Not a big fan of Larry David’s new U.S. history sketch comedy romp Life, Larry and the pursuit of Unhappiness. And yet, given the current national spirit as the big 250 approaches, pettiness does seem more appropriate than piety.

Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector’s uproarious, contentious word salad of a play, gave me a jolt of recognition as a native Berkeleyan. The play isn’t just set in Berkeley; it ~is~ Berkeley, in all its passive-aggressive, more-righteous-than-thou glory. I love my hometown. Which means I can laugh at it.

In the hothouse of anxiety that is TV in the streaming age I’ve noticed a particular strain: messed up teens in a state of numbed-out crisis amid deeply flawed parenting. And I’m not just talking about Euphoria. Happy Father’s Day!

Some words of appreciation for James Burrows, Cheers co-creator and remarkably prolific sitcom director, who died today at age 85.

Now that that the season 1 secret is out of the bag (he’s an alien!) Sugar can get down to the business of doing private eye stuff and providing a platform for a crafty Colin Farrell performance. I like this show. It lets us see contemporary L.A. through the eyes of an interplanetary outsider.

Hall hears a hum: I liked The Listeners, starring Rebecca as an English suburbanite who joins a cult of people who claim to hear the same noise. It’s really about belief and the need for belonging.

Had some fun coming up with my ten favorite TV actors working today. This idea started with my admiration for Claire Danes and my interest in whatever Matthew Rhys does, then grew from there through conversations with my editors.

Let’s be careful out there: In this week’s Autopilot I look at the dawn of Hill Street Blues, which was also the dawn of a new era in television. Now try to stop humming the theme song.

The new Cape Fear series doubles down on the dysfunctional family angle of the Scorsese movie, and amps it up for the age of social media, cyber-stalking, and impure drugs. I tracked 69 years of Cape Fear, which has gone from novel to movie to movie to TV with a Max Cady-like refusal to go away.

In this week’s Autopilot feature I wrote about HBO’s Perry Mason, set in a ‘30s California of bad dreaming, of race and class divisions, dirty cops, and have and have-nots. It burned brightly for 18 episodes, then faded into the hazy Los Angeles sunset.

Wrote about Spider-Noir, and how noir is flexible and commodious enough to include the super hero genre.

A pleasure as always contributing to The Boston Globe’s summer books preview. Among the titles I’m looking forward to is Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark’s American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump.

In this week’s One Special Thing feature: Victoria Wasylak provides a smart look at how the 2014 movie Frank — starring Michael Fassbender as a troubled rocker in a giant papier-mache head — pokes holes in tortured artist tropes. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05

Every now and then I’ll stay up til 2:30 a.m. to write about something. Like Colbert’s heartfelt and surrealist goodbye. I was not anticipating the interdimensional wormhole.

The Souls of Black Folks only scratches the surface of W.E.B. Du Bois, whose work reflected and shaped much of Black thought in the twentieth century. That said, Souls remains extraordinary. I wrote about the new PBS doc W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause. Read with a double consciousness.

We all know it isn’t summertime yet, but TV would still beg to differ. I looked ahead at ten upcoming series, including The Boroughs, Cape Fear, and Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, which looks pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Playing catch up: I hit rewind on some recent limited series I didn’t write about the first time around, including DTF St. Louis, Lord of the Flies and Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. DTF is truly special.

The ‘Devil in Silver’ haunts Dan Stevens and a psychiatric hospital with really bad vibes. Not that those are known for good vibes. Part of an intriguing run of solid TV horror, which I hope to treat as a whole in the near future.

Rambling men: Isaac Fitzgerald follows the trail of Johnny Appleseed, faces his own demons, and delivers a great read in his new book American Rambler. It’s a journey well worth taking.

Somehow my Autopilot column is just now getting around to The Americans, the first episode of which is damn near perfect. The rest of the series ain’t bad either.

As I was reading Megan Kate Nelson’s excellent book The Westerners, about some of the folks who were effectively written out of the frontier myth, I grew fascinated that one of the country’s leading Western historians lives here in Boston. So I wrote about her and her book.

Hirsute heaven and hell: I wrote about how the right (or wonderfully wrong) beard or mustache helps create a TV character. Nick Offerman: reigning king of facial hair. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/30/a...

As promised/threatened, my review of Widow’s Bay. Apple TV’s new horror comedy is really both and neither. It is its own thing, which is about the nicest thing I can say about a new series.

Enjoyed confabbing with some esteemed critic colleagues on the Gotham Television Awards nominating committee for best limited series and performances therein. We really liked Death by Lightning and DTF St. Louis. And more good stuff.

Wrote about the Jawsiness of Widow’s Bay, a show about a weak-willed mayor who hesitates to shut down his touristy New England island community when he really probably should. I’ll have more to say about the series, which I dig.

I like Adam’s Apple, a new doc about a trans New Hampshire teen and a family that leads with love. I also really like the family. Shows tonight at IFFBoston.

Wrote about how the laughing emoji became the favorite insult of the lazy and incurious (or, as I like to call them, stupid yobs). Great illo by Ally Rzesa.

Half Man, the new HBO series from Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd, is another bold dive into roiling psychosexual currents, and a smartly provocative examination of interpersonal power dynamics and damaged masculinity. Also: Richard Gadd is one intense dude.

The NBA Playoffs are my favorite time of the sports TV year, and it’s not really close. I wrote about two relevant new documentaries: Prime Video’s “Jerry West: The Logo” and Netflix’s “Untold: Jail Blazers.” Both teams played hard my man. And, if I must: OKC over Boston in 7.

Deeply enjoyed This Vast Enterprise, the new Lewis and Clark book by Craig Fehrman. It’s a lively work of character-based history — the chapters are organized by the perspectives of different characters — that spotlights the people not named Lewis or Clark who made the Corps of Discovery possible.

In this week’s Autopilot I get Freaky and Geeky on the teen TV show with the cuteness rubbed away, with the sex comedy reduced to a hazy afterthought, with the socially awkward desire to fit in foregrounded.

Back in the One Special Thing chair this week to write about The Insider. An under-appreciated, operatic ode to two of my favorite things: journalism and cinema. I’ve seen it at least a dozen times, in varying moods and circumstances, and I keep coming back to it like an old and loyal friend.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and an OnlyFans following, in David E. Kelley’s new series starring Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer. I admit to some awe at the longevity of Kelley’s career. And cool that he gets to work with his wife.

Happily watched HBO’s Ramy Youssef: In Love. Riffing on everything from dogs to the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival, Youssef, known for his autobiographical Hulu series “Ramy,” showcases an undervalued comedic strength: a mellow delivery that makes it easy to say pretty much whatever you want.

Empathy? We don’t need your stinking empathy. The Audacity, premiering tonight on AMC, converts Silicon Valley narcissism into scabrous satire. I spoke with star Billy Magnussen and creator Jonathan Glatzer about what the hell is wrong with these people.

In this week’s Autopilot feature I look at both of the Star Trek pilots, neither of which was the first episode to air. Space is strange.

Excited to write this week’s One Special Thing feature, on Elvis Costello’s baroque masterpiece Imperial Bedroom. An album I can listen to on an endless loop.

I’m a big fan of Big Mistakes, the nuevo-screwball comedy series starring Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega as bickering siblings who get mixed up with the Russian mob. Also featuring a sublime Laurie Metcalf. Starts today on Netflix.

Why Louis C.K.’s Netflix return is a perfect fit for these shameless times.

In this week’s Autopilot I look back at the beginning of Justified. A killer modern crime/western hybrid with roots in the great Elmore Leonard, it’s also concerned with what it means to come home when you’d really rather not, to a place that never really let you go. Also, Walton Goggins.

Unless you’re a physicist — and, statistically speaking, chances are you’re not — a book about the ins and outs of space-time might feel heavy in your hands. But I really dug The Edge of Space-Time, Chanda Prescod Weinstein’s Afrofuturist, feminist explanation of why space is the place.

I love a good puzzle box show (which is ironic, since I’m really bad at putting actual puzzles together). Maybe I just savor confusion. Anyway, I rounded up some streaming favorites, from Twin Peaks and The Prisoner to Lost and Severance.

Wrote about For All Mankind, Project Hail Mary, and pop culture’s persistent but ever-shifting fascination with space exploration. We choose to go not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

Really enjoyed Bait, Riz Ahmed’s new series about a struggling actor whose life unravels after he auditions to be the next James Bond. Absurdist, darkly comic tone with London hip-hop energy.

“Trump turns the dog whistle into a train whistle”: The new doc White With Fear looks at the shameful history of racial fearmongering in American politics, and how the current administration increasingly says the quiet part out loud.

He told me everybody’s fly: Spoke with Fab 5 Freddy about the earliest days of hip-hop, the start of Yo! MTV Raps, and his new memoir.

The new season of The Comeback addresses Hollywood’s AI anxieties — and thrives on the very human art of perfect casting.

Gee, could you vague that up for me? In this week’s Autopilot I look at the Buffy the Vampire pilot, which brilliantly tapped into the idea of high school as horror show.

This week, TV delivers not one, but two new dramedy series in which faculty members sleep with students and campus culture is depicted as a hothouse of neurosis and dysfunction. Young adults are coddled like they’re vulnerable children, while professors actually behave like children.

Few series came in as hot as The Newsroom, which I look at in my latest Autopilot installment. We could use a little Will McAvoy right now.