"The Drop" is a story about a young married couple, Lex and Mani, who are trying to have a baby while living in Los Angeles. They attend a destination wedding in Mexico with Lex's old college friends, but an accident during their stay causes the couple to question their relationship and their potential parenthood. However, the story is weakened by an ensemble of absurdist friends who take focus away from the main conflict and lead to a fractured and uneven exploration of love. The story starts off with an exciting premise, but ultimately falls short in its execution. The Drop is a comedy film that centers around characters talking endlessly, over-analyzing and presuming rather than making progress. The main incident that drives the story is when one of the characters drops a baby, and the characters spend the rest of the film discussing the incident and its implications. The movie is in the style of Seinfeld episodes, and movies by the Duplass brothers, where the humor comes from the characters' conversations rather than the plot. The movie also deals with the theme of privilege, and how well-off people with too much free time tend to believe in nonsense, while thinking they've discovered the truth.

Working with the science, technology, and geniuses afforded by "The Jeffersonian Institution," the FBI solves mysteries wrapped in enigmas packaged in conundrums. Derived from Canadian anthropologist Kathy Reichs's popular series of novels, and loosely based on Reichs's own life and character, "Bones TV show" effectively makes it cool to be smart. The plots elevate forensic science to the status of dramatic art, answering the question, "What kind of story would you get if the love child of "˜House' and "˜CSI' hooked-up with a romantic comedy?" Viewers come for the crime drama and stay for the romance, because the romance makes "Bones" as delicious as it is dramatic. Dr. Temperance Brennas (Emily Deuschanel) and FBI Agent Seely Booth (David Boreanz), take their professional partnership very-very seriously, especially because it provides the ideal mask for much deeper feelings between them. The writers frequently stretch the romantic and sexual tension well past its tested limits and right to the brink of its breaking point. Naturally, viewers constantly hope Brennan and Booth will consummate their love; just as naturally, they understand it never can happen. No tension, no show. Meanwhile, America sleeps safer at night knowing that Brennan and Booth are on the case.

Officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) works for the CIA and as an operative strives to keep this country safe from another attack such as the one occurring in September 11, 2001. Her latest assignment involves finding a Marine Corp member, Sergeant Nicholas Brody. He was captured in 2003 and considered to be missing in action, but was later found to be held by Al-Qaeda until recently. There is danger that he was "turned" by the enemy and now may pose tremendous risk to our nations security. When Officer Mathison is put on probation due to conducting some unauthorized operations while in Iraq, she finds herself reassigned to Langley, VA and a CIA counter terrorism center. In other words, a desk job. While in Iraq Mathison learned of a prisoner from America there who had become corrupt. Now the CIA superiors of Mathison consider the prisoner Brody to be somewhat of a hero. Claire Danes (My So-Called Life, Temple Grandin) is Officer Carrie Mathison who is employed by the CIA in counter intelligence. Nicholas Brody is played by Damian Lewis (The Forsyte Saga, Band of Brothers), rescued after eight years as a POW. The CIA Division Chief of the Middle East and Carrie Mathison's mentor and former boss is Saul Berenson played by Mandy Patinkin (Chicago Hope, Dead Like Me). Cast is tremendous and story is fresh, up to date, and somewhat disturbing.

Oh Hell is a TV series that follows the story of Helene, a 24-year-old woman who is going through a quarter-life crisis. Helene, who is also known as "Hell," is struggling to figure out who she is and what she wants in life.

"Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" - different gladiator, same sex and violence. Starz' deliciously decadent"”salacious, violent, often flat-out brutal"”"Spartacus: Blood and Sand" recently went on extended hiatus, leaving its legions of loyal fans "jonesing" for their weekly doses of decapitation and bare breasts. The Spartacus team satisfied fans' craving with "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena," a six-episode prequel to the continuing saga of Batiatus and Associates. Starting with a flashback montage of "Blood and Sand's" greatest hits, more precisely Batiatus's life flashing before his eyes in the moment before his death, "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" shows Batiatus's rise to prominence and power with the assistance and support of his all-pro gladiator Gannicus. Because these stories represent "a more ruthless time"¦where honor was just finding its way into the arena," the writers and producers feel free to elaborate and experiment with their already-established characters, and they feel similar artistic license with super-slow-motion gore and fun-fantasy sex. They clearly are perfecting their craft. One particularly insightful viewer concluded his review of "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" with a sage observation: "I think that's one of the smart decisions putting it on a Friday night since it's an ideal end of the work week thing to watch."

One of two intense medical dramas NBC introduced in the fall of 2009, "Mercy" had all the advantages its one-named rival "Trauma" did not. First, it had talent behind the scenes. Liz Heldens from "Friday Night Lights" created the show and led the writers, proving once again that the best way to dramatize the real world is to show it realistically"”ugliness and all. Second, it had attitude and guts to stay true to its revolutionary premise, the well-informed notion "that nurses remain [not only] more generous caregivers, but that they are more intuitively apt, smarter, more committed and as technically able as their [physician] superiors, with none of the accompanying arrogance." In a winner-take-all ER smackdown, you always would go all-in with the Mercy Hospital nurses. The main character, nurse Veronica Flanagan Callahan, has just returned from a tour in Iraq, where she clearly learned more in each day than the pompous, presumptuous doctors learned in all five years of medical school. Of course, Veronica gets neither the respect nor the reward she deserves, but "Mercy" dangles the possibility of true love as just recompense for Veronica's skill and compassion. Taylor Schilling plays Veronica with exactly the right balance of toughness and vulnerability, skillfully juxtaposing her consummate skill as a nurse with her intrepid ingenuousness in matters of the heart. If only "Mercy" had survived into a second season, all the tangled threads in the story might have come to their proper denouement. If only.