Day: June 23, 2019

Best-bets for June 25: A brilliant “Pose”

1) “Pose,” 10 p.m., FX. Two stories – both of them passionate and life-changing – alternate here. To preserve the impact, we can only describe them in general terms: One has a brilliant performance by Indya Moore (shown here in the season-opener) as Angel, the street-tough transgender beauty who has a shot at being Eileen Ford’s face-of-the-year; the other finds Elektra with a work emergency. Superbly written by Our Lady J and directed by Janet Mock (who both happen to be transgender), it’s a high-stakes story, beautifully told. Read more…

Cowboy TV? Good quality, weak quantity

You might remember cowboys.
They used to be big in the movies. And on TV. And, perhaps, in our daydreams.
“Bonanza” ran 14 seasons; “Gunsmoke” ran 20, a record for a drama. In the fall of 1959, the three networks had 23 cowboy shows, from Bret Maverick and Bat Masterson to “Have Gun, Will Travel.”
And now? There are just two major ones, both confined to cable, and they’re at turning points: Read more…