"Episodes": TV's Funniest Show?

Tasmin Greig and Stephen Mangan  (tv equals)

I flat out forgot how darn funny Showtime's "Episodes" was until it resumed last week with its second season. 

Season one was technically a mini-season, as the show ran a teasingly brief seven episodes. Season two has been mercifully extended to nine half-hours of acutely observed, tartly clever satire. It's target? The cultural Anglo-American gulf as experienced by a pair of screenwriters lured out to Hollywood to adapt their hit British TV series for the US market.

One the sharpest, most incisive comedies currently on telly, it is hugely funny, yet not necessarily for those American patriots too thin-skinned to appreciate the immensely focused, trenchant observations of the often shallow, narcissistic tendencies of the network television industry.

The Intellectual Showmanship of Soderbergh

Channing Tatum and Cody Horn  (MTV)

Steven Soderbergh's film "Magic Mike" is as shamelessly appealing as the male strippers it portrays. Being a Soderbergh film, it sports an Altmanesque bevy of characters effortlessly juggled until the film seems to grow vague and uncertain, a la even his best films, like "Traffic". 

Channing Tatum has much at stake here, given that the film is based on his own experiences as a stripper in Tampa and that he is a producer and star. While he is never less than engaging, he lacks the acting chops of George Clooney or Matt Damon, Soderbergh's leading men of choice for several fruitful years. Tatum nonetheless has his ample charms, which happen to include a buff physique that he is as eager to show off as his audience is to eyeball it.

Given much of the film's setting in the Xquisite strip club, there are a number of scenes of the dancers' routines, which inevitably include flashes of all-but-the Full Monty. With actors as game and entertaining as Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer involved, these scenes are more than your typical beefcake bonanza. While Matthew McConaughey's outsized performance is just shy of camp, it is indeed a breakout role, and is perhaps the best example of the director's knack for showcasing actors with leading man looks (Clooney) and character actor aspirations. 

"Death of a Salesman", the Tonys, and Broadway

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield  (showbiz411)

I know not only that the Broadway season has ended, the Tony Awards dispensed with, and that Death of a Salesman has closed, but the memory of that production lingers. 

If history serves, the "Death" in question is likely to be the sole production of Arthur Miller's greatest achievement this young decade. The show's remarkably successful, sold-out run was unsurprising, given the involvement of director Mike Nichols and actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. The reviews were likewise filled with praise and platitudes, yet it was PSH's performance as Willy Loman that generated somewhat of a mixed reaction from critics. 

"Nurse Jackie" Keeps Getting Better

Eve Best, Peter Facinelli and Bobby Cannavale  (showtime)

After just completing its fourth season, "Nurse Jackie" asserts itself anew as the strongest of Showtime's wave of femme-centric series, a movement that began with the whimsical but trivial Mary Louise Parker-led "Weeds" and most recently includes the Laura Linney vehicle "The Big C" which just concluded a discouraging third season and has yet to be renewed.