced by alcohol: Jeff and Britta's squabbling, Annie's attempt to become someone else, Abed's abject loneliness, and Shirley's sad, drunken past. His unsipped seven-and-seven emblematic of a choice he's made.

Jeff and Britta, as previously noted, have served as the heads of Community's family of former strangers, often sliding into their self-determined roles at the drop of a hat. From Britta's censuring of Troy at the episode's start (after convincing Pierce that he owed him for the "cake deposit" for Pierce's non-existent birthday party) and Jeff's tacit approval of said incident, we see a Troy desperate to please his knowledgeable and worldly parents, even as they slip into roles that are less becoming, arguing over which of their local haunts is the better bar. Is it L Street? The Red Door? The fact that both are one and the same--revealed at the episode's end--undermines their authority within the group, at least in Troy's eyes.

Jeff and Britta are not infallible.

That seems to be the takeaway for Troy, as he sees them not as unstoppable forces of nature or as all-knowing parents, but as flawed individuals who know nothing more than he does. As the scales fall from his eyes, we see Troy take that first full step into adulthood as he learns that most important--and heartbreaking--of lessons.

Our parents are just as human and as messed up as we are.

It's that knowledge that pulls us, often kicking and screaming, into adulthood. Troy might be 21 (I loved how the gang worded this Jehovah Witness' birthday cake) but he's realized that his expectations of what that entails and what that means for him have been greatly exaggerated. If a night at the bar means this sort of drunken upset, he doesn't need to have that seven-and-seven, after all. And after a heart to heart with Annie (one of the episode's best scenes), his handling of the unruly "kids" in the backseat of Jeff's car fulfill this trajectory from child to adult. ("Abed, no one likes a tattletale.")

Growing old, it seems, is not what Troy believed it to be. It's not a gateway to coolness, but to just growing old. Often, it seems, without the wisdom that Troy believed his older peers to have.

I mentioned briefly that scene between Troy and Annie, notable for the tenderness of the interaction between Donald Glover and Alison Brie and that heartfelt embrace (a nice callback to the crush Annie formerly had on Troy), and for the fact that we got a further look at where Annie lives, a part of town that everyone acknowledges is rough. (As Brie told me a few months back, that opening shot in the season opener was meant to show Annie's bedroom is right across from an adult bookstore and frequent drug deals.)

Annie's journey in this week's installment show her disconnect from the reality of her situation, her using of Caroline Decker's sold Texas ID to become someone else altogether, a girl from Corpus Cristi with nary a care, a "drifter" who is the opposite of Annie. The more she fantasizes about Caroline Decker's life, the more Annie hopes to dissociate from her own, from the future that she has intently mapped out for herself, from her shabby apartment in the wrong part of town.

Just as Shirley attempted to erase proof of a less-than-perfect past, Annie attempts to eradicate her future, assuming someone else's Texas drawl and their looseness with their future. It's a very un-Annie character that she becomes that forces her to see how she's been running just as much as Caroline Decker, putting her all of her energy into 15-year plans to rigidly run her future life rather than live it now.

Sometimes a drink is just a drink. And yet sometimes it's indicative of something else. That first legal drink, that milestone in everyone's adult lives, marks a major turning point for Troy, one that he walks away from in the end. Not because it means the end of innocence or the loss of one's childhood but because he sees the effects of alcohol on the so-called adults around him. And in that moment, Troy takes one giant leap into maturity that puts him well above his metaphorical parents, Jeff and Britta, and his own mother, seeing her lies for what they are.

Along the way there were laughs, but this episode also brought a somber, introspective quality to the mix, seeing Troy's birthday as not just a festive time of merriment but of change and transformation too.

Kudos to the Community producers for casting the always fantastic Tig Notaro and Paul F. Tompkins in this week's episode, here playing respectively the bartender and Abed's would-be "gay sex" partner. The handling of the scene between Abed and his erstwhile paramour was pitch perfect, with Abed's interest being limited strictly to have found someone he could talk to about "Sci Fi original series Farscape."

In its way, "Mixology Certification" once again pushed the envelope in terms of what Community is able to accomplish, bringing a cable sensibility to its broadcast network roots. It's not often that broadcast comedies can handle such life-changing moments without veering into "very special episodes," yet Community pulled this off remarkably well, delivering an installment that blended together heart, humor, and painful realizations. Not many comedies can do that and yet Community once again manages to make the seemingly impossible look all the more effortless.

I'll raise a glass to that.

Next week on Community ("Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"), Abed goes on a quest to find the meaning of Christmas after he awakens in stop-motion animation; Jeff and Britta seek help from Professor Duncan after getting concerned about Abed's mental health.

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"Which way will it be?"

And now we wait.

I'm not typically an optimistic person. My cynical worldview has served me well in my thirty-plus years on this Earth, but for some reason I'm holding out hope when it comes to FX's Terriers, which wrapped up its sensational first season last night and is currently on the bubble for renewal.

It will take a bit of a Hail Mary for this remarkable if underrated series to avoid the guillotine and return to fight again. Too small to fail? You bet. But unfortunately the smallness of the ratings have made Terriers' future less than certain.

Which is a shame, really, because those of you who didn't give Terriers a chance missed out on what was easily the best new series of the fall season, a genre-busting crime drama about real estate swindles, brotherhood, secrets, and lies. It was humorous, heartbreaking, and human drama at its finest, the story of two men who try to do good yet usually wind up making things worse for everyone around them.

But whether FX ends up going straight or turning left, Ted Griffin's smart and savvy Terriers, executive produced by Shawn Ryan, gave us a fantastic season of deft characterization, tautly scripted dialogue, and one of the best TV partnerships in leads Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James.

Along the way, the series' early episodic cases gave way to a taut overarching plot which managed to dazzle and surprise in equal measure, a smart callback to the Lindus case of the pilot transforming into something far more sinister and complex than it originally seemed. Bodies piled up, vengeance was had, the real puppet master revealed, and both Logue's Hank Dolworth and Raymond-James' Britt Pollack learned that their actions had consequences.

Which brings us to that climactic final scene between the two of them and the question that lingers in the air: do we run or do we face up to what we've done? It's a question that's unanswered as the screen fades to black, offering a cliffhanger ending even after the Montague land grab storyline is more or less wrapped up in "Hail Mary." Have the events of this season lead Britt to see that running never truly equals freedom? Will he serve his time or flee? Will we, the viewers, have a chance to see just what he chooses?

The uncertainty of that final moment in "Hail Mary," (written by Ted and Nicholas Griffin and directed by Ted Griffin), of which way Hank turns the car, of where we go next, encapsulates the uncertainty of the series' future at FX. While some have pointed towards the fact that the scrappy Terriers doesn't quite fit into the FX brand, I blow a big raspberry at that logic.

Granted, yes, FX has a particular brand and most of its shows tend to fit into the network's depiction of brash, loud, and raucous manhood (which might be why the more female-centric Damages got the boot earlier this year), and Terriers might be a quieter, more low-key exploration of modern masculinity and brotherly love. Yet, I can't help but wonder whether Terriers' ratings would have been better if the FX/Dish conflict hadn't come to pass. After all, the series wasn't available to Dish Network customers and had to have been adversely affected by the elimination of FX from Dish's offering lineup. But also, Terriers was also perhaps undone by its title and the promotional/marketing campaign, which I've already discussed in full elsewhere.

I'm not going to be blind and pretend that people were tuning into this series in droves because they weren't. The ratings were not good, but for those of us who looked past the title and the dog-focused advertising and gave Terriers a chance, we discovered its beauty and humanity, its humor and its pathos, and its incredible array of eccentric and flawed characters.

There's special praise necessitated for the many superb actors who filled out Ocean Beach so memorably, each turning in nuanced performances that made me fall in love with this quirky crime drama. Logue, Raymond-James, Laura Allen, Kimberly Quinn, Jamie Denbo, Rockmond Dunbar, Loren Dean, Karina Logue, Alison Elliott, Michael Gaston, Daren Scott: you each brought your A-game to Terriers and it hasn't gone unnoticed. In the pinball machine of Terriers' plot, your characters served as the the flippers, bumpers, and kickers, knocking Britt and Hank around, either physically or emotionally.

I'm not ready to say goodbye to Terriers, certainly not yet. While the plot of the Ocean Beach land grab scheme may have been tied up now, there's the matter of the duplicitous and menacing mastermind behind the scheme, Cutshaw, played ably by Neal McDonough, a corrupt soul whose seemingly benevolent charity work belies a horrific true nature, the man behind the mask willing to kill Mickey Gosney and whoever got in his way in order to get that scandalous photograph back. (I'm going to assume that the photo depicts him engaged in child abuse of the most awful kind.)

Is Cutshaw intended to be Hank and Britt's new target next season? Do they go straight or turn left? Does Britt cut and run or serve his jail time? Will we get an answer or will their decision sit, unanswered, forever, a car idling eternally at a traffic light? Do we need tidy endings to our stories or does the messiness of life--and art like Terriers depicting that messiness--mean that some things are unknown and unknowable?

The one certainty is that television was improved by Terriers' bark. Fusing together a buddy comedy, a relationship drama, a crime procedural, and a taut thriller, Terriers truly defied pigeonholing. If this is the end for the series, its creative spirit and its gonzo nature will be remembered for some time to come. For those of us who fell in love with its quirky charms and underdog status, these 13 perfect episodes represented an alternative to the by-the-numbers nature of this season's programming.

Ultimately, it's not just Hank and Britt who have to make a decision, but FX as well. Will the show have time to develop, to win over audiences who might have been put off by titles or campaigns, and who might discover this winning series on DVD? Do they take a chance on Terriers or do they cut and run?

For those of us who love television, I hope it's the former rather than the latter. With the broadcast nets decidedly uninterested in taking risks at the moment, Terriers represents the outlaw spirit of cable. I just hope that, in the end, FX gives this dog its rightful day.

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