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Lately, I’ve been in a very nostalgic and reflective mood. I’m constantly remembering old Disney Channel shows like Even Stevens or Disney Channel Original Movies like Phantom of the Megaplex or Zenon and I’m left wondering where the time has gone. The end of my Disney Channel days, because I sadly chose to “grow up,” occurred at the beginning of Hannah Montana – the story about an undercover pop star who lives a normal life in secret.

With the Hannah Montana gang in mind, I turned to the new comedy on ABC Family, Young & Hungry. This new series features Hannah Montana starlet, Emily Osment. With quick-paced stories and expectedly unexpected situations, I found the show to have the same heart of shows I had grown up with, but with a much more adult sense of humor. I had come for the nostalgia and ultimately stayed for the story.

The series’ executive producer is Ashley Tisdale of Disney’s High School Musical and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Following in suit with nostalgic stars, the show includes Jesse McCartney, Emily Osment, and many others.


Young & Hungry focuses on Gabi (Emily Osment), a lower-middle class girl who aspires to be a chef like Julia Child. She has a small apartment in San Francisco that she shares with her best friend Sofia. To follow her dreams, Gabi applies to a job as a personal chef for a young tech inventor, Josh (Jonathan Sadowski, She’s the Man). Chaos ensues as Gabi is thrown into a whole new social sphere, dealing with housekeepers (Kym Whitley, That’s So Raven), personal assistants (Rex Lee, Zoey 101), and Josh’s snooty fiancé, Caroline.

Falling in and out of confrontations, love, and disastrous situations, Gabi makes the working life seem so easily enjoyable and reminds the audience that growing up isn’t always easy but it sure can be fun.

Is there anything better than having a best friend? Someone who understands your mild breaks in sanity or can always bring up a great, and often embarrassing, story from when you were younger is great to have around.

That’s basically the magic behind the new comedy on USA, “Playing House.” The show was created and written by real life best friends Jessica St. Clair (“Bridesmaids”) and Lennon Parham (“Accidentally on Purpose”), who also star in the show. That gives the show a chemistry unlike any other.

“Playing House” starts off as the story of childhood best friends who grew up and separated because of work. Emma (St Clair) is a powerful businesswoman in China and Maggie (Parham) is an expecting mother who still lives with her cheating husband in her hometown in Connecticut. Emma returns from China, sees the disarray in Maggie’s life, and volunteers to stay and raise the baby with her – just like when they used to “play house” together as kids.

This quick-witted comedy is one of the first to be released on the USA network, which is partly why the show works so well – the network has no specific “comedy viewer” audience. There is now standard to hold the show up to (much like what happens now on ABC – all comedies are held up to the standard of “Modern Family”‘s humor and success).

The reason I champion this show so much is because it reminds me of the awkward, quirky, and real relationship I have with my best friend of almost 20 years. This show features specific moments and instances that are based off of the real friendship of the writers. But through their charm, specific detail, and overwhelming chemistry, the show is relatable to almost anyone who is lucky enough to have a best friend.

Binge-watching TV shows has become more of a lifestyle than a hobby for me because I hate cliffhangers. I am a true millennial in the sense that I’m incredibly impatient and need everything provided for me instantly – especially answers to plot points in television series. That said, I finally rewatched a show I had watched when it was on air a few years back, Ringer and I was so glad I didn’t have to wait through commercials or days until the next episode aired.
Ringer is a concluded TV drama that lasted only one season, which I attribute to being aired on a younger-viewer network. At the time of Ringer’s premiere, the CW was already in talk of ending it’s front-running series Gossip Girl and was looking for a replacement; however, Ringer’s complex drama about murder and deception was not the right fit to replace Gossip Girl’s quick-witted sass and the Upper East Side drama of love affairs. Had Ringer been picked up my a more mature-audience based network, like ABC, it definitely would’ve hit it’s target audience and lasted much longer. This show, though short lived, was thankfully aired in a full order of 22 episodes and also marked the return of the incomparable Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to television.
The story revolves around twin sisters Siobhan and Bridget, both played by Gellar. Siobhan is a New York socialite who well-off, married, and apparently leading a perfect life. Bridget is just reaching her six months in sobriety and is trying to regain her life and mend relationships, including that with her sister. While trying to get out of the bad area she is in, Bridget becomes witness to a murder by a major crime lord and, with the gang trying to silence her witness, she seeks refuge with the police. She and Siobhan plan a sister day where they take a boat out into the ocean to escape the bustle of the city; however, Bridget passes out at sea and wakes up to an empty boat and Siobhan’s wedding ring in a pill bottle. Thinking her sister committed suicide, Bridget decides it’s best to assume her sister’s identity to keep herself safe from the criminals who are after her. She later finds out that her sister, too, had secrets and discovers she may not be any safer as Siobhan than she was as Bridget.
The show deals with a lot of issues from drug use to self-isolation and depression. The characters, setting, and elements added to the well-executed shots in the series make it so enchanting to the eye. What I believe really makes this show so incredibly captivating, aside from the majestic Sarah Michelle Gellar and the complexity of her characters, is the beautiful cinematography. The show uses a lot of mirror shots, which works beautifully with the concepts uses in the series like the idea of appearance vs. reality, multiplicity, and refraction. I find the first episode to be exceptionally stunning.
So, if you’re looking for something to add to your Netflix queue – Ringer Season 1 is available for instant streaming. Trust me, this is one show you won’t want to miss.

With this semester quickly coming to an end, I’ve taken on the mundane task of planning my next semester of classes. With options that seem far less than interesting, I get discouraged (especially considering a university in Europe is now teaching a Britney Spears class on how she was overly sexualized by her management and ultimately became a feminist icon). I began looking for more fun alternative classes at other schools and stumbled upon “Buffyology,” which is the study of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how it explored issues in sexuality, gender, religion, family dynamics, and more.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer became a staple of my favorite television series a few years ago when it was first added to Netflix. Having heard little to nothing about the show, I gave the first episode a shot. Once I had gotten over the (admittedly cheesy) vampire face makeup, which resembled that of a villain on the Power Rangers TV show, I fell in love. Buffy was a literal kickass teenage girl who dealt with divorce, moving to a new school at a young age, young love drama, and all that comes with hunting vampires at night.

The show transgressed vampires and played with lure and mythology long before the Winchester brothers did so on the CW’s hit show, Supernatural. Buffy also took on social elements like interracial dating, homosexuality, and divorce, as well as death and the psychological tolls it can take on a character. These elements are what add to the “Buffy formula” that makes it truly something more magical, enchanting, and profound than it may appear to be.

In a sense, Buffy broke the mold of network television and brought something different to the screen – a supernatural element that seemed unfitting next to network shows like Melrose Place or Beverly Hills 90210. Yet, somehow, Buffy also seemed to fit in perfectly with its forerunners while bringing with it a new twist. It broke the stereotype that a cheesy, sci-fi dramedy has to be superficial by adding depth to its storyline and characters. The show often spoke to tough social situations like school shootings, parental loss, and discovering sexuality.

Buffy herself also broke the female stereotype. Buffy, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, was a young, beautiful girl from California – the idealistic valley girl. However, Gellar’s valley girl was vastly different from Alicia Silverstone’s Cher, from Clueless. Buffy took on the valley girl dialect, but repudiated the idea that she had to be ditzy and helpless simply because she was a blonde beauty. Instead, Buffy would often be the one to save men from their perils while managing to maintain a sassy sweetness that made her so lovable. Buffy was “the chosen one,” and she was chosen for a reason – to save the world and show everyone that she is more than she appears to be.

Joss Whedon, the show’s creator, was ambitious. He took on challenges like writing a silent episode or musical episode willingly, and those became some of the best and most beloved episodes from the series. The mostly silent episode, “Hush,” was up for an Emmy in 1999 due to its adventurous spirit and the heightened level of acting required from the cast, who had to move the story along with expressions and movement alone.

In 2001, the most heart wrenching episode, “The Body”, revolved around the loss of a loved one and contained no music, only diegetic sound. This made the episode seem just as heavy as the situation would be in real life. This episode was nominated for a Nebula Award. This episode also featured many continuous takes done on a handheld camera, which allowed scenes to seem more chaotic, syncing perfectly with the sentiments of the episode.

So, if you’re looking for a fun sociology class to take, check out schools that offer “Buffyology”. Between its adventurous spirit and ambitious episodes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is something more than a relic of the early millennium – it’s the chosen one.

Age is just a number in the new TV Land series, Younger. The show, which is created by Darren Star (Sex & the City), revolves around Liza (Sutton Foster – Bunheads & Thoroughly Modern Millie), who is a 40-year-old recent divorcee and mother. She once worked at Random House Publishing for three years where she became editor and then left her job to raise her daughter.

Now, fourteen years later, her daughter goes on a mission trip to Mumbai and Liza is left alone and needs a job to support her and her daughter. But the publishing world has changed during her hiatus and she’s finding she can’t even get into the glass room to hit the glass ceiling because of her age.

To soothe her bruised ego, she and her best lesbian friend, Maggie (Debi Mazar – Entourage), go out to drink the pain away. While they’re out, Liz is hit on by a 26-year-old, Josh (Nico Tortorella – The Following), who believes her to be that same age. Empowered by this ego boost and with the understanding of “people believe what you tell them,” Liz goes to another interview pretending to be 26 and eventually gets the job.

From there, Liz has to keep up with the fast-paced environment of publishing, the advances made in marketing with technology, and the unfiltered office chatter with her new friend, Kelsey, played by Hilary Duff (Lizzie McGuire).


The only downside I see to this show is that it is on the TV Land network. I picture the target audience of this show to be more ABC Family than TV Land. The idea behind the rebranding of the TV Land network is due to the conclusion of their hit series Hot In Cleveland, which starred Betty White, Wendie Malick, Valerie Bertinelli, and Jane Leeves.

Hot In Cleveland drew in a wide-range audience for the network with sharp humor and established stars. In need of a fresh new comedy, TV Land picked up Younger in the hopes of holding onto that wide-ranged audience. The redeeming factor of this show is that, through success, failure, and life that happens in between, Younger is a story that will be relatable to viewers of all ages.

With a fantastic array of actors, Younger proves to be highly enjoyable – regardless of your age.

Long before Long Island Medium there was Melinda Gordon, a typical young woman with an atypical power – she was able to communicate with the dead.

“My name’s Melinda Gordon. I’m married. I live in a small town and I own an antique shop. I might be just like you… except from the time that I was a little girl, I knew I could talk to the dead – earthbound spirits my grandmother called them. They’re stuck here because they have unfinished business with the living and they come to me for help. In order to tell you my story – I need to tell you theirs.” (Ghost Whisperer, Season One opening)

Jennifer Love Hewitt (scream queen from I Know What You Did Last Summer) stars as Melinda Gordon, a ghost whisperer who has had this gift since she was a young girl. She was encouraged by her grandmother to focus her gift and use it to help earthbound spirits cross over to “the other side.” This is where Ghost Whisperer varied from its rival show, Medium – Melinda owned her gift, acted as appropriately as she possibly could, and used this gift (sometimes against her will) for the greater good. Throughout the series, Melinda proved to be extraordinary but still highly relatable. The show focused heavily on the toll that having such a power can have on a person. It also discussed the fear, anxiety, and stress that comes with the gift.

Now, I might get flack for this, but Ghost Whisperer is up there on my list of favorite shows of all-time, accompanying Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Will & Grace. Melinda isn’t quite as badass as Buffy and doesn’t have the same razor-tongued humor as Karen Walker. But what makes Ghost Whisperer such a gem is the contrast of its light-hearted humor with the harsh reality of loss of a loved one and its dark undertone that makes the show so addictively creepy.

The show is great because it covered so much ground in its five-season run. Though the overall premise of the series is that Melinda is being haunted by spirits who are asking for help once they know she can see them, it also has episodes dealing with personal loss (which are heartwrenching ), murder victims, missing persons, and much more.

The show obviously had to expand its storyline in order to keep the audience interested. One episode was an homage to movies like The Grudge, featuring a ghost that appeared visually similar to the titular monster of the feature film. There was also an episode with a clown ghost that looked similar to Pennywise from Stephan King’s It. Also, instead of focusing on individual cases of hauntings, Melinda would sometimes takes on mass-haunts like plane crash sites or abandoned hospitals and cemeteries. Sometimes episodes would end on cliffhangers week to week.

Now that the show is available for instant streaming on Netflix, the audience doesn’t have to wait a week in agony wondering what will happen to Melinda because the next episode with all the answers can be played instantly. But be warned, though it might answer your questions for now, it will also raise more so that you get sucked into the vortex of Ghost Whisperer.

Some of the best stories ever told are based on true events. Some of the most successful comedians base their comedy off of their families. Mindy Kaling, Kathy Griffin, and Chelsea Handler’s autobiographical books are all New York Times bestsellers based on their real life family and friends.

I could now talk about my insane family and the time my uncle “pimp-slapped” me, the time my aunt spontaneously sang the “Star Spangled Banner” to my best friend because she is a history major, or the time my mom and I got into a lengthy argument about Britney Spears and her influence – I won that one. I could collect all of the oddities that have become moments in my family’s history and try to form them into something like a narrative or a short story, but Adam Goldberg took it one step further. He took his family and turned them into the main characters of an ABC sitcom: The Goldbergs.

The Goldbergs are a typical family in “nineteen-eighty-something” living in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. Murray and Beverly Goldberg are the parents of Erika, Barry, and Adam who are young teens/pre-teens with their own sets of social ineptitudes and quirks.

The show, set in the vague 1980s, covers a lot of social and historical elements like the release of E.T., the fall of the Berlin wall, Jazzercise, bedazzling, Transformers, and the rise of video games. The show is similar to That 70’s Show in a sense but with a more “family-friendly” take, by which I mean less drugs, sharper jokes, and an insane family dynamic.

The genius behind the creative nonfiction story of the Goldberg family is that the creator, Adam, filmed his family and plays footage from his personal archive side-by-side with the show to demonstrate how sincere the show is in its adaptation. True things are likely changed for television, comedic elements are probably heightened, dialogue is probably formulated, and his brother Eric is turned into a sister named Erika for the network.

The show focuses on the changes that have happened in the last thirty years, from technological advances like cell phones to changes in popular culture icons like New Kids On the Block, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and the dedication that went behind making a mixtape for a special someone.

Gender swaps aside, The Goldbergs proves that some of the best stories are the ones that actually happened, as well as that family is the best fodder for stories. And after watching this show, I’ve learned that my family better watch out. Because now I’m taking notes.

Flipping through channels is a dangerous game. Five times out of six, this digital form of Russian Roulette results in horrible television shows that are so simplistic that you question who on earth is watching something so mindless. At least that’s how I feel when seeing TV show titles like My Kid Ate What? and then being disgusted that it was so popular it got a spin-off: My Dog Ate What? Please kill me now.

With the game of “Remote Roulette” comes, occasionally, a show that catches your eye and makes you wonder, “how is this going to be done?” That is what happened to me the other day when I saw that Lifetime was premiering a new show called The Lizzie Borden Chronicles – yes, this is real life.

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles is an eight episode Lifetime miniseries continuation from, I’m assuming, the 2014 Lifetime Original Movie, Lizzie Borden Took an Ax. Now, I will say I’m all for a strong female lead, as you can probably tell by my previous reviews, and I’ve been intrigued with the Lizzie Borden trials since I was in grade school, but this show is in a whole other world.

The show stars Christina Ricci, who is known for playing Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family remake movies and starring in the former ABC series Pan Am, both of which I’m a fan. This show is somehow a hybrid of modern social norms and an 1890s small town setting – think Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter on the “how accurate is this show” meter.

The show begins with children singing the Lizzie Borden rhyme and informs the viewer that the show is set after the trial of Lizzie, when she is free to walk the streets. Children taunt her and her sister as they try to discuss what they will do since inheriting their father’s debts. The opening is done through flashbacks to the brutal murders of the parents and has a music overlay of modern alternative rock/dark electro-pop somewhere between American Horror Story’s opening credits and Britney Spears’ Blackout album.

Aside from the music, which was catchy but a little distracting from the setting of the show, there were some issues I had with the character of Lizzie. The character is supposed to be a young, thirty-something in the 1890s, but she is riddled with modern feminism. Now, I have nothing against a strong woman, I mean Veronica Mars is my everything and Buffy slays me (pun intended), but the character of Lizzie seems almost like she is far too feminist for the time period of the show. She felt more like a sassy schemer from the plot lines of Gossip Girl. This modernization is further demonstrated when her home is to be inspected by the police and they say she must let them in or they will come back with a search warrant. Interesting, but I’m pretty sure that search warrants weren’t around until the early 1900s, almost a decade after the setting of this story.

If you can cast aside the setting issues and over-modernization, and remember that you are watching the Lifetime network and not the History Channel, you might find the show to be very entertaining, as I did. I found Ricci to be incredibly captivating in her role as Lizzie. She played up the innocence well and yet had a creepy, dark undertone to her persona that made the show very enjoyable.

The costumes in the show were fantastic too. Lizzie was typically done up in beautiful dresses that really seemed to be fantastical and spoke to the character’s motive or feeling. Lizzie wears dark colors, even in church, which speaks to her apparent mourning of her dead parents, but also to the darkness of her character. She was also shown in elaborate dresses that featured big shoulder puffs and tightened waistlines. This alludes to Lizzie owning her femininity as well as, with the shoulders being broader due to the puffs, being more powerful, masculine, and important than her actual frame may suggest.

Something that really enchanted me was the cinematography in the show. It was great, especially for a Lifetime show. I more specifically focused on the way the characters were lit, Lizzie especially. It really played on the idea of polarity and the darkness and light that is entangled within one person.

Finally, I just really want to give credit to the tag lines of the show. I love the way they play with the commonly known elements of the Lizzie Borden case and really capture the attention of the reader, like: “She’s got an ax to grind” or “Condemned but not convicted.” Yes.

Take a charming town in Connecticut, add Melissa McCarthy before she was typecast by her role as Megan in Bridesmaids, and throw in a quick-talking, pop-culture addicted, snarky, sassy mother-daughter duo–there you have Gilmore Girls. This show about love, acceptance, and family graced TV screens for seven complete seasons with its quick-wit and charm.

Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino (Bunheads), the show followed the story of Lorelai (Lauren Graham, Parenthood) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) – a young mother and daughter who were more best friends or a team than part of a typical family hierarchy. This relationship that I often envied is only made more believable by the immense chemistry that Graham and Bledel have together.

Lorelai is a young mother who got pregnant at sixteen and left home to raise her daughter on her own. She began working at the Independence Inn, a small inn in the fictional Stars Hollow, and eventually became manager. Her daughter Rory was named after herself, which Rory explains: “She named me after herself. She was lying in the hospital thinking about how men name boys after themselves all the time, you know, so why couldn’t women? She says her feminism just kind of took over. Though personally I think a lot of Demerol also went into that decision.” (Season 1, Episode 1, Pilot).


Aside from the charming allure of the Gilmore Girls, the show also featured a stunning array of characters that gave the small town of Stars Hollow its character, including series regulars like Melissa McCarthy (The Heat), Liza Weil (How to Get Away With Murder), Jared Padalecki (Supernatural), and more.

I have to mention again that the show is quick, and this is primarily because the show’s actors had to attend speech lessons in order to be able to fit all 80-some pages of an episode into the 45 minutes allotted by the network. On average, an hour-long show usually has a script of about 40-50 pages and Gilmore Girls scripts were known to be around 80 pages. The jokes had to be sharp, the acting and reacting to quips needed to be well-executed, and this is why the show is so enjoyable to watch. It makes the hour-long episodes breeze by instead of dragging on like some are known to do (I’m talking to you, Revenge).

The show dealt with teen pregnancy, rejection from family, social expectations, and much more, all while keeping the heavy topics somehow light with sharp humor.

In this modern world, dominated by iPhones and Kardashians, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Eye Candy, MTV’s first crime drama series based on the R.L. Stein novel of the same name, explores this idea. The show follows a young New Yorker, Lindy, as she is being stalked by a cyberstalker turned serial killer.

I find this show to be interesting because it takes on the premise of what could happen in this world run with technology that is so easily hacked or compromised. Look at the iCloud leaked photo scandal from last year for an example that nothing is as safe as it seems. Lindy is a computer wiz whose sister was abducted three years ago. Ever since then, Lindy has been trying to find her sister and help find other missing people that the police have given up on.

Lindy falls victim to a cyberstalker using the MTV version of Tindr called “Flirtual” – probably because Tindr didn’t want their brand tied to something that shows innocent online daters slashed to pieces. The motive of the serial killer is to stop people from lying on their profiles and by “lying” they mean hiding their flaws, from acne covered by Instagram filters to crooked teeth hidden with a closed smile. This killer is looking for the “perfect one,” and that means Lindy.

“Human life – so delicate, so fragile, easy to extinguish. I look for the freshest, the juiciest, the most tender, USDA prime, Grade A, low fat, ultra lean. The One. Used to be I had to go outside to find them, not anymore. The Internet – God’s gift to psychopaths. Are any of them real? I need someone real – someone who understands. Why do they lie? They’ll pay… one by one.” – Eye Candy, Episode 1: “K3U”

So who can be the perfect one? Insert Victoria Justice, the 21-year-old former Nickelodeon starlet from Zoey 101 and Victorious who has a stunning face and a size two frame – if that. Based on her Nickelodeon background, most people didn’t expect much from her performance. But she’s surprisingly good in her role on Eye Candy and I can definitely see her being offered a role in a horror movie in the future based on her scream skills.

Something that makes the show interesting is that it is shown from Lindy’s point of view, but with cutaways to the perspective of the murderer. This is cool because it almost pays homage to the great horror classics Halloween. In that moment, you are in the killer’s mind, thus making you the killer like Michael Myers in the beginning of the classic film. Eye Candy also pays homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre in episode three, “HBTU,” by hanging a victim’s teeth from the ceiling. Episode four, “YOLO,” featured found footage on a GoPro camera much like in The Blair Witch Project, REC., and the Paranormal Activity films (to name a few). The face of the “Stowaway” ghost/legend featured in the episode oddly resembles the melted droopy face likeness of the iconic Ghostface mask from the Scream series.

It should be mentioned that, although this show is on MTV, it should not be tossed aside as something “childish” for the MTV and CW demographic. This is a whole new venture for MTV and it is far more intense than its likely competitors, Pretty Little Liars or Vampire Diaries. The amount of violence, gore, and suspense are geared toward someone who is more comfortable with Criminal Minds or American Horror Story (the good seasons – not Freakshow. Eye Candy is way better than Freakshow – Lana Del Rey covers? Really, Ryan Murphy?).

So, if you’re waiting for Pretty Little Liars to be interesting again or want to find a show with a bit more action in it so your boyfriend isn’t falling asleep while Aria and the girls try to avoid A – I’d suggest Eye Candy; it’s like CSI meets Stalker meets Pretty Little Liars.