[Televisionary]

Can Downton Abbey topple Mad Men at the Emmys later this month? Jace Lacob talks to creator Julian Fellowes, as well as actors Hugh Bonneville, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, and others about Season Two, WWI, and the show’s 16 Emmy nominations. (Come back tomorrow for Part Two, in which the Fellowes and the cast discuss details about Season 3 of Downton Abbey , which launches on Sunday in the U.K.) At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Abbey's Road: Downton Abbey 's Emmy Bid," in which I sit down with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, executive producer Gareth Neame, and the cast (including Hugh Bonneville, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Joanne Froggatt, and others) to discuss the British costume drama's road to the Emmys, Season Two, and more. It’s hardly a surprise that the Television Academy would shower some love upon PBS’ Downton Abbey. After all, the Julian Fellowes–created drama—which airs in the U.S. on the 41-year-old anthol

Can’t remember how Revenge, Homeland, The Good Wife , or Dexter ended? Refresh your collective memory about the cliffhangers for 27 returning shows—and previews of what’s to come. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Fall TV Preview: Where We Left Off," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I refresh your memory about how 27 shows--from Revenge and Homeland to The Good Wife and Boardwalk Empire --ended last season... and offer a glimpse about what's to come. Carrie remembered stuff! Leslie was elected! Sheldon took Amy’s hand! Gloria is pregnant! Nucky whacked Jimmy! Victoria Grayson’s plane blew up! Dexter…oh, Dexter! The fall TV season is officially here, which means we can all breathe a sigh of relief and pull ourselves up from the cliff-hanging precipice. Sure, there’s a bunch of new TV shows across the dial champing at the bit for your attention. But we want to focus on your returning old favorites. What’s next on Scandal—will we find o

The fall television season is here! But which shows should you be watching and which should you skip? I'm glad you asked. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Fall TV 2012 Preview: 7 Shows to Watch, 7 Shows to Skip," in which I offer my take on the upcoming fall season, with seven shows you should be watching (from ABC's Nashville to PBS' Call the Midwife ) and those you should be snubbing ( Partners, The Neighbors ). The fall television season is once again upon us, and overall the results are pretty depressing: there’s a decided lack of originality to much of the broadcast networks’ new offerings, as if they were somehow injured by the lack of interest in last year’s riskier programs. In fact, there is a whole lot of formulaic fare coming to your televisions, and a ton of new (mostly awful) comedies this year. But fret not: it’s not all doom and gloom, as there are at least a few promising new shows on the horizon, from the Connie Br

PBS’s white-hot British import Downton Abbey , nominated this year for 16 Emmy Awards, is now a bona-fide cultural phenomenon—with its own spoofs. From Jimmy Fallon’s "Downton Sixbey" to the Mean Girls - Downton mash-up, I take on the six best. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature "6 Best Spoof Videos of the Emmy Nominated Period Drama Downton Abbey ," in which I take a look at the six best Downton Abbey video spoofs and discuss the swirling pop culture influence of the period drama. While devotees of costume dramas instantly fell under the spell of Downton Abbey when it first premiered in the U.S. in January 2011 on PBS’s Masterpiece Classic, it took a second season for it to truly permeate popular culture. Nominated for 16 Emmy Awards this year—including Best Drama, Best Actress in a Drama, Best Actor in a Drama, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and seemingly a billion others—Downton Abbey has become deeply entrenched

Just what are you watching before bed? Do you tune in to watch a 10 p.m. drama? A late-night talk show? Or reality television? At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TiVo’s Top 20 Shows Watched Before Bed: Jimmy Fallon, Lost Girl , and More," in which I examine data obtained from TiVo about the top 20 shows that people watch before they go to bed, from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Revenge to Chopped and NCIS: LA . It’s no secret that many Americans turn on the television as part of a nighttime ritual before bed. But what is surprising is just what they’re watching before their heads hit their respective pillows. According to data provided by TiVo to The Daily Beast, the top program watched at bedtime was NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, while TBS’s Conan was the most-watched cable show before bed. “Perhaps it’s not surprising that many late-night talk shows are watched before bed,” Tara Maitra, TiVo’s general manager of content and media sales

Phyllis Diller, who died Monday at 95, paved the way for generations of female comedians. Roseanne Barr on the legendary and ‘paradoxically regal’ comedian, her enduring legacy, and what the gin-drinking Diller thought about the afterlife. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read a feature that I had a hand in making happen: "Roseanne Barr Hails the Comedic Genius of Phyllis Diller," in which Barr reflects on the death of her friend, gin-drinking comedy legend Phyllis Diller. All hail and observe a moment of silence—a genius has vacated this space and left us here to remember her life and her work. I remember hearing her records as a child. My dad collected comedy records, and what I loved the most about her was her laugh. She was the only comic I saw who laughed at her own jokes, and I found that funnier than hell. I stole that from her, but she viewed it as more a tribute than a lift. The last several years I called my ex-husbands “Fang” on stage, too. It was timeless,

When Mad Men 's Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) received her indecent proposal this season on the AMC period drama, viewers were sharply divided about her actions within the controversial and polarizing episode. But Hendricks' Harris is emblematic of a larger trend within television this year: the virtual proliferation of prostitutes within scripted dramas. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TV's New Prostitute Fixation," in which I examine the sudden proliferation of prostitutes on television, from Game of Thrones and Crimson Petal to True Blood and Copper , and what may be behind the trend. On BBC America’s period drama Copper, which premiered on Sunday, the first person encountered by Kevin Corcoran, the 19th century New York City policeman played by Tom Weston-Jones, is a child prostitute who promptly offers to “pleasure” him in exchange for coin. No more than 10 years old, Copper’s Annie (Kiara Glasco) acts as a conduit t