ENTERTAINMENT
March 26, 2014 | By Scott Collins
PBS has become a Sunday night ratings force with "Downton Abbey" and "Sherlock. " The most recent seasons of the British dramas were their highest-rated yet, according to final numbers released Wednesday by PBS outlet WGBH-TV. Season 4 of "Downton" -- detailing the life of a fictional aristocratic family and its servants a century ago -- averaged 13.2 million total viewers, according to Nielsen -- up 15% compared with the previous season. VIDEO: Interviews with the women of 'Downton Abbey' Meanwhile, the third season of "Sherlock" -- a modern retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle -- averaged 6.6 million, for a whopping 50% gain compared with Season 2. "Downton" has been renewed for Season 5 via its U.K. maker, ITV, and will presumably re-appear in the U.S. early in 2015.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 30, 2014 | By Mary McNamara
"Brooklyn Nine-Nine. " Before you vacuum up the chip crumbs from the sofa and wipe down the seven-layer dip smears from the coffee table, catch the freshman comedy that swept the Golden Globes in a special post-Super Bowl slot Sunday night. Its low ratings have kept it on the bubble, but by giving it a slot after the big game, Fox is clearly positioning it for growth. And for good reason. "Saturday Night Live" alum Andy Samberg stars as Det. Jake Peralta, a bumbling smart-mouth who is also a very good police officer, but "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" comes from Daniel Goor and Michael Shur, who gave us "Parks and Recreation," one of the best ensemble comedies going.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 22, 2014 | By Mary McNamara
"Rake. " Greg Kinnear stars as scapegrace defense attorney Keegan Deane … and that's pretty much all you need to know. Who doesn't love Greg Kinnear? In just about anything? This role, based on an Australian show of the same name, seems particularly well-suited to his talents. "Key" is a man of perpetual optimism and very little self control. He never met a dollar, or drink, he didn't think he could double, counting on his fast-talk and winning smile to get him out of all sorts of trouble.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 20, 2014 | By Jessica Gelt
Benedict Cumberbatch is living proof of that elusive quality known as charisma. Thin and somewhat awkward, with a long face, a pronounced nose and an impish smile, the British actor has seemingly set the world on fire. Prior to his appearance on Monday at a PBS panel promoting the third (and highly anticipated) season of his television show, "Sherlock," rabid fans could be seen camping out near the entrance of the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. They held signs and autograph books and affected slightly desperate facial expressions, as if they weren't breathing very well and might soon need some form of resuscitation, preferably from Cumberbatch himself.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 18, 2014 | By Scott Collins, This post has been corrected. See note at end for details.
Hang on to your deerstalker cap: Sherlock Holmes is not dead. This news may come as a shock to some, not least to John Watson, the doctor played by Martin Freeman in "Sherlock," the BBC's contemporary adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective stories. The critically acclaimed show, with Benedict Cumberbatch as the title detective, returns to PBS on Sunday. The new season picks up two years after the last one left off, with Holmes having faked his own death by supposedly leaping from St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 18, 2014 | Robert Lloyd
It has been two years, in both real and fictional time, since Sherlock Holmes, as re-conceived by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss for the BBC series "Sherlock," stepped off a roof to fall apparently to his death. The three-adventure third season, with Holmes very much alive (we knew this already, spoiler spotters, and anyway, he'd have to be), begins Sunday on PBS. Some things have happened in the interim, the most important of them, perhaps, not to the characters but to the actors who play them.