[Televisionary]

When Amy Heckerling set out to make a modern day retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma , few imagined that the director would create a new classic and one of the most quoted films ever. The Alicia Silverstone comedy turns 18 years old today, but, let’s be honest, Clueless is timeless. At BuzzFeed, you can read my first feature for the site, " Clueless Comes of Age," in which I write about Clueless turning 18 years old today, which is horrifying on so many levels. Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, inspired by the winking spirit of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma, was released in theaters 18 years ago today, which means that it has officially reached adulthood. For a movie about the vapidity of adolescence, the fact that nearly two decades have come and gone since Clueless first hit theaters cuts through me like a knife. I was nearly 18 years old when the Alicia Silverstone film came out, and I saw it on opening weekend, a hot July night in 1995, the summer before I went to college.

Summer TV got you in the doldrums? See what’s coming up with my and Kevin Fallon’s first impressions of 30-plus broadcast network pilots, from Resurrection and Believe to Ironside and Dads . At The Daily Beast, you can read my last story for the site (yes, you read that correctly!), entitled, "Fall-Winter TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2013–14’s New Shows," in which Kevin Fallon and I offer our first impressions of 40 or so broadcast network pilots coming to television next season. Your summer vacation may have involved lounging by the pool or traveling to Europe, but we’ve spent the first few months of hot weather sorting through the broadcast-network pilots for nearly 40 new scripted shows that will likely air next season. (A caveat: the networks have been known to yank a few before they even make it on the air.) We’ve come out the other side more or less unscathed and can now offer our first takes on the dramas and comedies that are headed to the fall and midseason

FX’s The Bridge , about a serial killer investigation that entangles both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, is very good. If you haven’t seen the Danish-Swedish series it’s based on, you might even think it’s great. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest story (one of my very last ones, in fact), "FX's Border-Killer Thriller," in which I review FX's The Bridge , based on the Danish/Swedish drama Broen , which begins tonight at 10 p.m. on FX. Borders are complex signifiers, reinforcing both national and cultural identities as well as distinguishing between outsiders and insiders. Where you are, how you see yourself, depends largely on what side of the wall—visible or invisible—you’re standing on at the moment. Few modern-day national borders are as fraught or as psychologically charged as that between the United States and Mexico, a nearly 2,000-mile line in the sand that is the most frequently crossed international border in the world. It’s this internationa

A change is coming and I'm going to get personal right now. I haven't posted anything personal on this blog in quite some time, probably ever since I was promoted to West Coast Deputy Bureau Chief at The Daily Beast back in October 2012 and stepped way back from the blog. When I founded Televisionary in the blogging hinterlands of February 2006, I did feel like a bit of an outsider, a television blogger who approached the medium and the work as though I were doing it full-time. It was a lark, something I did while I was also working in television development (and later in acquisitions/programming for a British television network), a chance to exercise my writing muscle while slaving away in the industry. Later, I would pour my heart and soul into this site, after I was pink-slipped, seeing it as less of a diversion and more of a means to an end. More than seven years later, it's astonishing to me to see where those first steps have led me. First, to freelancing gigs wit

I review Showtime’s fixer drama Ray Donovan , which begins Sunday night and stars Liev Schreiber as a Hollywood fixer whose South Boston past creates present-day troubles. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Ray Donovan : Is the Liev Schreiber–Led Showtime Drama The Next Sopranos ?" in which I review Showtime's fantastic new drama Ray Donovan , which premieres on Sunday night at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The specter of HBO’s still-mourned organized crime family drama The Sopranos, which arguably kicked off the latest golden age of television, can be glimpsed in the foundations of nearly every cable drama that has come since, ushering in an era of the male antihero that has permeated the popular culture. The Sopranos’s mischievous, malevolent spirit flits through Showtime’s outstanding new drama Ray Donovan, which premieres Sunday night at 10 p.m. Starring Liev Schreiber as the titular character, the show—created by Ann Biderman, who also created the gripping

The AMC series’ season ender offered upheaval in the lives of SC&P’s employees. I speak with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the finale and what’s next. Warning: Spoilers ahead! At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Mad Men Creator Matthew Weiner on the Season Finale," in which I speak with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the sixth season finale, going overboard, that look, California, and much more. Not since the end of Season 3 has AMC’s Mad Men—created by Matthew Weiner—ended a season with as much physical, emotional, and psychological upheaval as it did in Sunday night’s episode (“In Care Of”), which closed out the period drama’s sixth and penultimate season. Written by Weiner and Carly Wray, the final episode restructured some of the show’s key underpinnings: Don Draper (Jon Hamm) spilled the truth about his awful childhood in front of his partners and clients; Megan (Jessica Paré), Pete (Vincent Kartheiser), and Ted Chaough (Kevin

From Stephen King and Steven Spielberg comes Under the Dome, a weird, scary, and potentially great excuse to stay inside this summer. I dissect tonight’s premiere. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Under the Dome Is One Eerie TV Show," in which I review CBS's eerie new drama Under the Dome , based on Stephen King's 2009 novel of the same name, which begins tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT. In the not-too-distant future, the inhabitants of Chester’s Mill—a small and seemingly idyllic town in Anywhere, U.S.A.—suddenly discover their town is trapped inside an invisible barrier of unknown origin. Birds fall from the sky, numerous vehicles crash, and a blood-red handprint on this transparent dome becomes a sigil of awe and fear. This is the basis for CBS’s intriguing new “event” drama series, Under the Dome, which begins its 13-episode summer run tonight at 10 p.m. (While some have referred to it as a “miniseries,” it is most definitely an ongoing serie