[Televisionary]

We’re starting our summer at a bit of a disadvantage: there is no new season of Mad Men to look forward to this year, as we’ll have to wait until March 2012 to find out what happens to Don Draper and the other staffers at Draper Cooper Sterling Pryce. It’s enough to put a damper on anyone’s television-viewing this summer, but there are still some bright points amid a series of repeats and burn-offs like NBC’s Love Bites . (Seriously, avoid that one like you would the plague.) Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Summer 2011 TV Preview: 15 Reasons to Watch TV This Summer," in which I round up what’s new and noteworthy on the telly in the coming months, from True Blood and Torchwood: Miracle Day to British period drama The Hour and the return of Damages and Breaking Bad . All in all, 15 reasons to come in from the warmth of the summer evening and sit down on the couch for a few hours. What are you most excited about heading to the small scree

"I did warn you not to trust me." - Littlefinger The world of George R.R. Martin's novels depicts the internal landscape as much as it does the external and epic; the plots of "A Game of Thrones" and the subsequent books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel series balances on a knife's edge between grand battles and stirring soliloquies enacted by the chapters' viewpoint narrator. In a television show, we're denied the ability to enter into the characters' minds, to slip away behind the eyes and see the truths that they keep hidden from everyone but themselves, to hear the words that they whisper as they fall asleep, to see the lies that they tell others. Instead, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have had to create ways of sharing information without it seeming obtrusive; the medium largely demands scenes of action rather than long drawn-out moments of inaction. And in this week's episode of Game of Thrones ("You Win

The dust has settled on the TV season— American Idol and The Good Wife are in, The Event and $#*! My Dad Says are out. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "2010-11 TV's Winners and Losers," in which I rate the hits and the flops of the 2010-11 season and take a look at the broadcasters' position going into and coming out of the 2010-11 television season. Brief caveat: please do remember (because I inevitably will receive something to this effect in the comments section), this isn't a critical evaluation. While certainly some shows I love (cough, The Good Wife , cough) did end up in the winners' column , this is more a look at how individual shows and networks fared in terms of series launches, ratings retention, and (to a smaller extent) critically.

In recent years, it’s been a given that romantic pairs on television had to be subjected to the will-they or-won't-they dilemma—where couples as clearly in love as Ross-and-Rachel, Sam-and-Diane, or Jim-and-Pam were prevented from jumping into bed together for years, as the writers forced them through increasingly tight narrative hoops. These days, though, it seems like more and more TV couples just will. As writer-producers have sought to surprise the audience, they’re puncturing romantic tropes in the process. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The Death of Will-They-or-Won't-They," for which I talk to Community ’s Dan Harmon, Parks and Recreation ’s Mike Schur and Greg Daniels, and Bones ’ Hart Hanson about how TV is throwing off that age-old will-they-or-won’t-they paradigm in the post-Jim-and-Pam era.

Michelle Forbes has been a TV mainstay since the mid-'90s when she was on Homicide: Life on the Street —she's appeared on 24, Prison Break, Battlestar Galactica, In Treatment , and True Blood . But her role on the AMC mystery The Killing as the destroyed-by-grief mother of the dead girl at the center of the story has gotten her more attention than ever. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Michelle Forbes' Good Grief," in which I sit down with Forbes (for a nearly four-hour-long lunch, in fact) and talk to her about her career, playing the anguished Mitch Larsen, and why committing to a TV show is like an arranged marriage. The Killing airs Sundays at 10 pm ET/PT on AMC.

"He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon." - Daenerys More than halfway through the season of HBO's Game of Thrones , we've come to what was arguably my favorite episode of the run so far (though, now that I've seen Episode Seven, I think I've changed my mind), which reveals several secrets lurking in the background of the series ("the seed is strong") and begins to move the players into place for the climactic gamesmanship ahead. On this week's episode of Game of Thrones ("A Golden Crown"), written by Jane Espenson, David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss and directed by Daniel Minahan, it's an installment that revolves around changes both great and small, about the way the scales can fall from our eyes and we can see the truth that has been standing in front of us for so long. For Ned, it's a realization of just why Jon Arryn died, of the terrible secret he had gleaned from the book of royal lineages, and just what this could mean

Television's upfronts week came to a close Thursday with the CW, which will bring Sarah Michelle Gellar back to TV with the thriller Ringer . On Wednesday, CBS presented J.J. Abrams' Person of Interest and five others, showed off new Two and a Half Men star Ashton Kutcher, and moved The Good Wife to Sundays. ABC, meanwhile, unveiled its schedule Tuesday; Fox and NBC did their dance for advertisers on Monday. Watch trailers of the networks' new shows, including ABC's Charlie's Angels reboot, Fox's supernatural drama Alcatraz , and troubled NBC's The Playboy Club . Over at The Daily Beast, we're keeping track of every renewal and cancellation (and which shows are still in limbo) and well as keeping an eye on the bigger picture issues facing the broadcasters this May. Plus, we've got the lowdown--in-depth breakdowns as well as information you can't find anywhere else--on the 44 (and counting) new series heading to the networks next season.