[Televisionary]

While you’d think watching rich mothers outdo each other for luxurious maternity would be repellant, the star of Bravo’s addictive--and unexpectedly poignant--reality-TV series Pregnant in Heels , Rosie Pope of New York City's Rosie Pope Maternity, grounds it. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Pregnant in Heels ' Mama Drama," in which I talk to Rosie Pope about motherhood, demanding clients, IVF ordeals, and her alleged speech impediment, recently satirized on Saturday Night Live . Pregnant in Heels airs Tuesdays at 10 pm ET/PT on Bravo.

"Some doors close forever. Others open in most unexpected places." - Varys When it is wise to commit a horrific act in the name of the greater good? Does one life matter more than that of millions? Can you cross a moral line in order to keep a larger peace? Such questions of moral relativism hovered over this week's fantastic episode of Game of Thrones ("The Wolf and the Lion"), written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by Brian Kirk, which presented both King Robert and Ned Stark with a weighty dilemma: do they act to keep the peace and murder a pregnant girl? Is Daenerys' existence alone enough the shatter the tenuous union of the Seven Kingdoms? By employing an assassin, would they avert a larger war down the road? Should she and her brother have been murdered as children? By allowing them to survive, did they curse themselves to a potential Dothraki invasion from across the Narrow Sea? And if Robert gets his way and Dany is slain by some se

If there's a show that knows how to throw a curveball (or a paintball), that seems to relish deflecting your expectations, it's NBC's Community . The delightfully absurdist comedy wrapped up its season tonight with the second half of a two-part episode ("For A Few Paintballs Or More") that continued the paintball assassin-exploits of last week's Sergio Leone-style spaghetti Western. In looking to top last season's jaw-dropping paintball-themed "Modern Warfare," executive producer Dan Harmon and Company have delivered an astonishing combination of Westerns and Star Wars , paintball and mind games, Stormtroopers, Black Riders, and, er, saloon dancers. (Yes, Vicki, I'm looking at you.) Tonight's season finale firmly embraces the gonzo style of those previous episodes, creating an episode that is both an absurdist adventure plot and the culmination of the entire season's overarching plotlines: Jeff's need to

It's no secret that I love Fringe . I've written numerous features and posts celebrating the way in which it blends science fiction with nuanced emotional drama, positioning the fractured characters of the Bishops and Olivia Dunham as a makeshift family studying the mysteries of the universe... and the human heart. Which might be why I was so monumentally disappointed with the Season Three finale ("The Day We Died"), which aired on Friday evening. After a season that was so tremendously emotional, which delivered a series of staggering performances from John Noble, Anna Torv, and Joshua Jackson in two separate, parallel universes, my expectations were extremely high indeed. But what I found with the future-set finale was that I didn't care about "these" versions of Olivia, Walter, and Peter and that the drama here felt entirely manufactured and without emotional weight, destroying the intense momentum established within the last few episodes. It was clea

After last week's Julie Taylor-related catastrophe, I was extremely pleased that this week's episode of Friday Night Lights ("Keep Looking"), written by Bridget Carpenter and directed by Todd McMullen, fell back into the pattern of greatness that the series is known for. This week's episode offered an examination of the often contentious relationship between fathers and sons, summed up in the juxtaposition of Vince's struggles with his ex-con father Ornette and Buddy's attempts to drum some tough love into his angsty teenage son Buddy Jr. In this case the dynamics were flipped on their head, with Vince struggling to determine whether he could trust his father, and laying down the law now that he's reentered his and his mother's lives. While his mom is happy to dwell on the more rose-colored memories of the past, Vince can't let go of what his father's absence meant to the family, the missed birthdays and moments, and the fact that he blame

If there is any justice in the world--our world, that is, and not the rough-and-tumble Harlan County--Margo Martindale will walk away with an Emmy nomination (and, one imagines, a win) for her jaw-dropping performance as Mags Bennett this season. Tough-as-nails and quick with her rapier wit, Mags was a top-notch schemer with the brutality to match her Machiavellian machinations, and Martindale brought her to life with all of the grit and dust of the Kentucky mountains intact. And if there was a highlight of the second season of FX's sensational and atmospheric lawman drama Justified , a season overflowing with dramatic highs and serpentine plot twists galore, it was Martindale's accomplished turn as the head of the Bennetts, a pot-growing clan that has been enmeshed in a feud with the Givens for seventy years. Would Mags and Raylan bury the hatchet? Or bury it in each other's backs? That was the question swirling around the season finale, one populated by several other comp

First off, I haven't seen the third season finale of Fringe ("The Day We Died"), airing this Friday, so anything I say here is based purely on conjecture rather than inside information, spoilers, or pre-knowledge of the episode. Personally, I'm feverish with anticipation for this episode. (And, no, it's not just the flu-like symptoms I've come down with at the moment.) After pulling the rug out from underneath the viewer in the last episode--the doomsday machine seemingly sends Peter 15 years into the future (more on that in a bit)--this season finale arrives with a huge amount of momentum from this season's strong forward movement. The fates of two universes hang in the balance as Peter entered the machine--with Olivia's cortexiphan-derived help--at the end of last week's sensational episode, and seemingly chose "our" world to survive rather than the one "Over There." The promo shown at the end of last week's episode (as w