[Televisionary]

So, wait, you're not watching Parenthood ? NBC’s Parenthood is not the most glamorous show on television. Its focus, charting the lives of a sprawling Berkeley, California family, might pale in comparison to, say, Desperate Housewives ’ antics on Wisteria Lane. There are no murders, no swapped babies, and no satirical, over the top look at domesticity here. Which is to say: enough is enough. This is a show that you should be watching, regardless of whether you're a parent yourself or a teenager. (Or, even if you're well past your teen years.) Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Why You Must Watch Parenthood ," which discusses the reasons why you have to watch NBC’s criminally underrated drama Parenthood , which captures the highs and lows of family life. On tonight's episode of Parenthood ("Do Not Sleep With Your Autistic Nephew's Therapist"), Crosby deals with backlash from his mistake; Alex's constant visits irk Ada

A trio of leading actors are heading back to television this pilot season. Former 24 star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast in FOX drama pilot Touch , from creator/executive producer Tim Kring ( Heroes ) and 20th Century Fox Television. The project revolves around Sutherland's character, a father "who discovers that his autistic, mute son can predict events before they happen," according to Deadline 's Nellie Andreeva. Production is slated to begin in late May or early June, due to Sutherland's Broadway commitments. (He's currently on stage in a revival of That Championship Season .) Touch will be directed by Charles McDougall, who has become quite the go-to pilot director in recent years, having directed pilots for such series as The Good Wife, The Chicago Code, Desperate Housewives, The Tudors , and many others. Elsewhere, Minnie Driver ( The Riches is also heading back to television , this time to star in CBS drama pilot Hail Mary , where she will play &qu

Viewers of Community have embraced the NBC comedy's ability to explore the boundaries of the single-camera broadcast comedy format, gleefully embarking on adventures involving zombies, outer space, chicken finger-hoarding mobsters, pen-stealing monkeys, and much more. But what some viewers have had a hard time doing is offering a hug to the show's most dastardly character, Pierce Hawthorne, played by veteran Chevy Chase. In the first season of Community , Pierce often acted as a personification of the study group's id, a childlike man who frequently expressed the things that each of us progressive, modern people have sworn never to think, let alone say out loud. The problem with Pierce in many ways is that it's become difficult at times to separate Pierce Hawthorne from Chevy Chase. Both men appear to be loud, loutish, and disruptive, prone to being an attention-stealer who often engages in pratfalls in order to grab the spotlight away from one of his costars. (If you&

Um, yeah. While in the past I've supported some wacky challenges on Bravo's addictive culinary competition Top Chef because they tested the contestants in terms of adaptability, I have to say that I was scratching my head last night while watching the latest episode ("Lock Down"), which had the chefs scrambling in a Target store to find equipment and tables (!) in order to assemble a station before cooking a meal for 100 people. In the middle of the night. I get that this is Top Chef: All-Stars . And I also understand that these chefs are going to be put through their paces by the producers. But there was something extremely off-putting about this latest challenge, which seemed to put an equal--if not more--weight on running around Target with multiple shopping carts and grabbing items left and right (which seemed, to me anyway, to be a half-hour ad for Target in many ways) than in actual cooking. It's hard to, you know, cook for 100 people when you don&

Tyra Collette, here's your lasso of truth. Former Friday Night Lights mainstay Adrianne Palicki, who starred in FOX's short-lived drama Lone Star earlier this season, has been selected to play Diana in David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman pilot for NBC. The project, written by Kelley, will be directed by Jeff Reiner, who previously worked with Palicki on Friday Night Lights . Putting aside my thoughts on the project itself for a second, I think that Palicki should be a much bigger star than she is. Her performance as Tyra Collette, which she briefly reprised on Season Five of Friday Night Lights was electrifying: a tough-as-nails teen who fell into an unexpected romance on the show with a most unexpected partner (keeping the FNL plot points to a minimum here). And while I wasn't a fan of FOX's Lone Star , Palicki's performance was a standout and it was fantastic to see her in a more mature, adult role. But Palicki should know what she's gotten herself into:

Question: What do LeVar Burton, Firefly , and twisted mind games have in common? Answer: They're all together in one place on this week's sensationally satirical episode of Community ("Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking"), written by Megan Ganz and directed by Joe Russo, which I watched earlier this week. (That was, as you'll learn soon enough, an "explanabrag.") NBC's Community has already tackled zombie invasions, paintball wars, outer space, and stolen pens with vigor and gonzo spirit intact, so it was only a matter of time before Dan Harmon and his merry band of mischief makers in the writers room would attempt to transform the actual physical format and style of the series for an episode. In this case, "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" does just that, satirizing the mockumentary style of such fellow NBC series as The Office and Parks and Recreation , as Danny Pudi's Abed attempts to make a documentary which shows the study

Batter up... I knew that last night's episode of The Good Wife ("Net Worth"), written by creators Robert and Michelle King, would have a doozy of a twist embedded in its episodic plot, because the episode was being kept under firm wraps by the folks at CBS... and even Archie Panjabi was coy about what was going to happen when I interviewed her a few weeks ago. (For that interview and more information about what's coming up between her and Blake, you can click here .) But I also didn't quite expect the breathless hotel room showdown between Panjabi's Kalinda and Scott Porter's Blake that followed so closely on the heels of an encounter between Kalinda and Jill Flint's steely FBI agent Lana, an extended sequence that had both Blake and Lana seemingly aiming for Kalinda's, er, heart. Despite Lana's job offer to Kalinda, she seemed more interested in her body in those moments than in her mind and the aura of conquest hovered over the entire sequen