I started writing about TV my freshman year of college, at the tail end of a decade whose greatest works of art appeared not on the page or in the movie theater, but on the small screen. The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Arrested Development and so many others proved that television was no longer the "bastard child" of cinema, but a tool for dynamic storytelling in its own right.
The last few years have seen another burst of creativity and audacity on television. Community has blown up the form of the half-hour sitcom. Archer has pushed the hilarious family dysfunction of Arrested to an even more twisted place. Fringe has married the twisty sci-fi of Lost to the episodic weirdness of The X-Files while wearing its heart on its sleeve. Game of Thrones has shown that the epic scope of Lord of the Rings isn't just for movie theaters. The Vampire Diaries offers a master class in television writing on the CW, of all places. Glee showed the networks that viewers will watch a musical TV show, allowing Smash to make a musical that actually works as a series.
Here on Pencils Down, Pass the Remote, I offer reviews and recaps of my favorite shows, commentary on the most exciting TV news, and essays about larger trends in television. Mostly, though, I write about TV because I love it - as entertainment, as an art form, as a way to tell fantastic stories. We are living in a golden age of television, and I couldn't be more grateful.
