April 16, 2012 – What is David Mamet's most interesting creation? An argument could be made for Alec Baldwin's surgical strike appearance in Glengarry Glen Ross, the sort of tour de force that undergrads and the nebbishes they become have been quoting ever since: "Third prize is you're fired." Then there's the screenplay for The Verdict, an amazing piece which nobody ever remembers, because it wasn't directed by him but rather Sidney Lumet, and it starred silver fox-era Paul Newman in one of his grittiest performances. Or is it simply "Mamet speak" itself, a poetic vulgarity with a rhythm frequently ripped off by TV shows (hey there, Aaron Sorkin) and comic books (what up, Brian Bendis?). I submit that Zosia, his daughter with actress and ex-wife Lindsay Crouse, should be somewhere on list. If I look up "catbird seat" on Google, I really hope I see a gif of young Zosia, all of 24, waving.

April 2, 2012 – As Tyrion Lannister, Peter Dinklage has the best swagger on television. (Don Draper and Roger Sterling, you wish.) He can out-think virtually anyone, has the hottest lady in King's Landing, and has managed to charm himself out of death more times than we can count. Eddard Stark may be dead, but Tyrion is the straw that stirs the flagon of wine. Check out Tyrion's entrance in the season two premiere of Game of Thrones, a moment that sums up the episode's general attitude — wit, mixed with a general fear of death. "Beloved nephew!" Tyrion bellows, his voice dripping with an irony possibly unmatched in TV history. He strides up to Joffery, the psychopathic boy king of the Seven Kingdoms whose grody imagination falls somewhere between Uday Hussien and Tyler the Creator. Joffery isn't near the actual war with the Starks, of course, a war that the Lannisters are losing.

March 30, 2012 – The immensely likable Lord Eddard Stark may be dead, but long live Game of Thrones. HBO's epic fantasy about warring houses in a strange land, medieval sex, gnarly swordplay, incestuous sex, fur-clad warriors guarding a very large wall, charismatic little people, beings known as white walkers, hooker sex, sadistic boy kings, guys-with-eyeliner sex, horses that also might wear eyeliner, and tiny baby dragons is back this Sunday. Along with Mad Men, there's no question that it is the year's most anticipated series' return. Why do we love Game of Thrones so much? Because Peter Dinklage deserves every award he gets as the scheming "imp" Tyrion Lannister. Because, while all the sex and violence doesn't hurt, as a people whose government hasn't ever been as glamorous as some, we are suckers for palace intrigue and operatic lives.

March 26, 2012 – Mad Men returned last night after 17 months, a hiatus twice as long as the time that elapsed during the series. The story left off in late 1965 and picks back up on Memorial Day of 1966, and from the black applicants at the SCDP office to Megan's eye-popping cover of the ye-ye tune "Zou Bisou Bisou" during a brutally awkward party scene, one thing is clear: The '60s, in their definitive, counter-cultural essence, have finally arrived. It's the year rock music broke, the amazing aesthetic spring a year prior to the Summer of Love. The Stones' Aftermath is only a couple of months old, Pet Sounds just arrived, Blonde on Blonde is a few weeks away, and Revolver will appear in August.

March 20, 2012 – In the past decade or so, there were two outta-nowhere hit shows on network television, two programs whose success was so head-scratching that execs have wondered ever since how the hell they pulled that off, and how they can do it again. Those shows are Lost and Glee — neither should have worked, but for totally different reasons. Finding a replacement has proven... tough. Lost was astonishing, an impossibly high concept show that seemed, for better and for worse, to be making everything up as it went along. It was a tripped-out opium blend of comic book plotting, sci-fi, noir, '70s jumpsuits, and parallel timelines. When it missed, like it did for most of season two, it seemed, well, lost. When it hit, it blew our minds with what looked like a flick of the wrist. (I would still rank the season three finale — a.k.a.

March 8, 2012 – For a party historically famous for its discipline and devotion to hierarchy, the GOP's lack of either in this election cycle seems unprecedented in modern politics. Moderates are either rare as hen's teeth or keeping so quiet they might as well be on the moon. The impossibly wealthy Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee, is nowhere near as presumptive as he should be at this late date, with Gingrich and Santorum continuing to chew on his legs. Ron Paul is still out there coming at the party from wherever he is coming from. The Tea Party is either the most important factor in the American right or an accident of history that will die down. In the immortal words of William Goldman on the nature of Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything." So what happened?

March 1, 2012 – It's hard to think of a show in recent memory with as much potential in its conceit as Awake, which premieres tonight on NBC. The concept is high, but hypnotic: Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) returns to work after a brutal car accident that killed either his wife Hannah (Laura Allen) or his son Rex (Lost’s Dylan Minnette). Every time he goes to sleep, he switches between two realities, the one in which his son died and one in which his wife did. In the first scenario, he is partnered with rookie Efrem Vega (Wilmer Valderrama, the world's least credible cop). His shrink, Dr. Lee (Law and Order's B.D. Wong, who apparently just plays shrinks now) urges him to abandon his dream life. His wife tries to process her grief by remodeling the entire house. In the second, Britten remains with his old partner, Isaiah "Bird" Freeman (Steve Harris).

February 29, 2012 – In its first two weeks on the air, HBO's Luck, a drama about the intersecting interests of jockeys, gamblers, owners and trainers at a Southern California racetrack, seemed like What We Would Vaguely Pay Attention To While Waiting for Game of Thrones To Return (which it will in April). But after three more episodes, the series, co-helmed by director Michael Mann (Heat) and screenwriting savant David Milch (Deadwood), has flipped its cards to reveal the year’s most quietly hypnotic noir. You should be watching it, even if you have no idea how a Pick Six works. 1. Dustin Hoffman makes up for all things Focker. As the brilliant ex-con Chester "Ace" Bernstein, Hoffman’s doing his best work in decades. Gravitas has never exactly been his strong suit, so you can almost see the petite man’s glee at getting to play a stone gangster.

December 12, 2011 – "When we play, the challenge is there: Can we throw down? Can we return the favor? Because so many bands have blown our minds over the years, can we return that favor to people out there? That's still something that feels very straight up to me." — Ian MacKaye, in the 1997 Fugazi documentary Instrument In September 1987, Fugazi were a new band comprising Ian MacKaye, co-founder of Dischord Records and hardcore punk icon on vocals and guitar, drummer Brendan Canty, a well-respectedD.C.-scene regular who hadn't done much touring, and bassist Joe Lally, who had previously been a roadie. They were quickly joined by singer, then singer-guitarist Guy Piccotto, Canty's bandmate in Rites of Spring, One Last Wish, and Happy Go Licky and a dazzlingly charismatic figure in his own right. In November 2002, they played their final show, as an indefinite hiatus followed.

November 8, 2011 – Few albums anticipated the last decade's sheer unpleasantness quite like Slipknot's magnum opus Iowa. This manic hailstorm of grind arrived on August 28, 2001 and, had it appeared a year (or even a month) later, it would have been impossible to listen to its nine-man rumble of rubber masks, body fluids, noise-metal churn and the most elegantly-recorded blastbeats ever waxed without getting into geopolitics. It may have felt a bit like post-Columbine angst at the time, but the record's hellish sound vortex — a hi-def miasma of distant DJ scratches, screams, and guitar lava — has aged beautifully.