[Televisionary]

UPDATED: I talk to Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame and nine cast members (including Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Thomas, Rob James-Collier, and many more) about Season 3 of Downton , which returns to PBS and Masterpiece on Sunday, January 6. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read the updated feature, " Downton Abbey Season 3: Julian Fellowes, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, and More," in which we talk broadly about Season 3 and break down some of the specific arcs from the third season, character by character. (Minor spoilers.) Downton Abbey viewers are anxiously awaiting Season 3 of the addictive British costume drama—which arrives on Jan. 6 in the U.S., when it returns to PBS’s Masterpiece—searching for televised methadone to tide them over until Downton Abbey’s third season kicks off. One problem: there isn’t really another show like Downton Abbey on television. Between the exquisite costumes and lavish sets (including real-life Highc

Downton Abbey is back, and I review the sensational third season—and the highly controversial finale—of the British period drama, which returns to PBS’s Masterpiece on Sunday. WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead! Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Downton Abbey Season 3 Review: A Return to Form," in which I review the third season of PBS's Downton Abbey ahead of its premiere on Sunday evening. Downton Abbey is back. For some, that’s incentive enough to tune in to the award-winning British period drama, which returns to PBS’s Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, Jan. 6, for another season of soapy intrigue with the Crawley clan and their servants. Other viewers, who like me were disappointed with last season, will take more convincing. They should take heart: Season 3 of Downton is a return to form for the show, recapturing the dazzling wit and sweeping romance of the now-classic first season. I was intensely critical of Season 2 of Downton when i

Stay cozy this New Year: I find the 18 new and returning television shows that will keep you warm this winter, from Girls and Justified to The Staircase, The Americans , and House of Cards . Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "18 Shows to Watch This Winter," in which I round up 18 new and returning noteworthy shows that you should be watching between January and March. Some you're looking forward to, some you may not have heard of, and there are a few that you've already drawn a big red circle on the calendar on the day that they return... Yes, Downton Abbey is back: the beloved British period drama returns to PBS’s Masterpiece for a third season beginning on Jan. 6, but it’s not the only new or noteworthy show heading to television this winter. Indeed, some of the most intriguing, dynamic, or plain interesting shows are launching in midseason this year, from Fox’s serial killer drama The Following and Sundance Channel’s Jane Campion-c

Sipping a cup of Earl Grey, Downton Abbey ’s feisty cook spills on the upcoming third season, a potential romance for her character, posing for German Vogue , and more. " Downton Abbey : My Tea with Mrs. Patmore," in which I sit down for tea with Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol to discuss Season 3—which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece Classic on January 6—and a potential romance for Mrs. Patmore, posing for Bruce Weber, and the Mrs. Patmore doll. No, Mrs. Patmore cannot cook. It’s a question that is frequently asked of Lesley Nicol, the 59-year-old actress who plays the uppity cook on PBS’s sumptuous costume drama Downton Abbey . “There’s a thing in the U.K. called Celebrity MasterChef ,” Nicol says, sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea at the London Hotel in West Hollywood. “I’ve been asked several times to go on that. I keep saying, ‘No, you have to be at a certain level before you even think about that, and I’m not there at all. When you look really hard, I’m doing a bit o

From Borgen to Downton Abbey to Girls , Jace Lacob and Maria Elena Fernandez pick the 10 best TV shows of the year. Warning : may contain spoilers if you are not entirely caught up on the shows discussed here. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The 10 Best TV Shows of 2012," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer up our individual Top 10 TV Shows lists for 2012. My list, not surprisingly, contains shows like Borgen, Mad Men, The Good Wife, Louie, Parks and Recreation, Shameless , and others. What was on your list this year? Now is the winter of our (TV) discontent. After a fall season that largely failed to deliver on the promise of new shows—and, in some cases, returning programs as well—it’s time to take a look back at the year in television as a whole, as we try to remove such canceled shows as Partners, The Mob Doctor, and Made in Jersey from our collective memory. But rather than dwell on the very worst of the year (ABC’s Work It!),

Who is the real Carrie Mathison? I explore the thematic overlaps between two female spies now stealing our collective attention: Claire Danes’s character on Homeland and Jessica Chastain’s Maya in Zero Dark Thirty . WARNING: the following contains plot details from the latest episode of Homeland . If you are not up to date, read at your own peril. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Is This The Real Carrie Mathison?," in which I compare the similarities and thematic overlaps between Homeland 's Carrie (Claire Danes) and Jessica Chastain's pseudonymous CIA agent "Maya" in Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming Osama bin Laden manhunt film Zero Dark Thirty , out December 19th in New York and Los Angeles. “We fight with what we have.” On the most recent episode of Showtime’s byzantine terrorism thriller Homeland, Carrie Mathison, the damaged, disgraced, bipolar CIA analyst played by Emmy-winner Claire Danes, finally came face-to-face with

Q in Skyfall goes back in time to the 1950s newsroom in Season Two of The Hour , beginning tonight. I explore the range and appeal of talented British actor Ben Whishaw. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " The Hour 's British Invader," in which I write about the astonishing range of 32-year-old British actor Ben Whishaw, who held his own against Bond as Q in Skyfall and returns to television tonight with Season Two of BBC America's The Hour . You know Ben Whishaw. Or rather, you should know precisely who the British actor is, even if he isn’t yet a household name. You may have seen him as doomed poet John Keats in 2009’s Bright Star or as doomed playboy Sebastian Flyte in the remake of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. In this autumn’s Cloud Atlas, he plays five distinct roles, from a classical composer and a record-store clerk to a cabin boy and even a woman. And you definitely saw him in the most recent James Bond flick, Skyfall, i