Why a certain generation will always love Winnie Cooper: “It is not so much a phenomenon as a textbook example of nature versus nurture—we were all nurtured to love Winnie Cooper, and to see ourselves as her counterpart, Kevin Arnold.” 

Shouts & Murmurs - We got our hands on a working copy of the script for Episode One/Season Four of “Downton Abbey,” or, the worst Badger Counting Day the Dowager Countess ever knew: http://nyr.kr/ZH1G3S

“By constantly recycling established works, we may remain trapped.”

Ian Crouch on “Parades End,” a five-part interpretation of Ford Madox Ford’s novel coming to HBO on Tuesday night, and television adaptations: http://nyr.kr/X9gXHX

Photograph by Nick Briggs.

Emily Nussbuam on “House of Cards,” “Scandal,” and her Team Brian attitude to “The Office”: http://nyr.kr/Z39j0t 

(Source: newyorker.com)

Last week, I wrote a column about Lena Dunham’s HBO show “Girls.” I had a bunch of abstract, cranky, intellectual goals: I wanted to pluck “Girls” out of the debate about Millennials, for starters. I wanted to analyze its critical reception. I wanted to put the discussion of “privilege” in a different light. And I wanted to talk about “Girls” specifically as television.

But that’s just one way of doing criticism, and last night’s excellent episode, “One Man’s Trash,” deserves a more direct response…

Emily Nussbaum writes about the sex scene on last night’s episode of “Girls”: http://nyr.kr/XCn2KG

In today’s Daily Comment, George Packer shares some thoughts on youth and age:

…since there’s never a shortage of evidence that things are, indeed, worse than they used to be, it’s incredibly satisfying to indulge the idea, and easy to confuse it with a veteran’s seasoned judgment. That’s the impulse you have to resist if you want to retain your credibility while you lose other features.

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/XsvESb

  Emily Nussbaum on Girls, Enlightened and the power of the alienating TV heroine: http://nyr.kr/XNMKJV

(Source: newyorker.com)

An Internet firm like Netflix producing first-rate content takes us across a psychological line. If Netflix succeeds as a producer, other companies will follow and start taking market share. Maybe Amazon will go beyond its tentative investments and throw a hundred million at a different A-list series, or maybe Hulu will expand its ambitions for original content, or maybe the next great show will come from someone with a YouTube channel. When that happens, the baton passes, and empire falls—and we will see the first fundamental change in the home-entertainment paradigm in decades.

Tim Wu explains why the Netflix-produced series “House of Cards” could be the death of cable television: http://nyr.kr/Wo7J8A

Tina Fey’s sitcom “30 Rock” ends tonight, dammit. I haven’t yet seen the finale (I’ll be watching it along with you screener-deficient folks), but I’m genuinely sad to lose my Thursdays with this awesomely dense comedy, which amounted to a grenade made of zingers.

Emily Nussbaum’s farewell to “30 Rock,” from the New York-centric point-of-view: http://nyr.kr/11mufiq

In this week’s issue, Michael Specter profiles Dr. Mehmet Oz, and looks at some of the controversial ideas that he entertains on his show: “Much of the advice Oz offers is sensible, and is rooted solidly in scientific literature,” Specter writes. “That is why the rest of what he does is so hard to understand…

“…Oz has been criticized by scientists for relying on flimsy or incomplete data, distorting the results, and wielding his vast influence in ways that threaten the health of anyone who watches his show.”

Click-through to read “The Operator”: http://nyr.kr/W5c2Y0

Photograph by Ethan Levitas.

(Source: newyorker.com)