Ellen Gray

Ellen Gray: “I don’t want my dead TV shows back. I’m sure there are people who are excited that David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks is getting an 18-episode reboot that begins at 9 p.m. Sunday on Showtime; that the original casts of ABC’s Roseanne and NBC’s Will & Grace will be reuniting on their former networks; that the CW is resuscitating Dynasty and CBS S.W.A.T. (with new casts), or even that American Idol, whose farewell season on Fox feels as though it ended about five minutes ago, will be back next year on ABC for a 16th run. I’m just not one of them.”

Ellen Gray: “Lately, I tune in to CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to take democracy’s pulse. If Colbert is still there, skewering President Trump and his administration, then all may not be right in the world. But it’s still a world I recognize, one where comedians can take pokes at the powerful without losing their livelihoods or their freedom.”

Ellen Gray: “What can I say about a year in which HBO’s Game of Thrones isn’t on my Top 10 list? When Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black and Stranger Things, HBO’s The Night Of and AMC’s The Night Manager — all shows I loved — didn’t quite make the cut? That it has been a very good year. For entertainment TV, at least.”