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To date, the only female character to receive significant screentime but not get embroiled in a major personal life storyline is financial expert Sloan Sabbith. While this has made the character a breath of fresh air, and allowed actress Olivia Munn to excel in the role, it was only a matter of time until her out-of-work life infringed in some way. This episode sees the infringement occur in an interesting manner that unfortunately sees the show pull itself back from meaningful character development in an area where it is sorely needed.

One of the more intriguing aspects of The Newsroom’s second season premiere was the physical transformation of Maggie Jordan. The change, along with hints of a traumatic event, promised to pull the character out of the romantic triangle subplot she was mired in for most of the first season, and add some more dimensions in the process. This week’s episode dives into what led to the change, in a promising episode that also saw the team face their own inability to communicate well, correcting many of the downsides of last week’s episode.

When some reviewers – including myself – anticipated some of the stagnancy that might be felt by viewers in this current season of True Blood, one of the more likely sources of conflict was the cast of this show and just how immortal they seem to be (you know, despite that fact that some of the characters are immortal). It’s probably not accurate to say that True Blood has quelled that issue, but it took a huge stride in that direction when, last week, Terry bit the bullet.

One of the big weaknesses of the first season of The Newsroom, alongside the poor characterisation of many of the show’s women, was the often preachy tone that would accompany storylines, as the writers often struggled to balance the show’s depiction of a fearless news team with an ability to humanise the opponents to the debate, or a portrayal of the core cast as three-dimensional characters rather than simply mouthpieces. The exploration of real-world consequences and conscience attacks suffered by the team at ACN did a lot to mitigate this issue, and while the second season premiere showed promise in further exploring this storyline, this week’s episode manages to fall down the rabbit hole once again, taking a few steps backward from a lot of character progression the show has made, and delivering an unpleasant episode this week, where the bad qualities outweighed the good.

Continuing from last week’s episode of True Blood, “Don’t You Feel Me?” keeps the entertainment level comparatively high. We left last week on two cliffhangers, both of which had characters’ lives at risk and neither of which followed through in killing any of those characters. But fans got two deaths in this episode to mull over – one relatively triumphant and one surprisingly devastating.

The second season premiere of The Newsroom last week hinted at a major catastrophe that engulfs the station, but buried amidst the discussions of the events that led to lawyerly intervention was the question of why Will McAvoy and the news crew would take on such a volatile story in the first place. This week’s episode dives deeper into the psyche of the individuals who comprise the news team, and their emotional and psychological state leading up to the Genoa revelation, in an episode that unfortunately brings back large chunks of previously problematic storylines, but nonetheless gives a better idea of what makes certain characters tick.

If you didn’t hear, True Blood has been renewed for a seventh season, which will make it the first ever HBO drama series to reach that mark. Rather than putting all their eggs into the Game of Thrones + new original series baskets, HBO has given its vampire hit the benefit of the doubt based on ratings, which HBO claims is upwards of 10 million including repeat and online viewing. Up until Sunday night’s episode, it would have been very appropriate to roll your eyes at this news.

With shows such as Sports Night and The West Wing under his belt, many people were excited to see Aaron Sorkin return to television, particularly after finding big screen success with The Social Network and Moneyball. Tackling journalism, Sorkin’s The Newsroom premiered in 2012 on HBO, with a cast that included Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill, and Dev Patel, and ended up receiving uneven reviews throughout the season, with most of the audience qualms coming down on his portrayal of Mackenzie and Maggie, the two key female characters on the show, who often acted out of character when engaged in romantic entanglements, which dominated much of their storylines in the first ten episodes.

It would be really great to be able to say something like “At last…a good episode in True Blood’s sixth season,” but “At Last” chugs along at the sluggish pace the season has been going on. At this point, the reveals aren’t very shocking or interesting. So, when Ben turns out to be Warlow, it doesn’t have the same impact of a revelation of that caliber that might appear in another show which treats its mystery with more care.

True Blood, Season 6: Episode 3 – “You’re No Good” Directed by Howard Deutch Written by Mark Hudis Airs Sunday nights at 9 on HBO I think when I tried to maintain some level of optimism about True Blood last week, I was probably coming to the beginning of this season hoping it wouldn’t be any …

The third track on one of my favorite rock records of the last decade, Okkervil River’s The Stage Names, is called “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene.” Without context, its lyric is a bit of a tough nut to crack. Will Sheff sings about events unfolding on a TV screen in the first verse, recaps …

Love it, hate it or stand somewhere in between, True Blood has ventured into almost royal territory. The only other two HBO dramas that have made it to a sixth season have been The Sopranos (widely considered the first or second best TV show of all time alongside HBO brethren The Wire) and Oz (the utterly spectacular predecessor to The Sopranos that made the latter show possible). While Game of Thrones has caught up with True Blood in terms of viewership and will likely keep surpassing it in the coming year, True Blood still has a huge fanbase for a show that airs on a pay-to-view channel.

Throughout the second season, the US administration has found itself embroiled in one issue after another, beginning with the poor showing at the election in the season premiere. The President’s attempts at passing the buck on these issues have not only been futile in keeping his own nose clean, but have also turned members of his own administration against him, including Vice-President Meyer herself, as the end of last week’s episode indicated.

Selina admitting knowledge of the CIA spy last week came at the heels of a season-long campaign where she has ended up on the losing end of most political matters without having any say in the decision. Becoming the public face of accountability for atleast one of the government’s scandals thus gave her the ability to control the narrative in atleast one situation. The season’s penultimate episode this week sees Selina try to take further control of her political career as she realises her role in the current administration, in an episode that continues to be funny while still managing to effectively move the characters forward.

With Selina’s growing political issues in the second season of Veep, from the CIA operative hostage situation, to the scandals involving her ex-husband, a rough meeting between the Vice president and the press seemed inevitable. While Meyer was able to avoid the press in Finland, despite Dan’s bumbling efforts, such reprieve could not go on for long. This episode sees Meyer face the press, in an episode that illustrates how Meyer’s recent political actions are being viewed by those in the public eye, while still managing to be comedically top-notch.

Even moreso than before, the third season of Game of Thrones has had to negotiate a very difficult balancing act: more characters in more locales than ever before, a whole lot of doomy portent and foreshadowing of things that may not come to pass for a very long time, and plots that advance at hugely different paces all competing for screentime. With all that considered, and with some more reflection yet needed, I’d say Season Three is roughly on par with Season One (which had issues all its own) and certainly greater than Season Two.

Veep, Season 2, Episode 7: “Shutdown” Written by Tony Roche and Armando Iannucci Directed by Becky Martin Airs Sundays at 10pm (ET) on HBO Despite Selina’s best efforts at balancing the budget last week, efforts that saw her sit down to discuss numbers in the midst of her daughter’s birthday party, the President still went …

It’s been a strange couple of months for Game of Thrones fans who haven’t read the books, such as myself. Book-series veterans (the spoiler-respectful ones, anyway) have looked on with a sense of both dread and dark glee, referring only to “the RW,” which I’d incorrectly assumed stood for “Royal Wedding,” of which we got one last week with relatively little incident There’s about 45 minutes of content in “The Rains of Castamere” that does not consist of the Red Wedding, but you’d never know it for the furor that erupted on social media moments after the doors to the Freys’ hall closed and the strains of the episode’s titular ballad are audible. It’s here, finally, even more than Season One’s “Baelor,” that Game of Thrones finally earns its “anyone can die” motto. This got downright Satanic.

One of the staples of Selina Meyer’s career as Vice-President has been her inability to properly separate her personal life from her professional one, as well as her insistence on having a memorable event which she can point to as her legacy during her time as the titular Veep. This week brought both these issues together, as Meyer’s attempts to get budget negotiations completed before a midnight deadline conflicts with her daughter’s birthday party, in another entertaining episode that reveals more about Meyer’s life before her current government position.

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 8: “Second Sons” Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Michelle MacLaren Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO Credit where credit’s due: in her second go at directing Game of Thrones, Michelle MacLaren once again gets an episode that’s relatively light on actual incident, but still manages …

Foreign relations are a key aspect of any politician’s job, with the importance of maintaining a good rapport with the international community being the most important aspect of many political positions. With the comedic song about the various European countries that Selina Meyer sang at a private function making its way online last week ahead of a visit to Europe, courtesy of Jonah, the Vice-President’s ability to mend fences was sure to be put to the test, and it is this facet of the office that this episode explores, delivering another strong episode that fleshes out some of the show’s secondary characters.

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 7: “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” Written by George R. R. Martin Directed by Michelle MacLaren Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO You might reasonably expect that an episode penned by series originator George R. R. Martin and featuring the Thrones directorial debut of Breaking Bad veteran Michelle MacLaren will be …

Those who are more privy of HBO’s future plans may correct me on this, but seeing as the events of the third book of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Storm of Swords, are supposedly being spread out over two seasons, we can reasonably expect that Game of Thrones will be at least an eight-season affair.