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Author
Phillip Maciak
@pjmaciak
Phillip Maciak is
The New Republic
’s TV critic and the author of
Avidly Reads Screen Time
.
All Articles
September 7, 2023
Magazine
Phillip Maciak
The Changeling
’s Problem With a Disappearing Woman
Apple’s horror series loses sight of the drama and grief at its center.
August 24, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
How HGTV Swallowed HBO
Max is stripping back its prestige offerings and going big on shows like “House Hunters”—a shift decades in the making.
July 28, 2023
Magazine
Phillip Maciak
Behind the Rage of Raylan Givens
“Justified: City Primeval” questions a lawman’s anger.
July 11, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
The Tantalizing, Lonely Search for Alien Life
Scientists disagree about what life on other planets even means. Would we know it when we saw it?
June 30, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
Why
The Bear
Starts Over In Its New Season
The FX show is a raucous, romantic meditation on what it means to teach and to be taught.
June 9, 2023
Magazine
Phillip Maciak
The Other Two
Captures the Strangeness of Social Media Stardom
No other show better understands the slippage between who we are in private and who we are in public.
May 26, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
The End of
Succession
Is the End of an Era in TV
Just not in the way you might think.
May 12, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
How the Writers’ Strike Will Actually Change TV
Stories from the last strike can’t explain the current action. Nor should they necessarily give us comfort.
May 9, 2023
Magazine
Phillip Maciak
Mrs. Davis
Is Weirder Than Anything AI Could Dream Up
The new Peacock series is a testament to human originality.
March 28, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
The New
Great Expectations
Is Very Rude
In the new FX adaptation, Dickens’s England is crass, vulgar—and thoroughly tainted by Empire.
March 15, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
Ted Lasso
Just Can’t Win
At the start of its third season, the show’s plucky underdog premise is wearing thin.
February 17, 2023
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
Why
The Last of Us
Keeps Starting Over
The most satisfying—and most frustrating—features of HBO’s hit show are the future of TV.
June 27, 2022
Critical Mass
Phillip Maciak
Notes Toward a Theory of the Dad
Keith Gessen’s memoir, “Raising Raffi,” embraces the embarrassment and vulnerability of fatherhood.
October 14, 2015
Phillip Maciak
Post-Cringe: “The Leftovers” and the Evolution of Violent Endurance TV
June 24, 2013
Phillip Maciak
'Mad Men' Season Six Finale, Post 2
Don realizes he's not the leading man
June 10, 2013
Phillip Maciak
Dear TV: Mad Men Season Six: Episode 11, Post 1
Sally is the secret protagonist of 'Mad Men'
May 27, 2013
Phillip Maciak
Dear TV: 'Mad Men' Season Six Episode 9, Post 1
Status Quo Ante Bellum
May 6, 2013
Phillip Maciak
Dear TV: 'Mad Men' Season Six: Episode 6, Post 1
The Great Man Theory
April 22, 2013
Phillip Maciak
Dear TV: 'Mad Men' Season Six: Episode 4, Post 1
Just A Couple of Young Secretaries
April 8, 2013
Phillip Maciak
Dear TV: Mad Men Season Six: Episode 1
Matthew Weiner's death obsession
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