Monsters of Television

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Isn't this supposed to be Jennifer Connelly in a dress...?

As part of the new fall season coverage, we’re doing what we call audition reviews for new shows. An audition review doesn’t necessarily mean the show will enter the normal rotation, but it will provide an initial reaction to a new series. Especially in light of time shifting practices, we think this is a valuable way to read brief reviews on new series to help you decide if you want to watch the show. For those who watch it live, it’s a good way to begin a conversation about a new series. These reviews will typically be shorter than our regular reviews, and may include thoughts from more than one of our writers.

In the show HBO hopes will make itself not TV again (it’s been floundering with its original programming due to a mess of executives, like a broadcast network), Steve Buscemi plays Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, the gangster/pillar of the community that has been allowing Atlantic City to thrive. But times, as they say, are a changin’, and Nucky has to figure out how to navigate the feds enforcing Prohibition and young upstarts, like his driver Jimmy (played by the never aging Michael Pitt).

Read more »